skipped my 'supplements' last night, thinking the echinacea or vitamin C was the cause of my pernicious malaise, and my itchy rash. Woke this morning all dry and crunchy, feeling all washed out. I could hardly drag my ass around the apartment. I resumed the supplements and took a nap. Lazarus awoke. At least I know now that they help, a lot.
We're in the midst of a rare June Nor' easter, torso-thick tree limbs wave gymnastically, and rain flies left, right, and up on its way to down. The windows rattle noisily like children demanding attention, but right now I am dry, comfortable and well. After the nap, I had to go to the supermarket for milk and other foodstuffs (I love that word!). I was not eager to go out in the cold and wet, but I love a vigorous atmospheric fray and, supplementally fortified, I withstood the heat-sapping storm without chills, even though I got drenched on my bike.
i hate my supermarket; they've replaced all the organic produce from independent farms with 'Dole Organic', which I don't trust. It's packaged like their ready-made salads, those bags full of chopped-up lettuce and carrots, and ...things. How they keep the lettuce from turning the color of a mediterranean's skin in summer, I don't know. And I don't want to eat whatever that preservative is.
I go there because it's within biking distance; or within the biking distance I am willing to tolerate. Originally it was an Iandoli's, which was bought-out by Big Y, which was bought-out by Price Chopper. With each transition, products have become more 'mobile', making them difficult to locate from one trip to the next. I have chased bread all over that store lately, and milk moves about whimsically from corner to corner; I think I'm a guinea pig in some sort of market research. But Price Chopper is the Stalin of the three recent owners of my supermarket. If they need to move left-over products of their own brand, they give you no choice. If they need to move milk, all you'll find is PC milk, no Hood, no Garelick, just Price Chopper's brand. Jeesh.
It's curious how important I have made these completely insignificant things. It's pathetic, really. Hiding makes you this way. Hiding is what you do when you give in to fear, and fear is that hysterical screaming deep down, that rises up and out in moments of shrill panic. But it's always there, and once you get to know that it's always there, you hide. You learn to hide. You practice hiding. You riddle your world with warrens and tunnels and secret escape routes. You conduct no interaction with another human being beyond reach of a panic passageway. And when your interactions become rare—which happens if you hide a lot—then, for lack of contact (which is why we're here, after all) you'll cultivate various obsessions with the insignificant.
stephanie is sick like me. Actually, I think I got this from her, but that doesn't matter. What matters is she's not HIV positive, and she's still got the same symptoms as me—and had them longer. And worse. In addition, several 'healthy' people at work, also not HIV+, are very sick with this particular array of slowly progressing symptoms; sore throat, head and chest cold, severe achiness and various itchy rashes. I'm not glad they are sick, I'm just glad I'm not the only one. I can do anything if I'm not alone. Even die.
It takes a lot of justification to maintain a complete 'underground', a whole system of below-board operations. It becomes not an escape from fear, but a motivator for fear. The work of dismantling my habits of hiding appears—not always, but often—to be more trouble than just staying afraid. Whether the hiding is 'justified' by fantastic illusions of malicious dictatorial supermarket managers, or by grossly over-amplified fears of 'final' illness, it remains, at root, unjustifiable—and I know it. For me hiding has become comfortable for its own sake, and any excuse to continue it will do. That seduction is truly something to fear, for it disconnects me from the vibrant, energizing powerline of real participation in life.
What's important? To be young, sexy and optimistic? To be old, rich and wizened? To be intelligent? ..popular? ..honest? ..powerful? ..healthy? ..in love? I do presume to know; forgive me, please. What's most important is to be real. It encompasses all other things, enables all other things, and connects us all together. It extends from hope to fulfillment, from chance to destiny. It conducts the majestic symphony of all our days together, and it orchestrates each infinitely intricate moment as if it were all there is. One needs to be real in order to experience life, just as air is necessary in order to fly.
And like any perfect thing, being real is not savagely difficult to attain, nor brutishly reserved for those of brief and fleeting youth. It is yours and it is mine, if only we are brave; not like fighting dragons brave, but brave by touching the whole world, and letting it touch us.
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