VERTIGO – Part 4

I was so happy when I decided I was going to drive again.  Freedom!  I kept my head solidly against the headrest (still do to this day), and I stayed on surface streets.  CJ encouraged me to keep the little pink pills (meclizine for dizziness) within reaching distance.  I put two in a pretty little pill box with a pink flower on it and kept it in the cup holder. 

I found an E-mail in my files about a typical drive to work:  “Oh, Tracy, this is just glorious.  I’ve taken to pulling the top down and taking surface streets to work in the morning.  Starting at Lake Merritt, I zip through leafy Piedmont, up Broadway, left at Chabot, past the monastery - then on to College.  I love seeing all the people moving through their mornings, sipping coffee, reading the paper, walking energetically – all of humanity going about the business of living.  It takes twice as long to get to work, but I love it.” 

God, I just kept going.

My spiritual direction supervision group gave me a gem. Bless them, Nancy, John, Dan and Joellynn for listening to me with such compassion as the tears rolled down my face.  This was a place I could be absolutely real.  They encouraged me to be in a year of Jubilee.  Go fallow for awhile; be in a time when debts are forgiven and obligations released.  (obligations released . . . balm to my heart).  I read somewhere that debt is a cancer threatening the life of its host.  Chilling.  I wanted freedom.   I cried for the real. 

Bellaruth Naparstek’s meditations on the Kaiser Healthy Living website (check it out:   https://members.kaiserpermanente.org/redirects/listen/) lifted me every morning.  I’d light my candles and settle in with Pablo and Toby.  I learned guided imagery.  I went to peaceful places.  I repeated coping statements.  I learned how to breathe when I got scared.  Inhale . .  . one – two – three . . . and exhale . . one – two- three.  I hear her soothing voice to this day.  Her voice helped healed me.  God, there are so many angels out there.

Rob and I started sitting together in the mornings reading to each other from Edmund J. Bourne’s The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook.  I highly recommend this book.  Especially for any of my dear readers who suffer from anxiety.  This sweet time in the morning has been one of the greatest gifts from the vertigo.  We share our innermost lives, secrets, fears, desires.  We share the most vulnerable parts of ourselves.  The structure of the workbook gets us started and we soar from there.  It is part of our spiritual practice now; a great thing that has come out of this period.

My relationships changed, especially at the church.  It was just impossible for me to get up and go on Sunday morning.  I wasn’t driving anyway, and I couldn’t turn my head without the spinning, let alone be the rector’s wife.   A few parishioners started calling me at home.  I grew closer to those women than I have ever have been the entire ten years we’ve been there.  Those one on one, quiet talks, honest, vulnerable and true, were part of my healing.  Mary and Joe even drove all the way from Hayward on a work night to have dinner with us.  That touched me.  Susan Roberts drove all the way from Danville just to have breakfast with me on a Sunday morning.  Bless her good heart.  Pat encouraged me to let everything go except the essentials.  Facilitating the women’s group just wasn’t happening.  She encouraged me to take Sabbath.  She permitted me to take Sabbath. 

When I finally did brave a Sunday, it touched me how sweet they all were to me.  Joy sat on the steps with me when I cried, stripped and exposed in front of the entire congregation.  Mary tilted her head when she talked with me so I wouldn’t have to. Rob prayed with his hands on my head.  Ellie smiled, “this is a good day.”  Pat said that when she looked out in the congregation she saw an angel sitting in a pool of light.  And it was me.

And my dear, dear chaplains took such good care of my heart.  Again, I am so grateful – SO GRATEFUL – I could still go to work.  If I would have been isolated at home in my dizziness, that might have been too much to bear.  Instead, I could go to work, I could care and be cared for by the chaplains, I could do all of my office manager tasks, just at a slower pace.  I will never forget Carrie driving Little Red, (my Miata) with Lena following when Rob picked me up from the office and took me home one particularly bad morning.  I know everyone gave me a lot of slack – probably more than I’ll ever know.  Thank you.