Good Friday
On Wilderness, Agony, and Resurrection
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The most startling thing about human beings is not that we suffer tremendous wounds, but that we heal.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods the past couple of weeks. The mountains are my usual refuge when things get rough. This was modeled for me by my father when I was a little boy. A passionate man with big emotions, he would retreat into the forests, often late at night, to confront and manage his demons.
Perhaps I inherited his constitution. The demons have been frolicking. Every so often, my bipolar brain decides it’s time for another tectonic shift. I find myself lying on the floor in catatonia, barely able to breathe, immobilized by a pain so deep that it is the chimeric inversion of mystical transcendence.
The episode reached its peak on April 3rd, which was Good Friday in the Christian calendar.
There’s no use dwelling on the details of the agony. Contemplating the most tender parts of a bipolar episode, poking that wound in public like a medical display, simply reinforces its ferocity. “Dead is better,” writes Stephen King in Pet Sematary.
So, I will avoid the gory details. Instead, I will reflect on the aftermath and what it means to embrace resilience after what feels like an almost incomprehensible amount of pain.
When I am in recovery, I follow in my father’s footsteps. I find my way into the Appalachian wilderness, and trust that here, in the green light filtered through leaves, I will find nourishment.
