Dormancy (we used to wait)

"joy of a fallen leaf"

Arthur Rackham

Whoof.  Where has the time gone? 

Summer has been a beautiful whirlwind.  For once I seemed able to take this time to appreciate moments as they came, instead of analyzing them from a removed perspective… and it felt great.  Time slipped in and out and felt neither fast nor slow, but instead oddly suspended.  My first true summer in the city feels like it was a complete success, but overnight the air and leaves have begun to change and I revert to some old friends— introspection and thoughts of the future.

There’s another reason I haven’t written lately as (oddly enough) since my last post on change life has been providing it at a rapid pace.  How to explain… it’s like something suddenly went *click*.  And though there’s a time and a place to scrutinize these moments in order to gain perspective, I opted to be in them as opposed to a spectator to them.  Somehow this seemed to give a little significance to the good fortune that’s come my way.  So the writing hiatus was long, but deliberate.

But let’s back up a bit.  A topic I’ve wanted to touch on for a while is dormancy, but it was hard to write about because I continued to feel stuck in—well—feelings of stuck-ness.  Then a few conversations and a random shuffle of Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait” prompted some thinking and eventually, writing, about how suddenly change can transpire.  It seems strange/How we used to wait for letters to arrive/But what's stranger still /Is how something so small can keep you alive/We used to wait.

What precipitates change?

In life as well as in acting— equal value must be given to the “moment before” the action.  However this time frame can end up seeming stagnant and unproductive since there isn’t a set end-date to this dormancy, which in turn can result in feelings of helplessness.  It’d be a lot easier to deal with the wait if there was an expiry date on things like job-hunts, love pursuits, and general feelings of ‘blah’.

Here’s an example.  If you’ve been following, you’ll know about my ongoing relationship with Amenorrhea (lack of a menstrual cycle for an extended period of time.) During this time doctors have told me my hormones are in a state of dormancy, some even going so far as to say I’ve reverted to a ‘prepubescent state’.  And let me tell you it became hard not to include my mental-health in that by proxy, and feel somehow emotionally stunted.  Over the last few years I’ve found it hard to remain open with people and at times felt it was impossible to meet someone new.  But (because I don’t think it would be a complete blog without advice from a friend) I was once given that dormancy doesn’t mean dead… it’s defined as something alive but not actively growing.  Animals have normal physical functions that in dormancy or hibernation have been suspended, or slowed down for a period of time as if in a deep sleep.

And this gave me comfort.  We need sleep to recharge, and we need dormancy—this rejuvenating— to reinvent. To evolve.  So it makes sense that this long period of dormancy has precipitated what feels like a time of exciting transformation.

I read an article months ago that I’ve been itching to write about.  So stick with me here…

I know we sleep—and animals hibernate—out of a basic and primal need; but what about an imposed dormancy as a physical reaction to a time of crisis?  I’m only going to refer to this through my experience (which is what I am learning to be a hibernation of hormones) but I’m sure there are examples of this in emotional and cognitive functions as well.  If you have 9 minutes and are keen, please listen to the CBC interview with Dr. Jacinta Beehner here.  For those interested you can scroll down the page to “Gelada Monkey Miscarraige” and it’ll give you a clear idea of what I’m driving at.

The gist of the interview is this: that a female monkey in a particular breed can actually pick up on the external cues of her environment (such as the dominance of a new and aggressive male) that “can cause her to curtail any current reproduction.” Which means that the gelada monkey can basically preempt a self-imposed abortion when she senses that her current situation will not be a healthy one for her offspring.  The example given is the act of introducing a new male coming into dominance.  These new and dominant males will often kill the babies that are not their own; so instead of suffering infanticide the mothers will anticipate this, and their bodies will essentially terminate the pregnancy to start fresh.

Touchy subject, I know.  Where I go “eureka” another may think I’m being insensitive by drawing parallels to a primate.

But because I’m not in a dangerous environment, I have the benefit of being able to comfortably ponder this notion of my own external cues.  What are they?  How does my body react to them? And how do the chimps DO this, anyway? 

It’s boiled down to a “combination of chemical and social cues.”  And to me— that seems like an incredibly beautiful, and intuitive thing.  And who’s to say we aren’t all products of these cues in one way or another?  In light of my personal experience, during the last couple years I’ve had the stresses of:
-moving
-creating a new life in a huge city
-going through a time of transition and loneliness
-financial insecurity, and the consistent ebb & flow of DOLLA BILLZ
aaaand the instability of an acting career.  To name a few.  If those are my cues, then why on earth do I think my physical and cognitive sides should cooperate… and agree to make a baby? Not that I’m ready for one—I just want to know that someday when I am, my body will be a willing participant.

I think if we all paid a little more attention to what our environments are, and how they affect us mentally, we could really get down to a much more holistic approach to health. Often I think our bodies know what’s best long before we’re ready and willing to admit it to ourselves… so maybe it’s best to let things run their course.   Or, best in my case at least.

And when the external cues change again— and a whirlwind summer blows in someone that shifts all perspective and makes the insignificant once again beautiful… that’s a pretty wonderful thing.  I guess sometimes it takes the complete closure of one door in order to open another…or to turn around and realize the window was open behind you, all along.