Decorations

My friend Naima is full of ideas. A couple days ago she decorated my ceiling. Actually she decorated my ceiling last year; but I left that decoration up all year, and then a couple days ago she augmented it with a new layer.

The original layer was a bunch of red and green shiny Christmas balls. She hung a couple dozen of those on individual strings taped to my ceiling. Lots of climbing and un-climbing of the ladder. She did it because I'd mentioned to her that it was something I'd always wanted.

Actually I hadn't always wanted it. And here's the story about that. Once upon a time, I was not afraid of heights. I used to enjoy leaning over the edges of cliffs, bridges, tall buildings, just to see if I could see straight down to the ground, where the itty bitty people were moving so slowly.

But one day, I went with my dad to visit my grandma in Florida, and he took me parasailing. I forget who advised me on it, but someone told me to tell the parasailing people to let out all the rope, and let me go as high as I could get. So that's what I told the parasailing people, and that's what they did to me.

No one seemed to noticed that I was hanging completely limp in the harness, staring down at pure death from 1200 feet up. I guess the idea of installing an intercom system on those contraptions hadn't occurred to anyone; but I would have liked to have found a button up there on my harness somewhere, that I could push and say, "OK, I've had enough now. I'd like to come back down quickly please."

But no. They left me up there for a good long time. I had plenty of time to think things over. What it would look like from this height, to see someone hit the water after falling from this height. How long the rope was, and how the whole long length of it had to be good and strong, in order to stay attached to both me and the boat at the same time. How small the parasail was, and how it could easily separate from my little harness, and fly off, leaving me to move in a straight line 1200 feet closer to the center of the earth.

After that experience, I developed a whole new set of sensations when looking down from high places. For one thing, I started to feel like I couldn't be sure of my balance, and I might just pitch over the edge of whatever I was looking down from. Even if there was a good solid guard railing, it seemed as though I could definitely just pitch over the edge without realizing it.

I also noticed that it seemed as though my glasses might fall off, because of tilting my head down to look at the ground. It didn't matter that I could violently shake my head without the glasses coming off (I would test this periodically); if I was looking down from a height, I became certain that my glasses would fall off.

These feelings, along with the fear of dying, started to happen at lower and lower altitudes, until even standing on a chair or a stool would do it to me. It was a slow process, but a few years after my parasailing experience, I couldn't tolerate any elevation above the ground at all.

At around that time, my friend July asked me to clean the Christmas balls that hung on individual strings in the hallway of her house. She lived in a San Francisco collective, called The Purple Rose, and there was a hallway right outside the kitchen. The kitchen was used to cook for 15 or 20 people each day, and the grease vapor would billow out the door and along the ceiling, and over time would coat the Christmas ball strings with grease. One of the household chores was to wipe the grease off the strings.

So once when I was visiting, July asked me to do it, and I agreed, in spite of knowing full well that I'd be terrified. I took the ladder, and got started. Now, I could make it up the latter to to the top. I wasn't paralyzed by the fear. I just had all these emotions and sensations whirling through me while I did it. But just going up the ladder wasn't enough to do the job. From the top of the ladder, I could reach maybe a dozen or so Christmas balls, and wipe their strings clean. But there were maybe 100 or more up there. So I had to do it, then climb down the ladder, move the ladder, climb up it again, and clean the next set. I had to do that over and over and over again. Up the ladder... down the ladder... up the ladder... down the ladder.

The thing is, after the first few times up and down the ladder, it did start to get easier. Eventually it was really just normal. I wasn't thrilled about going up and down the ladder, but neither did it cause those whirling sensations to the same degree as it had.

After that, it's not so much that I was cured. But I noticed that the sensation of being afraid of heights just seemed less. I didn't mind as much, looking down from high places. And the fear and whirling sensations continued to diminish over the course of several months, until I wasn't scared of heights at all anymore. And I went back to my old ways of enjoying looking down from bridges and cliffs and buildings, to see the tiny people far below.

I was so grateful to July for asking me to clean those Christmas balls! And I felt like I really understood a lot more about being afraid of heights, and about how to cure such things. The whole experience really enriched me. I thought very affectionately of those Christmas balls hanging in the hallway of the Purple Rose.

So it was years again after that, that I mentioned to Naima my desire to have Christmas balls hanging from my ceiling. I don't think I even told her the significance they had for me. It was just a passing remark I made. I didn't expect her to actually do anything about it.

But Naima is full of ideas. One day a year ago she sequestered me in my bedroom with strict instructions not to come out. I never felt so trapped in a small space in my life. But no, I didn't develop claustrophobia - though that would've been funny. No, I just watched a movie and lounged in bed for awhile, and then she said I could come out again; and lo and behold! My ceiling was covered with Christmas balls hanging down from strings, just like at the Purple Rose!

It was lovely, and meant so much to me, both because of her wonderful expression of friendship, and because of what Christmas balls hanging from the ceiling signified in my life. The struggle, the healing, the learning; not to mention the reminder of my friendship with July, who is someone who also has a lot of ideas.

Then a couple of days ago, Naima came over, dropping little hints, like "where do you keep your ladder?" And "do you have any clear tape? I want to use it later."

Anyone with half a brain would pick up on that kind of hint, I'm sure, especially since she'd done the exact same routine the year before. But not me! I was talking a mile a minute about Labanotation, and paused only long enough to say, "sure, the ladder's in the vestibule. There's tape on the table over there."

Later that day, Slim came over, and Will cooked the four of us some chicken. Naima had also baked us all a cake, so it was party time. Then Naima sacked out in my bed while Slim and Will and I hung out. And after that it was late, so I sacked out in my bed too.

At some point I woke up to the sounds of her leaving. "Wussup?" I grumbled, half-asleep, into my pillow. "Just going to the bathroom," she said.

But she lied! Well, she probably did go to the bathroom, but then she grabbed the ladder, grabbed the tape, grabbed a big bag of silver christmas trees, and paper snowflake cut-outs that she'd made herself, while I had dreams of sugar-plums in the next room.

When I got up in the morning, Naima had sacked out again, this time on the couch; and at first I didn't notice anything. My first half hour of wakefulness usually only distinguishes itself from sleep by the fact that I'm walking around.

But she woke up shortly thereafter and told me to look up; and then I noticed! It was so nice, all over again. The balls and trees and snowflakes were beautiful. It was a lovely present.

Naima always does things like that for her friends, and as far as I know, no one has ever done anything like it for her. I do other cool things for her; but I don't come up with huge surprises like that. I keep telling her there has to be a way to turn that kind of ability into a career of some kind.