Today I finally left the house.  I had been entombed, removed, afloat, avoiding anything and everything.  Curled with the cats, I read relentlessly, obsessively and revoltingly my current book, "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith.  It was not a pleasurable read, through no fault of the author.  No, it was the fact that all around me was the supreme mess that I have created.

My room and studio are beyond the pale.  Treacherous trash heaps, blooming projects, discarded ideas, endless projects, vast swamps that reflect the sinking mire and muck of my mind.

On Thursday, I drove to the prison, to renew my volunteer badge.  A light snow plopped fat white gifts on my window.  It was the second time that I had driven the truck there, using the highway.   I had shifted into fifth gear for the third time ever.  Turning off State Road onto Rhawn, I fishtailed massively.  I steered into it, swung the other way and then gained control.  The car behind me stayed back.  I would have.  I was shaking like a leaf, as I showed my I.D. to the prison guard.

When I left for the supermarket today, I felt the rising horror of a panic attack.  I was terrified to go on, but more fearful of returning home.  At home, I could take the Valiums that I have for times like this.  But.  I might never leave, never buy food, never buy the cigarettes I so badly needed.

I made it to the store, fighting nausea, shakes, the tsunami of my body and mind.  I bought the cigarettes, the curry base, the chicken, the gallons of Diet Coke.  I made it back, choking back the phenomenal, random fear and terror.  The crushing guilt, loneliness, fear of others, panic, self-loathing.  The dread of dying.  The bigger dread of living.

Chopping the dead bird, the onion, the baby bok-choy, I regained myself.  I resolved to move sooner, to take charge, to fulfill my limited goals earlier.  I found that if I made myself participate in life, I might actually be able to live it.