Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't.

O.K. so here’s the thing. I write a post about my crazy mind, and how, even in moments of pure triumph, my crazy mind turns them into moments of abject terror and panic, and when I scan through the responses I have gotten that congratulate me and ask “what was the problem?” Then I start to wonder…am I the only person with crazy mind? Because for a while crazy mind had me thinking that everyone had crazy mind, and maybe they do, except that for most people crazy mind is manageable. Or maybe it isn’t, except that my variety of crazy mind would be manageable to them, while their variety of crazy mind would seem like nothing to me.

I could try to define crazy mind. I could tell you what it is and where it comes from and hope that it would make sense. But it wouldn’t help. It doesn’t make the crazy go away. Nothing makes the crazy go away, well, nothing and time. But I am no good at waiting around for time to make the difference and so I rush about like a gerbil straightening his cage, pushing a pile of woodchips from one corner to the other all the while telling myself that this is somehow making a difference.

I go to al-anon and study the twelve steps and go to church and talk about God and in my spare time I read about Zen and Buddhism and philosophy and none of it helps. But mostly I think this is the case because I think that they will help. I think that having the answer to some question will somehow make the difference. But it doesn’t because all answers do is to explain a theory about how a thing should work. They explain the theory, not the thing itself.

The other night I went over to a friend’s house to help him install a ceiling fan. Well actually he asked me to de-install one fan, move another fan from a different room into its place and install a third in the vacancy left by the second. Piece of cake.

He actually invited a couple of friends over to help with the project(s) and really installing a ceiling fan is mostly about shutting off the power, hooking up the mounts, matching the various same colored wires to one another and turning the power back on. That is, in theory what is supposed to happen, except that nothing worked the way it should.

The old fan came off without so much as a whimper. The replacement fan also slid nicely into place. The new fan had a lot of components and took a while to assemble but it too finally hung proudly from the ceiling. Everything worked the way it should until the power was turned on, at which point it was revealed that nothing worked.

The easiest thing to do was start with the second fan. A little toggling of the wires and a bit of carefully screwing the plate back into position did the trick. But the new fan, the one with all the new fangled gadgets, that one took more work. I will spare you the story of trial and failure, but I will tell you briefly how, for one spectacular moment it did work, except that I hadn’t secured the toggle bolt and so, as the fan sat their proudly spinning, it suddenly lurched from its mount as it had been slowly unscrewing itself from the ceiling and fell, dangling from the many multicolored pretty wires that are probably even now the culprit for why it will not work at this moment. It worked, but now it doesn’t. We got it to light up, but the fan won’t turn. Having light is at least a good start but knowing we were licked for the night we put our tools up and ate dinner and laughed off the whole enterprise with good cheer.

There are many maxims that cover the gist of this story. The one I use the most is “the best lain plans of mice and men often go awry.” Another is my favorite and comes from the book “Little Big Man” and it goes something like this:

With Custer and his regiment annihilated, Jack the narrator accompanies his Indian grandfather Old Lodge Skins to a nearby hill where the weary leader decides to end his life. He gives his speech to the Great Spirit, saying he is ready to die. After the speech he lies down motionless for several minutes. It begins to rain the Grandfather wakes up and says “Am I still in this world?”

“Yes, Grandfather.” Says Jack.

Old Lodge Skins groans and gets up saying “I was afraid of that.” Then he adds poignantly “Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't.”

I don’t know what this has to do with my having crazy mind. Or even how I got here. I know that when I walked into my friends house I had no idea that things would turn out so half assed, just as I had no idea that I would freak out and convince myself that the faculties remarks were going to spell my doom somehow.

I feel so crazy most of the time and all I want is for it to stop. But that usually doesn’t happen all at once. So, in the mean time all I can do is to do the things that I know to help. Like going to meetings and talking to people and keeping a careful inventory.

I know that I am terrible at setting boundaries and that I am a huge people pleaser that just wants to be like and is mortified and terrified at the thought that someone out there isn’t happy. Also I am learning that this lack of boundaries means I am easily frustrated and that I just as easily allow this pent up frustration to build until it explodes in torrents of anger that terrify my wife and children. Also I am learning that part of embracing my imperfection and allowing myself to be human means learning to stop trying to explain everything all the time, kind of like starting a post with the words “O.K. so here’s the thing” as if to say “yet again I how found the “answers”.” Finally I think I need to be gentle with myself. As I often time tell a once adopted sponsee from al-anon: "eat, sleep, and try not to think so much."

Sometimes that Magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't I know it is time to take my own advice, to go easy on myself and wait for the magic to do its stuff.