Dear brain – control yourself!

Today we are going on a journey, into the deepest darkest realms of my mind, where strange green cats eat laptop shaped lollipops and birds flap past singing... well perhaps that would be too much information...

Beneath my short reddish hair, far beyond my cranium, disguised by my smiling, friendly exterior and deceptive green eyes, a large, grey, spongy matter resides, commonly referred to as the devil. I mean my brain. For the most part it functions tolerably well, between it, my spinal cord and my legs, I have come quite far in this life. On occasion the stringy neurons within it spark witty comments and intelligent ideas. Most of the time however I just thank god that nobody else has ever heard what’s going on within its preposterous grey walls.

Lately, I’ve been having a hard time telling it who is boss. It likes to take hold of catchy song lyrics and replay them over and over and over again until I’m about ready to clobber it over the head in search of the off switch, before realising, its head is my head, and that would hurt.

Unfortunately it’s not just song lyrics that get stuck on repeat, but words. Words that sound weird, roll off the tongue lazily or that I just can’t remember for the life of me what they mean... This morning as the words I was trying to power-absorb from the 100 pages that I didn’t read for my tutorial so I’d be able to survive the 45 minutes to follow with a not-quite-blank look on my face flew meaninglessly past my eyes, “quasi-incestuous” jumped off the page at me.

I’m sorry what?!

QUASI-INCESTUOUS the page yelled at me. Fair enough, I thought, closed the book and tried to tune in to what was being said, but my brain simply wouldn’t let the word go. Quaasssiii-incestuous it hummed. Quasi-incestuuuuoouuussss, it droned. Quasi.Quasi. Quasi. Incest.u.ous it sung. Quasi-incestuous, it questioned, quasi-incestuous, it affirmed.

That horrible word, denoting all manner of dodgy relationships, simply would not leave my brain. I left the tutorial and still it skipped about my brain, engineering no thought-lines, simply sitting there.

Excuse me brain, couldn’t you pick something else to go over and over and over?

Quasi-incestuous is all it had to say for itself. And then a snippet of conservation sneaks into my brain, Hippopotamus. Excuse me? Hippopotamus sounds like bottommoss. Hip-hip-hipppooo-pot-ur-maus goes my brain.

I don’t know much about Freud and I never met the guy, personally I’m sure I wouldn’t like him or his libido, and I don’t want anything to do with his couch. (I have a couch phobia, but that is not ultimately the subject of this blog.) And I certainly would not want to hear what he has to say about my brain. I’m not repressing anything, in fact I’m quite certain there are no hippopotamuses inside me trying to get out and yet it seems to be capable of some extraordinarily odd fantasies. It relishes in inappropriate thoughts and pretty much goes... wherever it likes.

Picture this, its 2.14pm. The room is stuffy and quiet, dominated by the sound of the deliberate clunk of the clock. It’s not even a tick tock, it just goes clunk, very matter-of-fact. Joan of Arc is sitting in the corner of the room cleaning her sword. She readjusts her helmet, leans against the wall and sighs, like nothing has ever been as dull as this class. The professor responds to know-it-alls statement and hms and hars her way through a monologue... when suddenly Joan of Arc, leaps upon the table, strides from end to end yelling in French before dropping to her knees and looking to the ceiling, searching fitfully for god. Then with an abrupt and violent swing, she thrusts her sword through the professors heart.

Have you ever had a thought that made you physically stop and go, God I hope nobody heard that! You cast your eyes warily about you, checking people’s faces to see if they heard it. In the moments that ensue, you open the little door above your temple, clamper delicately outside of yourself and look back at the fool that appears to be you. You stride up to said fool, tap it on the nose and demand it get a grip on itself.

It doesn’t answer of course, only sings that same old song it’s been singing over and over all day ...

“I think I’m going to need some therapy, oh babe I hope you got a PhD....”

I maintain I am not responsible for what goes on in my head. Blame the neurons, the grey matter, the devil itself resides there, Freud would love him.

A story of not doing: Dusty countryside, cups of tea, Thoreau and poo.

A day begins with purpose. The sun rises; it knows what it’s doing. My alarm clock sounds the call; it knows what it’s doing. My pillows disappear off the edge of the bed; they know it’s time to get up. My to-do list rests heavily on my desk, whistling while it waits. If I get up early, I’ll have the whole day to tackle it.

I roll out of bed and Baloo, the loveable lab, has his nose at the flywire and expectation in his eyes. Are we gonna, are we gonna are we gonna go walk now? Walk now? He seems to be demanding, “Walk Boo?” I ask, and watch him begin to jump excitedly. Outside in the park the birds are busy about their lives, aside from the odd dog-walker; it’s just Baloo, me and their squawks. Out of the park and onto the street towards home is about when Baloo decides it’s time for his morning poop. He seems most inspired by a busy street corner and even though he tries to hide behind a bush, its clear what he’s up to. Meanwhile I’m busy deciding whether I should pretend I don’t have a plastic bag to pick it up, so I don’t have to feel its warm mushiness between my hand and the plastic so early in the day. Scanning around there doesn’t appear to be anyone watching, and it’s not on the footpath, so who’ll care if it stays there... but the threatening glare of the lady in her dressing gown watering her garden inspires me to be a good citizen, and so the day begins with carrying poo.

Over toast and tea I switch my computer on, I have an hour before I head out for the day, time to fit in some research but first I’ll just check facebook, read the news headlines, browse One Sentence and contemplate the face reflected in my teacup until it’s time to go.

I hit the road in dads old car with my good friend Ruth, for a brief sojourn into the dusty countryside. We cruise past colour leeched fields, white gums, red earth, scorched bush and dead looking, dusty, dry hills. After an hour or two we arrive at the Benedictine Christian monastery of New Norcia, a place where monolithic stone colonial buildings arise suddenly on each side of the highway and tell the story of Christian missionaries, monks, nuns, boarding schools and many, many chapels. It seems somewhat of a ghost town, where bizarrely castle like buildings dominate the Australian farming landscape. But at the same time it’s a working monastery, a place of contemplation and God. We wander its dusty, leaf strewn pathways learning its stories and the day passes steadily by. Perhaps I think, as we turn our noses direction home again driving back over the hills as the sun sets, taking the productive day with it, I should be a monk.

***

A day begins with purpose. The sun rises as it should, the bird’s sing, my alarm clock demands, my legs follow and my to-do list coughs and splutters in the corner. Breakfast is the search for my tea cup, eating the last of my cereal and strolling to the shops. I approach my desk and find it bathed in the early morning sun, which shows the dust manifested on my papers and book shelf. Industriously I take charge of the shambles of my room and dust, fold and shuffle the mess away.

Eventually I sit down at the computer and open a word document, the search engines and my notes, read the essay question and follow the links to something unrelated. The Pope and his anti-condom mumbo jumbo again, Kevin Rudd and world politics, Miley Cyrus and her innocence....I stumble across an online version of Walking by Henry David Thoreau, which is kind of about the environment, so I gleefully decide its almost relevant to my question on conservation and begin to read

“ In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the human voice -- take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for instance-which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and neighbours wild men, not tame ones...”

I make another cup of tea, black with sugar for a change, and momentarily mourn the time I’ve wasted, and the mountain of research in front of me. What is it that makes it so much easier to do the non-pressing things first? Its Thoreau’s fault, the monks did it, you’ve had too much damn tea! I think and shake my head at myself. I march purposefully back to my computer, push my essay question away and begin to type furiously... and the day begins with the story of not doing, once again.

“ Live free, child of the mist...”

{Thanks to Ruth for the awesome photography skills}

One moment in time

When you’re not going somewhere, eating something, sleeping, waiting for something, reading something, writing something, making something, talking to someone, scratching something, holding something, using something or otherwise doing something – what are you doing?

Do you cease to exist?

I like to cease to exist at least once a day. When my head is so full of words they fall out of my mouth in a jumble, my smile’s broken and my soul hurts, I stop. I cease to exist.

First I let the world go. I unclench my hands from the worries they carry and let all the parts of me become stone, simultaneously light as a feather and solid as a tree. Coil by coil the pressure unwinds itself from my body, until my skin begins to tingle.

I don’t dream of other worlds, far off places and fantasy universes, for they are nothing but torture. While you are far away, strolling Eden and brimming with love, the universe aligns and everything is beautiful, but eventually you wake up, the day dream ends. The world forces itself upon you and reality reveals an infinite list of what you do not and cannot have, a play by play recording of what you cannot do. The systematic destruction of your fantasy world leaves you at best nostalgic and at worst, empty. And so I don’t follow my thoughts, I let them run free from me, they explode out amongst the trees and I watch them blow far, far away over the rooftops.

The world here is busy. I feel the grass brush against me, the breeze swallows me up, the clouds roll past. Life swirls around me as I swim in an ocean of its delights. I float above myself, apart from myself, all the while within myself. Birds squawk, their wings clap overhead, there is the sound of a football, car engine, sprinkler, dogs barking, light footsteps, meandering conversation and pale laughs. The sun is setting over suburbia, the clouds a magnificent pink, the horizon a distant orange, and I have ceased to exist.

Close your eyes and walk. Take an experiment in living, investigate its core. Breathe. Sit and feel the air against your eyelashes. Feel life move around you. Stand in the middle of a crowded street and let it pass you by.

Now.

It can’t wait. What could matter more?

Be.

{In the interests of transparency it must be noted that the author was attacked by mosquitoes whilst researching this piece.}