Wouldn't It Be Nice 9.18.07

A trick to holding it all together when you get upset is catching onto some nice, calming memory and calling it to mind to calm you down. I perfected this technique during broken leg #1. Whenever I would feel myself spiraling into a lowgrade panic attack--Dear god, I will always walk like this; why won't this stop hurting; don't even think about the ugly scars, wouldn't health insurance have been nice;--I would begin madly spindling little scenes in the back of my mind trying to find the one that would do the trick--that wildflower field in Maine; sitting in the sun that one afternoon by the Chester feeling fine; the scene from Anne of Green Gables that always makes me tear up and sigh--and usually I could calm myself down sufficiently.

Lately, I am not finding that trick very useful. The scenes that I remember making me happy are now the stuff of wrenching memories and if onlies.

Although, pretty recently, I did like sitting in the late afternoon corridor of sunlight that streaked across the coffee shop from the patio doors, reading that relatively silly book I had heard about from S. about self-discovery and self-validation and self, self, self (So self-serving after the first few chapters, but still, I'd just bought it, hadn't I?); the rasberry rubharb pie was warm and perfectly tart and sweet, just like the chai, and my leg, rightfully aching now from the all-day hike I'd done in the hills that pushed and turned you from one side of things to another--beach to forest to meadow to soggy estuary, was propped on the chair in front of me, and I (hate to say it) felt a little smug.