Ouf!
Life is better this morning, after last night's "cri de coeur". I both got some sleep and kept the food down.
Woke up remembering the nicer things that happened yesterday. A chat about Edison Denisov with Barry, who loved the Symphony I'd lent him (in a Russian recording which no longer appears to be available).
And the Desk's "farewell and good luck" party for Carole, one of the Factory's nicest people, who flies out this weekend with her family to take up a post in Johannesburg. Godspeed and a kiss, Miss.
Our loss will most definitely be the South African bureau's gain!
If this morning's renewed spring sunshine lasts through next week, then I'm really going to enjoy those days off.
What was not good, however, is that I dug out and popped a couple of Valium tabs before a long soak in the bath in the knowledge that they will make the day's work to come endurable.
Resorting to such chemical crutches runs deep against the grain now, since it's exactly the kind of non-solution to angst, stress and guilt that I strongly feel all the physical and psychological treatment I've had for the Condition over 10 months was intended to render unnecessary...
Yet I'd collapsed into bed last night wondering what the hell I was doing as AFP's Africa Editor!
Two things almost overwhelmed me yesterday. First, it was exhausting fighting off the "vibes" emanating from one or two other stressed-out people on the Desk in the engine room, as if their own problems and emotions were a part of me! What of those "barriers" I'd spent so much time probing with Dr F.?
Secondly, there's a deeper sensation I've never understood and perhaps never will. It's as if I was at once both in Paris, handling all the news pouring in, and in Abidjan as the day's awful events unfolded. This, I suppose, is a tribute to the communications skills of colleagues there whose descriptions of the place on the 'phone in many a conversation have put flesh on the bones of my own experience of other African cities...
But it happens to me often with this kind of story.
In another life, I might be probing the psychology of empathy (Health 24), which apparently triggers some of our emotional circuitry.
A way into my sessions with Dr F., I asked her how she managed detachment. So many people, so many problems, hour after hour for day after long day. She smiled, but refused to answer. Pamela Cytrynbaum has a go in 'Why your therapist can't be your friend' ('Psychology Today').
I'd check to see what the admirable Kathryn Petro has to say about this kind of thing at 'A Mindful Life', but ... "duty calls".
10:57:03 AM link 
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