I had déjà
vu in the Airport in Chicago at least three times. I learned how to
spell déjà vu because I got a drink with a Grindr boy at Wolfgang
Pucks who was a PhD student in French Lit.
Except I
didn’t get alcohol. I played it cool and asked the server for ice to
pair with the $3 bottle of sealed water waiting on our table. Later
she ran onto the nearly closed jetway because she hadn’t noticed me
drop a five dollar bill on the bar. This means her tip was probably
pocketed by the bar tender. I felt kind of bad but not really because
I didn’t even get alcohol.
But that’s
not the point. The point is I tried to get alcohol. I ordered a beer
at the first stop in the terminal. After a sip, I felt wobbly and the
depth of the building started to move so I paid and left.
I asked my
new friend if he minded me being emotionally inappropriate. He didn’t
and honestly I would have anyway. After a while, I regained my senses
despite the overwhelming lights and the noise and the people—mostly
the people—at the airport.
This was the first place I learned to prevent aura from turning into full-on seizure. Remain calm and keep breathing. Plus, my new friend was engaging and smart and no one interrupted me or questioned me or assumed anything about me. And I didn’t care what they were thinking. I kept them out. That familiar, wobbly sensation of depersonalization and the usual ensuing existential-crisis faded.
Maybe I’ll ask my new friend to have a look at this nonsense when I have a draft—he referred to a random passage in Wojnorawicz’s memoir as gorgeous. The adjective struck me and is of course fitting—his writing is gorgeous. But only a lit guy would describe language as such, with an adjective more germane to renaissance paintings than a grungy memoir by some queer who died of AIDs. I mean, Juliet is the sun, but not really.
Reflection from 2019 seizure journals. For an overview of the project, click here.
