Regulation

It seems that I am not the only person who struggles with anxiety. My newsfeeds are filled with advice from experts real and self-proclaimed on how to regulate my stress response, activate my parasympathetic nervous system, stimulate my vagus nerve (what?), drop my shoulders while engaging my core and practicing breathwork, and just calm the heck down. I don’t do any of this. I look out the window instead. 

If we ever left this house, the view outside my office window is one thing that I would really miss. And it’s not a particularly spectacular view. It’s just pretty - a large number and variety of trees on both sides of the fence between my neighbor’s house and mine, the hanging birdfeeders and the visiting birds, and the sky, which is wintery pale bright blue today, with a few fluffy pink-edged clouds. There are many window views that are more beautiful but few that are more soothing. 

*****

I wrote that yesterday, which was a rather bad day. Today is much better. It's Friday afternoon and I'm in the stands at the Rose Bente Lee Center pool at Marymount University, watching the first meet of the second half of the 23-24 season. Marymount is hosting Randolph Macon and my son's medley relay just scored its first victory of 2024. As the B relay they should have finished second but someone forgot to tell them that. 

The women's 1000 yard freestyle is just finishing up, and the men will follow. Distance events are not my jam but I certainly admire the athletes in a better them than me kind of way. 

*****

We’re midway through the meet now, and the swimmers are warming up for the second half. It's a close, competitive meet, fun to watch. I think we're winning but I'm not sure. But we're not running away with it. Marymount completely dominated its early season opponents, so much so that it was almost like watching an intramural meet. Winning is great and all but I'd rather see a real race. I like a good old fashioned duel in the pool. 

*****

Saturday morning, cold and very pale gray. It’s January 6, and we’re waiting for the threatened or promised winter weather that was supposed to begin this morning. So far, it’s nothing but January cold and a silvery gray sky that looks very soon-to-snowish. The rest of the house is asleep, and I’m back in front of my window, watching the birds enjoy breakfast at the just-refilled feeder. The seed mix that comes out of that big Costco bag must be delicious because it’s a scene out there, bird-wise. It’s a bird party. I could sit in front of this window all day. 

Yesterday’s meet finished in a split decision - a win for the men and a loss for the women. My son won one of his individual events, too. Today, I’ll work for a bit to catch up. I had had some vague idea that I’d try to work for a bit during the distance events at the meet yesterday but that was just silly. But I don’t mind working today. Yesterday was almost a day off. It felt very Saturday-ish. And the weather today is dreadful, so I’m not going anywhere unless I have to. 

*****

Saturday was a gloomy gloomy day. Not unpleasantly gloomy, just weather gloomy, with an ice storm vibe. It wasn’t quite cold enough for ice, but almost. I got my hair cut in the morning and then came home and worked and did housework and read my book (The Broom of the System) and watched a movie (“Leave the World Behind”) and hung around the house, now pretty much completely clear of all signs of Christmas except for a few boxes of chocolate that still remain in the kitchen. It’s sunny and bright today and the place feels wide open. The day feels wide open. It’s Sunday and I don’t have any particular plans other than to get out of the house. An indoor day is nice once in a while but one is enough. 

*****

Have you seen “Leave the World Behind”? It’s a disaster movie, kind of, but we never really find out what causes the disaster - a foreign attack, a cyber event, an environmental catastrophe - but the world goes haywire just as an affluent Manhattan family begins its impromptu vacation in a beautiful rental house in the Hamptons. The owners of the house, a Black man (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter, show up in the middle of the night after escaping from chaos in the city, and the tenants (Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke) must decide whether or not to trust them, having never actually met them face to face. Things get increasingly chaotic and terrifying - strange animal encounters, and self-driving cars going haywire, and a mysterious illness that strikes one of the vacationers’ children - and the two families are forced to overcome their mutual suspicion and mistrust, given that they appear to be the only people remaining, except for an angry, armed survivalist played very well by Kevin Bacon. 

Most of the action takes place in and around the beach house, and with the very small cast (the two families and Kevin Bacon) it has a closed-off, quasi-theatrical feel. But it’s still realistic, and scary. I liked the movie very much, even though dystopian disaster movies are the last thing I should be watching right now given my pretty fragile grip on reason. Julia Roberts is especially good as the everywoman wife and mother who is angry at the world and racked with guilt over her own ill temper and bad disposition. She shares the movie’s best scene (in my view) with the very talented My’hala Herrold as Mahershala Ali’s done-with-these-damn-white-people daughter. Surrounded by a pack of wild deer and other animals who appear to be poised to attack (and I keep telling you that the deer are going to turn predator), the two women stick together, face down the animals, and ultimately scare them away. They hold hands, clinging to one another as they realize - to both their relief and dismay -  that they need one another, and that even though people are the worst, it’s far worse to be without them. 

*****

I like to re-read books sometimes, especially at times like now when my mental health is not great. I hadn’t thought about The Broom of the System - or David Foster Wallace in general - in years, but Zadie Smith reminded me to revisit Wallace, and The Broom of the System was my favorite book for a short time during my twenties. I wanted to see if it held up. 

Wallace wrote The Broom of the System, his first novel, when he was in his 20s and it created quite a stir - critics recognized Wallace as a genius right away. I think it was popular too - my friends and I all read it, at least. What still works - the book is still very funny, hilariously so; and very imaginative. Wallace juxtaposed the real (Cleveland, Ohio; Amherst College, Gerber baby food, Bob Newhart) and the imagined (the Great Ohio Desert, Stonecipheco Baby Foods, the Reverend Hart Lee Sykes) seamlessly, and creates a world that is both absurd and believable, and that the reader recognizes and understands almost immediately. The dialogue is hilarious, and the characters are flawed and neurotic (or downright crazy) and interesting. 

The book still holds up, for the most part, though of course I saw it very differently as an almost-old woman as I am now vs. a very young woman (maybe 22) when I first read it. I really loved Lenore Beadsman, the main character, when I was in my 20s. She was different from every other female character in books and movies and TV. She was quirky and fiercely independent. She was not glamorous or fashionable but she was obviously beautiful, being the object of desire for at least four of the novel’s male characters. She was, of course, an early Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which explains why I loved her so much. Even before we had a name for her, young women in their 20s were (and remain) very susceptible to the allure of the MPDG. She’s not like all the other girls. 

*****

I started writing this a week ago, in the midst of an anxiety spiral that has mostly passed. Writing about it and then thinking about other things - like swim meets and books and movies - helps me to get a grip and to calm down a little. It helps me to regulate my nervous system, as the influencers like to say. Of course, who am I to need regulating? I’m not walking on a beach or digging in a peaceful green garden but I’m also not fighting for my life in the middle of a war or disaster. I’m not facing down a pack of attack deer (I promise you, they will be a thing very soon). I’m not lost in the middle of the Great Ohio Desert, handcuffed to a madman (Wallace reference, IYKYK). Everything is fine. Everything is grand. Reading and writing are all I really have any business doing anyway.