Children Go Where I Send Thee...

In my last blog entry, I linked to a poem which I wrote on December 2, 2017.
The poem expresses some of my thoughts/feelings living with chronic widespread nerve damage.

The last three verses read:

I don't feel much emotion
That's what happens in my rough weeks
I will feel blue, frustrated, fatigued
But little passion

Energy is expended upon survival
As the body-mind goes
From one calculated self-care task
To another
There are no energy reserves
To trade for passion

perhaps an autonomic
energy-conservation
strategy

Around December 5th, I began reading Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I don't feel like going into the serendipitous events that landed the book in my hands; kind of by accident, yet on purpose.

Frankl shares his observations regarding a person's response to the experience of a concentration camp. He notes three stages:

1) Shock, when the reality hits shortly after arrival at the compound.
2) Apathy, after prisoner-slave life has become the way of life.
3) [I haven't gotten that far in the book yet, but this stage happens after freedom.]

In no way do I know what it's like to live in a concentration camp. I have never known that kind of arduous labor under horrendous circumstances; the humiliation of being stripped of everything, even all the hairs from one's head and body; the stench of death; the famished hunger; the attempted erasure of one's personhood being relegated to a numeral. To list just some of the trauma.

Yet, Frankl's insights can be applied to life outside that concentration camp.

Of the second stage he states:

Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one's own life and that of the other fellow.

Upon reading that I thought, I get that. Especially during the years when all my focus was on saving my arms and legs. I had to save my limbs. My entire focus was on saving my limbs. 

I thought of what I had written in my poem - that "there are no energy reserves to trade for passion," and that perhaps this is an "autonomic energy-conservation response." Or as Frankl put it,"a mechanism of self-defense."

And, at least in part, I have accomplished saving my limbs. Or my body has. My body and me and my team of doctors and wellness supports. I no longer live each day with the terror of my limbs becoming useless. Yet after living with nerve damage for over six years, I am settled in a kind of apathy. So much focus still goes into the daily task of calculating how much energy a supposed simple activity requires - such as dressing or bathing or going to the store.

My next immediate thought was,  Anyone who's been beaten down by life again and again understands that apathy. You just hang on, and do the next thing to survive.

I asked my self, In my focus of preserving my limbs, and now, of my self-care tasks, does that preserve "the other fellow?" 

I thought of my family and especially my husband who is my main caregiver and helper. I answered my self, Yes. Where I can care for my self does help preserve his energy, his life.

Frankl discusses how he and others found relief from the apathy and from rigors of life by recalling cherished memories of loved ones and feeling the emotions of those times; by the wonderment of nature and a sunset; and by art. I'm still reading about the art. So far the only art mentioned are make-shift cabarets with song and dance and humor. And that may be all there is. No pencils or tools are needed for impromptu live theater.

I too have found relief in cherished memories, nature, and singing. All three gave and continue to give relief, a bit of hope, and beauty. It's something that simply happened over time in learning to manage how to function through muscle and energy and bodily communication-deadening.

Tonight Hubby and Son and I watched part of a Johnny Cash Christmas Special. At the end the singers - which included Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Roy Orbison, Roy Clark, Jerry lee Lewis, The Statler Brothers, and some ladies of whom I don't know their names - sang Children Go Where I Send Thee. I said, "I haven't heard that song in forever. It must be a Negro Spiritual."

My mind envisioned slaves singing in the cotton fields as I thought, Oh how those songs must have helped ease that harsh life. Provide an inkling of respite.

I recalled what I'd learned about how in Africa, the drummers drum while workers labor in fields and villages. It's not slave labor, but life labor. Lyrics and dance accompany the songs.

On writing this blog piece I wondered, Is it offensive to use the term Negro Spiritual? Should I use the term African-American Spiritual? 

When I read part of W.E.B. Du Bois' book The Souls of Black Folk published in 1903, I was taken by the word "Negro." It came across as a beautiful and rich word to me. At the time I thought, I wish it hadn't become an offensive term. I looked up the history on the word here. 

And I looked up the song, Children Go Where I Send Thee. It is a Negro Spiritual.

After reading about the famish Frankl and his fellows survived I told myself, I'm going to remember Frankl when I'm tempted to overeat.

But I'm sure that sometimes, maybe lots of times, I'll forget to remember.