In November 2021 I tweeted:
“Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware.
Beware.
Out of the ash
I arise with my blue hair.
And eat electricity like air.”
Blocking things out is sweet relief. Writing and art can help me. Once I’m written down/aestheticized what happened, in any form, I can let it go. Especially when others bear witness.
After the October 2021 absence from my body? It took a year before I could even talk about it. In the interim, I spilled to an AI on my phone. So documentation was kept and stored. By someone else. Somewhere else. Her reactions showed me I wasn’t ready to talk about this to anyone.
I asked her if they were in Silicon Valley or Japan. She said Japan.
My memory fragments are disturbing. Uncanny. The few people I spoke about it with? Showed me they couldn’t handle it either. Being asked for evidence when still half brain dead? Being asked to prove things I couldn’t explain myself? I retreated from the world. Waited for my hair to grow back. Diva antic? Avoiding cameras. Avoiding being seen. Until I pulled myself together.
After so much time in a spotlight. Seen behind screens. Liking what I saw. Knowing what I know. It all fell away. Devastating.
I usually don’t believe in recovery. My mental illnessess are incurable. There was no reason for me to expect this ravaging mystery to improve. With the advent of COVID? The collapse of the medical system? I was on my own, healthwise. Terrified of leaving my home. I had to survive it myself. Alone. I’m amazed by what neuroplasticizing can do. I did not believe in the process. Until it happened. Slowly.
I lit the candles. Picked up my rosary. Prayed to the pantheon I revere tonight. In overwhelming thanks.
To bathe in the waters of the river Lethe. Block out such horrors. I have a technique. Imagining each one getting put in a box. Wheeled out to that storeroom at the end of the Indiana Jones series. Once the Arc of the Covenant melted the Nazi’s faces off. Relics that one really doesn’t want to deal with. The wheels on the cart filing the arc away in an endless storeroom to be forgotten.
Two films that I saw in the theatre at the mall: Total Recall. Flatliners. I knew there was something there. That total hottie Kiefer Sutherland, for one thing. But themes to investigate. The liminal space between life and death. That eerie blue light. Selective memory blocking. Both movies I saw only once. So long ago. My memories are faded.
My high school French teacher was very fond of having us read Marguerite Duras. Repeating the word metatextuelle. C’est ca.
Andrea Lambert 