December 8, and 9 Prompts:
Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different- you'll find they're what make you beautiful. -Karen Walrand
Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, and shenanigans. -Shauna Reid
Sorry to have been MIA. The reason for my absence is essentially what makes me different: I have been a chronic migraineur since I was 13. This has really thrown some huge curve-balls at me during my life, but I rarely am able to increase my slugging percentage.
The last two days I had a full blown migraine, with aura, photo phobia, vomiting, osmophobia, dizziness, and agonizing pain. Having suffered from such a bad headache, ending only a few hours ago, it is hard for me to find anything positive and beautiful in my experiences. In fact, they have been depressing and isolating. One of the quandaries of migraine (or in this case, migraine co morbid with bipolar disorder), is that it is a chronic, painful, but invisible and non-lethal. People think that I exaggerate how often and how severely I suffer from headaches.
Unhappy things that having 2-30 migraines a month for the last 34 years has taught me:
*Life isn't fair
*Pain is incapacitating, yet invisible, putting your claim of genuine disability into question.
*People are very willing to tell you what you are doing wrong when they have no idea what you are going through
But there are useful things I have learned as a result of my condition, too:
*Living a "conventional" 9-5 life life is not the only way to lead a happy life.
*Joy can be found in things as simple as an absence of pain
*Life isn't as linear as the average high school counselor would like you to believe.
In addition, using medical Cannabis to treat pain has exposed me to a new activist community, and a new cause for my lifelong civil rights activism
Overall, being a migraineur has had positive impact on my world view and approach to my life. I am intimately acquainted with the pit falls of having an invisible disability, and have used that knowledge in my activism, especially for IV drug users, and HIV patients. I have developed a hobby interest in neurobiology. DH's seizures provide more fodder for that interest, and the fact that my dad was a widely read psycho-pharmacologist, who did research in neuropsychiatry meant that I was taught about how our brains work by a world-renowned clinical scientist.
The amount of pain I experience for no valid reason, with no end in sight, makes me very empathetic to people who are struggling with their health, regardless of what condition they suffer, or what caused it. I have more insight into chronic illness than the average person, and unfortunately, learned about it at a much younger age than the average person who will develop a chronic disorder. This understanding of the bone-sucking weariness that chronic illness creates in its victims is what lead to my extensive HIV prevention activism, and support of people with HIV. Migraines are not fatal, but I can easily relate to those who feel poorly more often than feeling well.
Another thing I have learned is nothing is more important than keeping myself healthy. The rest of my life will go careening off the rails if I am not careful enough about looking after myself. I have the deeply held belief that if I had not come from a well-off family, and then met DH, who loves me with all my failings and lack of earning power, I would be homeless. So I tend to keep change in my pocket for the mentally ill and homeless people in the City.
One unusual fact about myself is my ability to interact with anyone, from the crack addict sitting on the stoop of my apartment building, to the members of the royal families I went to college with. When I lived in the San Francisco Tenderloin, which is a red light district, I had first name basis relationships with a lot of the homeless people that lived in the UN Plaza.
Being incapacitated by illness most of my adult life taught me the very important fact that life is a crap shoot, shit happen, and to remember other people in my world may also be ducking invisible curve balls.
****
Now I almost skipped the next prompt, because it is becoming a bit repetitive to say that the Oregon Country Fair was the social highlight of my year. But it was a very bad year, with a few peaks, and the OCF was my major excitement for 2010, but for a two day driving trip with DH in August. Those of you who are here for the first time, my December 3rd prompt: Moment blog post was about happenings at the Fair.
I basically describe the Fair to people who want to know as a convergence of dirty hippies, faeries, rainbow people, burning man aficionados, and the like, creating a Counter Culture space-time singularity each July. Music Bands from the well known, to the virtually anonymous play on various stages throughout the weekend, so there is music coming from one or many directions at any time. There is a non-stop drum circle, which was joined briefly by Bob Weir last summer (I realize now by looking at the Wikipedia picture that I actually saw him: I hadn't aged him in my mind since 1990, so I was looking for a much younger man). Puppet shows, acrobats, magic, mehndi booths, hair braiding booths, face painting, ice cream, and children with dread locks. All sorts of delicious food, caters to everyone from the omnivore to the vegan. Even though I fall into the first category, my favorite food item at the Fair is vegan, Blazing Salad's Avocado Dream Boats. I already know what I am having for breakfast on July 8, 2011. I wish I could tell you what is in it, so far I have figured out avocado, hummus, garlic, and hot sauce.
I discovered if you mash those ingredients together, you will have a filling, yummy sandwich spread. Eat it the day you make it, avocados don't keep!
And I haven't even talked about all the cool items sold there. There are great artisans and artists selling a variety of wares.
But there is far more to the fair than what I can list in one post. As I have said, the ambiance is a large percentage of what makes the fair great. Some concrete examples (if you will) of created ambiance: Parades with brass instruments and costumed marchers; the big juggling pavilion in Chela Mela; the singing around the sauna at the Ritz; the Women's lodge in the Community Village, an homage to estrogen; speeches on topics controversial and not; women rolling out rugs and dancing like dervishes to their favorite music, or the drumming circles' rhythms.
I hate to end this post this way, it seems unfinished. But I am hoping to get my Dec 10 prompt done before I go to bed tonight, so I am going to leave this topic for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment