August 12, 1994: 4265 words

It is very hot and I am tingl ing. I am also nauseated, as I just ate a rather large

piece of milk chocolate. Probably the worst thing I could have done, but I am so

discouraged and suicidal, I didn't care. If anything I want to aggravate this

condition and get it over wit h by passing right on into the next dimension. I am

frightened and disturbed, I am annoyed and anxious. Indeed, I am filled with

anxiety. I feel I am losing my hold on being able to function in the "real" world. At

the same time I feel like a fraud. As if I am making this whole thing up, as if I am

dramatizing a little thing into a big thing, as if each time I tell my story hoping

someone can help me I am secretly smiling to myself and lying. And yet the

symptoms persist, a tightne ss of the skin, an aura around me like an electrical field,

the tingling makes me feel as if I were on a constant and very high coffee jag. And

no matter what I do, no matter how I doubt myself or feel self disgust at

dramatization, that tinglin g goes on. This continual, not painful, but nerve

shattering sense of tension, as if my skin were purring. That's a new description, a

new way of describing the sensation, but accurate.

Just a while ago I was on the phone with Hetty, and I was t elling her about my

tingling in 1986, and mentioned that at that time it was accompanied by the sound

of purring, a purring sound so intense and noticeable I used to get out of my bed at

the Polchinsky's house and go outside looking for the cat, but we had no cat. It was

a purring inside my head, inside my body. This time, in 1994, I have not heard

that sound, no purring in my ears, no noticeable or added sound of any kind. But

right now, the tingling in my hands and up my lower arms, around my knees and

across my cheeks and in my mouth could be described as feeling as if my skin

were purring.

I might just note here that our cat, Rocket, who we were cat-sitting for the past 2

or 3 or 4 months, went outside for the first t ime on August 5, a week ago and

disappeared.

Sometimes I think I am picking up the electrical hum of the computer and key

board, that that is where this purring-humming-tingling comes from, and I have

simply taken it into my body and am re-radi ating it, much like a house does the

warmth of the sun. But even though I can concentrate perfectly well to write this,

I, unless I am really focused on something, feel so anxious and distracted and so

diffuse and trembling that it is as if I wil l never be able to do anything ever again.

As if my ability to concentrate or do anything practical is evaporating, and I am

left floundering around in the chaos of my life, in which I have too little funds and

too little stability to just shrug and let the tingling take place. And yet if it is

spiritual energy, if it is a sign of the kundalini rising, I know how little it really

matters if you can finance your spiritual awakening. It will happen if it happens.

But apparently it take s more faith than I am able to muster up at this moment.

I am down in the depths with despair and depression, despondent, not trusting. I

don't know what to do. A fine thread, caught behind my front teeth, is driving me

crazy. I just called He tty back to tell her about the Volunteer Coordinator position

at Spirit Rock. I really don't want it, even though I applied, I don't want anything.

I want to be out of this body and this world. There is nothing more that I want in

this life. Nothing at all. I thought getting published would be a beginning, but it

looks like it really is the end. So now I've been published, and still, its not worth

the coping, and it makes no difference whatsoever to me in wanting truly just to be

rid of this body.

The only reason I am not rid of this body, is because when it comes right down to

it, I don't know how to commit suicide, and, of course, I am scared of the pain, or of

trying something and not being successful. Would I stick out my arm at this very

moment, if someone offered to give me a lethal injection. Would I? I like to think

I would. Would I? Clean up nothing, ship off nothing, leave no note, let whoever

figure it out. I just don't want anything more to do with this life. Enough already.

I am not as unhappy, and in that sense not full of despair as I have been in the

past, but just "enough already." I can't see the point of it all. I can't see the point

of the past, and I can't see the point of going on. What is the point?

How honest am I being?

Trashy, self destructive on the one hand, and genuinely distressed because I can't

seem to get out of the self-destructive, can't-concentrate mode on the other hand.

It is like having one of those low grade infections where one is always feeling as if

one is malingering. On the one hand I just want to say, harshly, to myself: Forget

it! and get on with my life. On the other hand I really do tingle and I can't seem to

just forget it. It's like telling an obsessive over-eater: Just eat less. If one could

one would. If I could just ignore the tingling, as I have done quite a bit for four or

five months now, and just get on with it, I would. But it seems to be at a crisis

point, or coming to a crisis point.

I keep having this urge to just slash my wrists a little bit to watch them bleed. But

I don't because it would be so messy. I also can't let anything alone. I just finally

got through to Kelley about the r oom. I had left a message. Now she has put me

off to Monday or Tuesday, which is absolutely in my best interest, and yet my

anxiety goes into the screaming meamie mode. I want SOMETHING to happen.

Almost anything will do. SOMETHING!.

I am alone. Cena is gone. What do I want to do now?

Swapanda is playing tonight. I am so torn about whether I will go or not. It is

over at the school and I will probably walk over late. He is also playing in

Berkeley tomorrow. Will I go? Part of it, of course, is being hesitant that I will be

challenged and asked to pay for the ticket. Even though I think we have reached

an unspoken agreement that I get to come free to the concerts, I am never sure.

Leslie changes her mind and doesn 't mind embarrassing me, even if she later

relents. But it is also indicative of my state of mind that I have no great passion to

hear him play. I know he will be wonderful and I will be re-enchanted by his

playing, but if this tingling and my whole state of upset is really due to the music,

will I have to back off?

I never have had the necessity to see him again and again. One concert is

completely satisfying. I can skip the rest. An image that came to me as I was

resting late t his afternoon was Swapanda on the stage playing, and looking over his

right shoulder as if he were speaking to someone, or simply laughing with the

delight of his playing. The image is so clear, so lingering and seems so significant.

It is as i f it contains the essence of his supreme mastery, that I don't have and

don't even hope to have in music, nor in any other art. And its not envy I feel, or

longing to be as good as he is, or as accomplished, but as if somehow that essence of

one so accomplished is at the core of my tingling. As if, maybe, if he were tingling

he could play right through it. As if maybe his supreme discipline is what saves

him from having to worry about anything like tingling. And I, who do have

fantast ic discipline in some things, have no power to have discipline enough to ever

master anything. Or that's not quite what I mean. I mean I haven't enough

discipline to develop mastery over my body, my humaness, all the little bugaboos

that haunt me more than my artistic abilities or my lack thereof, like my heavy

body, my eating, my aching knees so I can't sit cross-legged, my hurting diaphram

so I can't keep a straight back, in other words all the annoying accompaniments to

having a bod y. But Swapanda has a body, and not a particularly marvelous one at

that, except his exceptionally beautiful head and expressions, his wonderful hands

and arms. But he hurts and aches and has problems, and is getting fat. And yet

immediately h e begins to play it is like he is totally disembodied. Maybe that is

what I envy about his accomplishment. That quality of being disembodied when

he begins to practice his discipline.

But I have that, too. As soon as I get engrossed in anythi ng I am doing, I become,

in that sense, bodiless. So why during all the ordinary hours of the day does it bug

me so much to have a body, a body that has always been and looks like it will

always be so undisciplined. Fighting the same bodily bat tles for 60 years has quite

undone me. And yet, I can no more stop the self-destructive impulses today than I

could forty years ago. The body, the emotions just seem to go on with their own

imperatives no matter how hard I try or don't try. No matter what I accomplish

today in the way of discipline, it seems to help me not one wit tomorrow. Each day,

no matter how high I climb, I can fall, and often do, right back down to the bottom.

Again and again and again, until I am utterly exh austed, and would rather die than

try again to discipline my unattractive body, to try to alter my unattractive habits.

The new newsletter from Spirit Rock had that wonderful sentence in it this time

about Buddha not saying anything about trying t o alter what we are, but simply

observing it, watching it, letting it be. But my thought 99% of the day is how to

alter myself in some way to conform more to what I would like to be like.

And right now, after the chocolate an hour ago, and some s our prune juice that sits

beside me at the computer, I am off to have more sausage and mustard. Not even

going to try to stop myself. I'm unstoppable.

Does all this anguish merely mean that my time at the Ali Akbar College of Music,

sitting with Swapanda and Khansahib is coming to an end, and that this is just the

usual dose of anguish and depression that it takes to oust me out of the present rut

and on to the next thing? Why is it that I must continuously give up what I love,

tha t what I love just runs out, runs out between my fingers and there seems

nothing but emptiness and nothingness in front of me, and then suddenly when I

am FORCED to give into the anxiety or anguish or circumstances or whatever and

move on, than s omething entirely new and, lately, so amazing, begins to happen. A

new adventure. As if, as Ula said last night, I am living many many lifetimes in

one, and that the speed and passion with which I go through them is an indication

of the path I am on.

I write that sentence and my head almost begins to shake as if with palsy from

the tingling.

But God! I don't know what's next. I can't see anything ahead but despair. Some

cursory attendance to my father, that won't work out eithe r for him or for me, a

state of depression from being around my family if I do go up there to be with

father, for however short a time. I cannot in a word see into the future. And I still

have not built up enough of my ideal of Total Trust, to just trust and let the future

happen, as it will inevitably whether I put up my anguish against it or not.

And, of course, at this moment, it is almost 7 pm, I feel I must go over to the

concert that starts at 8 pm with Anindya Banerjee and Swap anda. How can I not?

It's as if for that I am on automatic pilot.

When I come into the room here to the computer each time for the last few hours I

smell like burning electrical or burning rubber. I don't know if it is a scent from

outside or something is going on with my computer. It is very warm and the

window is open wide. And when I sniff closely at the key board, the surge control

and the computer itself, I do not smell that burning electrical smell. So it must be

from som ething else. Is it me? Do I smell of burning electricity and it is my own

smell I smell when I come back into the room after I have been out of it for a few

minutes or more?

So now I have a heavy sandwich of sausage, toast and mustard inside me, and I

feel nauseated, but also stablized a little, at least for awhile. I want to vomit, but I

don't tingle quite so much for at least this minute. It is quarter past seven, and I

begin to think of dressing to walk over to the concert. It is cooling off, the breeze

from outside is pleasant. My breast are so heavy and annoying, my whole body is

so heavy and revolting. I feel so despairing. I wish I could walk right into a chasm

on my way over to the concert and have it close up ove r me. I truly do pray for

death each night when I finally get into bed and prepare to sleep. The music puts

me in such bliss. Then I have the craving for meat, probably to ground me. Then I

am in such despair by the time I get into bed by thi s continual round robin of bliss

and self destruction, that I pray only to never wake up.

It's revolting, it's silly, it's self-dramatization, it's obsessive compulsive behavior,

it's all so unnecessary. What is going on God?!!! I want to die. I want to die. I

want to die. And yet I don't go about that logically either. So maybe it's only that

I want something to change. But even though the details are different, this is the

recognizable behavior of most of my life. Manic-depres sive. Having to go through

a whole rigamarole of self-imposed anguish before I just move on and let whatever

is to happen next happen. At the same time, wondering with all the imput from

the 12 step program and psychology in general if I'm not just "in denial." The

current knee-jerk phrase I dislike most. Or "pulling a geographic." A concept I

dislike even more and think is totally invalid. Most of the joyous memories of my

life come from moving on. Seeing the world. Having a tre asure house of

experiences. "There is nothing/but what happens/at the center of things." For

some reason I am a loner, have chosen to be a loner, lack family, lack ties, lack

necessities, lack strings, bonds, relationships, etc., and therefore, I am free to

experience the nomadic life I always wanted. It is not totally fun, but it is also

much less boring than staying in one place going through a routine day after day

after day after week after month after year after eternity. The on e thing I am

glad about my life is I have done and seen a lot. Even if I find now I don't really

want to travel any more than I want to go on living, staying put. I always come

back to the same thing. I just don't want to be here any more. En ough already. I

just don't want to BE any more. And sometimes I think this vast acceleration and

this need to move on all the time is God, Shiva fulfilling that desire, helping me get

through it all in one lifetime, so indeed I don't have to co me back to this place

where I don't want to be in the first place.

Both Hetty and someone I was talking with yesterday suggested I talk with

someone at the school, either Khansahib or Swapanda, about the possibility that the

music is causing th e tingling. And Daniela even said today that Khansahib, a year

or so ago suffered from tingling, and may have had it treated by acupuncture. And

yet, I feel like such a fraud and such a fake and such an unworthy person to even

consider bringing this up with the one or the other. I guess in that sense I don't

want to deal with it, I don't want to hear them say: "Go to a doctor." or "Nonsense."

or whatever I am imagining they might dismiss me with. Or just having to take

really seri ously whatever I do think about what's going on. My problems, I feel,

are not good enough or important enough to bother the guru with. I felt that way

with Muktananda, and I feel that way with K and S. Who am I to bother them or

call attention to myself. I'd rather go jump off the Golden Gate, or THINK about

jumping off the Golden Gate, than to let them know that I, as a human being, am

having a problem with something I don't understand and which may be my fault,

which probably is at least 50% my fault. And that I am as much ashamed of as I

am in despair about.

Live better. Control your passions, your eating, sleeping, anxiety, as any reasonable

person would. What else could one say. Do all the things you can do, and th en see

if you still tingle. Who do you think you are? Mirabai?! I have a greater desire

not to feel foolish than to cure this whatever it is -- uncomfortable tingling and

inability to concentrate. Shut up, I say to myself, and stay in the back ground. Also,

I have a sneaking suspicion, if it is a spiritual awaking, or whatever, and Swapanda

is who I think he is, i.e. my true guru, that he knows what is going on, and I don't

have to say a word. What will be will be and he can put me t hrough my paces and

will do so as easily in silence as in any heart to heart talk.

If this is a spiritual awakening or cleansing, why is it that my spiritual experiences

are always so absolutely un-spiritual, so gross, so filled with the m ost mundane

kind of anxiety, the most worldly kind of concerns? 99% of the time I am only

concerned about how am I going to get that article done about K and Zakir, how am

I going to get to work on the things Leslie has mentioned, how am I going to

manage to get myself organized so I can move, is my car all right, should I move to

the top of the hill, do Kelley and her housemates even want a 60 year old woman.

Why why why I cry do things like the possibility of doing seminars always co me

into my life with promise and then evaporate? And even though I attempt to do

good from time to time, I am always faced with the fact that I don't qualify to go to

Rwanda or Cambodia or wherever, and that I am never settled or stable enough to

really do more than the most momentary kind of volunteering to help others.?

These are my real concerns, my constant concerns, nothing to do with my soul, or

my kundalini rising.

After the August 12, 1994 concert.

Shiva obviously wants me t o be a loner. I come home day after day, I look at the

message machine, I look at the mailbox. After all the effort I put out to be friends

and to make friends, I get so little response. And too, in many situations, I find it

impossible to be f riends or make friends. I go down my list of names, a whole

dense page, and there is no one to call much of the time. All that effort and

nothing to show.

The concert was fabulous. Swapanda having such a good time. So fabulous. I

could sim ply listen to his -- is it fast teental? -- forever. Dha dhin dhin dha. His

laughter, his white teeth flashing, his enjoyment are so infectious. Anindya also

fabulous, but no smiles, no sense of humor or delight. He seemed quite puzzled

from time to time when Swapan took off. Why didn't he smile, laugh, enjoy.

Swapan's wife there, with the two boys who look like little tartars. First time I

have had a prolonged look at Jane. She looks like a Caucasian version of Swapan,

same smal l mouth, same large nose, same Watusi rear end, more exaggerated on

her than on him. He picked a fitting image of himself, though he comes off much

more beautiful as the original, she somewhat like a Jackie Kennedy doll. Her

speech very Eastern , very much I would guess the Eastern princess. The kids far

more wild than Khansahib's, more Westernized, dreadful hair cuts making them

look like little kung-fu dolls, quite attractive but spoiled looking, without

Swapanji's charm. I couldn' t help wondering how he fit into "Cape Cod" society, this

world famous drummer, how do they explain him away? But then again he is so

charming and personable, that, no doubt, he fits in even in Maine. In any case, I

would guess its a good match. But I don't know that I would want to be one of

their children.

I come away from the concert, calmly walk home, the tingling all receded. Its as if

I need the completion of a concert to make the energy flow, to unblock the energy

flow again. I walk home slowly, enjoying. God it was fabulous. And then it is

gone.

I was thinking I was in a time of my life similar to when I left full participation in

Siddha Yoga, realizing that I was really quite happy in my life and the only place I

was unhappy was in the ashram. But here it is the opposite. I am quite happy all

the time I am actually in the presence of the music. Only when the music stops, or

I am outside the school do I find myself unhappy. In the presence of the mu sic I

am at rest, the tingling stops, I am focused and in tune, in harmony. God be with

me, and let me know your will.

I'm inclined to take the room on Oak Manor, if they offer it to me, live in the big

room, plain. No furnishings beyond th e table and cushions and a chair, settle in, be

much more of a hermit, and write. Go less to the school, but write for it more. Is

part of the mainstream of my problem the bad vibes set up in this apartment by

Paul? I come home in bliss and me et his hostility day after day after day. Do I

need to concentrate more on my writing, with more area, time and freedom to

organize? If God so wills, I'll move to Oak Manor.

If God so wills I'll leave the school and do whatever. God. Shiva, let me know your

will.

Sure enough I was challenged about a ticket by Sutnam, but I just said I did the

publicity, and I did. Not too many people there. Chitresh Das, Aashish Khan, and

met a woman named Francine Kohn. Daniela there, but didn 't particular want to

talk to me. Her antennae is always out for more liaisons whenever she is in a

gathering. Bully for her.

It's interesting to watch myself set up each new environment in such a way that I

don't fit in for too long, that I can withdraw easily and sever all ties -- or sometimes

maintain a few. But I see myself doing it quite deliberately. I don't want to be

included or comfortable in a group, or too much included. I want to be able to walk

away at any time. To b e silent most of the time, not to chitchat. I don't much want

to be involved in people's lives. A bit now and then, but not too much please --

never, thank you, very much.

August 13, 1994

The tingling seems to be much less today. I am back i nto the sugar. But the

tingling is a little problem today compared with the depression, the free floating

anxiety, not knowing what to do or where to turn. It's a tiny problem compared to

the desire to devour the world. I am almost insane with craving to eat.

Fortunately I haven't yet eaten all that much. More than enough, but not a

scandalous amount, yet.

Too down I think to even go over to Berkeley for Swapanda's concert. Partly the

ticket dilemna, but I'd even pay for a tick et, except I don't really want to go. I'm

not keen on Kathak dancing, even though Swapanda plays particularly beautifully

for it. So I assume I will just go to the Spirit Rock meeting about the history

project at Debora's house and then probabl y do a run by Safeway or some other

store to lay in a store of eats and come home and consume. Consume.

It's very hard to tell what is rattling me so. My housing problem seems to be in as

good a shape as I could hope, two prospects, one, Sutnam' s it seems for sure,

though everything, I am aware, can always change. I even have enough possession

of mind to do a bit of writing today, and sent out a letter to Jeff Chapline. But I

have no hope and no trust. What has put me in such a depre ssing pickle? Didn't

want to leave the OA meeting this morning, but waited and waited to talk to Judith,

to see if she is ready to sponsor again, and than couldn't pick out anyone else to

talk to. About what? More whining? More talk about my tingling, my anxiety, my

dilemna? Oh, God I am so tired of it already. I tingle like a house afire, and yet I

somehow don't "believe" it, don't even believe I'm doing it, don't believe its serious,

don't believe I am anxious when I have no caus e. What don't I believe. What an

odd concept not to believe what is going on in your own body. To devalue it and

say its not worth bothering others about. What is going on with you, Jan? What is

this crisis all about. Death. You're hoping. Well, maybe it is.

After the meeting and the bingeing on sausage and mustard, raspberry turnovers

and fatfree ice cream, with nothing of interest on televison, I seem to have stopped

tingling. The skin over my knees is still jumping a bit, p urring. But for the rest, I

am quite quiet, the pressure seems to have gone from my head. Now if I could

think of something I wanted to do, if I had the desire to do anything at all, I could

probably do it. But I am so emptied of motivation b y "my problems," so

pursuaded of non-success, so pursuaded of one more round and one more round

and one more round, that I don't even want to begin to convince myself that

anything is worth doing.

It is 8:30 and I have not gone to the concert . Do not wish I had. Was quite

conscious that I spent almost as much on binge food as the ticket would have cost.

But I just didn't want to go, felt so out of it that I couldn't have concentrated on the

dancing, though there is no way under an y circumstances that I would not have

appreciated Swapanda's playing. And so, now to bed and read Hindustani Music

and fall asleep doing so. So nice to have Paul gone. I hope he doesn't come home

tonight, and Cena is gone, too. She said she w ould be gone all next week. It will be

nice to be alone, and yet I don't do well alone. But in case I want to cash it in, at

least I can be peacefully alone to do it. You almost snicker as you put that down,

for you know as well as I do that y ou'll never do it. Let all the world come

crashing down, you're just as much of a coward as anyone else when it comes to

the final gesture. But I would truly bless God, if I were to just die in the night,

never wake up. Just be gone. Fini. I think how James got out early, and then Toni.

I think about the circle around the sun and how Charlie is dead and mother is dead,

and there's only me left to die from that picnic under the ring around the sun.

Charlie died in 81 or 82, mother d ied in 86, James died in 88, Louise in 88, Toni in

89. Is father about to die? And me? Do I get to leave soon, too?

August 14, 1994

Woken in the night by the new people next door arguing. Oh, how basically glad I

will be to get out of here, wh ether to the grave or another room. Than mostly I

nap until morning. Have an impulse to get up and go for a walk, but squelch it

easily. I DON'T WANT TO BEHAVE AS IF I AM NORMAL. I can read that very

clearly in my behavior. But the fact the impulse came at all may mean I am on the

mend. I also am still not tingling so much. I am even looking for it, trying to

reassure myself it is still there. It is a bit, but much less. Then when I am out

watering and trimming the plants, I not ice my attitude is changing.

In bed I was finally really giving in. I have tried all I can think of, all I have

energy for to get more money, to find a place to live, to be sympathetic to my

family, to go on with my music study, to fulfill my obl igations there, to be friends,

to handle it all, to keep my boundaries, etc etc etc etc etc, and I'm exhausted. I

have tried everything and nothing seems to be happening. I think I am really

giving up to God. Let Shiva handle it, for I obviou sly can't.

Out gardening I was continuing to think about sending a copy of Mission Walk to

Brother Joachim, which I promised on the eve of my moving in here. How

approriate to finally send it on the eve of my leaving here. Anyway, it brought to

mind my having wanted to walk around the world. Maybe it's time. I mean

instead of jumping from the Golden Gate, if I really don't care about this old body,

maybe I should just start walking. See what happens. Even in bed, I was thinking,

maybe the best thing to do is just pack up everything. Ship as much as I can to

Texas, leave the rest with Helen Sue or whoever, and take off. No way of writing,

no nothing, just go. See what happens. I am immediately halted by the thought of

my bad left knee, having to wear running shoes now instead of sandals, having all

those morning aches, and not being so healthy, etc etc etc.

But I do think the thought of getting rid of everything, of it being a real possiblity

is what gives me that push toward a change of attitude. I have always wanted to

walk out with nothing more than my kamandalu. Maybe its time. Screw the aches

and pains and special shoes. Just do it. Maybe. Just forget about all plans and

possibilites and go off as the Indians do in the last stage of life, become a real

sadhu. The main thing that stops me, would of course be the irony -- as

everything goes off in the mail, in pours the offers for seminars, more travel

stories, etc etc etc, one day too late. But nothing is too late, you can always just

dredge it all back up out of the computer, start a new pile of paper. Maybe that is

what my spirit is longing for, at least some little while without THINGS again.

Truly without things.

I eat fatfree icecream for breakfast, hot water, and now I am waiting for the two

remaining raspberry turnovers. Why not? I have the figure of Aunt Clare or Aunt

Mabel. Generations of big busted, big hipped women, why should I be different? < P>They probably didn't want to be that way either. But still underneath my

continuing depression is a little giggle rising, a little change of attitude, here it

comes, whatever the next thing, I can feel it beginning to sprout. And I don't know

why. Pulling myself up by my bootstraps one more time. One more time and one

more time and one more time. God coping is enough to do the spirit of any human

being in.

Than of course I immediately get tangled in the thought of what do I do with all

the tapes from the AACM classes. If I send them to Texas, I don't get them back.

If I want them to sit in some hermitage with, I have to keep them with me, or

store them at Florence's or Helen Sue's or somewhere. I haven't heard from

E lizabeth Snapp or Dawn Letson in answer to my letter of several weeks ago. Did I

finally scare them off, too. Everyone loves you as long as you are a free, self

supporting ecentric, but let anyone know you might need help, might actually need

a job, might actually need some money, and poof! Away they all go, like dandelion

fluff in a March wind. Odd how almost no one in the world has ever helped me

financially. I haven't much asked, until lately. But still it's odd that it is such an

almost clean slate. $50 from John, $100 from the twins, $200 from Lenore Tawny,

but no inheritance, no life sustaining help of any kind. Odd. Time to gather myself

together and go off to class, vocal and instrumental. May just go without the t ape

recorder. To what end am I taping all this stuff anyhow.

August 16, 1994

Did go without the tape recorder. Already I can feel myself really withdrawing

from the school. From the enchantment, from the necessity to be there. It's like

w hen I left the desert, Sue's, in the last couple of months I met all sorts of people,

and had very nice adventures, all of which began to happen when I ws already half

way out the door. But I had a place to go then. To the Blue Mountain Center in the

Adirondaks and the surrounding 20,000 mile trip. Which I was looking forward to.

So it also had to do with some "success" at writing. Now, I'm having a bit more, and

I can feel myself being squeeze out of the universe. I have no place to go. I mean

there are many places I could go, but none of these registers with my psyche.

None is the "right" place -- yet. I can feel myself more than ever before being

pushed toward suicide. Literally pushed, as if I might just do it by acci dent one

night. One day. There seems to be no meaning to the fact that there are any

number of places I could go, here or anywhere else. But it also is like there is a

conspiracy in the atmosphere, a dozen phone calls out and only one call bac k. That

has to be odd.

What set me off this morning, aside from no phone calls, is the fact the Terra Linda place is $375 instead of $350. Something I had even suspected. And the form of the agreement so non-friendly. I guess I want more than a nything for someone to want me, to be friendly, to be delighted to have me. I come home from my walk this morning and Paul, more hostile than usual (to which I am hostile back) has thrown away my soil and my water bottles. Not much loss, just the arroga nce of doing it. And, for laughs, I had found some nice large pots being given away and brought an armful home. Then I "lost" my keys, tried real hard not to think that Paul had taken them. He hadn't of course. Just my paranoia, but that is the first time I've taken my keys off my neck and lost them. I guess its his old hostility which I can rationally see doesn't relate to me triggering my own hostility that really sets me up for the wildly irrational tingling fear, gives an edge to everything I do, so that I repell from happening what I think I am trying to make happen.

What on earth do I want to happen? I can after all just pack the stuff in the car and be gone. Send every scrape of paper and book off to Texas, and easily fit into the car for living and wandering. Why is that such a terrible choice now, when it was such an adventerous choice before. I do truly think my time at the AACM is coming to a close. So funny. Last night had a lovely chat with Mary Khan, who is very nice and easy t o talk with. Leslie is truly being sweet about trying to help me get work and find more income. And I am, absolutely insane with tingling fear, unable to function more than minimally on the rational work level.

I mean after all Jan you have money in t he bank, you can spend it, you are on the verge of getting more, even if it takes six months or a year. But you can't possibly spend all you have by then. There's every prospect if you act like a grown-up you could be on the verge of earning some fairly steady money from what you want to do, or think you want to do, i.e. write. What is it that is shattering your confidence, and making you litterly tremble and tingle with fear, palpitate with dread. What is it Jan? Breaking with Helen Sue? But you hav en't I am sure you exaggerate the effect of even your last letter on her.

I have lost the sense of having any place I WANT TO GO TO or BE. I Just want not to BE.

It feels like retribution from the universe for finally doing what I have wanted to do, which is just to throw my entire faith into doing what I want to do, ie. write and for now go to the Music school. I said to myself I have enough money just to do it. So do it. Forget about always making your life hell by always working at something yo u don't really want to do. Just use your money to do what you want to do for once. So I have done more or less that for, what is it 6 months now? And out of it came the first publishing etc ever. No actual cash yet, but some promised. And now this in credible crisis I am putting myself through. Mal Wolfson says not to worry. And yet I insist on hysterically worrying, and that indeed I'll spend away at my assets until I have nothing left and then I will really be in a pickle. But why am I making it such hysteria right now. Take a place. Pay the rent. Just do it. You only have a year and four months before social security kicks in and then at least even if you spent every dime you have you wouldn't be much worse off. Why are you so hysterical.

And its interesting to note that this tingling, et al began a long time ago. Was it when Caroline left and there was that whole scare about having to move out then? Is that what started it? Timing is about right April? May? Maybe March? Have you sim ply been living with trembling fear that you are going to lose your comfortable home, even though you really don't like living with Paul. Odd. That you've made it a subjective tingling instead of facing the fear. Was that what was going on in 1986 as w ell? That you had began to think you didn't want to be a Nanny forever, and the tingling went on and on until mother died and you went off nomading, monastery sitting, et al. Remember, just before you went to Korea, you also had been paid a bit for your writing. It seems to form a syndrome. Terror sets in at not having a place to BE. Then adventuring a bit. Then some money or success at writing. Then moving about.

And ulitmately winding up doing something else interesting. But why am I more ter rified this time than ever before? TERRIFIED!!!!!! Just not willing to let my rationals function at all. Why? Too old to handle the adventerous life anymore? No place to go in the very real sense that you are NOT going back to Seattle. And they don 't want you anyhow. But you never have wanted to be there. When you were young you just took off, didn't look back. Only since leaving your big time job and when you got into spiritual life did you see any reason at all to hook up with your family again . Because you didn't know where else to go. No reason to go anyplace. No reason to BE anyplace.

August 17, 1994

Sobbing a good deal of the afternoon. So ashamed to be so in need. I'm the one that is always sucessful and giving.