Got got got got got no

Time keeps on slippin’
Slippin’
Slippin’,
Into the future...


Not too long ago, I read somewhere the idea that cancer is something like a healing crisis. That body events that we sometimes perceive as ‘damage’ or ‘illness’ (aside from broken bones and whatnot) are actually the body/mind’s efforts to heal itself.

The way I took this is that one of the ways the body tries to heal itself of physical, mental and emotional detritus is to contrive an ‘emergency’ of sorts, basically as a way to get us to pay attention. The clues are all there, if only one knows how to read them! Theoretically.

So, following along with this idea, it occurs to me that, if cancer were really just a glob of – bio-spiritual ectoplasm? :-) – a la Ghostbusters, maybe? “Ew, it *slimed* me!”

Anyway. So say for the sake of argument that a tumor, or various other kinds of ‘diseases’ are actually blobs of stuff trying to exit the system.

And say we block that process – maybe we don’t take the hint and stop to rest when necessary, or do whatever our body is screaming at the top of it’s cellular lungs for us to do.

Then the body escalates: Symptoms. More and more symptoms.

Until it hits us with the biggest hammer of all: The body’s systems start to shut down, one by one.

***
Switching metaphorical gears/grids here: Reverting to my favorite analogy of plants, a plant grows its roots toward water. I seriously doubt a plant can *decide* not to reach toward water with its little squiggly toes. And likewise, with its leaves: It reaches toward the sun. It is, quite literally, part of its biological program.

And so with humans: We reach toward one another with our leafless branches, our little toes hug the earth of human connection.

The plant may get burnt by too hot a sun, or drown in too much water, or accidentally take in a poison along with its long draught of moisture.

The thing is – we can’t *really* help ourselves. It seems to me that the best thing is to just go ahead and REACH. Go ahead and get burned, fall down, fail. Just follow your instinct, as the plant does. Stop THINKING so fricking much. It doesn’t do any damn good, anyway. Just BE. GROW.

***
The difference is, humans are *interactive*. Whereas plants – well, it’s pretty much a one-way street. The plant doesn’t have to *negotiate* with the sun, or the river – it’s a passive being, a receiver.

Can it be this way with humans? It seems that the infant, newborn child, ideally *is* like the passive plant – it gives signals equivalent to the scorched or wilting leaves the plant evidences as signs of too much or too little of whatever it needs.

The child cries, smiles, wails – all fairly simple, mostly passive indicators that something is needed, or, conversely, *not* needed. On/off, binary. Simple, right?

But when the caregiver(s) get it ‘wrong’, the child has no recourse but to accept what is given, at least during that (relatively) long stretch before the ‘individuation’ process begins to occur.

***
It feels as if I can’t let go of something – my mother, I think it is.

I’ve been spending more time lately, getting her to help me with things I need help with. It feels like we’re (finally!) making up for lost time, doing stuff that, ideally, *should* have happened just after I graduated from college. But instead, my father died that year, and mom was wrapped in grief. And so was unavailable for helping me make that transition.

Although, I have to say, in the half year between graduation and dad getting sick, my mom was mostly invisible. I was still living at home, but most of my interaction was with my father, who seemed hell-bent on getting my on my own two feet as fast as humanly possible. Looking back, it has occurred to me, more than once, that some part of him *knew* he wasn’t going to be around much longer, and he didn’t want to have to worry about whether I was going to be able to make it. I don’t know where my mom was or what she was doing – she just didn’t seem to be around much.

But that was true much of my growing up, as well – I’m thinking that a significant part of my feelings of abandonment came from her simply being emotionally absent for so much of my life. It’s like reaching out for – something familiar? that you *expect* to be there? And there’s nothing. Nobody. You’re alone. But that started when I was very young – the night terrors, nightmares, etc. And even *day* terrors, really, which I learned to cover up with my reading. Books were my safety net, my security blanket. I could escape into another world, *any* world but this one. Even if it was scary or weird or twisted (I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy as a child, as well as tales of the supernatural, mythology and other twisted stuff. I remember reading Poe’s Pit and the Pendulum at quite a young age, maybe 8 or 9? In retrospect I’m *appalled* that my parents paid no attention to what I was reading. Maybe they didn’t want to censor me, but jeez! You’d think they’d at least want to check in on the mental health of a kid that young reading such weird-ass stuff. Shaking my head here.