Books, Bikes and My Brain

In case anyone was concerned by my complete lack of posts recently, no I haven’t had any bike-related injuries rendering me unable to type. Which is kind of a miracle in itself, really. I was completely expecting to have at least a couple “Mary Bites the Dust” stories by now, but so far, smooth sailing. I can scarcely believe it myself.

On my way home from a ride last night, I ran (not literally!) into a friend who was out for a walk. After I introduced her to Hildy, she told me she’d been holed up all day working on a spiritual memoir. More specifically, she said the memoir is about her search to figure out where God is during a trauma — in her case, a life-threatening childhood illness. The ensuing conversation reminded me that I hadn’t yet properly reviewed the migraine memoir “A Brain As Wide as the Sky” yet like I promised I would a few weeks ago. I realized the reason I hadn’t written the post yet is the same reason I haven’t written openly about my own migraines since immediately after my stimulator surgery: I had long given up on trying to derive any meaning from them.

I’m not sure how it happened, but somewhere along the way I had internalized the belief that constantly writing or thinking about how migraines impact me means I’m “dwelling” on it too much — and everyone knows that dwelling automatically leads to self pity. And people who indulge in self pity start to use their illness to get out of things and avoid responsibility. This is nonsense, of course, but it took me a long time to understand that.

I knew I would love this book when I saw an excerpt on Amazon where the author, Andrew Levy, compares having a migraine to “being punched in the face by God.” Shockingly, he doesn’t resent God for this — quite the opposite actually. He writes: “Look at what most appalls God: stiff-necked people, people with hardened hearts. As Elaine Scarry writes in an absolutely perfect phrase, God’s ‘forceful shattering of the reluctant human surface and repossession of the interior’ is where the Old Testament action really lies. God doesn’t have an agenda: He just wants us to be pliant, humble, cracks us open like eggshells because that, really, is all we are. And pain is the agent that makes this happen.”

As I mentioned, this book is the reason I decided to call my bike Hildegard, after the eleventh century migraine sufferer and saint, Hildegard Von Bingen. Levy opens one chapter with a passage from her writings: “But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words…until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, I set my hand to the writing.”

Thankfully, Levy doesn’t spend the whole book talking about migraines through a Christian-only lens. He offers an equally fascinating take on chronic pain and its reasons for existing from Buddhist, Darwinian, Freudian and historical perspectives. For example, he says Buddha is the man for pain: “It seems to me that the migraines accomplish much of what Buddhist teachers hope to accomplish for their pupils with meditation. They clear the mind wonderfully. During a migraine (the worse the better, of course), you will not be thinking about food cravings, or sexual desire, or work anxiety, or all of those worldly matters that calm breathing practices are supposed to sweep from the mind. You will be thinking about the migraine, but even this, somehow, seems right: the Buddhist teachers often recommend focus on some single mantra, some process, some conundrum, some object.”

The historical perspective Levy uncovered was new to me also. I used to consider myself a bit of an expert on famous migraineurs, such as Elvis, but this book was eye opening in that I learned so many of my favorite artists and writers suffered too — no wonder their work has spoken to me for so long. Their ranks include Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keefe, Van Gogh, Picasso, Dalí, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Nietzche, Susan Sontag, Monica Seles, Oliver Sacks, Ulysses S. Grant, Chopin, Rudyard Kipling and lots of others. That these people, despite their level of disability, were still able to make such significant artistic and cultural contributions in their less painful moments is hugely encouraging. His discussion about how pain affects creativity is something I’ve missed in my attempts not to “dwell” on my own suffering.

Writes Levy: “They were all rebellious thinkers — although, sometimes, surprisingly reserved ones, often disabled by what liberated them…it is not enough to tough it out. When migraine doesn’t want you catatonic, it wants you making something new and won’t rest until you do.”

What I appreciated the most about this book though, is how Levy doesn’t sugarcoat the reality of chronic migraines. He doesn’t try to minimize it or spin it into lemonade. He talks about the resentment, the fear, the depression, the anger and the frustration it also inspires. He writes about the dark sides in a way I’ve never been able to fully recognize or articulate. He writes about it without fearing that others will see him as lazy or faking it. He acknowledges that migraine is often seen as a woman’s disease and thus, stigmatizing.

When I saw Andrew Levy speak at the Printer’s Row Book Fair earlier this summer, he and the discussion moderator, Paula Kamen, brought up a point I had never considered before: When you go through life constantly trying to cure your headaches, you’re really missing out on life. By waiting for so many years for my head to get better before making a go of it by myself, I had put my life on hold. Immediately, I was sad it took me 29 years to recognize this, but then I realized some people never figure it out.

In closing, I offer this paragraph from the book (which you should totally read, by the way):

“In the end, you cannot divide the headaches from the art they help produce (or suffocate in infancy). And the wild treatment, the headlong dive across Europe, one’s own skull as the canvas or the clay? In the end, you cannot divide the desperation to find a cure from the need to create, or from the intellectual desire that compels you to try and answer these damn questions, and not live with the question marks.”

Feet, Meet Pedals

What’s the fastest way to combine all of my biggest fears at once: seriously losing my balance in public; flying ass-over-teakettle over the top of a hastily opened car door; running over a small child; making ill-fated impulse transportation purchases; going through a well-intended, going through half-hearted but mostly inexpensive phase?

Turns out buying a 30-year-old bike on Craigslist accomplishes all of the above. After the Jetta-buying Fiasco of 2007, I vowed to wait longer than 24 hours before buying anything with wheels ever again, but a deal is a deal. Which is why I named said bike, a pretty sky-blue1973 Schwinn Suburban, after St. Hildegard, an11th century nun and severe migraine sufferer. A bike can’t go wrong if you give it a saint’s name immediately, right?

(I first read about Hildegard von Bingen in the excellent new migraine memoir “A Brain As Wide As the Sky,” by Andrew Levy. Incidentally, Levy signed my copy of the book at the Printer’s Row Book Fair last weekend, and I plan to post a much lengthier review of it in the very near future.)

The thing nobody realizes when they say something like “Don’t worry, you won’t forget, it’s just like riding a bike,” is that getting back on a bike after many, many years is really hard! If I lived in Princeton I’d haul the bike to a cemetery and re-teach myself the basics — you know — important things such as starting and stopping, making 90 degree turns, playing chicken with cars on narrow roads, and avoiding other potentially deadly hazards.

Instead, on my first jaunt today, I reminded myself of one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. One day Katie, Ryan and I saw a father teaching his little girl how to ride her bike on a busy street in downtown Evanston. While we waited for a stoplight we overheard the dad ask the girl “Are you OK? Are you scared?” To which she said “Yeah, I’m scared!” Then her dad asked, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how scared are you? Really scared?” “Really scared, a 10,” she said.

Using the same scale, I was probably at a 6 on the relatively quiet residential streets I practiced on today. But I’m within riding distance of a couple big cemeteries, so stay tuned.

But, and this is key, the most important thing is having a patient teacher.

A Day in the Life

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts this Easter weekend I was finally confirmed in the Catholic Church, after many years of procrastination, skepticism and doubt. And as I’ve also mentioned, I decided to use St. Teresa of Avila as my saint name. Saint Teresa is a popular figure at St. Nick’s, and now I can see why. She’s the patron saint of headaches and writers, and is one fiery little woman. As a confirmation gift, my sponsor, Mary, gave me a St. Teresa doll, fashioned by a company that will make any doll if someone sends them a picture of the character they want created.

So, it only seemed appropriate to bring St. Teresa along for my first day as a fully initiated Catholic.

Teresa started her day with a little quiet prayer and reflection. 

Next, Teresa decided that since she had such a long night at the Easter vigil service, she would need a little jolt of caffeine to get through the first part of her day.

Unfortunately, because of the busy weekend and lack of sleep she endured, Teresa developed a migraine, which is fitting considering that headaches were a big part of her life. As she wrote:

No sooner does our head ache than we stop
going to [prayer], which won’t kill us either.
We stay away one day because our head ached,
another because it was just now aching, and
three more so it won’t ache again.

Teresa was also a voracious reader. To my surprise, Teresa and I have a lot of the same books on our shelves!:

Here, my two favorite ladies chit-chat about their shared history of headaches and love of writing.

Teresa approves of this book too (even though it's on loan).

Teresa likes to read up on modern nuns (especially the Carmelites) in the book Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns.

However, Teresa has one interest that I don’t share, and that is her taste in music.

After a busy morning of chatting about books and drinking coffee, it was time for me and my parents to go to Ryan’s dad’s house for dinner. Teresa kept us safe on our drive up to Lake Forest from her post on the dashboard.

Here, Teresa displays her notable appreciation for fun and whimsy.

For desert, Ryan’s grandfather made his famous whiskey cake. And guess what? Teresa liked it too!

Finally, Teresa and I brought our long day to a close.

Happy Easter!

Why St. Teresa of Avila Is My Kind of Saint

Long story short, I’m finally getting confirmed this Easter -- I know, imagine that! -- which means it’s time for me to pick my saint name. When I found out St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was the patron saint of headaches, it was a no-brainer — although she did face stiff competition from St. Elmo, the patron saint of women in labor; St. Clare, the patron saint of television; and St. Isidore of Seville, the patron saint of the Internet.

I haven’t had time to read an actual book about St. Teresa since deciding on her, so I’ve been cobbling together interesting tidbits about her courtesy of Wikipedia and similar sources. The more I read, the more I like her.

Typically, I don’t have much in common with mystic Carmelite nuns from Spain, but there’s an awful lot about St. Teresa that I can relate to, even though we live centuries apart. Here are a few examples:

1. When I was in second or third grade I went through a very pious phase and wanted to be a nun (likely inspired by the character Marie on “Just the Ten of Us”). Needless to say, that particular phase didn’t last long, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard myself or other frustrated daters say “I should just join a convent.” I was kind of comforted to read that St. Teresa had similar thoughts. She’s often described as a social butterfly and no stranger to love affairs. She first spent some time in a convent as a teenager in an attempt by her father to discipline her. That attempt was short-lived, and she returned to her home. Says one site:

Back at home, Teresa was once again faced with the choice: marriage to whoever could be found (and with each passing year her marriageability was lessening) or the convent. She finally decided on the convent, out of the certainty that otherwise she was bound to go to hell.” 

Word.

2. You also could say that it was Catholic guilt that drove her, as a very young child, to attempt to turn herself over to the Moors who were carrying out the Spanish Inquisition. Her grandfather had been a Jew that converted to Christianity as a result of the Inquisition, leading St. Teresa to feel that she should become a martyr for the cause. Luckily, a relative found her before she could walk out of town.

3. The first thing, of course, that drew me to St. Teresa was the headache connection. And it looks like she suffered from a number of chronic conditions. However, it was this paragraph or two on one site that I identified with the most:

“…Yet instead of helping her spiritually, her sickness became an excuse to stop her prayer completely: she couldn't be alone enough, she wasn't healthy enough, and so forth…When she was 41, a priest convinced her to go back to her prayer, but she still found it difficult. "I was more anxious for the hour of prayer to be over than I was to remain there. I don't know what heavy penance I would not have gladly undertaken rather than practice prayer." She was distracted often: "This intelect is so wild that it doesn't seem to be anything else than a frantic madman no one can tie down."

She eventually was credited with a technique called “mental prayer” and wrote extensively on the subject, but this little bit about her echoed the reasons I’ve used to claim that I’m “bad at religion.” I’ve always felt like religion and faith seem to come more easily to other people — like it’s a skill or something that I have to train for. Like wind sprints. For instance, when I go to church, after I walk in and find a seat, I can only kneel and pray for one or two minutes before succumbing to distraction and giving up. It’s probably more like 30 seconds, actually. It must look to others like I’m either a super efficient prayer or have church-specific ADD.

4. St. Teresa is famous for a lot of her writing (she’s also the patron saint of Spanish writers) and advice, but this quote is one of my favorites: “I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.” I like this because it was relevant during her lifetime — with the Spanish Inquisition and other major upheavals in the Church — and during ours. It’s a useful antidote to the likes of Fred Phelps and other hate mongers that use their beliefs to justify bigotry. I guess some things never change.