Eighteen foot swells

40

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Charlie’s life ended on eighteen-foot Lake Michigan swells. And now, I join him.

By early April, occasional dizzy spells churn into an unremitting tempest. Unlike ocean swells and their corduroy predictability, our inland waves aren’t driven by tides, refuse directionality and change on a dime. Our waves threaten disaster. Our waves take life.

Dave is concerned but my symptoms are invisible. He doesn’t share my new life asea. He can’t envision the volatile shifts—from giant swells to choppy waters—a neurological squall of misinterpreted signaling. He can’t see the sidewalk liquify under my step as we walk around the block to “shake it off.” But he does see a shrinking me, an unrecognizable me—a once-daring tomboy, now-overly cautious, timid and disoriented by slight changes to my environment. He’s as scared and desperate as me, especially as the sudden demands of becoming Syd’s full-time guardian parallel my descent.

My primary care doctor shrugs and refers me to an ENT. She’s convinced it’ll pass and I’m a good patient, so I nod, feign chipper, and agree. Nothing can last forever. I wrestle my way though once-effortless tasks—brushing my teeth while standing at the mirror? Clown house. Conversing? I can’t focus on you. Sleeping? Forget about it. My stomach knots itself into cowering prey under the bewildered stares of clients, grocery clerks, ER docs, family. I bail on commitments. My phone pinging or a simple knock on the door sends me into rib-prickling panic.

Before heading to Orcas Island on another catalog gig, I ask the producer if any doctors or acupuncturists or shamans or healers or witchdoctors or miracle workers or exorcists on the island can heal me. I am desperate. If nothing else, at least I can book a few appointments—a place to lay down at the end of the work day and feel safe, not alone with the sensations. I make three appointments with a Native American shaman/acupuncturist; if necessary, I will spend my entire week’s pay to get through each day. But instead of getting better, the sensations foment and intensify. Electric shocks prickle my torso. Sharp pain digs at the base of my skull. My tongue goes numb. When on my back, I’m upside down. When standing, a rude force yanks me starboard and under. Take me, I’m already under.

The shaman suggests: Kundalini experience?

I reject: Shove the snake back in the basket for another lifetime. I can’t do this.

The last night on Orcas I pull myself together and join the crew for a wrap dinner. My sunniness isn’t fooling anyone, especially myself, but going through the motions helps me believe the sensations will disappear as spontaneously as their arrival. But the restaurant is deafening, every voice in the room punches with equal intensity and volume. Silver on ceramic, a pitchfork into eardrum. The tea lights carve mean angles into my eyes. I order steak frites, something grounding. But I can’t hold it together anymore; my brain is sounding so many alarm bells I think it might explode. I steal away, unsure if I’m walking in a straight line, and then at last out of sight, I gasp for air.

Destiny sees me and follows. She knows everything, as most makeup artists do. Spending hours every day on a job with as little as six inches between faces, gut-busting laughter and heart-wrenching vulnerability are all part of the shared territory. With pencils and brushes animating our stories, I have experienced more intimacy with makeup artists than I have with some ex’s.

Destiny grabs me into her arms and we cry. She knows a body unhinged. But while her presence tries to comfort, I disappear into the unlit night sky. It’s much safer up there. After a teary deluge, she throws a steady arm around my waist and helps me back to my room. She returns a few minutes later with my dinner, delivered on a tray with, “Do you want company?” I want to say yes. I want someone to hold me down to the ground, tell me with weight, not words, that I’m safe. And I want to believe them. But I don’t feel safe anywhere, especially in this body. I want to disappear, dissociate, and I can’t with someone near.

“I think I just need to eat dinner and crash, I’ll be better in the morning.”

She hesitates, feeling under my words, “Ok, my ringer is on loud if you need me.”

The door to my room closes, swallowing the last bit of light from the hallway. I lay on my back staring at nothing as sensory input distorts and severs me into nothing. I look down at a woman who appears normal but inside a hellscape…

shock waves course through her torso, she looks around the room, unable to distinguish the floor from ceiling, gravity pulls from all four directions, she weighs five hundred pounds, then a feather, voices in the hall blade into her chest, she’s hungry but can’t eat riding bareback in a bouncy castle at sea, hot tingling, painful tingling everywhere, her dinner tray is on the floor next to the bed and every half-hour, she rolls off the mattress onto hands and knees then hips then full recline to shovel spoonfuls into her mouth—prayers to dampen sensations delivered on meat and potatoes, she sips water, certain it’s been laced with LSD, the hotel carpet is a soft friend, she needs a soft friend, she shrinks awareness into poly-fiber-weave-on-cheek, each scratchy nub a sensory distraction from existence, but when an angry rumbling at the base of her skull deafens and demands incarnation…

I return to my body and it starts all over again.

I scream silently.

credit: surreal, digital artist Aykut Aydogdu

I return home and more shoulder shrugs unravel hope. The ENT writes a referral to a neurologist. The bike incident last year misleads and prolongs a diagnosis—there are insurance codes for traumatic brain injury and post-concussion syndrome, none for an unraveling identity and losing one’s shit. So with four more months of desperate waiting on my calendar, I move forward with life, hanging on to what little threads of normalcy I have left.

In early May, I head back to the airport for another short gig in Wisconsin. I sit in the gate area bouncy castle as a troop of sugar-jacked monkeys tumble around me. I now live 24/7 on a strange planet and I can’t adapt. My body’s new homeostasis, terror.

I watch everyone board the plane but I remain in my seat. I think I can, I think I can. Get on that plane, Kim. First class boards. Families and special needs. A little girl claws at her dad’s leg until he picks her up. I think I can, I think I can. Section A, B, C, then D. The gate is full of traveler buzz and then empty. I think I can, I think I can. I hear the flight attendant call my name. Once, twice, three times. I don’t budge while tears flood my eyes.

I can’t.

The gate closes.

I freeze in my seat. Life literally flies by at airports— the full catastrophe of love, dreams, loss and disappointment are held within every terminal and then lifted and landed by wings. My insignificant nightmare is dulled by the busyness and I need it this way. I step outside it all. The woman I used to be is on that plane, headed to a silly job to collect a silly paycheck and then she will continue her silly, predictable existence. This other woman, the one whose sit bones are glued into a chair at Gate 36 can’t see the future. She can’t even figure out what the next fifteen minutes look like. So she doesn’t do anything at al. She wants everything to be normal again. She wants the ground under her feet to stop bobbing up and down. Travelers rush to their gates and she recognizes the pace. Her life changed too fast but now she can’t stop it.

She needs uneventful. She needs boredom. No new aunts and uncles to meet. No new cousins. No new dad.

I rewind events and think about my choices. I could have said no to meeting the Brauer’s in person this year. I could’ve waited. But that would’ve delayed the inevitable. I could have never written the letter, but then a part of me would always be in hiding. I could’ve never taken the DNA test but then the mystery wins. I could’ve never typed “Charlie Brauer musician Wisconsin” into the search bar, but how many things do we google every day, not expecting it to change the course of our lives?

I don’t know how long I sit at the gate. Minutes? Hours? Eventually reason breaks through my trance. I have to call my agent, tell her I’m not on the plane. I have to tell her what’s happening to me. But I don’t know what’s happening to me. Admitting this to her, giving voice to my circumstances, makes it more real. I can no longer fake my way through this with a smile. Now my agency knows. Soon, all my clients will know. Soon, my income will disappear.

And now I have to call Dave. I need a ride home.

“Hello?” I can already tell by his voice he’s upset. He knows I’m supposed to be on a plane.

“Dave? I’m still at the airport. I didn’t miss my flight. I mean, I did. I mean, I didn’t get on the plane.”

“I’m on my way.”

Dave and I both have similar trauma responses. Freeze. Go on auto-pilot. Occasionally the ice breaks and we have an outburst of emotion but when Dave’s already stressed, my neediness plummets the mercury in his blood. I’ve learned there’s a right time to let loose or I’ll re-traumatize myself, crying for help with no one to rescue. Underneath the freeze, Dave is terrified as he watches his independent, capable, optimistic-to-a-fault partner unravel. Now he has two adult dependents.

So for now, as long as we keep moving, check boxes, continue our momentum, the hot catastrophe in our hearts are protected by glacial sheets of ice.

As we drive home in silence, I remember in just two short weeks, we’ll be returning to the airport, flying across the country to meet the Brauer siblings — Janet, Rich, Carol . I start canceling everything in my head as the thought sickens. There’s no way I’m ready to meet my biological family. They are strangers and I’m a mess. But I can’t cancel. I won’t. This family, my family—we are only a few calls and emails young. We need time together to render time inconsequential.

But as the date of our departure looms, I only get worse.

On May 17th, the night before our flight and wan with shame and embarrassment, I send off a sunny, yet apologetic forewarning.

Dear Carol, Janet and Rich,

I'm so looking forward to spending time with you this week. I have been putting something off—hoping for a miracle and am still holding out for one—but it’s better I fill you in now than after we arrive.

I've been experiencing some crazy debilitating dizziness this past month and have been in and out of doctor visits trying to get to the bottom of it. I feel so embarrassed and scared to share this totally-out-of-sorts me with all of you. I want nothing more than to be strong and share my fullest heart with you and not worry about this. These symptoms just really have a hold of me in a way I've never experienced.

We fly out tomorrow, arriving in Traverse City later in the day. My mantra tonight and tomorrow is that WE WILL GET ON THAT PLANE. Making this trip is so very important to me and it may even be healing on some deeper level. Who knows. I do wish I didn't have to send this email at all, arriving tomorrow in full spirits so we get on with living and loving.

I press send, praying the next ice age descends overnight and all flights are canceled indefinitely.

At 6:55am on May 18th, Dave and I board our plane, my heart’s flight fueled with their reassurance:

We love you. Even if you’re only up for a hug, that’s fine with us. We just want you to be well. We’re all happy to be here together so no pressure on when you are able to connect. It doesn’t have to be for long. And did we mention that we love you?

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