Spangled Shafts of Light

Spangles of sunshine shone down through the trees as I walked home from the shopping center a moment ago. I felt so alive -- so fit and well. Vibrant. The first few days of fall are cherished by me before the nights grow cold, the days shorter, and the world turns a drab brown with winter's onset. Carefully dodging numerous cars on the highway, I listened to the radio on this fall day as Sean Hannity preached that spurious right-wing propaganda he is known for. It is the only thing on the radio during the day besides National Public Radio and I am a radio addict and will listen to anything except music. Even that right-wing bullshit. I am far too moderate in my political leanings to believe all that stuff Hannity and Limbaugh preach, though. I listen on amused, astonished people will believe such propaganda. Amazed that we allow such divisive people to play such prominent roles in our media -- given the spotlight for hours everyday. Giving rise to thoughts about how the public has little, to no control over our specious media these days.

I arrived home to find numerous messages on my answering machine. I had forgotten my injection for warding off my schizophrenia. I was already a day late. No wonder everything seems so technicolor and surreal -- my anti-psychotic medication having run out. I grow extremely impulsive and compulsive off my medications and the first signs of my disease are manifesting themselves. An incredible thirst -- I have drank over twelve sodas today. An incorrigible desire to smoke -- having smoked three packs already in this young day. One after the other, a cigarette is lit nervously. Thoughts of mind control by the medications my father forces upon me also erupt in my mind -- scared that the medications I take are hurting me, destroying my mind, controlling me. I will refuse to take them. It is the proverbial snowball rolling downhill. I can see the conundrum now, my mind still lucid. In a few days I will not be able to, caught in the throes of my mental illness. My family will cast disparaging remarks my way -- growing fearful of me as I become typecast as the stereotypical violent madman, a lunatic. I will be held in repugnant aversion by the people that I love.

I wrote so many things in my little black notebook today. Tales of Clara and George. Of Big S and Ferret. A dance of words played out on paper as I wrote about the lives of my interesting friends. Lots of dialogue as that's what I think I write best. Mistakenly, I think I am more creative when I am not medicated. I certainly feel more active and vibrant -- my mind so busy with ideas, thoughts, desires. It is an intoxicating feeling and state of being. Akin to a stupor. I almost want to burst at the seams to be a writer and to write, and couldn't wait to get home to share with you all my day down at the shopping center. I was weaving that tale with Clara and George as I was walking home -- carefully remembering all that was said. Knowing someone is reading is so comforting and encourages you to write in your journal every day.

My senses are heightened. I smelled burning leaves walking home today -- a comforting smell I normally associate with fall. It brought on a flourish of memories from my childhood as winter would set upon us and I would have to go back to that dreaded prison that was school. Thoughts of the big pecans in my grandmother's huge backyard on her farm as she would rake leaves into a big pile to let me light them excitedly with a match to burn. Those big pecans were always the last trees to lose their leaves near the first frost -- the last vestige of a summer's past.

Passed by that little Catholic church on my way home as well -- the same church my ex-wife would go to and my mother attended. I wanted to walk inside and sit on a pew in God's house. My inhibitions overrode my desires, though -- afraid that I wasn't a true Catholic, a true Christian, and wouldn't be welcomed. I wanted to pray solemnly for good health and fortitude -- to plead with God to sort it all out for me. One of the priests came out to tidy and tend the flowers on the front veranda of the chapel. I came so close to walking over to talk to him, drawn, wanting to confess my sins, wanting to hear encouraging words of God's love for me. A man of god -- he looked so pleasant and welcoming. Appearances can be deceiving I have learned. Even for a man of the cloth.

Think there must be something wrong with the wiring in my head. Because sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm schizophrenic, it's too frightening to remember sometimes. I sit here distracting myself with writing and reading, blanking things out. Even though I feel the first un-medicated symptoms coming on, I don't want to believe it -- I don't want to believe I'm actually mentally ill, or alcoholic for that matter. Who would? Labels, once given, you will never be able to shed unless you give up your current life and take on a whole new one. I still don't register it sometimes, even when I'm sitting here in my comforting home, writing, I stare up mindlessly at the blue sky out my window beyond this computer at the changing light and all around me the world swirls with a technicolor vividness brought on by my malfunctioning brain -- alternately stunned by either beauty or fear. I sit in awe.