The Geographic Cure

The "Four Corners" of the American West exemplifies the idea that we are tied to our native lands by much more than a superficial connection, because any tourist who's been there can tell you that the biggest distinguishing feature to the monument is the same dusty red dirt on all four sides. Where does one state begin and the other end? Without a marker, you might not ever know.

That's not to say that it doesn't mean something to the people who live there. I hiked Harriman Park one summer several times with my dad, and for me, it became a lesson in identifying the landscape: first were the sticker bushes at the beginning of the trail, a small hillside with a dead deer slowly decaying, then a stand of pines above a waterfall, next to a rock quarry. By memorizing it, I was able to find my way in and out of the mountain, day or night. Those woods became home to me.

Most borderlines are like that, too: clearly defined by mountain chains, big lakes, or an entire ocean, just as I know that my eczema is worse in the warmer weather of New York because I'm missing the cold water seafood of Nova Scotia. And no, I can't pop a couple of pills or pile on expensive (and probably toxic) prescription-only lotions, gels, and salves. My body IS the land that I come from, so closely is our health reliant on this connection.

Armed with knowledge and experience, I avoided most of the pitfalls that accompany people who move around frequently. I didn't (and don't) pretend that a different view or country will cure or improve the human condition, as much as I can accurately recognize what a real home is, what "home" means to me, and when it isn't that, unlike many of my friends and peers who feel that changing locales is like going to a fun, new, costume party every single night of the week.

At its worst? An old college classmate of mine who was a typical Middle American cheerleader from Minnesota, then a fashion designer all about clothes and arty trends, and then a burnt-out Californian in her 30s and 40s just looking to "mellow out and chase waves", when she'd once been afraid of swimming alone in the Atlantic Ocean without her native Northeastern friends by her side in the water. Of course, besides the outfit changes lies her serious case of manic-depression that's incurable, which is the real "final frontier" for us, as human beings: the inner-space of our minds, filled as they may be with the broken dreams of what might've been. It's time to come home.

Role-Play

Humans are visual by nature. As predators, hunters, gatherers, and agriculturists, our eyes take predominance over any other sense we have, by careful evolutionary design. We wouldn't be as successfully “human” without our forward-facing eyes. It's made more than one artist become uptight with me, because as a visual communicator, I understand that how we see is of critical importance. It's like a child's game we played as kids: would you rather be blind or deaf? Neither!

And yet, after very little thought, I always gave deaf as my answer, because as a prolific reader, writer, and artist, I wouldn't be half as good as I am with less vision. Like the saying goes, I guess my “prayers” were answered (and no, I never really prayed for that), because I have inherited my father's poor hearing and my mother's once-excellent vision that she needed to see as a young microbiologist. She often bragged that she had better than perfect vision, which is 20/20, topping out in the eagle-eyed range of 10/15.

Unlike her inflated IQ scores, I never doubted the sharpness of her acute "mom" eyes. She was so rigid about her housekeeping that she could tell who had been in the room and what we had moved at a quick glance. It was unnerving, but having "eyes in the back of your head" becomes the super sense that older humans develop after their other senses wane with age. You just know it, right? You can feel when something not right, not that you have your glasses on, granny.

But, that's how every masterful mother has ruled her roost in her small absences, and so it was of great interest to me when I discovered the world of pop psychology, rife with its labored over-acting and defined roles. It was, like, if you didn't perform rote actions lifted from a script, some of the more disordered humans around you just can't figure out what to do. It was unnerving to me. Can you imagine not knowing how to translate what your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth take in, before you knew just what they did? I couldn't, and so began my somewhat uncomfortable fascination with the learning impaired among us, or the seriously mentally ill, as subsets of the typical human experience.

Still, that type of focus has not been without some serious drawbacks, which we found out together as a t.v.-viewing society. With attention came a freak-show madness, wrongly telegraphing to the worst brains watching out there in "T.V. Land" that we care(d) more about their bad brains than their humanity, which is very far from the truth. I wanted results! I want healing for you, not a spot on a popular program. Doubt me? Witness the amount of famous entertainers who've recently passed away from alcohol and drug addictions, usually in combination with very serious medical conditions like manic-depression. 

Do you really think that's a coincidence? We recently lost a pioneering female wrestler who just nabbed a coveted spot on the show "Intervention" that came too late for her, because she died of an overdose before she could make her "debut" on a series that makes money from sicknesses like hers. What, she couldn't go to rehab without some photogenic doc from the boob tube to hold her hand while the cameras rolled? The show producers will simply pick up the next fragile "star", like, the day she died, people.

I know. I've worked with "media types" my entire career. You know what they care about? Your next bestselling book, emphasis on sales. The numbers, bro. They care about the amount of product you push on the buying public (addicts included) more than you, and that's the problem. Entertainment is fun, but what do you do when the music stops and the curtains close? Who are you then? And, who's fighting that fight with you after your last curtain call, when the backroom counts out ticket sales that you get a small cut of, which you don't really care about, because you're whacked out on pills. Besides, it is absolutely abnormal to want that kind of attention day after day. 

"What are you, drunk or something, or high on drugs?" That's what my parents joked about when we ran wild around the house making noise, and it was not a flattering assessment of our characters. If you can't sit down to "mellow out" on your own, what happened to you? You can't always be "on"! Performing is great and all, but a lot savvier producers than you can whip talent into a tizzy just to film it, because (let's be honest) there are actually millions of skinny, bobble-headed, big-teethed, fake blondes spray-painted orange in the world. 

If you burn out, "The Machine" can easily discard you to buy another one (production queues are based on a factory-model, even for you sensitive "creative types" out there), especially a phony personality, because you are totally, completely, and utterly replaceable. Bland "genericans" don't have an actual place in the history books, yo. If you have a soul, you can't actually be bought, so the next time your therapist in group asks you to "act out" a scene with them while the cameras are rolling, you need to immediately get real with it, by finding a new doctor quickly. You need to talk about the real, and you need to talk it out, and you need to get real. Get real with it. Really.