Scheduling a Breakdown

Last weekend I went up to the wilderness campsite I’ve leased for the year and set up camp.

After four hours of driving I arrive and erect two tents: one for sleeping and one as a kitchen. It’s hot. The air is filled with the scent of sun-soaked pines and sparkling water. I blow up my air mattress and collect some fire wood. I test the camp stove to make sure it will still light without exploding. I set up a folding table and unpacked the pots and pans and dishes- cast offs from my mother’s basement collection of domestic flotsam and jetsam. Finished with setting up, I put the cooler and the cardboard box full of apples and peanut butter and muffins back into my car to avoid attracting bears to the site while I am taking a swim to cool off. After floating on my back in the clear water, face up-turned toward the sun, I emerge and haul a bucket of water back up the steep incline to the campsite.

And then I sit down.

The campsite is at the top of a huge granite rock- grey with streaks of white quartzite and pink feldspar. I sit at the edge of the rock looking out over the lake below, staring. My head is empty of all thought- but not because I have achieved any kind of Zen-like serenity. I am like one of those wind-up toys whose spring has finally completely unfurled, making further movement impossible. I am incapable of thought. I have come to an abrupt halt. I can go no further. I just stare.

And then, the weeping begins. Tears course down my face. I do not bother to wipe them away. I wouldn’t say I am crying- crying seems too active. It’s as if I’ve sprung a leak, as if I am simply full of unshed tears that are now spilling from my eyes. I’m not particularly surprised at this mind-without-thought, body-incapable-of-movement weeping. I have been moving constantly for three months, dealing with the logistical and legal matters of marital separation. I have been in survival mode, barely touching upon the grief and anguish of this loss. For three months I have been like a shipwrecked woman swimming for shore. I have ignored the pain in my chest and the ache in my muscles because I must keep swimming or drown. I can feel the postponed grief waiting and now, in this moment, it cannot be fully contained.

But like the swimmer who sees the shore and still has some distance to traverse, I know I must keep swimming. Surely it is as easy to drown yards from shore as it is in the middle of the ocean. This week we will sign the separation agreement. Next week my soon-to-be-ex-husband will give me a cheque and I will sign the title to the home we shared over to him. Two more weeks of necessary details. I must be careful. I must remain flexible, able to discern between what is necessary and what puts my ability to reach the shore at risk. I had planned on being at the campsite a day earlier, but a migraine and a prolonged episode of tachycardia (rapid and irregular heartbeat) made it seem prudent to wait a day. I must continue to pace myself. There is still a distance to go. I do not so much think this as feel it- a slight tensing in my gut and an almost inaudible whisper beneath my exhale, “Breathe. Not yet. Breathe,” forestalling complete collapse.

The weeping subsides. I do not make it stop. It just stops, as it started, without my conscious participation. I get up and build a fire to heat some water for tea.

Tea in hand, I consider the surge of weeping and wonder if I am headed into some kind of breakdown. Am I scheduling a time and setting up a place of collapse, a place where no one will be counting on me for anything, where nothing has to be taken care of, where I can weep and stare at the wind on the water for as long as it takes for movement to find me? I have cleared my calendar for August and imagine spending that time here alone. Perhaps it is a sign of my survival ability that I have set up this opportunity for collapse. Opportunity For Collapse. Now there’s a catchy book title! Or how about a workshop: How to Organize Your Life so You Can Have the Breakdown You Need and Deserve! And yes, yes- people who are eager to be helpful will tell me that a breakdown is really a breakthrough. It’s not even that I don’t think that’s true. It just doesn’t help much when you know there's an emotional tsunami on the way.

The wilderness of the Canadian shield is my holy ground, the place where I am most able to simply be, to lose self-consciousness and welcome self-awareness of what is. I trust I’ll be held here. I have been held here before. And on some level, although it is a distant echo at the moment, I have faith that the Mystery will find and make itself known to me here- will let me know how I am to move forward. But before any new movement, the feelings that have been kept at bay will have their way with me, will be felt. And part of me is curious. Yes, curious- wondering what it will be like, this letting go into the place where I do not know how to continue, do not know who I am now. Perhaps this combination of holy ground and holy curiosity is what will allow something. . . some new healing or meaning or wholeness to emerge. I don’t know. But even not knowing, I will go there anyway with my heart full of hope and unshed tears awaiting release.