“the whole world – luminous, luminous.  We were lucky to be here.  Even in pain and uncertainty and rage and fear –

some fear“

-Carole Maso-

Shedding Light

(on fears and forties)

What is it they say about one’s 40s?

When I was in my 20s I think we imagined the fourth decade as a time when one ought to be graduating from the ever-post-grad program school of hard knocks, perhaps the 20s were a fortification and stretching of the self, the 30s a learning and establishing of its bounds and borders, 40s and 50s some growing truce or enjoyment of it all. At my birthday this year my stepdaughter pronounced me “forty-fun” years old. Is that so?

Walking down the stairs from our working studio to procure cream for my coffee, something else strikes me. I see a rectangle of light protrude from an uncovered window in a room I cannot see, falling across another room, two away from the kitchen where I stand and view it through three doorways. My 40s I would characterize (a year-and-a-half in) as the facing and unpacking, or recognition of and inquiry into, my prominent, almost mythical, and apparently irrational, fears.

Among these, the fear of abandonment (a paranoia that has eaten at all of my marriages – luckily my current spouse won’t have it…thus these therapeutic investigations); another, that I’m inherently disappointing or insufficient: my talents, appearance, relationality, aptitudes for sympathy/empathy/emotion, and abilities all suffer some fatal lack, that I am unable to be “enough” of anything or anyone to be of lasting value. Also, that people are threatening and harmful – strangers, intimates, friends, acquaintances – other humans – inherently self-preserving by nature and therefore untrustworthy, at the point one no longer serves their preserving one will be discarded or destroyed (accentuating abandonment and insufficiency fears as you might imagine); and light. Yes, light. Particularly sunlight, but any form of bright light unsettles me profoundly.

Seeing the sunlight cut through a clearly unprotected opening in our home had the effect of an intruder on me – my esophagus tensed up, skin tingled, breath foreshortened and nerves wrenched the muscles of my shoulders and neck – someone had left us exposed – at mercy – at risk.

In the night, feeling my way to the restroom, there’s a glow from my daughter’s room. It suggests presence, but I know (I think) that she is sleeping at her mother’s tonight. Startled and alarmed, I nudge the door – glow sticks, attached in a large circle, lay in the room like an electric eel spiriting by in the ocean’s depths.

I can sit with ease, even sprawl on our lovely porch, enjoy a cigarette, watch branches and pavement, listen to critters at night or in storm, but in daylight I keep moving or stand at the door. Like a doe in a clearing, I feel surrounded, defenseless – everyone (anyone) could see me, take a shot, direct speech my way, ask for things – interrupt, intrude, violate, voyeur.

Our maniacal sun has always struck me as an enormous and torturous spotlight under which we had better perform or disband (scurry) ‘cause everyone (potentially) is judging us; or some atomic or nuclear exposure-radiator, aching to burn and shrivel us, flare us to a crisp, turn us to ash, dehydrate us.

Rain and dark moistness encourages growth, protection, concealment, shelter. Like robing for the stage, fogs and mists mask us, preserve our individuality, turn us into basic shapes, generalize and equalize us, but light, well light “brings to light” – highlighting flaws, differences, disfigurements, scars, limps, pimples, features, you name it – you’re stripped bare before the blazing eye.

Lunar reflection, on the other hand, is like a nightlight – an orb, an aura, a frosted bulb – gently assisting without dominance, our perceptive necessities, like cloudcover or shade.

Perhaps this psycho-physiological trigger comes from years of being scared shitless (literally, I endured diarrhea before each of my performances as a child) or some early programming of scrutiny and judgment; or science labs and hospitals versus woods, basements and photo-development darkrooms or blacklit jazz rooms that were my safe places in my youth. I don’t know, but I can’t remember a time I didn’t prefer the night to the day, rain to shine, cathedral to mega-church theatrics, concert hall to club, museum to mall and so on.

Anyway, the 40s. One survives this far creating and instinctively obeying these fears…perhaps deconstructing them implies one is “over-the-hill,” preparations for death, dismantling the armor that got one this far?

Wanting to be known before one dies? “Exposed” to another? Coming-to-terms with something closer to “reality”? Like mortality? I don’t’ know. It doesn’t make much sense, to grow fearless as one approaches the fearsome end, but what do I know? I’ve only been around for four decades. Cut me some slack.

Please