The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [50]
Most of the time I was talking Simon just smiled and nodded and said something like “It’s all right, Mark. Yeah, everything will be fine.”
“Simon, I feel like something really new is happening. Like I feel more open toward you than I’ve ever felt with anyone else. I guess I’ve just broken through something and have come to some sort of realization about brotherhood and communication or something. It’s fantastically wonderful. I’m really overwhelmed. I’ve really got nothing to hide. Ask me anything. This is what the revolution, yoga, religion, meditation, etc., is all about. We’re reaching for paradise. Hot shit. I had a feeling we’d get somewhere some day and now I feel we’re really on our way.”
MY GLASS SLIPPER. There were times I was scared, shaking, convulsing in excruciating pain and bottomless despair. But I was never clumsy.
Most people assume it must be very painful for me to remember being crazy. It’s not true. The fact is, my memories of being crazy give me an almost sensual glee. The crazier I was, the more fun remembering it is.
I don’t want to go nuts again, I’d do anything to avoid it. Part of the pleasure I derive from my memories comes from how much I appreciate being sane now, but most of what’s so much fun with my memories is that when I was crazy I found my glass slipper. Everything I did, felt, and said had an awesome grace, symmetry, and perfection to it. My appreciation of that grace, symmetry, and perfection hasn’t vanished with the insanity itself.
It’s regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right.
There were “problems” but somehow they didn’t seem like problems at the time. Tasks that required only minimal concentration—cutting wood, building fires, pruning trees, fetching water—became progressively more difficult and then impossible, but that seemed too silly to worry about. Even if I managed by herculean effort to think something was worth doing, I couldn’t keep my mind on it. There was so much else going on.
I felt no lack of energy, in fact I had a supersurplus; but my hands, arms, and legs were getting all confused. I’d get all hung up in how perfectly beautiful one muscle was, exactly what it did, and get it to do it just right. But then all the others would go off on their own little trip. I nicked my ankle with the chain saw. I was losing my coordination as well as my concentration.
Ambivalence and disability. It was like something in me knew I would become unable to function, and got me ready by telling me ahead of time that it didn’t matter.
I worried about not being able to go anywhere. Any unpleasantness, any threat, and I would collapse. The idea of cops horrified me. The idea of anyone but people who loved me utterly was terrifying. I was stuck at the farm forever. And soon that wouldn’t be good enough.
I worried about not being able to communicate with people. They wouldn’t understand. Yet so much of what I was going through seemed so right, so valuable, so much fun.
“Simon, I keep getting these awful rushes of fear, waves of total terror that leave me shaking and weak. I keep trying to figure out what the hell it is I’m afraid of. Last night I thought my heart was going to stop again. Now I’m keeping you up because I’m afraid to go to bed. It makes no sense. There was a big thing about fear in Dune. There was sort of a chant that went, ‘Fear is the mind killer. Let the fear run through you…’ I’ve been trying to do that but I don’t think it’s working. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to beat