Magic - January 23, 2009
I was in my bedroom not too long ago, changing into my PJ's and peering suspiciously at that sliver of dark between my bed and the floor where the monster is.
I'm not talking about my grownup bedroom and bed. I'm talking about the bedroom and bed I spent my childhood in, in what is now my parents' house, the house in which I was raised, in that town I bitch about. My PJ's--though I call them PJ's--were grownup PJ's, and they hung on my grownup body. There was no doubting my grownupness, physically, that is, and yet I considered the monster. The adult in me knew there was nothing but dustbunnies under that bed, fur from my mother's cats. The kid in me prevailed, and so I ran at the bed I'd had so very many nightmares in and jumped atop it before the monster could grab my ankles and pull me under.
I'm 32.
Magical thinking. It's what happens when someone has problems with mental illness. A regular kid may have suspicions about monsters under his or her bed, but mom or dad going under there with the flashlight quells their fears, and rational thought takes over. They do not see a monster under the bed, and so it is not there.
The mentally ill kid can never be convinced there isn't a monster under the bed. This is because the mentally ill thinks magically. This is usually a bad thing, because paranoia and magical thinking go hand in hand.
-If I don't do better at school, God will kill my mom.
-If I don't finish my homework by 9:12pm a tornado will come tear the house to pieces.
-If I'm not nice to my sister, the monster under the bed will eat me.
All the work I've done, hours, days, years of writing and research and thinking and therapy, and at 32 I still ran and jumped over the black sliver, because my brain was/is magical, and probably always will be. I laid awake for a good amount of time, thinking. I always do that. I thought harsh, paranoid things about myself, per usual, the unfortunate thing about a messed up, magical brain. Mean shit pours out. Just when I was about to berate myself into a migraine, I rolled over on my left side, took a look at the wall and laughed my ass off.
So often, we adults find ourselves cloaked in doom. The kid in us likes the frosted side.
I used to live in LA. I don't live there anymore.
I moved to this bizarre place in the desert, high on a plateau, caked with cactus. It's a place fittingly full of magic. Here there are shamans, mystics and seers (schizophrenics). Wild, feral beings who live in the woods and smell like ammonia. People claim to have special powers they don't seem to have. My neighbors have been "abducted by aliens" several times, and while I find their claims to be a bit odd, the shooting stars above us move in circles, so who am I to judge? The rain clouds that blow in from the north make 90 degree turns, right or left, at the city borders. Certain vistas make you dizzy, and later, make you shit your pants. Wild hogs congregate outside my door at night and oink into the morning hours. If you ask nicely, they'll leave. The view from my doorstep is profoundly beautiful. Tight spires of sandstone punching up into the pregnant clouds that hover at the city borders but never dare to cross them, spires that look like a cock's comb. My back yard leaks into one hundred miles of pure wilderness in all directions; its what you could consider a fence of sorts, to keep intruders out, or keep the crazies in. Depends on how you'd define it.
Strange things happen here. Synchronicity happens here. Things line up. Coincidences are common. People change here, rapidly, and for the better. This seems to be a place where the broken come to get fixed, and when repaired, they stay and join an alien sex cult and are audaciously and sickeningly happy about the odd life they lead. At least they're happy, right? Magical, childlike, happy, happy, alien sex cultists. They accept their magic brains for the "different" brains they are, and don't try to pretend they're like normal people who understand rational things. You ask them about mental illness, and they say, "Doesn't exist. Some people are one way, and the majority of people are the other way." Their acceptance of self is so complete. I want to be like them, without the alien sex cult thing, of course.
And yet, its really only the acceptance I'm lacking, which is why I laughed when I rolled over and looked at the wall in my childhood bedroom, upon which hung a painting I did in grammar school that won an award. My parents were very proud and had it framed for me. We put it on the wall, and it's been there ever since, collecting dust.
So what's the painting of? Well it's this profoundly beautiful cluster of sandstone spires like a cock's comb punching upward. It's my back yard. It's the frosted side of the often dry and boring breakfast cereal I call reality.
Posted by The Bunny at 10:31 AM
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Comments
*bows*
Posted by: michelle at January 23, 2009 11:09 AM
I'm so glad you're posting again. Missed you.
Posted by: Silvia at January 23, 2009 11:18 AM
Yay! BunnyPost!
Posted by: rien at January 23, 2009 11:44 AM
I've read your criticism about Augusten Burroughs. That is why I am so surprised to read your entry.
Were you influenced by his book & essay Magical Thinking?
Bunny Edit: I'm pretty sure my criticism of him was rash and bullshit. Didn't that family drop the lawsuit?
At any rate, he's a ridiculously good writer, and that sounds like a fun essay. I'll have to check it out.
Posted by: K at January 23, 2009 12:29 PM
BUNNY IS BACK!
Posted by: Katie Jones at January 23, 2009 12:42 PM
Beautiful.
Posted by: A. Cote at January 23, 2009 03:20 PM
I am new to your blog, this was haunting. As is childhood.
Posted by: Marinka at January 23, 2009 09:58 PM
Thank you, sincerely.
Posted by: Kenneth at January 24, 2009 01:06 AM
That was freakin' good. You rock Bunny. I'll send an imaginary hug your way.
Posted by: Wayland at January 24, 2009 11:53 AM
Ever think your belief in a "magical brain" was just a way for you to continue to indulge in your own reality, a way to escape. A lie.
I thought that about myself, and I don't know the answer for sure.
You can write very constructively and coherently.
Posted by: 22yearoldmale at January 24, 2009 03:58 PM
your posts always make me feel better about being mentally ill :)
i wish you'd write more
Posted by: clementine at January 25, 2009 11:51 AM
I "know" zombies do not exist. In my rational world, I can objectively make myself realize that the dead stay dead and do not prey upon the living. In my emotional world, finding myself alone, mostly at night, ONLY IN CERTAIN PLACES, makes every wind howl into a zombie moan, every twig snap a shuffling step of the undead coming to claim me as one of them. Hello, magical thinking.
Funny enough, it's the placement that really bugs me. My mother's house, the woods surrounding my brother's place. Places I was when I was younger, and those kinds of fears would be "normal." The monster isn't under YOUR bed, but the bed at your childhood home. Zombies aren't at school, but the outbreak ground zero is at Mom's place. Did I just replay that fear so often it's been conditioned in to me to think that when I go there? At the very least, it makes me feel better to know I'm not alone on this one. Irrational fears or "magical thinking" are still there after the age of 10.
Posted by: Agnes at January 25, 2009 05:11 PM
I am broken and damaged. I went to a desert with mountains and came back wired(weird?) differently. I'm still looking for my healing place. I'm glad that you've found yours. Welcome back. Please continue to post. You do a beautiful job.
Posted by: M4A1 at January 25, 2009 06:23 PM
All this and anal probing..
Shine on Bun.
Posted by: colin at January 25, 2009 07:00 PM
Beautiful writing! Oh, man, Bunny, I'm so glad you're back to posting your writing! Thanks so much, bella...
Posted by: Snowblood at January 25, 2009 08:04 PM
"The view from my doorstep is profoundly beautiful. Tight spires of sandstone punching up into the pregnant clouds that hover at the city borders but never dare to cross them, spires that look like a cock's comb."
Holy shit did that jump out at me. It's tender and evocative at the same time. Awesome.
Posted by: Alex at January 26, 2009 12:07 AM
Between this and the thing you wrote for Shrinktalk, I'm rapidly falling in love with your writing. I hope your book blows up and the world can see how awesome you are.
Posted by: J at January 26, 2009 01:24 AM
I just read a similar entry on your painting on your sisters blog. By the way, how's the ass?
I'm now 27 and I still think of monsters. So much so that if I'm hot at night, I will not let my foot hang out over the edge of the bed because I'm afraid the monsters will get it. I find myself wondering if "28 days later" happened, how I would get my family to safety. I can't watch movies like that because I constantly fear them to become reality. The tornado punishment doesn't happen to me...but other fears do. Like I think that when bad things happen, maybe they are repercussions for things I have done. I never thought of myself as sick...just over-imaginative and wimpy. But maybe that's why I enjoy your writing so much. Hopefully this is a return? If so, welcome back.
Posted by: Beth at January 26, 2009 12:00 PM
Holy crap, is everyone missing out on how strange that drawing is? I read this article and felt weirded out, and after reading The Trixie's part on it, I had to think about it again.
I remember a while back reading about how you found your lost dog by just walking and feeling it out... Bunny, I don't know how you look at what you do, but maybe that's God's/the universe's way of saying sorry for putting you through through so much crap.
Posted by: Nadia at January 26, 2009 12:56 PM
oh bunny, you make the world a better place. i have been reading your posts for years, as in 7. i want you to know, you make this terrible place somehow comfortable. we're all in it together
Posted by: thejogie at January 26, 2009 01:19 PM
I thought this entry was going to be about the collectable trading card game "Magic: The Gathering"
What a let down.
Posted by: jay at January 26, 2009 01:24 PM
I'm happy and appreciate that you write again. Hmm, I bet you double thought that alien sex cult once.
Posted by: Jais at January 26, 2009 05:12 PM
Wonderful to see you writing again. As I'm sure it feels to everybody else who reads this blog, it feels like you're writing to me directly. What ever happened with your book deal? I've yet to hear hide nor hair of it, though I still look forward to seeing your work in print. All the very best for 2009.
-Al
Posted by: BigAl at January 26, 2009 10:00 PM
Can I go!?
OBVI we've missed you! xoxo
Posted by: CumDumpster at January 27, 2009 06:34 AM
Bunny,
Thank you. There are other magical thinkers out here, faking it everyday to "function"- and seems a good group of us have you.
Don't know what you think of that- but thanks for putting this out here. You make something beautiful of yourself when you write.
Posted by: Kitty at January 27, 2009 05:51 PM
Great to see you back, Bunny!
May I just mention your spectacular grasp of the scenery around you? Gorgeous, my dear. As an aspiring writer I think I can speak for a lot of folks when I say your stuff is an absolute inspiration that you don't have to be Shakespeare to be amazing.
Posted by: Kate at February 3, 2009 01:12 AM
This is a portal.
Posted by: Anonymous at June 12, 2009 04:53 PM
