How I Rescued My Brain

by David Roland

  By the time I’m on the main road into town, I’m in a tunnel, seeing only the road in front of me and the trees on either side. I realise how distracted I usually am when driving.

  Soon I become completely lost in the process of driving. I begin to feel as if the car is an extension of me. I think left or right and it turns by itself. I know that my arms are doing the turning, but it doesn’t feel this way. The movement is velvety smooth, as if I’m in a luxury vehicle, not an old Subaru. I am progressing through space on a cushion of air, the car a metal wrapper. My seat supports me lightly.

  In this mental state, each rise and dip in the road becomes exhilarating, as if I’m on a rollercoaster, but without the stomach churn. When the car pulls up at the traffic lights by itself, I wait — with no impatience, content to be exactly where I am. Clock time is passing, but my time isn’t: time has become irrelevant.

  I reach the town centre, park, and pick up my flight ticket.

  Then I go for coffee in a nearby cafe. For the first time since I’ve been in Hervey Bay, I pick up a newspaper; I’m intrigued to know how I will respond to it in this state of mind. Rustling through the pages, I read about the floods. I feel compassion for the flood victims, and try to contemplate what they’re going through, but I’m not dragged down by my concern.

  Emboldened by this, I turn to the business pages: a section I’ve read assiduously before for commentary on the housing market and what this will mean for our finances. An article says that interest rates may go up again. This will make paying off our loans even harder. As if from afar, I watch a disturbance gathering in my mind, like wind causing ripples on water. But the disturbance is still far off, and I put down the newspaper. With this and my coffee meditations, I’m impressed with how I can watch my thoughts and feelings come and go.

  Finally I think I get it: mindfulness is not like an umbrella, which you only put up when it’s raining; it’s something that you have on all the time, as I did during my early stroke experience.

  When I drive back, it is harder to get into the same mental state as before. Perhaps the caffeine has kicked in, or reading the newspaper has disturbed my composure. I dip in and out of mindfulness, and purposely extend the trip to enjoy it longer. Choeying was right; I could get hooked on this driving meditation.

  ON THE SECOND weekend of the course — the weekend before I leave for Fiji — Choeying has us focus on breath meditation. There is a lot of feedback from the other participants, but I’m content not to say much. During the lunch break I take my plate of food and sit on one of the chairs under the walkway. I look into the garden — the outlines of the leaves and stems are brilliantly clear, the colours rich. It’s that same sparkle I experienced in the hospital after the stroke. Again, time seems irrelevant; I’m simply content to be.

  I’d said earlier to Choeying that the other participants were not people I’d usually spend time with or come across in my social circle, but I felt close to them. My sense of companionship with Shas has shocked me; we have very little in common, yet we’ve hung out a lot together. A few nights ago, Shas invited my family and me to come stay on her property. ‘We can go chain-sawin’,’ she says. I think this means we’re mates.

  I’ve noticed that the hardness in her face has gone, and her conversation is more considered.

  Choeying had said, ‘We hang out with people the same as us; we limit ourselves, and that’s why we don’t grow. You are realising the benefits of equanimity, darling.’

  At the end of the day, my last on the course, there are hugs. I hug the woman with probable multiple sclerosis and the woman with cancer. I feel for them, but I’m not dragged down to a place I don’t want to go in knowing what they’re facing. And it seems as though I’m giving them something through my presence, though I’m not sure what that could be.

  On my last night, I read aloud my written account of the first twenty-four hours of my stroke at the dinner table. It causes some laughter. Choeying is moved, and Shas says she’s grateful to have heard it. I talk about Jill Bolte Taylor’s account of her stroke, and how she’d had some kind of remarkable experience — but I couldn’t remember what it was.

  After dinner, I do an online search and come across Taylor’s TED talk. It’s mind-blowing. She says that the serial-processing style of the left cerebral hemisphere leads to a strong sense of the individual self, distinct from others. The left hemisphere concerns itself with the past and the future, and how the present moment relates to these. The right cerebral hemisphere, on the other hand, with its parallel-processing style, has a strong sensory, in-the-moment way of experiencing the world. On the morning of her stroke, Taylor suffered a left-brain haemorrhage, which led to the silencing of her internal chatter and the (temporary) loss of thirty-seven years of ‘emotional baggage’. She felt extreme peacefulness, enormous expansiveness, and compassion for all beings; and, in between these states, periods of panic as her left hemisphere kicked in and she tried to call for help (she was living on her own). Yet she describes her right-hemisphere experience as like discovering nirvana, and is overcome with emotion in speaking about it. After what I went through, I know that she’s not making it up; her experience contains many of the elements of my own.

  The evening before, I’d suggested that Choeying, Rex, Queenie, Shas, and I go for a barbecue by the bay. During my walks I’d discovered a picnic table overlooking the water, with a covered barbecuing area nearby. A middle-aged German couple, Arnold and Karla, had joined us. They hadn’t been on the course, but I’d met Karla at the house already.

  Rex and I cooked in the BBQ area. There was a Christian group sitting in the adjacent shelter, and I heard them talking, over glasses of wine, of their experiences on some or other recent camp.

  Our group sat at the picnic table by the wall of rocks overlooking the beach. It was dusk, and an orange light suffused the sky over the western side of the bay, which was hanging before us like a canvas. Along the curve of the beach, in the distance, there were two fishermen, barely visible against the greying water, their rods thin as whispers. Choeying and Karla sat on the grass facing the beach — profiled by the fading light, their legs dangling over the wall as they chatted, bent towards each other like old friends. Arnold stood by the table, tall and lean, speaking hesitantly and picking at the food. Queenie and Shas sat side-by-side, tucking into a bag of potato chips, just like kids; the branch of a she-oak arched over them like a wispy parasol. Queenie said that it reminded her of Friday nights, when she would start drinking and eat ‘chippies’, but tonight she felt strong enough to resist alcohol.

  As we talked, a three-quarter moon rose over our shoulders. The fruit bats chortled like goblins in the trees above. This is my family, I thought. I delighted in their chatter. There was warmth in my heart and peace in my mind.

  I was different from the person who, beached by exhaustion, feeling pulled apart, had turned up at Choeying and Rex’s doorstep a fortnight before. A previously unopened door had been opened; a new mechanism had been inserted in my brain. Without needing to analyse why, I knew that I was shedding an old cocoon.

  I have learnt firsthand that the mind is like a palette of colours; two people can look at the same scene and one of them fills it in with bright shades, while the other draws upon sapped-out tones and hues. The externals have not changed, but the view for me, looking from the inside out, has transformed.

  18

  THE DAY OF the dive is as humid and lacking in breeze as most of our days at the Plantation Island Resort in Fiji have been. Silver air tanks and black buoyancy vests stand to attention along the centre line of the boat. Snorkels, masks, and fins sit at our feet. The black Yamaha outboard rouses with a throaty roar, which turns to a gurgle and a splutter once lowered into the water. We edge out from the jetty, petrol fumes washing over our faces.

  I am sitting on the bulwark of the boat, opposite Ashley. A tired canopy shad
es us. Two others are diving with us: a young man from New Zealand who works in Fiji, and the dive master, a Fijian with an afro and shoulders like a rugby player who doesn’t speak much.

  Once we round the jetty, we thread through the families laughing and splashing in kayaks, and make it into deep water. The bow lifts with the pressure of the water beneath as we increase speed. Salt spray cools our hot skin.

  The breeze pushes through Ashley’s wavy hair and against her face. She looks at home.

  I am pleased. I knew that she liked snorkelling. Once we’d settled in at the resort — me arriving a day late — I’d suggested that she take the Open Water Diver certificate course, now that she was old enough. Over the last five days, she attended a class in the morning and then practised her water drills or dived after lunch, coming back each time telling us how good it was.

  Today’s dive is her last to complete the course. It is the second-last day of our holiday. I had asked the instructor if I could join them; I wanted to share this experience with her. I have my certificate, but it’s been a long time since my last dive, and I was apprehensive this morning. Still, I ran through the safety checks with the instructor and he allowed me out.

  Ashley and I are going to be dive buddies. We will be entering the water around a dot of an island, one completely ringed by a coral fringe: an easy dive.

  A few days ago, I said to Anna that I’d like to talk with the girls alone. The four of us had taken a mid-morning walk to the drink stand by the beach, where we ordered cold drinks. Even the air felt lazy. We sat down at a plastic table, lodged in the sand and shaded by a wide-hanging eave.

  A young couple sauntered by.

  I felt nervous about this conversation: how to start it and how to encourage them to talk. To ease my nerves, I tried to be fully present with them, as if nothing else existed, rather than trying to second-guess what they might say and how I should respond. It was another of those little moments of standing on the edge and having faith in the process, I told myself. Since Choeying’s, my mental space had expanded well beyond me: a circle of embrace I had not felt in a long time. As we sucked on our drinks, I had the strongest sensation that I was breathing with them, as if our physical boundaries had merged. I could take in anything they might say — confronting, unpleasant, or otherwise.

  ‘Girls, I know I have been grumpy and shouty lately. I was very tired last year, before Christmas. I had a good rest when I went away. I’m much better now.’ They look at me. ‘I’d like to know what it’s been like for you when I get grumpy and shouty.’

  ‘I got scared when you had your tantrum in the kitchen,’ Emma said. ‘I thought you might hurt us.’

  ‘Amelia, is that how you felt too?’

  ‘A little bit,’ said Amelia.

  ‘And Ashley?’

  ‘I don’t think you love us,’ Ashley said.

  ‘I only thought that when you were angry with me,’ said Emma.

  I told them I would never hurt them, and when I was angry, I was mostly angry with myself. They may have done something that triggered my anger, but they were not to blame.

  ‘This is boring,’ Amelia said, clunking her head dramatically onto the table, rolling it from side to side in mock agony. ‘Yes, we get it. Can we talk about something else?’

  I suppressed a smile. I wasn’t finished. I needed them to understand; otherwise, I would tip over the edge again and there would be another ‘tantrum’. ‘When Mum or I ask you to do something, we need you to do it the first time, not the second or third time, otherwise I get exhausted and end up shouting. We need you to do more jobs at home; I can’t do as much as I used to. I love you all very much. I think you will turn out to be very fine people.’

  ‘You can’t predict the future,’ Emma said.

  ‘I believe you will turn out to be fine people,’ I said.

  I felt easier after this conversation, and as far as I could tell, they did too. But I’ve learnt with my kids that their actions often reveal more than their words, so time would tell. The best I can offer them is to be as present with them, in the mindful way I’ve learnt, so that they feel listened to and understood. And with my newly behaving brain, I’m confident I’ll be more even-tempered from now on. I am regaining control. We are turning the corner.

  The water is like turquoise glass, suspending the boat. The horizon shimmers in the humidity. After forty minutes, we reach the island — a tuft of palm trees and starch-white sand leaping out of the water in the middle of nowhere. The dive master explains that we will dive down to our full depth and then drift with the current along the coral shelf as it circles the island, slowly rising to meet the boat.

  It all sounds logical and reasonable, but once underwater I am apprehensive again. I’m conscious of the volume of water above us and the heavy lump of tank on my back. The regulator is uncomfortable in my mouth: each intake of air is harsh and rasping, the air bubbles released loud in my ears.

  Ashley is nearby; she looks at ease.

  Anxiety, I remember, escalates the use of oxygen when diving. I turn my attention to the sensations of my breathing and slow the rhythmic beat of my legs. It works. Soon I am able to take in the splashes of colour from the coral formations, which are almost preposterous in their diversity of shapes and sizes. Schools of fish parade before me in curtains of iridescence, as if cavorting in a fashion parade.

  I’m hovering over a large fan coral, fawn-coloured with blue edges, when a hand slips into my left: it is Ashley. I give her the diver’s okay sign with my right hand, and she returns it.

  Together, like this, the gentle pulsing of our fins propels us along. A large parrot fish stalls in front of us, a puff of excrement exploding from beneath its tail before it moves off. Ashley and I turn to each other, giggling in our masks at the affront. I feel a thrum of love flowing through the conduit of our joined hands.

  The dive master signals for us to surface after only half an hour; I still have almost half a tank of air left. Back on the boat, the New Zealand man reveals that he ran out of air, initiating the order to surface. I thought I’d be the most likely to have this problem. Wow, I think, I must have been more relaxed than I suspected.

  THE NEXT DAY, we ride the catamaran back to the mainland. It has been a wonderful holiday. Not only do I feel a new ease with the children, but also a softness towards Anna. We’d shared the same bed, socialised with others together, and taken walks with the children. Our conversations had become easier as the holiday went on.

  Anna enjoyed the socialising and the water sports. Emma and Amelia liked the swimming pools, the water sports, and the painting of T-shirts in the kids club. Ashley liked everything and wants to live in Fiji. We all liked Maurice, the evidently gay waiter, who wore a fresh hibiscus flower behind his ear, each evening offering us the same drinks menu with a flourish and talking us through the limited dinner options (we were on the budget-meals package) as if it were fine dining.

  We had played cards in the late afternoons at the tables set up on the beach, the rising tide surrounding us in ankle-deep water, the stunning sunset our backdrop. Guests had taken photographs of us. I had even played with the four-piece band for two nights, when the main guitarist was on leave. The good-humoured dinner audience had gotten a big dose of James Taylor, and the boys in the band had enjoyed learning some new songs.

  And we’d had several experiences — the type of family memories that grow more amusing with each retelling. One of these had taken place when we attended a Sunday church service promoted at the resort, thinking we’d hear wonderful islander singing.

  The small, picture-perfect church sat on a knoll — the highest point on the island — catching the languid morning breeze. The pastor, a very square, unsmiling man, wore a black jacket over a white-collared shirt and a plain sulu. For much of the service he stood at a high, imposing pulpit. Only a few of the more e
lderly locals attended, outnumbered by us tourists. (We learnt later that many of the locals attend an earlier service, before work.) As a consequence, the singing of hymns was on the thin side, carried by the few tuneful regulars. The second half of the hour-long service was given over to the pastor’s sermon — in Fijian. Like a slow-building storm, his demeanour and voice took on an increasing menace as his words rolled on. It reached a crescendo with him shouting, in eye-popping fashion, at the congregation, apparently castigating us for sins that we, at any rate, couldn’t comprehend.

  I turned to look at the girls seated in the pew behind Anna and me. Emma had stuffed the beaded ends of her recently braided hair in her ears. Amelia’s hands were clapped solidly over her ears, her elbows pointing forwards, while Ashley pondered the floor with great interest, her hands twitching in her lap. They all grinned when I caught their eye. I couldn’t know what the pastor made of the sight of their disinterest, but I suspect it only increased his fervour.

  ‘That was boring,’ Amelia said after the service, when we’d emerged into the sunlight to mingle with the other rattled-looking visitors.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, chuckling. ‘But we’ve had a new cultural experience, and that’s something.’

  WHEN I CATCH up with Doctor Franklin a few weeks later, in February 2011, I have much to tell him. I meet with Doctor Franklin every month — he calls it a psychiatric review. He has become a helpful advocate. I alternate his session with Wayne’s so that I see one of them every few weeks, although I speak with Wayne more often than this if something comes up.

  Doctor Franklin’s consulting style is pragmatic, flavoured by his years of experience. He doesn’t profess to be a psychotherapist and he encourages my contact with Wayne. He visits a country town, less than an hour’s drive from my place, one day a week, and it is here that I go to see him. He’s become one of the doctors, together with Doctor Small and my GP, who can fill out the treatment report for my monthly insurance claims.