is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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I'm talking about physical pain.
It is by now a cliche to begin any piece of writing with the observation that pain cannot be shared. Everyone already knows such a statement to be true and false simultaneously. You will never know precisely what I mean or what it feels like when I tell you that I am in the most searing kind of pain right now. But you may understand that the word "searing" points to a different kind of pain than would other word choices, like "throbbing" or "dull achy" or "hot and thready." And you might be able to refer yrself to your own experiences with pain. And even if you don't know what "searing" pain feels like, you may feel sympathy with me, like Marian did when we were discussing certain kinds of pain and she looked at my face and said, "I think yrs is worse than mine."--an excellent remark bearing sympathy and unknowing all at once.
But perhaps you also know that moment when a searing or slicing or throbbing or hot and steady pain starts to dissipate. It isn't euphoria, because you still feel as if you were in the grips of aversiveness. It's just relief. Relief still has its attachments to what makes it possible, whereas euphoria is a kind of disconnection. Relief is, as they say, sweet.
The relationship of a person to her symptomatic pain and its relief is not like the relationship of a person to chronic pain, the kind that either never goes away or returns with such frequency that it reorders a person's relationship to her own life and body. The solution, even partial, to that chronic kind of pain is more like euphoria. Because you've finally been separated from something that felt like it just was who you are.
And why is it that when I'm in pain I'm inclined to let everything else go too? For instance, I'm currently at Comfort Diner on 23rd and Broadway eating everything I'm not allowed to eat. Some of it could even make things worse. But who cares?! What does "worse" mean?
I just said to the waiter, "hey, do you have hot chocolate? can I have that TOOOO?!" with a certain amount of a crazed edge of urgency to my voice, such that I'm now the crazy lady in a Cathy cartoon.
This waiter is not happy in his work. He's wandering around muttering things under his breath. I feel like offering to stomp on his toe or break his arm to get his mind off of his troubles (one of my dad's favorite jokes. Me, age 8: "my tummy hurts!" dad, age 28: "here, let me break your arm!." to some that might sound terrible, but I'm laughing just thinking about it. I may have escaped (narrowly, and late) the family relationship to anger, but I will never escape the family humor. luckily, we're all HILARIOUS.).
I just used the restroom and the mirror reminded me of how terrible I look. I didn't shower or attend to myself at all this morning. But yet I will get on the train and get back to Philly in time to make a cake ot two for a superbowl party, as promised, and when I appear there, i'll be showered and presentable, and no one will know the difference.
Also interesting: being in a lot of pain in public and keeping it hidden. Of course it means that my pain is entirely manageable. It hasn't made me pass out or writhe around or anything. it can be assimilated. But there's a way in which it is pain that is doing the assimilating. it changes things.
Nonetheless, the onset of relief brings home to a person how much the phrase "taking the edge off" of something is not really metaphorical.
12:35 p.m. - February 04, 2007
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