The Power Outage

Los Angeles, California

When a noise woke me up recently, I realized something was not quite right. It took me a minute or so, heart beating wildly from the abrupt awakening, to realize that my house and neighborhood were pitch black. Power outage? My heart started to settle down as I reached for my phone and got onto the local water and power company website. It confirmed what the bleak darkness had already told me. Power outage. My brain whipped around as I landed on the various problems this presented, namely ingress and egress. Garage door and gate both power-operated. Ana would be arriving to do housekeeping at eight. I would be leaving for a medical appointment at 9:00. The website projected a 7:00 AM restoration. I put about 50% of my trust into that.

It was 5:30 in the morning and it was going to be a challenge to get back to sleep. So, as I often do, I turned to a podcast. In this case, Marc Maron's WTF podcast; an episode featuring Christina Ricci. I like Christina Ricci as an actress, particularly in the film The Opposite of Sex. She has a unique voice and as I listened to the interview I began to relax and even hope that I might drift off. And I did. But before my drift, I heard something that resonated and stayed with me the following day and even now, a few weeks later.

After talking about her struggles with anxiety, she mentioned that she tells her seven year-old, when he is grousing/whining about not wanting to go to school (and I am paraphrasing): Sometimes it is time to do, not to feel. You can feel later. I didn't sit bolt upright in bed when I heard this, but it did have an impact. Enough so that I thought about it a lot after I got up at 7:15. Power was still off but it came back on just before 8:00 and Ana arrived shortly after.

I feel a lot, and almost all of the time. I wouldn't say I am dragging all these feelings behind me in a net, but I cannot overstate how much of a feeling person I am. And, of course, this is for good and for not-so-good. That almost-dread which I feel before I venture out of my home has been a challenge since the pandemic eased. It doesn't stop me; I leave my house and it is ok once I do. But the anticipation anxiety has at times felt like a hurdle. A navigable hurdle, but still.

The concept of setting feelings aside to just do what is before you isn't really profound. It is simple. But sometimes it is that simplicity in dealing with feelings and especially in dealing with anxiety, that can get you through.

I talked to Cathy about this during my 'pilates' session (pilates in italics because Cathy's unique approach to her clients presents a hybrid of many things including but not limited to pilates). We agreed that sometimes giving your anxiety too much attention (what I call feeding it) is not good. Burying it? Not so good either. So maybe what Ricci was saying was essentially that you can feel what you feel, but sometimes now is not the time. It's like a good tax plan -- defer, defer, defer.

So I got power restored in a couple of different ways and I shared it with a few friends. I don't know if it had the meaning and impact for them that it had for me. I couched it by saying that an interview like that is a lot like purchasing a cookbook. If you get one good recipe, it was worth the investment. This recipe was: Approach and accomplish task. You can dive into the sensory -- the taste, the feeling, later. Right now, you just need to do it. Sense and sensibility (thank you, Jane Austin). And, thank you, Christina Ricci.