Alchemy

Red Poppies at Argenteuil, Monet

I can’t say I really understand what is going on, it may be something to do with the medication, or the combination of all our efforts. Alicia has been talking about putting some artwork up on the bare white walls of our terrace house, and so I found myself sitting beside her as she browsed an online poster store. As the prints of French and Dutch masters flashed past I could sense something in my brain being stimulated, as though I could feel the neurones in my brain firing their electrical magic! It was strange, but I liked it, and now I look up more works online as though it is some kind of secret guilty pleasure. I have never been somebody who knew my way around the art world, not very well anyway… and suddenly now there are paintings out there that are capable of impacting my mood in a strangely transcendental way.

In better days, as a healthier man, I have always been open to this feeling. I guess it just seems alien now because it’s been so long. I remember feeling the same warm heady feeling when sun light breaks a canopy; or when I stand inside and below the spire of a cathedral looking up into its magnificent dark voids; or when I hear the sound of a bumble bee with my eyes closed and the grass against my neck; or when I read Camus. It is a sort of connection, an electric spark that passes from the moment directly into my heart. It is the sensation that makes me feel like me… it is the feeling I’ve chased and always lived for. It has been my compass, a self serving compass that led me like an opium addict from experience to experience… and somewhere along the line I lost it, became incapable of reaching it. Not sure why that would be.

Maybe things are slowly working out?

Given that it is most likely my hypothalamus that is in play here, I’m guessing that I’m feeling something of the benefits of the sunlight exposure, exercise and shedding the stress associated with trying to get well against the clock. These are all things that would affect how my hypothalamus functions. So there is some chemistry going on behind the scenes, leading me to sometimes feel and experience the world the way I left it, when I was well.

It remains fragile and I expect it will continue to be for some time. But my head is above water now. I am aware of myself. I’m protecting myself from triggers, I’m not pushing hard, I’m taking it one step at a time, I’m steadily planning the next step each day with Alicia and seeing the setbacks for what they are – glitches on the big picture.

Maybe things are slowly working out.