HOLD ON TIGHT

HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. ~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot Saturday, March 10, 2007 the paradox of pain (from the book of 5am stories) when i fell down, i usually was always too shell-shocked to react. when i was seven, i fell off my bicycle. i cried a little, clutching my thighs, but not much. my father told me, i was okay. so i picked myself up and continued riding. when i reached home and went to the bathroom, i realised my underwear was stained with blood. i panicked, and then i started crying, in fear, because i didn't understand the ways my body could be injured, if i was injured, who turned the switch inside me. when i was even younger, my mother took me to a barbeque. it was full of grownups, no children. she left me to run around myself. i was bored, and those who are bored have the amazing capacity to hurt themselves. i imagined i was humpty dumpty, i sat on a wall, and had a great fall. i have always had an overactive imagination - this has provoked anger amongst boys and friends, this has hurt me in many ways, because i envision the ways i can be hurt, and then, as though in a self-fulfilling prophecy, the speech act transposes itself into form. but i am disgressing. that night the air must have smelt of ash, oil, salt, laughter. one moment i was on a wall. the next moment, i rolled down the wall, and fell. i did not know i was hurt. i went to look for my mother, perhaps i wanted a drink. she looked at me, she was horrified, what happened? , she asked, almost accusatory. nothing. i said. then she drew attention to the fact that there was blood on my dress, on my chin. i saw the blood on my dress and chin, and then i started crying. after those two incidents, for a long time, i believed, perhaps we think we are hurt, only because other people around us consider us hurt. hurt is an imaginary label imposed on us, and we perform it out because it is the correct response. the proposition goes: if he thinks i am hurt, i must be hurt. the person who believes this comes to think he is infallible, he is beyond hurt if he can convince himself hurt is an imaginary entity. there are repurcussions to this. with this sense of infallibility comes an overwhelming sense of alienation on part of the hurt, and those who love him. the betrayed lover, the tired mother, the disappearing friend, all ask, aren't you hurt? they call into the hollowed cave of the loved one's face, attempting to hear an echo of their own grief and loss. this echo will remind them that their voices touched the walls of his heart, and it answered. but he has shut his eyes, i am beyond hurt he whispers, the interior of the cave has been mined dry. the more he convinces himself of the absence of hurt, the more the grief and loss of those around him. the more the grief and loss around him, the greater the impossibility of healing. Hereditary sensory autonomic neuropathy Type IV is a disorder characterised by an impaired sense of pain, insensitivity to fluctuations in temperature. children who suffer from it are constantly wounding themselves and aggravating their wounds, in ignorance, in their incapacity to feel pain. pain is the body's alarm signal against danger. the paradox of pain is that in hurting, it brings about the avoidance of hurt. pain is a reaction to loss and an articulation of longing for the object of loss. to deny it is to deny the human ties that make you and facilitate recovery. i had cuts from a bicycle, a motorcycle, hamster bites, staples, amongst other things. cuts hurt only when they begin to heal. the paradox of pain is that it signals healing. at first, they tingle. when blood and pus have closed around the cut, sealing it like an envelope framing a last goodbye; then the dull, slow ache sets in, the stiffness that makes you afraid to move like hummingbird in winter. the heart slows, the system shuts down, almost on the brink of death. and body makes its journey to the banks of death, in order to return. the act of departure on pilgrimage is centred completely on the return - that in returning, life may be more vivid, a series of unbroken lines, an uncluttered sky. posted by dawn # 1:19 AM Comments: Post a Comment << Home		[publishing] Publishers Weekly . 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HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT

And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot

Saturday, March 10, 2007

the paradox of pain (from the book of 5am stories)

when i fell down, i usually was always too shell-shocked to react. when i was seven, i fell off my bicycle. i cried a little, clutching my thighs, but not much. my father told me, i was okay. so i picked myself up and continued riding. when i reached home and went to the bathroom, i realised my underwear was stained with blood. i panicked, and then i started crying, in fear, because i didn't understand the ways my body could be injured, if i was injured, who turned the switch inside me.

when i was even younger, my mother took me to a barbeque. it was full of grownups, no children. she left me to run around myself. i was bored, and those who are bored have the amazing capacity to hurt themselves. i imagined i was humpty dumpty, i sat on a wall, and had a great fall. i have always had an overactive imagination - this has provoked anger amongst boys and friends, this has hurt me in many ways, because i envision the ways i can be hurt, and then, as though in a self-fulfilling prophecy, the speech act transposes itself into form. but i am disgressing. that night the air must have smelt of ash, oil, salt, laughter. one moment i was on a wall. the next moment, i rolled down the wall, and fell. i did not know i was hurt. i went to look for my mother, perhaps i wanted a drink. she looked at me, she was horrified, what happened? , she asked, almost accusatory. nothing. i said. then she drew attention to the fact that there was blood on my dress, on my chin. i saw the blood on my dress and chin, and then i started crying.

after those two incidents, for a long time, i believed, perhaps we think we are hurt, only because other people around us consider us hurt. hurt is an imaginary label imposed on us, and we perform it out because it is the correct response. the proposition goes: if he thinks i am hurt, i must be hurt. the person who believes this comes to think he is infallible, he is beyond hurt if he can convince himself hurt is an imaginary entity.

there are repurcussions to this. with this sense of infallibility comes an overwhelming sense of alienation on part of the hurt, and those who love him. the betrayed lover, the tired mother, the disappearing friend, all ask, aren't you hurt? they call into the hollowed cave of the loved one's face, attempting to hear an echo of their own grief and loss. this echo will remind them that their voices touched the walls of his heart, and it answered. but he has shut his eyes, i am beyond hurt he whispers, the interior of the cave has been mined dry. the more he convinces himself of the absence of hurt, the more the grief and loss of those around him. the more the grief and loss around him, the greater the impossibility of healing.

Hereditary sensory autonomic neuropathy Type IV is a disorder characterised by an impaired sense of pain, insensitivity to fluctuations in temperature. children who suffer from it are constantly wounding themselves and aggravating their wounds, in ignorance, in their incapacity to feel pain. pain is the body's alarm signal against danger. the paradox of pain is that in hurting, it brings about the avoidance of hurt. pain is a reaction to loss and an articulation of longing for the object of loss. to deny it is to deny the human ties that make you and facilitate recovery.

i had cuts from a bicycle, a motorcycle, hamster bites, staples, amongst other things. cuts hurt only when they begin to heal. the paradox of pain is that it signals healing. at first, they tingle. when blood and pus have closed around the cut, sealing it like an envelope framing a last goodbye; then the dull, slow ache sets in, the stiffness that makes you afraid to move like hummingbird in winter. the heart slows, the system shuts down, almost on the brink of death. and body makes its journey to the banks of death, in order to return. the act of departure on pilgrimage is centred completely on the return - that in returning, life may be more vivid, a series of unbroken lines, an uncluttered sky.

posted by dawn # 1:19 AM

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