‘Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves… Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.’  [from “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke] 

“Losing Your Body, Losing Your Self”

[Trigger warning: somatization of trauma]

From Chapter 6 of the book “The body keeps the score” by Bessel a. van der Kolk, M.D.:

‘ […] Over the yers our research team has repeatedly found that chronic emotional abuse and neglect can be just as devastating as physical abuse and sexual molestation. […] Not being seen, not being known, and having nowhere to turn to feel safe is devastating at any age, but it is particularly destructive for young children, who are still trying to find their place in the world. ‘ 

‘ […] Many of my patients respond to stress not by noticing and naming it but by developing migraine headaches or asthma attacks. […] Somatic symptoms for which no clear physical basis can be found are ubiquitous in traumatized children and adults. They can include chronic back and neck pain, fibromyalgia, migraines, digestive problems, spastic colon/irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and some forms of asthma. Traumatized children have fifty times the rate of asthma as their nontraumatized peers. ‘

‘ […] All feelings of emotion are complex musical variations on primordial feelings.’  [from “Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain” by Antonio Damasio] 

“Pillar of Truth”

From the song “Pillar of Truth” by Lucy Dacus:

“ […] 

I am weak looking at you

A pillar of truth

Turning to dust

I am weak looking at you

A pillar of truth

Turning to dust

Lord, prepare me

For the shadows

For the sparrows

At my window

Lord, have mercy

On my descendants

For they know not

What they do

For they know not

Who you are

And they know not

What to do

I, the anchor

I’m slowly sinking

Into darkness

Yet unknown

But the fading

Light around me

Is full of faces

Who carry my name

I am weak looking at you

A pillar of truth

Turning to dust

I am weak looking at you

A pillar of truth

Turning to dust

Lord, be near me

My final hour

I once had sight

But now I’m blind

Oh, I tried to be

A second coming

And if I was

Nobody knew

If my throat can’t sing

Then my soul

Screams out to you

I am weak looking at you

A pillar of truth

Turning to dust

I am weak looking at you

A pillar of truth

Turning to dust “

“The body keeps the score” — 3

[Trigger warning: Trauma]

‘[…] If an organism is stuck in survival mode, its energies are focused on fighting off unseen enemies, which leaves no room for nurture, care, and love. For us humans, it means that as long as the mind is defending itself against invisible assaults, our closest bonds are threatened, along with our ability to imagine, plan, play, learn, and pay attention to other people’s needs. […]’

{Subchapter “Safety and Reciprocity”} ’[…] Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Numerous studies of disaster response around the globe have shown that social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress and trauma. 

Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love. […]’

[From Chapter 5 of the book “The body keeps the score” by Bessel a. van der Kolk, M.D.]

Transgender Day of Remembrance

[Trigger warnings: (gun) violence; discrimination]

Yesterday, as every 20th of November, was the “Transgender Day of Remembrance”. And a particularly sad one this year, given the mass shooting in a nightclub frequented by many people of the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs and continuous attacks to transgender rights at the political level.

“The body keeps the score” — 2

[Trigger warning: Trauma]

‘Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think. We have discovered that helping victims of trauma find the words to describe what has happened to them is profoundly meaningful, but usually it is not enough. The act of telling the story doesn’t necessarily alter the automatic physical and hormonal response of bodies that remain hypervigilant, prepared to be assaulted or violated any time. For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present. […]’

[From Chapter 1 of the book “The body keeps the score” by Bessel a. van der Kolk, M.D.]

But what if the danger never really passes completely?

“The body keeps the score” — 1

[Trigger warning: Trauma]

‘Semrad taught us that most human suffering is related to love and loss and that the job of therapists is to help people “acknowledge, experience, and bear” the reality of life — with all its pleasures and heartbreak.’

[From Chapter 2 of the book “The body keeps the score” by Bessel a. van der Kolk, M.D.]

“Fistfight”

Sometimes you just wake up and can’t get back to sleep, no matter how early in the morning. You wake up, suddenly knowing — knowing not only with your mind but also with your heart, deep inside at last. Somehow overnight something suddenly, finally, became so obviously clear to you that you just cannot go back to sleep. You have to get up and say it out loud, even if only to yourself, sing it, cry it out. 

“… 

[…] we both understood

The silent language of the anguish of a heart that sings but doesn’t make a sound

[…]

You were a bright light

You were a fistfight, oh

Nobody told me all the patience it takes

For the sky to open up around me

They said love is grabbing blindly at a pit full of snakes

And wait to feel the only eel among the rows of all the venomous teeth

[…]

You were a bright light

You were a fistfight, oh

Our love is older than the great wall

Our love spins a gun around its finger

Our love has found its way into our mouths before

Cut our teeth until we swallow it whole

Our love hums low beneath the floorboards

Our love grows flowers in the winter

Our love has found its way onto our tongues before

There is more so take a bite and let it linger

[… ]

You were a bright light

You were a fistfight

”

{from song “Fistfight” by The Ballroom Thieves}

In the end, this year I’ll be spending my birthday (my first birthday in Colorado) in quarantine, isolating at home sick with COVID. 

Of course, I feel a lot of disappointment and even anger — the anger was particularly intense on Thursday when I got my first strong symptoms and positive test result. But I don’t want to dwell on those feelings now. Today, I want to revel in the joy and sunshine (real, warm out there in the backyard, as well as figurative) that has accompanied so many birthdays throughout my life, including this one. 

Yes, it is extremely disappointing and frustrating to be spending this weekend at home alone and to get many fun plans canceled. But I can also look at it from the other viewpoint: I actually had plenty of fun plans with lots of people and various groups of friends. I’ve built enough of a life in this corner of the world over the past nine months to actually be able to make lots of fun plans for my birthday, including: drinks out with colleagues to celebrate two or three birthdays all together; climbing with my French climbing buddy here and then dinner & drinks out with half a dozen of other climbing buddies & friends/significant others of theirs (including friends who helped me with my move just over a month ago); plans to go out for dinner this weekend and next week with three different friends, on three different evenings, to celebrate my birthday. It sucks to be missing out on all this now, but the fact that I even had these plans, these persons willing and eager to hang out and celebrate with me, that’s what counts and that’s lovely.

Moreover, it’s not just the fact of having these plans that fills me with joy; it’s also the fact that these plans with people here were easy to make and often came as offers from them. I told my friends here about my birthday and they put it on their calendars and showed up for me. A couple weeks ago, when I went climbing with my French buddy with whom I had climbing plans for the day of my birthday, he asked me if I’d want to go celebrate my birthday with dinner & drinks in the evening as well: he offered me his availability to celebrate my birthday. My other favorite climbing buddy did the same, even offering to invite another friend of his who might introduce me to another fun community (I had mentioned to this climbing buddy that I need a little more fun & socialization in my life now, too). 

And then, there’s all my friends from all over, friends from these past few years in the U.S. as well as friends from years & decades ago, many of them in Europe, all of them remembering my birthday and “showing up” for me from afar. 

I love to get together with friends to celebrate, and my birthday has always been a sort of excuse to do so. And throughout my life, despite all my moving and traveling, all of the changes in country and situation, I’ve had the fortune to be able to celebrate my birthday surrounded by friends and in the company of loved ones. 

A couple years in high-school and college, when I wasn’t in the mood to make plans for my birthday, my best friends from the time organized surprise parties for me, taking me out for dinner and finding ways to celebrate that they knew I’d enjoy. 

At the beginning of grad school I remember having a birthday party at my parents’ house (they were out or away) with all of my closest friends from then, including my sailing buddy/boyfriend as well as friends from high-school, college, and grad school — more than a dozen people around a fun potluck dinner with music playing and jokes flying. 

Even during those difficult years during my postdoc I remember two lovely birthdays — in particular one when all my friends who were living close enough came over for the day or weekend. That was particularly lovely because none of them except one was living in the same town: they all had to drive or ride at least a couple hours, from different cities, to get to the town where I was living at the time. 

And then there are my “California birthdays”. 

The first one I spent with another sailing buddy (“California boy sailing buddy”), sailing and then out for dinner and then out dancing the night away — so much fun!!! 

The following two birthdays were bigger parties, again, in the backyard, taking advantage of the typical Indian summer of that region, with almost a dozen friends sharing potluck, conversation and music — once again, friends from different areas of my life, all mingling for that one day. 

My “COVID birthday” in 2020 I celebrated with a climbing/hiking/exploring trip on my own, and then with tea&cake with one of my closest friends when I got home from my trip. 

And last year’s birthday was a 4-day weekend trip, again climbing, hiking, and exploring, camping in Pinnacles National Park with half a dozen friends — also so much fun and such lovely memories! 

So yes, I had plans for this year’s birthday, too, for this weekend, next week, and through to next weekend, plans that got highjacked by COVID — and that sucks. 

But look at it the other way: I actually had those plans, this year like so many other years in the past. And a celebration doesn’t necessarily have to be canceled: it can simply be postponed! 

And in the meantime, here & now, I can still celebrate in my heart and revel in the affection that I am receiving from all my friends anyway.