Recoveredbulimic’s Weblog

This brief title is almost cryptic in meaning. I’m back from my travels. I’m back to work on and finish up various projects. I’m back with my family. And I’m back to being myself. That seems to be a never-ending process: to reclaim the self I once gave up. By the way, this post isn’t directly about bulimia. The only real connection is that it wouldn’t be possible if I hadn’t recovered.

The trip was wonderful. I went by train, since my energy has been kind of low and I wanted to relax. Diesel is so expensive that it’s now cheaper to take the train as well. A friend I hadn’t seen in four years lives just 10 minutes away from the concert hall, so I had called her up and asked if I could spend the night. There wasn’t a room to be had otherwise, due to the soccer European Cup. She picked up my luggage upon arrival, then left me to my devices. I had an hour and a half to myself before it was time to meet a friend and her husband at the Café Glockenspiel (which is now Café Demel).

Thus I was at leave to pursue my favorite game: walking around and seeing where my feet lead me. As usual, they gave me a special treat. I walked through the Steingasse and saw a steep stairway between two buildings that went up a mountain (Kapuzinerberg). It reminded me of some of the stairways I’d seen in Florence, tucked in between the houses, leading up to the sky. In Florence, however, I hadn’t dared go up one really steep one. It was deserted, very narrow, and I felt afraid. In Salzburg I was reminded of that experience and it struck me that I felt no fear, although there was also no one around. Perhaps my knowledge of the language gave me the sense of being on my own turf.

I proceeded up the stairs until I came to a fork. I went to the left, enjoyed a view over the city, then went back down those few steps and up to the right. There I discovered the Stefan Zweig Path. There was a placque on the high stone wall around a garden, informing the inquiring visitor that he had lived there for several years — until 1934. That was somehow appropriate, as I have been reading one of his books “The Struggle with the Demon” lately, and read several other books by him many years ago. There was a strong affinity.

So I continued along the path, which left the stairs and led through a forest. A man appeared from a side path and kind of caught me off guard, but he was pursuing his own dream and barely registered my presence. After a while, I wondered where it would eventually lead to, as it was getting close to the time to meet my friend. A friendly-looking woman was sitting on a bench, so I approached her and asked where the path eventually came out. She asked where my final destination lay, and when I told her, she recommended that I turn around and go back the way I came.

On the way, I passed a bust of Mozart with the saying: “great in his youth, recognized late, never equalled.” That’s a rough translation, as usual, but it gets the point across. Just before the stairs began, I saw a church to the left, which I hadn’t seen on the first passing. I went in. It was beautiful. To the left was a statue of Mother Mary, with a rock background, portraying her on a mountain — appropriate for the general setting.

There were two stands with prayer candles in front of her, and an individual pew centered in front of them, facing her. I’d been hoping to find a fitting church because I wanted to light candles for my grandmother and for the boy whose funeral I attended the day before. I put a coin in the box, lit two candles, and knelt down to pray. As I prayed, my own children entered my prayers. I decided they needed their own candles, so I put in another coin, lit two more candles, and knelt down to pray some more. By then I included not only Granny, the boy, and my kids, parents and friends, but everyone I know or don’t know. The only stipulation for inclusion was their need of assistance — regardless of its nature.

With renewed peace and direction, I walked back down into the city, crossed the bridge and went to the café. My friends arrived soon thereafter. We spent a nice afternoon together — drinking coffee, then walking around the city. At one point, it started to rain heavily. We passed under an archway and decided to go into the next place we found. When we saw the red lantern hanging outside, we laughed and went on. Although it would have been funny to burst through the door and tell them we were seeking shelter from the storm!

The concert was wonderful. It’s delightful to watch Dylan do his thing. The band sounded great. The songs were arranged quite differently, but sounded good. It was my second concert, the first was in 1999. This time I definitely appreciated him more, as I’ve listened to so much more of his music since then. Afterwards I waited for my friend to pick me up. A woman stood next to me, waiting for her ride, and we had the most intense, informative 15-minute conversation imaginable! When my friend arrived, we parted and I recommended that she get to the Patti Smith concert in Vienna next month. Maybe we’ll meet again.

The visit with my friend was nice. We sat up, drinking wine and talking, unofficially waiting for her daughter to get home, and realized that we have experienced many similar issues and feelings over the past few years. I am so glad we hooked up again and will be sure to make Salzburg a regular stop when I’m headed in that direction. I’m grateful that we could easily pick up our friendship after so long, and to have a friend who would go out of her way to pick up my travel bag so I could move freely, and then wait up and pick me up after the concert. After spending the night, I got back on the train and went to Vienna, but I’ll tell you about that some other time.

Life these days reminds me of a trip I took a few years ago. I was invited to spend a week in a Villa in Lucca, not far from Florence. I thought about driving, but I was too nervous to go on such a long car trip in a country where I don’t speak the language. So, I decided to take the easy way and go by train. I took one look at the train schedule. Then I took a second look, to see if I’d missed anything. That’s when I summoned up every ounce of spare courage I could find and decided to drive.

I prepared ahead for the trip and bought maps of Italy, Florence, and Milan (which I’ll explain later). I also printed out a route planner from the internet. A friend helped me figure out how much the toll fares would be and buy the toll card in advance. I packed a few things and my guitar and set off early in the morning – around 4 am. The route was from western Austria through Switzerland, and then down to Lucca. I’d never driven in Switzerland before and at 4.30 am it was still dark, so I had a little trouble and wasted half an hour driving in circles. Eventually I was headed in the right direction – towards the San Bernardino Pass (elevation 2063 meters) in the Swiss Alps. I planned to drive through the tunnel, but there was a long line and some kind of construction going on. In the grey dawn, I decided to drive over the pass. I didn’t feel like losing more time and I figured it couldn’t be too bad.

It wasn’t bad at all! The road was windy and steep with lots of hairpin curves. More than once I thanked God that I was the ONLY person driving. I’m serious! No cars were behind me, and not one single car passed me from the other direction. Just as I got to the top, the sun had risen. It was absolutely incredible. I had to laugh. I’d quit smoking around 7 months earlier, but one of my thoughts in that incredible sunrise splendour was: “If I still smoked, I’d stop the car, get out, have a cigarette, and enjoy the view.” I just stopped and looked around for a few minutes, enjoying the view.

After that, I literally sailed through Italy. As I neared Lucca, I tried to call my friend with the cell phone. I had basic directions from the internet, but I figured once I was closer I could get exact directions. Well, my phone didn’t work! I drove around, following intuition, stopped, turned around and went back into the town part and asked for directions. As I soon realized, I had turned around in the parking lot of the Villa but hadn’t seen the sign! (It was not exactly a flamboyant sign to begin with.) I spent a wonderful 5 days with an incredible group of people and collected many fond memories.

I like that story, because it shows that my intuition was working. I just didn’t believe it, so I didn’t bother to look more closely to see where I was.

During the course of my life, I have done many things. Many people have told me I am courageous. I generally reply that I don’t believe that, as I don’t think I had a choice to act any other way. I’ve always done what I had to do, whether it be leaving home at 17, quitting my job with no money in the bank, or moving to Europe. That’s it. However, this trip did require courage and I was quite proud of myself for doing it.

What? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot! You want to know about Milan. Well, only if you promise to keep it a secret. I didn’t tell that many people (only close friends), because my husband and neighbors probably would have thought I was crazy or something. Driving back, I planned to meet a good friend in Milan and go to a Patti Smith concert there. I had trouble near Milan and asked a nice policewoman for directions. It was funny. She spoke only Italian, I only English or German, and yet we were able to communicate! Driving in Milan was a nightmare! I spent at least an hour looking for a specific garage near the theatre where the concert was to be. Finally, I gave up and said, “Okay, I’ll try one last time and that’s it.” And the entrance to the Park Garage appeared out of nowhere. Yes, I had a map, but there are several one way streets, as well as streets closed to private cars, so it’s rather tricky.

The concert was fantastic. Afterwards we drove back to Austria. Since it was late at night, we drove through the tunnel. There was construction going on in the tunnel, and bright lights and the whole thing reminded me of driving into another world, or even hell. It was spooky. Kind of like something out of a Mad Max film, actually. I got home around 4.30 am, after dropping my friend off at the train station where he’d parked his car. I confess, I would have been too scared to drive alone at night such a long way on an unfamiliar route. I knew my friend would take the train there and drive back with me. So I’m not THAT courageous!

Oh, and what does all of this have to do with life these days? It’s quite simple. I am really well prepared. Now I need to trust my intuition, since it leads me well when I listen. And I need to take risks. The results will be my reward.

What does housework have to do with eating disorders? More than you may realize! First of all, when I look back to my worst times — living alone in a studio apartment in New York City (that was the good part!) and bingeing blindly (you can guess which part that was), my apartment was a disaster! I will skip the details, but let’s just say I didn’t clean very often. When I did, it was usually in the middle of the night. It would have taken me the whole day to get motivated, or I might just do it on an impulse.

Somehow, cleaning my apartment at night, while normal people were asleep, I felt like an elf in a fairy tale. You know - I’d wake up the next day and — SURPRISE! — my apartment would be clean! But let me get back to the dirty part. There I would be, scrubbing away at the bathroom walls, and think to myself: “Gee, doing housework isn’t so bad. It’s just getting started that’s the worst part. I can do this more often, then the mess won’t be so bad.” Is that what I did? Of course not! The weeks passed once again.

Since I’ve recovered (and live with a very orderly, cleanliness-loving man), my housecleaning habits have improved considerably — if not drastically. But lately it has occurred to me that I do housework often just not to get a scolding, which is really quite stressful, so I’ve relaxed a bit. He’s not complaining anymore, because I’m not putting up with it anymore. Or maybe he’s walking on eggshells, now that I’m not? I’m not going to get into that today. The point is, I’ve relaxed things a bit and feel less pressure.

So much for my cleaning history as a bulimarexic and as a healthy woman. More important to me are the lessons life gives me, which also includes having to get through some difficult situations. It occurred to me while writing to someone that these challenges, issues and problems are kind of like housework. Whether I deal with them today, tomorrow, next week or even never — they won’t go away. So why not relax and deal with them when I’m motivated? Just like I do with the housework?

In fact, it just occurred to me. I’m sure anyone who does housework knows that some days are better than others. That is true about any work, actually. There are days when everything flows, the work seems to almost get done by itself. Equally, there are other days, when even the minor tasks seem to take forever or just don’t go well. For several tasks, it would make sense to consult a calendar. Depending on which sign of the zodiac the moon happens to be in (I don’t know if I’m saying this right, but you can check any good calendar), certain tasks are better done or left alone. I’m serious! For example, there are only a few days a month on which it makes sense to clean windows. Unfortunately, I haven’t cleaned my windows for a few months, because it either rained on those days, I had company, or — oh, dear! — I just didn’t feel like it. Yes, that can happen, too, regardless of the calendar.

Looking at it from this perspective, even though there are things about myself and life that need work, it really isn’t so terrible if I don’t get it all done this week. But rather than doing a marathon job once a year, maybe this could also be broken down into smaller tasks. Then less “mess” would collect over time. Theoretically, at least. When the relatives come, they always leave a mess!

I’m just about finished, but there is one more topic that must be discussed, since I’m talking about work. Free time. “All work, no play, for me that is a lousy day.” And yet, I find it so difficult to play sometimes, because there is still so much work to do. Playtime could also be put into the schedule. Oh, I’m so sorry if this sounds like I’m making up rules. I really shouldn’t do that, because the first thing I’ll do is break them. Several years ago, in a sudden burst of honesty, I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions. For me, there is absolutely no point. “Must, should, have to, ought to, supposed to…” are words I don’t particularly care for, regardless of context.

So don’t let me try to tell anybody what to do. It’s just a thought that housework and life work will not run away from us, so maybe we could stress ourselves less with the thought of what we ought (ouch!) to do and see it more as something that can be built into the flow of our day. Free time is unfortunately made of different material properties. If we don’t consciously make time for it, it disappears like a rainbow.

And if you have 3 minutes and 30 seconds of free time, here’s a beautiful rainbow for you! Enjoy!