What i did on my summer vacation

#essays

I am on the internet a lot. The other day, a few hours after I join millions of Americans in a news hole getting shocked by the violence of the capital invasion, I write something about Greek history on Facebook and notice that nobody else is talking about anything normal yet. Later that day, an advocate on Twitter asks, “What are the stereotypes of Autistic people that your masking is most designed to avoid?” and I instantly think about the things that interest me and the things that don’t really interest me that much. The things that interest me are a bit hard to explain but largely revolve around conflict, ontology, hypnosis and other things that go on in the deep sea of the unconscious – so you can see that that covers a lot of ground, but possibly not quite enough.

Although I didn’t go anywhere this year, I did have an extended summer vacation of sorts when my partner’s craft business went finally underwater and lockdown cancelled our festival season. Luckily we both qualify for unemployment even though my formal work history is spotty. Years ago I worked as a receptionist, and I often think of it because I have never had such a feeling that something I was formally qualified for i.e. sitting at a desk intersected with something that anyone was willing to pay me for. When we lose our jobs – my partner, formal, and me, largely informal, assisting with that – I think as I so often have that it’s odd that nobody would rather pay me for ontology.

Instead, for a month or so I procrastinate and process anxiety by throwing myself into computer programming, which is fairly unique in terms of being an in-demand skill you can technically teach yourself. At times I think that I’m not up to it, but an article on the internet tells me something pretty brilliant, which is that the key to programming is just to keep going when you think you can’t. I hadn’t tried that yet because nobody had ever explained it to me, but after that point everything (and I mean everything) seems to work better. I keep going until I learn that I can get a job, and that job will pay about the same as being a receptionist.

So, I keep my hand in at sitting at desks. I miss practicing hypnosis, and I think about metaphors a lot. The idea is that you tell a story with symbolism that relates to somebody’s problem and you don’t even have to tell them what to do about it or make them think too hard; all that is taken care of automatically under the surface. It’s hard to practice hypnosis now and I’m overloaded on computers, so I decide to start learning Latin and Greek in my spare time. I’m discovering that the Greeks in particular have a lot to say about violence, ontology and the subconscious. My family, who had previously found my Duolingo Spanish about drunken parrots amusing, make fun of me a little for the Greek about throwing Achaeans into the wine-dark sea. I agree that I’m circling a bit. I find it very hard to focus.

People on the internet say that it’s ok to feel sad and worried. I don’t feel sad or worried very much at first, so occasionally I make up for it by worrying about that. It is true that I’m always, always tired. I spend much of the summer lying on the ground outside to escape the heat, though I realize that we, my family and I, are probably also trying to escape each other at times. We argue about stupid things, because nobody has any extra bandwidth. My partner and I try out a rule: you must mention everything that happens that annoys you. Later, we scrap that rule. Our house isn’t big, but it is consistently cleaner than it has ever been as a survival strategy. I try different things, too, like not eating lunch. It’s amazing how quickly every day seems to evaporate with so little to do.

One day, I go to a protest. My partner has gone to a lot already, but I’m pushed over a particular personal line when a protester in our city is thrown into an unmarked white van. I show up wearing black and a mask and think of the time years ago when we still used to make it to bigger, more dramatic anarchist protests. There was the one where we were arrested for no real reason at all and the other, maybe later, where I guess there was more of a reason: the crowd, further forward, was fighting cops with tear gas canisters and rocks, and the whole crowd surged backward and forward, human waves crashing against the apparently immovable. The time we were arrested I was held in a jail cell overnight and the really memorable part was the repetitive thought that I had had enough. I felt like I was on the verge of getting up and walking out of there again and again, and the solid reality of the cell walls somehow managed to continue being shocking. Today I notice that I mostly just want to fight cops, which makes me feel alive, and that makes me feel uncomfortable and problematic.

The compulsion to make things also makes me feel alive – to write, or maybe just do some knitting – but at times trying to make any of that happen also feels like crashing into a wall. I practice sitting at a desk. I click through my email again and notice that I’m on the mailing list for a course about breaking through writer’s block (there’s an online course about pretty much everything this year). This course costs seven hundred dollars nobody has, but I listen to the free sample recordings while I clean the house one more time. They’re brilliant, actually – about the Feldenkrais method, which combines embodied mindfulness with the idea that constraints lead to neural growth and that paradox, deeply felt in the body, can lead to alchemical transformation and spontaneous resolution without any further feeling of effort.

Our children are, of course, out of school, at first temporarily, then for the summer. At this point,  the summer is becoming something different, similar but much colder. The children fall into internet holes, too, which worries me, though they seem to magically materialize on the rare occasions when I actually feel like writing. One of the children is struggling significantly, which worries me a lot. Our new house rule is, if you’re not ok with something, you actually do have to say it.

When I’m not completely exhausted, I sometimes clear the spot between the couch and the table and try to do yoga. I try to get my kids to do it with me, even though they’re not interested. I stand on my head waiting for the moment when it seems impossible to hold the position any longer.

They say this is the moment when yoga actually starts.


The nature of this note situation is that some of the notes will always be extremely unfinished.
Questions? Comments? Write to me at lauradawngyre@gmail.com (or @me).