Tending Your Garden
Memorial (Patrick Charles Jessup), oil on canvas, 60” x 86”, 2013.
This time of year, specifically the summer solstice, brings up a lot for me. Although I’d venture that emotionally I’ve recovered from that tragic day in 2010, each year at this time, my body tells me otherwise. Author Bessel van der Kolk M.D., wrote a famous book entitled The Body Keeps the Score, which says it all. June 21st was the day my husband Pat was killed in a plane crash in Lock Haven, PA.
I knew Pat a short time, compared to his family and many of his friends, and yet his death had a profound impact on me emotionally, psychologically, and physically. We were one month short of our first wedding anniversary when his plane went down. Blissfully in love, we believed without a doubt that we had a lifetime ahead of us— together. When I lost him, I lost my best-friend, the love of my life, and the future I thought was assured. My connection to flying disappeared with him, because I was terrified of getting back in a plane. Also, for more than a year, all inspiration to make art vanished too-- I couldn’t stand to be in my studio, a space I shared with Pat. And along with all of that, I also lost my ability to sleep.
On a deeper level, my trust in life was shattered. In my anguish, I couldn’t connect with anyone, and even when surrounded by family and friends, I felt intensely isolated. My prior faith that life was genuinely good evaporated. So, the summer solstice is not just a reminder of the tragedy of Pat’s demise, but also a marker of a very difficult era in my life. This period consisted of years of sadness and physical pain, the latter of which still afflicts me today.
Pat flying the B-17 in the Geneseo Airshow, NY.
Several years after Pat’s death, suffering from terrible insomnia, IBS and fibromyalgia, I went to see a wonderful acupuncturist in the town of Alfred, NY where I lived. One time, at the end of my session, he put this poem on the chair with my belongings, and without a word, left the room.
The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.
"In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."
"I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead."
"Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."
the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?"
~Antonio Machado, poet
I was stunned when I read it, because it was the first time I truly contemplated my own responsibility for my happiness and health. I still love the poem! Tending to my garden, which I interpret as my whole self— body, psyche, spirit— is a life-long endeavor.
But it took me a long, long time to grasp this lesson. In the first years after Pat’s death, the grief was so unbearable, I was desperate to relieve the pain. But instead of feeling it and processing it, I searched beyond my garden walls for anything that could consume me, and take me out of my sorrow— away from my sad garden. I found I could hijack my mind and body: through risky behavior, working tirelessly, or just by pursuing high-adrenalin experiences. If I could flood my brain and my body with adrenalin and endorphins, that would take away the numbness I felt inside, temporarily. And this is what I pursued—hard—for years.
Grey Out over Runway 23, gouache and aquatint on paper, 24” x 18”, 2010.
In 2010, a few months after Pat’s accident, I got back in the plane and devoted myself to learning aerobatics. I learned how to fly in competitions, often greying out during practice flights from pulling G’s. When this happens, because of lack of oxygen to the brain (bloodflow) your vision tunnels, and you lose the ability to see color, just before you lose consciousness.
Then there was the time I mentioned in “Geeking Out on Intuition and Insight”, where I actually did black out while flying (G-LOC). Luckily, I had a lot of altitude and was not spinning towards the ground when it happened. Instead, I woke up alone in the cockpit, confused as hell, gently descending several miles from where I had been practicing.
I flew to aerobatic contests all over the northeast, often in stupid weather conditions, scud-running to get there on time and skirting around dangerously bad weather and even worse visibility to get home.
The poor decisions weren’t limited to thrill-seeking in the sky, either. In the eight years following 2010, I got ensnared in a destructive relationship, moved three times, went back to school while teaching full-time, became an EMT, working the ambulance night shift… completed an accelerated BSN nursing program while raising 3 kids as a single mom, and ended up working—you guessed it— in the ER.
In other words, friends… I didn’t tend to my body—the only garden I have, that was entrusted to me— and my body eventually told me in no uncertain terms that enough was enough.
Chronic illness is often the result of a catalyst, the last straw when a body is pushed past its limits. That catalyst can be physical or emotional trauma, or a virus, bacteria, illness or toxin, and it launches the nervous system’s fight or flight mechanism to protect us. Stress takes tremendous energy and resources, and when it lasts too long, or becomes chronic, the brain’s limbic system gets dysregulated, causing us to stay stuck in fight or flight (sympathetic mode) too much. A stressed-out body in sympathetic mode cannot heal from the daily biological and environmental toxins it’s exposed to.
Enter an illness such as Lyme disease, and now the overtaxed body puts its last resources into fighting the invader. If another threat is added, say exposure to mold, now biotoxins are unleashed inside our precious garden.
The immune system produces systemic inflammation even after the exposure may be gone. This is why so many people, just like me, suffer from multiple illnesses. This is called CIRS, or chronic inflammatory response syndrome. It’s what long Covid is: a brain and body chronically inflamed.
Writes Bessel van der Kolk: "trauma interferes with the brain circuits that involve focusing, flexibility, and being able to stay in emotional control. A constant sense of danger and helplessness promotes the continuous secretion of stress hormones, which wreaks havoc with the immune system and the functioning of the body’s organs."
Now, I’m not saying that I regret my aerobatic flying— far from it. The thrill-seeking, and the desire to accomplish something both challenging and maybe a little dangerous, will always be in my blood. And I do so love that flying-high feeling of euphoria after an aerobatic competition flight!
Me flying my Super Decathlon in a competition flight.
The problem was my body's volume was turned up all the time, even when I was trying to sleep (which I couldn't very well). I had that "tired-n-wired" feeling, all the time, and my body couldn’t handle all the stress I was putting it through. I didn’t do the inner work of understanding what the trauma was doing to me on the inside, and I didn’t do the work of witnessing the parts of me that were traumatized by the loss. Instead, I shoved them into the closet and tried to lock them out of my conscious experience.
Human beings are extremely resilient, even though we suffer a lot. Many people have been incredibly tested by misfortune, and still they persevere... there are endless inspiring stories! I’m no poster child for resilience, believe me it took me 14 years of denial, self-destructive behaviors and then intensely hard inner work, to get to this place. But I’m learning a lot, now that I’m able to acknowledge the pain and fear of abandonment. In many ways, the years of chronic illness have forced me to reevaluate how I can live this life, despite illness. And if I hadn’t gotten so sick, and been forced to leave work, I’m not sure I would have ended up at this juncture: finally devoting myself full-time to my art— which is what I’ve wanted to do all along!
I also learned something about mindset: so much of how you look at something, and how you think about it, determines how you experience it. Your thoughts are important! I have spent too much time thinking like a victim of life’s circumstances, and listening to my negative self-talk about how deprived I am of the things I love (my husband, my health, flying). But if I flip the script, and focus on what I still have… I feel my mood lighten. Hope is at the root of resilience!
Even while I’m in pain or exhausted, I can sit down and paint, or to take a slow walk through the park, cuddle with my dog, or have a meal with my kids. There are so many things my body is doing right every second, every minute… if you think about it, the human body is a miracle. So I don’t need an adrenalin bath anymore to make me feel alive… and this is a sign I’m making progress!
Of course, I’d enjoy a little dirty side-up flying immensely… and I may get back to that, someday. In the meantime, I’m learning to redirect my thoughts, reminding myself that the healing that I seek happens when I do the things that make me happy, like painting, or writing.
I’m better off and safer choosing to live, even in this perfectly imperfect body. This is what I tell myself often.
If you’ve read this far, I know you have experienced pain, and felt like a victim, and made mistakes just like I did, along the way… because it’s human nature. And, you have a well of resilience too, this is 100% certain. All I can offer is the insight I have gained from my own mistakes, and through the help of many talented healers: tend to your garden, whatever that means for you. Do the things that make you happy and watch your thoughts. You can't hide from your own pain, but flip the script when you need to, and be at peace with both versions. These little behaviors have helped me immensely, so maybe they will be useful to you, or someone you love, who is struggling.