I need books like I need air. Like I need water, and food, and human contact.

The moment I started reading, I started sleeping again. Okay, there were also a few other changes; but there was a direct correlation between the stack on my bedside table and the length of time it took for my eyes to shut.

I guess sometimes you have to stop doing something before you fully appreciate just how much it means.

I am pleased to report that I am back on the books. I started with ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’ by Audrey Niffenegger, even though I am still to catch up with ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’. It was a little disappointing, if I’m honest, but the first two-thirds had me totally gripped. Intriguing characters, evocative descriptions, the familiarity of Hampstead and Highgate jarring with the bizarreness of the ghosts and the story –

This is what I love about fiction. It takes you on a journey. It’s my buffer between the real world and the imaginary world that comes when you let go and sleep.

After Niffenegger, I returned to Emily Dickinson for a little bit. I brought all her poems one year, and will be reading them for the rest of my life. Every experience, she manages to articulate. Every feeling, she translates into words; and, if it wasn’t for the jolt of familiarity, I wouldn’t even have anticipated that the feeling existed, let alone that it was shared –

I have learnt as much, through reading, as I have through being in the real world.

Anyway, I’m now tackling a chunky new Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna. I am not gripped, quite yet, but I am starting to see the colours and hear the sounds. At some point, it will come to life and the characters will seem to exist, in my mind, re-awakening each night with the words…

This is part of what was missing.

I need books, I think, like I need people, and water, and warmth, and air.

“I am angry nearly every day of my life….but I have learned not to show it; and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.”

(Chapter 8, Louisa Alcott)

For anyone who has not read Little Women, it’s the story of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, and written in the 19th century.  I can only remember the plot in fragments; but it is hung on the girls’ characters, and their presence, for me, persists. Meg is the eldest and most sensible; Jo, a hare-brained creative; Amy, blonde and pretty; and Beth, goodness incarnate.

Gentle, kind, sensitive, selfless and slightly needy; everyone loves Beth. And that included me.

The quote came without a context and my copy is buried in a box somewhere; but, reading it last night, I was immediately bristled by the sense of repression and control. The idea that emotions like anger (or desire, or want, or frustration) should be squashed – and then negated – seemed uncomfortably strong.

I could write a whole post on anger and the difficulties I experience in relation to it; but it is the idea of squashing and re-shaping myself that has remained in my head this morning, along with the realisation that I have always tunnel-visionned myself into Little Women like stereotypes. That I have, historically, believed that I need to be a Beth or an Amy or a Jo – when in fact, we are a mishmash of characters and qualities, alike and unlike everyone else.

At 8, I unsurprisingly lacked this insight.  I was terrified that instead of being like Beth, there was far of me that was like Jo.  With a tendency to fly off the handle and the shared dream of being a writer, this was probably quite an astute recognition; but being universally adored was far more appealing – and so I decided to model myself on Beth.

This meant that my list of New Year’s resolutions included things like: be nice to everyone; be good; do one kind thing every day; don’t get angry with people – and included little space for just being me.

Inevitably, this caused all kinds of self-acceptance problems…

I believe that people can change, and improve, and develop – but the starting point needs to be yourself, and not someone else.

I’m only just beginning to realise that I am not, nor will ever be, like Beth – and that’s okay. That there will be similarities between me – and Beth – and Jo – and this person – and that person – but variety is what makes the world go round. There is not, as a younger me believed, one definitive idea of a “good” or a “bad” person –

Just lots of individuals in between.

Related Posts: Formative Fiction and “Good” Food.

Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Mrs J.G. Holland, May 1866.

I wanted to find a snappy quote for Friday, but I fell over this.

Make of it, what you will: Emily Dickinson defies intepretation, and I have resisted the temptation to google her words into meaning.

She might be referring to food – which opens up the whole idea of exploring the tastes and is a lesson, for me, in itself…

Or she might be talking about life, in which case, I concur.

It is, indeed, a “vast morsel”.

After a week of flashes – and sparks – and unexpected-clicking-into-place, this quote works well. It works more than well, actually; it captures both the senses that have been awakened, and the appetite that I have now found. It reflects the colour with a tint of chaos; the playful delight of new sights; the ‘gosh did that really happen’ feeling that I totally get, even though no circuses have been parading outside my window….

It’s just that I’ve started seeing – and tasting – and sensing life.

“Uncertainty.”

Anything that might illuminate a concept I grapple with, on a daily basis, is guaranteed to grab my attention.

There is a theme emerging in the things that I am reading – and listening to – and writing at the moment. My subconscious is tuned into a strain that is currently out of my head’s reach. It is something around letting go – and acceptance – and moving beyond just me.

Uncertainty

Eagleman is a neuroscientist, a fiction writer and a highly engaging speaker. He is also a possibilian. Possibilians “are those that celebrate the vastness of our ignorance, are unwilling to commit to any particular made-up story, and take pleasure in entertaining multiple hypotheses.” Eagleman’s talk was all about “entertaining multiple hypotheses”. Not madcap off the wall ones that can be immediately disproved; just those that might exist or can’t be totally ruled out yet.

Using Hubble’s Deep Field Observation (for every small area in the sky, there are a million galaxies) and something called dark matter (the 80% of stuff that we know is out there, even though it can’t be seen), as examples, Eagleman successfully demonstrated the limitations of our current scientific knowlege – and the vast number of possibilities existing, just out of eyeshot, like the galaxies in each tiny fragment of sky.

Apparently, the human brain is equally complicated and unknown. A bzillion little neurons, intricately wired and connected to each other, shaping who we are, and how we work – and contained within the confines of our head.

Wow.

If there’s one thing that we can be certain of, it’s that uncertainty is at the core of man.

Possibility

There is an Emily Dickinson line that has been following me around for the past few weeks, which reads “I dwell in possibility”. It has become joined, for some reason, with Eagleman’s talk. I think that it is because I had not made the connection between uncertainty and possibility until now, and he brought them into the same space.

Uncertainty, for me, has been a negative, laden with apprehension and overwhelmed with a fear of the unknown. Possibility, on the other hand, is about options and opportunities; Emily Dickinsons’ “doors” and “windows” and “The spreading wide of narrow Hands / To gather Paradise—“. Which is far more uplifting.

But maybe they’re the same?

And, if they’re the same, maybe it’s okay to ‘dwell in uncertainty’. Maybe it’s okay to not understand or define or explain everything – but just let it exist, as one of multiple options and scenarios.

This starts to make sense; but, at the moment, I’m kind of comparing apples and pears. Eagleman was talking about the mysteries of the world; Dickinson about human experience; and me, about trying to work out the meaning of my life.

Personal possibility

Ben Okri, in his essay ‘While The World Sleeps’, writes: “Each failure to become, to be, is a weight. Each state you could inhabit is a burden as heavy as any physical weight, but more so, because it weighs on your soul. It is the ghost of your possibilities, hanging around your neck, an invisible albatross, potentials unknowingly murdered…”

His words have been scratching around in my head too, whispering just below my consciousness.

Eagleman and Dickinson release the pressure.

Okri is right, I think, about the weight of possibility and the intrinsic desire to make the most of what we’ve got, to be all that we can be – but the weightiness has now been lifted…

If there are millions and millions of possibilities, the supply is endless.

And, if we’re not going to find resolution any time soon, we can only do the best that we can in our little bit. Small steps, collective effort, and a journey, rather than a destination.

Not on our own

Eagleman’s talk also addressed the collaborative nature of science.  The fact that progress is not linear, but in leaps; not a solo attempt, but a joint effort.  This neatly goes back to the talk I went to on ‘Originality’, and the realisation that we all have our part to play. It returns, again, to the importance of human connections and focussing on the small, tangible things: that which we can contribute, combined with an appreciation that we do not exist on our own.

These two lessons (we’re not going to solve the mysteries of life anytime soon; and we each contribute to a joint understanding) make the uncertainty more bearable for me. They are, perhaps, the closest I’ll reach to the strategy I was seeking when I booked the tickets and turned up.

Dwelling in uncertainty is something that I am going to have to get used to – but full of possibility and potential, and not a place that I need to explore alone.

P.s. I’m not a scientist. It’s all explained far better here and here.

Like an unexpected reflection, quotes seem to be a way of knowing ourselves – through hearing another – and reaffirming what we do (or don’t) believe. They are a reminder – when I instinctively presume that “no one else feels like me” – that, actually, we quite often feel the same.

And have for years.

Since discovering twitter, I have moved away, slightly, from the random page-turned-down quotes that normally serve to locate me. My books continue to bear testament to my emotional state, but I am privy to a daily stream of snippets that seem to capture my mood or make me stop –

to consider.

I am well positioned for maximum exposure and some satisfying sense making as the quote come flying by, nudging my insights into place.

Last night, I wrote about the importance (to me) of my One Life. This morning, a few lines have caught my eye and compounded the message. I’m sure there’s a little selective reading occurring; but, it’s great to have a few pithy touchstones to hang my emotions on, and reinforce the messages which I don’t always believe, when I come at them alone –

Like – It is never too late to become what you might have been. George Eliot – which is a timely combat to my “but it’s too late for me” complaints.

Or – Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind. F. Scott Fitzgerald – which encourages me to actualise my ideas and feelings, rather than stumble blindly over them, pretending that I can’t hear.

“If you enjoy the process, it’s your dream. If you are enduring the process, desperate for the result, it’s somebody else’s dream” Salma Hayek – which reminds me to distinguish between my personal ambitions, and those imposed by others -

In conjunction with – What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us – Ralph Waldo Emerson – suggesting that I am able, if I chose to, to succeed.

And this one, which I’ve used already, but might need a little action before it steps out of my head…

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon – O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih

T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land. V. What the Thunder Said. 423-433

I hope not.

Pleasure aside, the great thing about literature is it proves that people have been feeling the same for years and years and years.

The context keeps changing and the form of expression may differ – but human emotions are a constant.

The Poetry and Prose tag proves my point.

It’s also nice to know that other people feel the same as you do.

It’s bitterly cruel.

It’s totally indiscriminate.

It’s an emotional and physical and mental hijacking.

“There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —

None may teach it — Any —
‘Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —”

Extract from Emily Dickinson

I never worked out whether my eating disorder caused depression or whether the eating disorder was caused, in part, by an underlying depression. They got all tangled up somewhere along the way. It became a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.

It’s hard to dispute that an eating disorder presses all the right depression buttons: it’s isolating and draining and frustrating and desperate. But maybe the isolation and drainedness and frustration and desperation triggered the eating disorder. As I said, it goes both ways.

It’s also somewhat irrelevant. At the heights of my depression – which, I’m glad to say, were few and far between – I wasn’t particularly interested in psychological dissection – I just wanted to feel better. Depression didn’t get me at the mysteries of my mind level; it was a far more physical kick.

This is the thing that you don’t expect.

It’s a strange kind of flu where nothing feels quite right. Where even your own skin feels quite uncomfortable. Where you’re slightly off balance. Where everything looks a little different – hazy with distance or sharp with unreality.

It’s like visiting a parallel dimension: everything is the same and different; you’re there and you’re not; it’s all real and unreal.

It’s like an invisible wall. It’s like an impenetrable barrier between you and the world. It’s like being totally out of kilter with the world.

I dreaded that first Robin, so,
But He is mastered, now,
I’m some accustomed to Him grown,
He hurts a little, though –

I thought if I could only live
Till that first Shout got by –
Not all the pianos in the Woods
Had power to mangle me –

I dared not meet the Daffodils –
For fear their Yellow Gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own –

I wished the Grass would hurry –
So – when ‘twas time to see –
He’d be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch – to look at me –

I could not bear the Bees should come,
I wish’d they’d stay away
In those dim countries where they go,
What word had they, for me?

Extract from Emily Dickinson

I couldn’t really articulate the experience at first; couldn’t really make sense of what I was feeling; missed the telltale signs.

I haven’t unravelled it’s mysteries – that would earn me a fortune in absentee management for starters – but I certainly get the link between eating disorders and depression. I get the inevitability of the relationship. Starvation – great for energy drainage; anorexia – fraught with frustration when it’s got you; Bulimia – shame and secrecy and isolation: you get the idea.

Over the years, I have learnt that depression can come and go as it pleases – but I can give it’s going a helping hand. And I can not be quite so welcoming.

When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats

I don’t like to think about the fact that our days are numbered. It is on my mind rather a lot: I have wasted so much time already.

There is a hideous irony in the fact that I have spent the past fifteen years tempting the very thing that terrifies me more than anything else.

I think that they’re connected somehow – this paralysing fear of death and the intensity of my eating disorder. I think they’re linked to control somewhere and, maybe, to feeling and thinking things a little too much.

An eating disorder may look like a drawn out suicide attempt but an early death was the last thing on my mind: it was about managing human mortality, not egging it on.

It was a fundamentally flawed attempt to manage that terrifying sense of isolation and uncertainty which comes when you start to become a conscious being –

I’m not sure that I made the transition that well.

I think I might have got stuck in the existential angst bit for a while and buried my head in the sand. I seemed to sense. pretty early on, that this is it – for the moment. That we don’t know what comes next. And that it might well be nothing -

Departed — to the Judgment —
A Mighty Afternoon —
Great Clouds — like Ushers — leaning —
Creation — looking on —

The Flesh — Surrendered — Cancelled —
The Bodiless — begun —
Two Worlds — like Audiences — disperse —
And leave the Soul — alone —

Emily Dickinson

You can either shrug your shoulders and make the most of it; or, you can get stuck chasing a question that you’ll never answer, solving a problem that can’t be fixed.

Me and my eating disorder chose the latter.

If the loss and the pain of leaving things behind or being left behind is too much to bear – well, then I’ll firm up the defences now; I’ll lessen the impact by building an emotional cocoon.

I might not be able to control death, but I’ll make sure that every little aspect of my life is under the thumb. If the uncertainty nags and gnaws and keeps me awake at night – I’ll think about something – anything – else.

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don’t know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —

Emily Dickinson

Narcotics work, for a little while; but, when our days are numbered, it’s not the best use of time.

Self protection’s all well and good; but, as Tennyson pointed out, “it’s better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all” - and I think it might be time that I started exploring that side of the human experience as well.

It seems that people have been wondering what comes next for quite some time already.

Extract from Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight

A lot of any emotion can feel a little too much.

It’s better to keep everything calm, stable and on the same level – even when the emotion’s something good like excitement.

We’ve been repressing things for years. Maybe it’s linked into civilisation coming along and writing the social rules. Or, maybe it’s just part of the human condition; an emotional version of defence.

I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’—
But, when Travellers tell
How those old—phlegmatic mountains
Usually so still—

Bear within—appalling Ordnance,
Fire, and smoke, and gun,
Taking Villages for breakfast,
And appalling Men—

If the stillness is Volcanic
In the human face
When upon a pain Titanic
Features keep their place—

Extract from Emily Dickinson

I can understand self protection – but everyone knows that expression’s healthier than repression. Feelings tend to surge up and explode when they’re left to fester. Excitement turns to hysteria; anger to violence; pain to despair.

The Life that tied too tight escapes
Will ever after run
With a prudential look behind
And spectres of the Rein —

Extract from Emily Dickinson

Anorexia was about repression; bulimia, a twisted form of release. The one led to the other.

Your version may be different.

But finding a way of getting things out healthily seems to be a bit or a recurring problem –

Maybe we all need to take a leaf out of Emily Dickinson’s writing about it book?

Or maybe we just need to go and give that treadmill a good pummeling? -

- because it’ll come out somehow.