Noticing safety

I'm observing my little world from the warm water of the clawfoot tub in my sunroom. Fresh snow has blanketed everything outside my windows, and I'm watching a territorial mockingbird chase a mated pair of cardinals around the branches of the weeping cherry. Tufted titmice, chickadees and red breasted nuthatches flit from one hanging feeder to the next, the latter’s nasal “yank” call catching my attention as one I only hear in these winter months. Occasionally Mr. and Mrs. Bowie (our local red bellied woodpeckers) appear in turns, their size and characteristic swooping, gliding flight chasing away the competitors for a few moments.

Right now, I am safe.

This is the refrain, the mantra, the conscious reassurance I offer to my body each day. My body lives in a default state of near constant hypervigiliance, muscles tensed as though I might fly off the planet if I don't hold on. My chronic pain is due in no small part to the involuntary clench of my fists, the way my thighs hover off of my seat in case I need to run, and the anxious set of my jaw.

There is no relief in sleep, as night terrors are a companion I can't seem to shake. In my sleep, my body acts out unconscious events without the mediation of my conscious mind. No mindfulness exercises, breathwork, or cognitive reasoning is accessible to me in dreams, and I am at the mercy of the part of me that believes I am never safe from threat. If I could, I would certainly employ RAIN, or 3-2-1-P-B-R, or any of the grounding and attunement methods I've learned. Unfortunately I have yet to master lucidity, and remain an “exciting” bed partner in the least fun way imaginable, often waking already in flight from my bed, screaming, or crying.

This hypervigiliance has, however, made me something of a professional noticer. Things that may elude the attention of others stand out in neon colors, or call to me in a buzzing hum in my bones. I read the bodies of other people like they are billboards. I can spot a person in distress in a crowd of dozens. When there is trouble, the overwhelming onslaught of sensory data around me suddenly coalesces into one focused beam of attention, and my body is in action before my thinking brain has caught up. Thus far, my instinct has always been to run toward the cry for help, the danger, the need.

This has not only served me well in my career as a nurse, but has led to a private life full of bizarre anecdotes.

Leaping from a tent in the dim pre-dawn light at a festival (wearing nothing but a My Little Pony robe) to answer a scream for help and find a campmate on the ground in the midst of a seizure.

Leaving my Husbywolf flabbergasted in his seat when I suddenly sprint across a darkened theater in the middle of a stand-up comedy show to successfully resuscitate a man in cardiac arrest.

Racing down the sidewalk to scoop up a dazed juvenile mourning dove from beneath the trampling feet of an oblivious stranger (he was wearing flip-flops, no less!).

Scrambling up a scree-covered slope at a remote climbing crag when a stranger pulled a massive chunk of rock down onto himself, my legs pumping beneath me before the boulder had even stopped rolling.

It's a curse and it's a superpower, both. I'm still learning to notice when I am safe, and to convince my body to believe me in those moments.

I'm reading: An Immense World by Ed Yong. It's brilliant, engaging, and littered with footnotes that delight the curious mind with their tangential details and literary color.

I'm listening to: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, specifically the We Made It Weird episodes with just Pete and his wife Valerie. Listening to two people in love make each other laugh, process relationship and family life in real time, and delight in one another's company is the soothing content I'm after these days.

I'm drinking: Iced espresso with orgeat and whole milk. Yes, iced, even when it's snowing.

I'm sniffing: Isarra by Dusita. It is the softest, sweetest, warmest fougére, and the first fragrance to change my mind about Tonka bean. It's the scent equivalent of your favorite sweater.