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As one of my sanity-promoting measures, I've been trying to meditate on the train ride home  I try to relax and focus on my breathing.  On the inhale, I say to myself, "just," "breathe" on the exhale.  I try to be aware of the air going into and out of my lungs.  But one thing I've discovered in the last few weeks is that it's become a lot harder for me to concentrate.  My mind is constantly scatting about like a water bug on the surface of glassy water and I can't ignore the thoughts bombarding me.  Worse, my thoughts and feelings are unbelievably volatile.  I see-saw back and forth between hysterical gaiety and tears of anguish. I get caught of up in a jag of feeling helplessly giggly about the ridiculousness of it all: the lawyer who asked a witness in court ‘who is under the direction and control of the dog,’ the yoga instructor who urged us to ‘rotate our hearts,’ etc. I feel frantically creative. I think of things I will paint and how I will finally finish the book I’ve been working on.

Then something demoralizing happens – I realize the approach I was using for something at my job won’t work, or that I’m out of pretzels and my mind throws itself into furious despair. Tears prick my eyes. I think of the enormous unfairness and callousness of the world. Of how, when you’re suffering, there is always some self-righteous prick (in fact, probably the majority) who says it must be your fault. You’re not being positive enough or working hard enough. You’re too difficult to be around. The people who have been unkind or unfair to me parade through my mind. I find myself getting angrier and angrier. Then I think about how many things are my fault and all my failures and I feel helpless self-hatred. Finally despair. It’s unsupportable. I wish I could crawl out of my head.

My mind feels like a wrecking ball – battering and battering at me. I don’t think this anger and despair is only a temporary state that comes and goes like a tide. These negative thoughts do lasting damage. My mind slams into neutral memories, even happy thoughts and taints them with angry suppositions. Later, when I think about what, say, my boss said to me earlier that day, instead of just remembering what she said objectively and neutrally, I also remember what sad and suspicious imprecation I imposed on that statement from my last bout of despair. Then I have to work through those feelings, struggling not to fall back into my turmoil and to separate realities.

If it really gets bad, I look at the white white skin of my wrist and think how there is a spring of red blood under there. I remember how the whites of my eyeballs are so improbably rushing with red blood. I can see the network of capillaries spring out of nowhere when my eyes are bloodshot. The blood is there, even under the smooth, white surface. I imagine falling onto huge blades that would neatly slice me and all my internal complications apart. I think about the top of the skyscraper next door that is always reflecting at me at work from the glass surface of my desk. Just seeing that reflection sometimes brings me relief.

It’s so hard to control, so hard to reclaim a balanced frame of mind. In my little meditation sessions, for example, I try to push my thoughts away and avoid being sucked up by that hurtling train. I imagine a fire in my chest being fanned by each breath I take. I visualize in meticulous detail how it grows, gradually filling my chest with flames, until my thorax glows like a furnace. The warmth slowly illuminates my body, lighting up my abdomen and my head. Finally, even the tips of my fingers and toes glow so that someone watching my train pass could see me even through the steel of the train blazing like an angel.

It is so hard to get there though. Often I can’t do it. But I know when I have managed to focus my mind and get some relief, because within minutes I’m overcome with exhaustion and I fall asleep.