Whither the Angel in Angels in America?
Emma Thompson in the HBO film of Angels in America.
There are some of us who would rather face death than face our own delusion and, friends, I am one of those people. I have argued for the existence of horrible things—ovarian cancer, bedbugs, even a gluten intolerance—rather than face the fact that I am a healthy hypochondriac with a genetically inescapable amount of anxiety. New York did me in, like it does so many people. What began as low-grade anxiety transformed—after a period of uncertain part-time jobs, rent beyond my income bracket, and Daily News ebola headlines—into near dementia. Why would I want to believe that I was the problem? Creating my own headaches? Heart palpitations? The desire to believe in the self is strong. Hundreds of times that year, as I felt wandering pains and icy chills, I was faced with two options: I was sick in some serious way or I was—at least partly—insane. The former seemed preferable.
During the worst of my anxiety, one of the many things “I couldn’t do” was sink into . In the past, it
