Day 12

You’re only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.

Robin Williams

“Don’t stop me now!” I can hear Freddie Mercury’s voice exploding in my head and I am floating in his euphoria of ecstasy, my heart beating to the rhythm of his impossibly upbeat song. “Burning through the sky” describes how I felt as I found myself dancing on the beach in the rain this morning. How is it that I have never done this before? I woke to a growl of thunder and the flash of lightning and I knew I was about to experience the first rain since my journey into self began. At first I thought I would have to forego the beach and watch the storm instead from the boring confines of my own verandah. But then I realised how insane it would be to miss this opportunity.

By the time I walked out my door, the rain was coming down – hard. I wore a light rain jacket, mostly for the benefit of preserving modesty and decency; I did not need to risk being seen outdoors in clinging T-Shirt. And I marvelled at the convention that has prevented me from ever doing this before.

The beach was mine. All mine. Or at least, if it wasn’t, I could not tell, because as the sky grew less dark, I discovered that I was standing in the midst of cloud, the beach receding into greyness in either direction. At first I could see a growing lightness to the east, but slowly that too was swallowed, and the encroaching day was knowable only through the lighter tints of grey and through the ability to see the extent of the cloud that engulfed me.

Rain beat upon my skin, stinging my lips, my hands, my legs, my feet, my eyes. I allowed its coldness to enter right into me and to cleanse me as no shower ever could. Walking into the wind was a challenge and I found I could look only at my feet as I walked. Finally I stopped and turned instead to the waves, receded far back as though offering centre stage to the rain kissing my skin. Even its steady roar was all but lost in the incessant beating of the rain. The world was rain.

I walked forward slowly, into the shallows. It felt eerie in their current, sullen mood, as if they might become unpredictable and swallow me in a moment. But instead, all they did was wash over me with warmth. How warm the sea felt compared with the stinging shower from above! How much everyone else was missing by retreating to shelter! But I thanked them for their reticence, which allowed me to walk up and down, dancing into the water, chanting as I went, in a way I would never normally dare consider.

I became so comfortable that I did not want to leave, but finally I turned, looking for a place of shelter from which to take a photo. There was none. So I exposed my phone to the elements and hoped that it would cope. It could not reveal the sheets of water nor expose the wild dancing in my own heart. All it could show was grey. At last I turned again, walking home slowly, reluctantly, squelching in a most satisfactory manner with every step.

I have always thought that “Don’t stop me now” epitomised what I imagine to be the great high of bipolar. I do not know. I have always been the quiet, staid, phlegmatic one. The one devoid of imagination or adventure. Plodding. Dull. But there are moments, like this morning, when I discover within myself hidden capacities I did not know I could call up, and which would most certainly surprise my parents if they could see me. I’m just as glad they can’t. Not just because I would no doubt immediately retreat into guilty and “respectable” conventionality, but because it would be hard to avoid laughing in their faces. There are some things that are just too good to share.

Such thoughts always make me consider the cost of life. For all greatness, all sublimity, seems to come at equally great cost. Do we choose to hide in dullness, as I have done, or do seek the gasping heights, knowing that they must be paid for with journeys into depths we would never wish to see? I have heard that for some, medication is a curse, or at best a terrible necessity, because, to lose the depths is also to lose the very peak of creativity – the unique capacity to bring something forth into the world which no one else can offer. What price, ordinariness? We sever the grief but also the joy. The price exacted for uniqueness may be very terrible, but how much worse the price of being ordinary?

Is this true, or merely my own fancy? Perhaps I am simply romanticising because I have tended to live too far towards the “safe” end of the spectrum. Too safe, too smothered by my own need for respectability. And thus I have created my own demons. Perhaps there is no escape from demons. We merely get to choose which we will create for ourselves and with which we will grapple as we journey into the heart of that which cannot be known with a finite mind.

Even those considered “ordinary” can have their moments. Here, when people talk of hobbies, they seem mostly to mean sport or dancing, or collecting some form of memorabilia. Occasionally I meet an artist, photographer or singer. I have even met an actor. But I have read that in England, there are people known for their eccentricity. “Anoraks” – train spotters and bird spotters, transported into Freddie Mercury’s euphoria by the sight of a particular train or the hint of colour on a rarely-sighted wing. I have heard of strange and exotic pets, and once, even, of someone who dismantled an entire, full size pipe organ, reassembling it in his cellar. It took up almost the entirety of the space available to him, leaving just enough room for him to squeeze in before it. Can you imagine the noise it must have created, reverberating up through the tiny confines of his home? I laugh to imagine it, and wish I could hear him play. Goodness alone knows what the neighbours thought. But he was not defeated by his modest circumstances. He could not afford a grander home and had only a small space, but he was fortunate to have such a thing as a cellar, and there he assembled his dreams. What did he look like? This man with a hidden church organ? Would we have known from looking at him? In my imagination he is entirely dull of appearance, entirely unremarkable. Like the “anoraks” I see on TV, he would have no particular regard for physical appearance and would be mousy, a bit stoop-shouldered. He would speak softly, perhaps with a slight stutter. But, deep within the confines of his cellar, he would roar with the cry of angels!

I think also of The borrowers, of the human man who built an entire village in his garden. He was not a man for social conviviality, much preferring the peace and comfort of his own home. As I remember it, in his spare time he started with a train set, setting up the tracks across his garden. But then it looked bare in the absence of buildings, so he began to build them. In what order? I can’t remember. He probably started with the train station and worked outwards from there. This quiet man who did not like to attract notice, inadvertently became the centre of attention because of his exquisite attention to detail, his remarkable ability to notice. Others tried to imitate and even outdo him for the purpose of profit, but everybody preferred the unassuming, non-pretentious beauty of the humble man’s work.

I’ve just realised what I’ve written. It sounds for all the world as though I am trying to glorify myself by idealising the “quiet” ones living hidden lives of secret splendour. Perhaps I am – I hope not! What I consciously want to do is to give myself permission to become one of them. I feel as though, until now, I have had only the appearance, but not the substance of the eccentric. I feel as though I have lived the truly dull life, devoid of meaning or purpose. And, much as I have admired the exotic beauty of those who live life “large”, I think I have admired at least as much the quiet eccentrics, those who see no need to show their hand but who burn with a hidden fire. I have had no such fire in my life. I have truly been ordinary. But Freddie Mercury’s words continue to run through my head as I remember my wild dance with face upturned into the lashing rain. And I dare to believe that being the silent observer of life can be filled with as much fire, painted with the strokes of as much glory, as the life of the train spotter who understands with ecstasy what the rest of the world fails to perceive.

Okay, so I am allowing my ego to shoot right through the roof now as I continue to glorify what I fondly imagine to be the “special” ones, those who share the secret that life does not have to be lived on the terms we normally imagine. It is a fantasy of mine, a fantasy to believe that I am somehow “different”. Like Silar so devastatingly wanted to believe in Heroes. But I am not. Perhaps we all have different goals, but are they so very different, really?

One of the men at work was due to retire recently and he spent a great deal of time talking about all the wonderful things he was going to do when that time came. He was filled with plans and I was filled with dread on his behalf. “Don’t!”, I thought to myself. I had seen it before and I didn’t want to see it again. But I did. He became ill and incapacitated, weeks before the big day. He was forced to retire a little earlier than anticipated and to shelve indefinitely his beautiful dreams. His is the fourth such story I have personally encountered, and I am only 23. Perhaps four out of all the countless workers I have seen is very few, but then, I have not known many people about to retire. And what if it is only a small percentage? Why do people save and save and save, putting every plan, every hope, every ambition, into some future that may never arrive? And, the funny thing is, it is the people who seem most to put their happiness in the future who never reach it. Those who somehow muddle on, making their dreams come true in the present, despite the obstacles of time and money, seem much less affected. But those who focus on the means that will allow them to live their dreams at some future time, seem to be left only with that on which they focus. Work. The early-retiring man said to us, “Live now. Don’t put anything off. Do it now.” Indeed. And that is just exactly what I want to understand how to do.

I am not the only one. There is a woman at work. Strangely, considering where I work and how I feel about it, this particular woman is the one I would love to be one day. She is my image of perfection. Slightly-built and with the graceful and distinctive posture of a dancer, her beautifully-modulated voice is soft and gentle but somehow penetrating. She seems able to converse intelligently and wittily on any topic and her laugh is infectious without ever being loud. Actually, thinking about it, she reminds me of my favourite English teacher at school, only more graceful.

I have rarely spoken to her, merely watched from a distance. But I overheard her talking in the ladies’ toilets a few weeks back. Yes, I was an eavesdropper! But I couldn’t really help it. She was telling someone confidentially that she was planning to take off on a road trip, all by herself. She did not like where life was taking her and was seeking answers within herself. Knowing my own, as yet unrevealed plans, I was absolutely struck by the coincidence of timing. I even felt a little cheated. Taking time off was my plan! This was my special time! I didn’t want to be doing just the same as everyone else. I wanted – okay, I admit it – I wanted to be special. I wanted to believe that the reason I found work so terribly hard to endure was because I was different from all the grey, suffocating, unrelenting suits around me. If I was different, then perhaps there was hope for me, hope that I could be one of the lucky ones who found a way to escape. But what if it wasn’t true? What if everyone was – is – just exactly like me, with dreams expanding beyond suburbia, and nearly every single one of them – us – is condemned to live out plastic, grey lives on the treadmill of survival and security? That is not a reality I wish to contemplate. Or, if it is true, how beautiful would it be for everyone to find their own path, find another way for society to be?

Silently I marvelled at Trudi’s journey, so parallel to my own (only more legitimate, since she openly booked recreation leave!), and I wished her well. If she is the woman I would like to be, I want to think of her as being strong and confident within herself, knowing who and what she is, and moving through life with purpose and intent. I want to believe that she pursues, and lives, her dreams. I do not want to imagine that one day, in twenty years, I will be still working in an office, barely able to breathe.

Work is a corset. It is tightly-laced, forcing me into a stiff, upright, inflexible posture and restricting my breathing so that I cannot easily do more than is expected of me. Its very purpose is to bind me and keep me constrained, moving with robotic precision through the intricate mechanics of a pollution-belching factory of humanity. On weekends I remove it. Imagine if it were you, removing something in which you were tightly bound for a full five days. Imagine, when you removed it, how painful it would be at first even to breathe, let alone move comfortably. It would be like putting down a very heavy shopping bag after a long walk. The plastic has cut into your fingers, cutting off the circulation and leaving them white, pinched and painful. When finally you are able to release the bag, it hurts too much to move your fingers.

This corset of work is the same. I remove it and the first thing I feel is pain. All I can do is rest and wait, taking gradually deeper and deeper breaths, experimentally making tiny movements, and then slowly larger ones, until finally the pain has sufficiently receded that I can move and stretch, sing and run. Just at the very point when I have reached this new-found, joyous state, I find myself at Sunday night, with the corset waiting to be tied again. And oh, how much more painful to re-lace that corset to a bruised and tender waist that has only just learned the meaning of freedom! This cycle of masochistic torture repeats itself over and over.

What happens now? In the time I have been away (strange to think it is only a week and a half so far!), I have expanded. I no longer fit the corset. Or the corset no longer fits me. Is it even possible to re-attach it? I do not know how it may be so. What truths are whispering themselves to Trudi in her travels? What wisdom? And what shall be whispered to me? I strain my ears to listen to the wind. And I hope.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Henry David Thoreau

I have removed the corset. I have learned to breathe. May it be given to us all to learn how to sing.

“Don’t stop me now…”