According to the latest DSM, psychologists call the psychological condition wherein the person feels “spaced out” or disconnected from his or her environment “depersonalization disorder.”
People suffering with this disorder feel the world to be distorted, dream-like, and believe that reality itself is unreal, I remember from my own therapy sessions. I climb into Ruby, trying to think of where next to go. Certainly not home.
I drive out of the lot, head north, aiming for the Guardian Angel, a large thrift store supporting Alzheimer’s prevention. But even the traffic seems like an animated movie with too-bright colors, and I feel like the Dairy Queen beetle crawling across difficult terrain.
At a stoplight, I peer into the white Subaru Outback next to me, where a woman, probably my age, with big, dark sunglasses, puts on lipstick. She’s shifted her body from the driver’s seat over to the middle so that she can see herself in her rear-view mirror. The lipstick is bright red, and the woman’s hair is white-blonde, teased, hair-sprayed, in a sort of globe around her head so that it looks like a feathered hat.
The light changes to green, off we go. Her traffic lane moves faster than mine, and I try to watch her car as I did my bug. “Good luck with all things,” I tell her as her Subaru vanishes.
This planet is a wobbly place. Full of odd, disturbing motion. I need to keep my balance.
The turn into the thrift store is slightly elevated, then lowers into another strip mall where the store flanks one end. Fuquay-Varina has a couple of older strip malls and then some newer ones. Like Southern Florida, I think.
I lock Ruby and head into the store, which immediately overwhelms me with its stale smells, racks of color-coded clothing, and old furniture. But I find a section of rather neatly-stacked, well-organized books and walk over to them.
No one watches me, notices anything amiss. I’m a spy in my own life—hypervigilant. I think again of slicing my hand. I look at it, imagining what might happen if I were to do this. I move to the glassware section, but then think, “crazy, crazy, crazy” and quickly return to the books.
I pick up Charlotte Joko Beck’s Nothing Special, Living Zen, an unlikely find, walk to a nearby armchair to sit and read. The area is like a dirty little Barnes and Noble, with a rug and a few comfortable chairs where patrons can preview books they may buy.
Fate leads me to open the book to one of the many conversations, presented as interview transcripts between Beck and a student. I’ve read this book before, so I’m familiar with its format:
Student: Why does the pain go away when I space out?
Joko: Well, our [waking] dreams are powerful narcotics. That’s why we like them so much. Our dreams and fantasies are addictive, just like addictive substances.
Student: Isn’t there separation from reality involved if we feel pain?
Joko: Not if we totally feel it.
I buy the book for fifty-four cents, two quarters and four pennies, which I have in my wallet. I choose not to accept a bag and rather than continue to shop, I walk out to Ruby to read, though it’s stifling hot, and Ruby’s interior is even hotter, probably 115 degrees.
But there’s a Chinese take-out with a few scruffy looking tables inside, and I go there, thinking I’ll purchase a bottle of water and a couple of spring rolls. As I approach, however, the place looks unfriendly, with pink wallpaper peeling off one side wall, and an electric painting of a waterfall on the other wall. The painting’s black cord is plugged in, but the painting’s neon lights aren’t working.
Back in Ruby, I continue up 401 North toward Raleigh, hoping I’ll find a better place to rest, retreat, read, gather my thoughts. Then, in the distance, across the four lanes of traffic I see a Starbucks, set off in a free-standing building near Lowes, near another strip mall. I make the turn, and with book in hand, go in. The place is empty, but immediately comfortable, with low lights and delicious-looking pastries, cakes. I order a Skinny Mocha Latte Grande. I decide against food, in part because I’m still feeling the effects of the half-consumed Blizzard.
I’m finally resting, happy to have landed here, where the atmosphere feels safe, welcoming. There are photos of deserted and forlorn rural buildings on the wall, a local artist, no doubt. They’re very North Carolina—places I think I’ve seen, reminding me how far I’ve come from my New York City roots. I think of the word “roots” and come up with two ideas: roots are the places we return to because they ground us to our past, and roots are the places where families currently live, where we most belong.
New York offers me neither. It’s memory now. The last time I visited my old South Shelburne neighborhood so much had changed that I felt only distant connection. Now, of course, my original family lives in Florida.
My life can become memory if I let it. Then, a slip of paper falls from Nothing Special. On it are the typed words: Everything you think you are and everything you perceive are undivided. Tat Vam Asi—Thou are that.
I sit, read, and reread the words. The Mocha Latte is incredibly satisfying, and, like the words, is waking me up, offering energy.
I decide to travel up 401 and head to Raleigh, the art museum, which, I now believe, will feed my soul, help me to feel whole.
I’m turning off 401 North and onto I-40 West, accelerating as I accidentally cut off a Nissan pickup truck that must now fall behind me.
Traveling at 65, I know my exit is coming up in the next ten minutes. I can’t remember the number, but there’s a brown museum sign I know to watch for. I turn on the car radio, still tuned to an oldies station, rather than NPR, and leave it there to keep my spirits lifted. Soon I’m humming along to some bubble-gum pop song, the title of which I can’t recall, though I know some of the lyrics.
Raleigh is a suburban, sprawling, but manageable city. Nick and I come here often, though I can’t say I’m familiar with all the neighborhoods or really know my way around.
I travel awhile, further than I think I need to, then see the airport sign for RDU and remember the museum exit should be next or the else the one after that. As I think this, there’s the sign. I turn onto Blue Ridge Road, soon see the museum flags and turn into the parking lot.
Inside, I see that there’s a multi-media exhibition on “time” along with the regular collection, which I decide to look at first, to think about whether or not I want to pay for the exhibition; Nick and I saw it together earlier in the summer. I enjoyed it, and I’m already leaning toward seeing it again. The regular museum gallery is free.
In the open, well-lit first gallery, I stand before a huge green sculptural piece of cast glass, made in sections. I’ve seen it before, but now I think about Will and what he’d say about the piece. I notice many cracks, and I wonder if Will would say these are good, bad, intentional, or accidental. Will could do a piece like this, if his kiln could fit such huge pieces. But who’d purchase it? A commercial interior designer for a building’s lobby? I make a mental note to ask Will about this work. In fact, I take out my phone, snap a photo, although as I look at it, I decide that the photo doesn’t do the piece justice.
I move to some contemporary paintings, huge canvases, also appropriate only as museum pieces or for commercial settings. A man with a headful of dreadlocks stands beside me. His hair is mostly gray, and I think he’s about my age, so as I try to figure this out, I begin to take sideway glances at him. He sees me, smiles—a lovely, honest smile, and I notice that he’s wearing cool dark purple wire-frame glasses. I imagine he’s an academic; he’s carrying a leather portfolio, and there’s something familiar about his demeanor. I return his smile, then walk to the next painting.
We’re in the gallery room alone together, so as I move away, we’re still connected, feel each other’s presence. I think of saying something to him, and in my head try out: “Lovely day for the museum,” or “I enjoy contemporary art in large spaces like this,” or “Have you seen the exhibition on ‘time’? I’m thinking of going,” but all these things strike me as ridiculous, embarrassing, so I say nothing. My heart pounds; my body temperature rises.
Feeling stupid, as if the stranger could hear my thoughts, I walk slowly from the room. My face must be beet-red as I was about to make a fool of myself. I feel ashamed now and decide to head to the bathroom to be alone, to splash water on my face, get a grip.
Which I do, though the relief is temporary. I’m close to some edge, and in a moment of carelessness, I will step over it as Anna did. I wash my face, then stand in front of the large full-body mirror. I’m alone, so I run a brush through my hair, take off my glasses, clean them with my tee-shirt, put them on, and decide to risk looking at myself.
Okay, I think, I’m going to say aloud what I see. Be brutally honest, objective. If I can’t manage the honesty, well, that’s one problem identified. If I can manage the honesty but look a mess, well, that’s another problem identified, but one I can tackle. Yes, I’m old, but there’s still time for correction, improvement. Like writing a book, I can revise.
So here goes. My hair has turned white, a sort of blonde white, unlike the steel gray that dark hair often turns. I could dye it, which I used to do, but the color didn’t take well, and I never liked the result. Friends have told me to dye my hair—my kids have, too—so maybe I should reconsider. I look at the short billowing cap my hair has become and think that perhaps they’re all right. The white hair ages me. On the other hand, philosophically, I’m against the idea. My age is my age; I should own it.
Face? A disappointment. I see the girl I was, but my face sags, especially on the left side. In my forties, I had eye problems, and over the years, that side of my face suffered, perhaps from all the squinting. I could wear makeup. Again, it’s a philosophical issue for me—I’m against this notion. The issue is political as well. But over the last five years I started wearing concealer—I love the word—under my eyes, across my nose when it’s reddish, over a tiny mole… and do I look better? My neck is time-worn, face wrinkled. Not that such a small bit of makeup helps in the slightest.
Body—not really overweight, but not good. I’m dressed today, as I am most days, in baggy pants, a black camisole, and an oversized, cotton-spandex button-down over-shirt. I look gender neutral—which, I’m coming to realize is my default position.
“Look at yourself, Rachel,” I say. “You’re a mess. A big, old mess.”
It’s true. I look like some past-her-prime hippie chick who refuses to live in the contemporary world. My appearance suggests that I’m attached to who I was. I feel a watery burning in my eyes. Then anger. At myself. At who I can’t become.
A young mom with a toddler in tow comes into the bathroom. I move to the sink to wash my hands as if I’ve just come out of a stall.
“I’m hungry, Mommy,” the little girl says. She is mixed-race and has a head full of springy, dark, curly hair. She wears a yellow-striped sundress, a little white cardigan, orange sandals with a tiger’s face on the foam front.
“We’ll get something soon.” The mom’s voice is gentle, lilting, and I detect an accent of some kind. She’s in the stall with the little girl, so the conversation becomes muffled.
I walk out to the Rodin sculpture garden, where it’s wicked hot, find a bench, sit down. I’m almost enjoying the powerful heat, knowing that I can return to the cool interior when it becomes unbearable. There is a three-figure bronze sculpture there, and my bench is directly in front of the reflecting pond, with its lily pads and lovely dark waters.
The bronze figures are in movement, bending, somehow relating to each other, but yet the cast bronze is so heavy that there’s a palpable tension. Also, a tension between dark and light—the dark of the bronze, the light of the air, the afternoon sky—its white heat, a dissipating energy contributing to the piece’s movement. It’s shocking to see such strength in form, yet such suggestion of light. My eyes fill again. And I’m getting very hot.
I walk over to the museum’s other building, to the “time” exhibition and pay the $12 admission. Entering, I’m drawn to a display of time-lapse photography of a tree through an entire year. The video loop takes four minutes to cycle through the seasons.
I sit on the bench, facing the tree. I’m not sure what kind it is because the projection is mostly abstract. It’s not a maple…maybe a willow oak, judging by the leaves, but the shape of tree isn’t typical for a willow oak, unless the tree is young…then again, I’m not sure.
The woman and her young daughter whom I saw in the bathroom enter the room. The little girl climbs up on the bench next to me, wiggling around, totally disinterested in the display. The mom, cross-armed, looks at the tree. “Beautiful,” she says.
“Yes,” I say, “death and renewal.” I look at her. She’s in her thirties, I’d guess, with long dark hair pulled into a single braid, and medium skin, almost olive. Mediterranean. She wears a tight neon orange tee-shirt and tight jeans.
“Mommy, look, look,” we hear, turning to see the little girl in the next gallery space, an open area, where she dances in a circle of projected light. “I’m coming,” the woman calls, nodding, smiling at me, walking toward her daughter.
Left alone, I remember that downstairs from the Museum of Modern Art in New York—the old one, before the museum was renovated—there was a room with a screen of projected, moving light. It must have been near the subway station because trains could be heard through the walls. There were maybe four long benches in rows in front of the screen, like a little theater, and people would come in to watch the random colors and the shapes the colors assumed—sometimes melting into one another or blotting as if they’d been spilled.
Watching the tree, then the patterns of light from a similar bench now, I’m carried back to MoMA. The tree before me is not just a tree; it’s a time machine—its changing seasons taking me across decades and miles.
I’m fifteen. Henry, my boyfriend, and I have taken psilocybin on the Long Island Railroad, as we approached the city. A stupid thing to do, yes, but what did we know?
That day in particular, I’d spent a few hours in front of the screen, mesmerized by the colors and shapes choreographed to the train noise. I imagined that time stood still here and that if I stayed I’d never grow old. I wore sneakers, and one was untied. I remember thinking that if I tied my shoe, my life would change, that time would begin again. But as long as the lace dangled, I was safe. I sat like that until Henry, who’d been upstairs in other galleries, came down to get me.
“I can’t move,” I whispered to him as he took a seat next to me on the wooden bench. The little theater was empty, and we sat alone together.
“Yes, you can, my little swallow, my little bird. We can fly.” Henry whispered, his voice coy, playful.
“My shoe,” I said. “If I tie it, I’ll grow old.”
“Yes,” Henry said. “And if you don’t tie it, you’ll grow old. And possibly trip on the stairs.” He smiled at me.
A second later, I got the pun and laughed.
“What will happen if I tie your shoe?” Henry elbowed me gently.
“I don’t know. I never know.” The colors on the screen turned darker, in tune with my suddenly sad mood.
Henry got down on his knees in front of me and tied my shoe. “Nothing will happen to you, ever. You’ll stay just as you are. So will I. We’re perfect.” Henry looked up at me, grinned. In the next minute, we were kissing passionately, still alone in the room.
Memories. Everyone has them. I dismiss the well of strong emotions bubbling up again, wanting to spill out at every turn.
Can I, or anyone, avoid the past? I rise from the bench, walk a few feet, but find myself tired, aching, and return, sit, try to clear my head. But now I hear Eliot, lines I inadvertently memorized from “Burnt Norton,” the first poem in Four Quartets. I whisper them aloud:
“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.”
The tree changes from winter barrenness to a full-leafed summer display, before bright and varied leaves appear, turn brown, fall. In another minute, the buds grow, leaves appear, opening back to summer.
I take a plastic pack of tissues from my black shoulder bag and bow my head.
No one is around now, except for a guard who occasionally paces in and out of the room, leaving me to myself, head lowered as in prayer.
As I think this, my head still bowed, I find that I’m mumbling a prayer: Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Hear o Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.
During my one year of religious training—which consisted of attending Hebrew school taught by the Rebbetzin every Saturday morning for about eight months—I’d become a believer and thought I’d marry a Rabbi, maybe become a Rebbetzin myself. But even during the fervor of that early faith, I could never imagine God. Maybe that’s the point.
A man comes into the gallery, sits beside me. He’s Hispanic, short, and seems oblivious to my presence or that he might be intruding. He watches the tree for the four-minute year with a rolled-up museum program that he bangs nervously on his thigh. I don’t look directly at him, but through the corner of my eye I can see that he’s young, probably in his late twenties, has a purple streak in his black hair and a large snake tattoo crawling up his wrist onto his forearm. When I look down, I see that he’s wearing canvas sneakers with the toes cut out. As he gets up to leave, he drops or puts down the rolled-up program on the bench. I say nothing.
Distracted from my sad mood, I catch myself thinking, Yes, just like a man to leave his garbage behind. I pick it up. Litter in a museum? Rude.
I pick up the discarded program and wander into the adjacent gallery, not the one the man has walked into, because I’m hoping not to run into him again. It’s the room near the end of the exhibition, and I realize that I’ve lost interest in seeing the rest of the show. There I see a trash can, so I head toward it, but as I do, I unroll the program to see that it’s not a program, but a glossy advertisement for low plane-fares to Europe, with flights leaving from RDU. I could fly roundtrip to Paris for $499, to London for $449, or to Barcelona for $529. l smooth out the ad, fold it, put it in my bag. A sign?
Before I exit the exhibition, I return to the last room to quickly glance at some paintings, watch a short video, and stop at a sort of light sculpture with changing projected features, but then walk out of the time exhibition completely, back to the other building, thinking that I’ll visit the gift shop, then get a little something to eat in the pricey museum café.
The gift shop contains many attractive, arty, expensive items. I handle beaded earrings with Alexander Calder-ish mobile dangling pieces, handmade paper journals, a hand-knitted silk sweater for $250, batik scarves.
k
In the café, I sit at a small back table by the wall, to collect my thoughts. I’ve ordered a portobello mushroom sandwich on panini with potato salad and coffee.
The café is nearly empty. I see an older couple, perhaps in their late seventies, sitting at a table across the room. Also, there’s a well-dressed, middle-aged man, legs crossed, reading a large unfolded newspaper. And two younger women, college-aged, leaning toward each other conspiratorially across the table, engaged in animated conversation.
I sit back in my chair, close my eyes for a moment, focus on my breath—to center myself, sharpen my attention.
But the waitress comes and delivers my coffee, presented in a white cup on a square white saucer, with a small stainless-steel milk pitcher and sugar on a separate serving plate. She’s wearing tight black pants, a white shirt, both covered by a full black apron.
“Your sandwich will be out in a few minutes,” she says, offering a smile.
“Thanks,” I tell her, noticing that her nose and upper lip are pierced, and that she’s wearing purple lipstick.