My surroundings had been feeling unusually
harsh to me all day. I must have examined my
cuticals 15 times while taking breaks from typing at
work. Karla thought I was staring them down; daring them to
rebel in their cutical duties. No I just couldn't seem to
concentrate for long periods of time on the pressure of the computer
screen- I had to focus on something smaller, less
combative. Everything felt as though it were gearing up for
war around me.
But the force of it all, the panic attack, actually decided to slam into me while I was driving in my car a third of the way home. The afternoon colors of the fields and trees rushing by me began to melt, and suddenly I was being eaten by a massive Manet. My body temperature rose- I saw things dizzy and the Volvo in front of me seemed to dissolve into the song on the radio: The Boys of Summer. (this isn't a movie you don't get to choose 'em) Flashes of childhood Junes and Julys fluttered in my head- the ungraspable past and tireless innocent regrets fill me up- and I was suddenly yearning for all of them back again. I'd adorn those regrets again, I thought, as the idiotic heat of tears were felt not just on my face but all over my body. I would adorn them proudly and cast off the ruthless guilts and faults I have packed on over the past several years... if I could just get the chance to piece it over again. I'll change just a few pieces honest!
The beauty of an attack such as this is the incredible range of dualing emotions it taps into all at once, draining me as the world falls in its place. I can feel the crippling breath of bullish time blowing against me, while at the same moment claim that yes, Mr. Blake, I can hold eternity in an hour. I realize the absurd extent of this pathetic, over-dramatic experience yet accept that it has arrived and promise myself that I'll be stronger once it moves on.
Henley says he can see me with my hair pulled back and Wayfarers on as my body feels as though it is dropping into the floorboard. When I was 10 I thought the song represented an incredible moment you get as an adult, one I couldn't wait to experience. But now here in my state at 25, barely maintaining my grip on the wheel, I only heard the song as a maudlin advertisement for life's sick humor of so often combining love and pain. We swallow them stuck together and us silly little artists choke it back up proudly, put it on display for everyone to "be moved" by it over and over again.
I didn't want to still like that song- it's not that great is it?- but yes I couldn't help myself. I was riding out a scale 5 panic attack with the music as my link to the past, and the very muddled present. And it reminded me of why I was a foolish artist anyway. I have to cough what the world feeds me back up- that's the only career I seem to have any foothold in at the moment. Hocking emotions.
So these compelling thoughts of passionate regurgitation are coming as the crest of the attack finally begins to fade. I loosen my grip on the wheel. Breathe. Out. This is when I feel connected to the world. When I lose my sanity to feeling every sensation we know.
The title of this is from Radiohead's "Street Spirit (fade out)".