Madness is no longer very popular
The story I
have to tell you is about madness.
Not the
madness of the kind that has a proper name.
Not just nervous only like my mother used to tell us: "Be gentle, he is nervous today…"
I took many
hints from my mother regarding madness and know now how to tell when madness is
truly herself and at home -- "Stay away from him, he's touchy. He had too
much to drink today." That could be
madness but is not necessarily so.
Not even the
madness I call manic, like in manic states when I build too many buildings,
write too many poems. Sink into
depressive states of being because there are no more perspectives of drawing,
no more buildings for me to build, no more people to understand, no more poems
to write. No more voice.
When you
know you cannot change it, yet you must.
Or as the
two-season version of light madness, politely referred to as the bi-polar kind.
When you
rant and rave then talk not at all, hardly wake up in the morning.
Perfectly
excused, these lesser madnesses. They
are crazy but they are not mad, these people with their massive syndromes. As a matter of fact, these lighter versions
are thought to be very much in fashion
-- a therapist, pill, encounter group, social worker, a bit of
treatment, a garden, a bit of herb, society is kind to those types, easily
under control. Society forgives and
forgets them.
No. The
story I have to tell you is about madness of a different kind. Not a kind madness.
It seems to
me I need to find the way to impart to you something you do not wish to hear. I
do not wish to say.
The madness
I am obsessed with is the kind that has to do with jumping out of windows. Someone if after you. Someone is stealing your genius concepts,
designs for the flying boat right from under your head. Exquisite drawings of the chair that will
revolutionize furniture, ultimate fine architectural renderings of the cities
of the future, your novel of doom and revelation.
Right there
they are, coming after you. They catch
you and throw you into a room where you rock back and forth, catatonic in your
state. You stay until again they need
you to invent and to imagine your genius concepts.
The madness
I want to discuss with you then has to do with the distance you set between
yourself and her. You come into the room.
Your first act is to turn off the four radios tuned on to four different
stations of word, three televisions tuned on to additional four channels of
vision. Many languages spoken here. Full
blast. On the stove the pungent smells
of one ton of mint candy cooking. On the
driveway the remnants of the only viable family car turned into a sculpture of
cement. In the living room massive wooden carvings.
One by one,
you turn them off, these madnesses, you must!
Assertive personality.
Turn off a
mind you know keeps track of it all. You
come in and turn off the radio stations, the channels, click off the
fires.
This madness
does not and you know it.
In your
mind, it seems sometimes in mine, this madness masquerades as just a whim, a
problem deeply set in behavior and attitude.
Sometimes it seems this madness needs placebo control, drastic change of
circumstance, a revelation, a series of shock treatments.
Remain
pro-active, properly manage and control this madness. You might even be right!
But what I
miss are the times when mad people were thought to be wise. When they too were thought to have crossed a
threshold. The ivy stolen from their doors steps a healing to mine.
What I miss
are the times when people were like Jean Cocteau creating plays and literature
way ahead of their time.
What I miss
are the times when Anais Ninn talked to Henry Miller and understood the essence
of the small nature of his male conquering being.
When the
piano of Keith Jarrett took me beyond what had already been named.
What I miss
most of all are the times when I too have a glimpse of that gate, of the hell
inside.
Not of
heaven. Oh, heaven! Nauseatingly we all
have been told about heaven.
What I miss
is the protection of the blue hand painted on that threshold to keep me safe
inside, yes, but also to keep me safe outside when I venture beyond, to take a
peek at hell.
Not like now
though, the revulsion, the veiled accusations, the implication that if only I
could manage it properly I could see the light.
There is no
light in madness. There is only a threshold.
And a fear
for now, for the schizophrenic fifty three years old brother of mine, thirty
years into his madness, loved and not touched by synthetic science,
my almost
twin, this mad man.
Erica Weick
In memory of my brother Dirceu.
