beautiful, funny, sad & true

I’m listening to This American Life right now, the episode called Duty Calls, and I just feel the need to say wow.  What an amazing episode.  It’s all about the contrast between two sides of a divorced family; one side high-achieving and the other side completely unable to function because of long-term drug abuse and various other problems.

It made me think that I should appreciate my own family, friends, and situation more than I have.  I very rarely step back and think about where I’m headed, or where I’ve been, or even smell the flowers.  I just kind of keep on keepin’ on, whether it’s with a mind-numbing day job or an insanely busy musical life, or other diversions, but I really need to focus more on what I want my own life to be like, and to appreciate the people who are important to me.  Since we’re on the subject, let me take this moment to say that I APPRECIATE YOU, and I’m glad you’re here.  You could be anywhere else on the web, but you chose to visit me, and I appreciate that.

One thing I’ve felt the need to do since my friend was hospitalized is to contact people more, now that I feel up to it, and just check in with them.  It’s all still new and recent, and there are plenty of people who I haven’t contacted yet, but it’s really felt important to do that, even if we don’t talk for very long.  It’s as if I just need to know that they’re alive and well, and to reach out to them in some way.

Wow, this is a surprisingly maudlin entry.  And it all started with a radio show.

One of my musician friends hates the phrase ‘mixed bag’, but I’m going to go ahead and use it (albeit with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek), because that’s what this week has been. After a debilitatingly sad couple of weeks, I’m finally feeling able to go and do all the things I normally do. Wednesday night was the play-reading group, and I feel like that’s what brought me back to life. The play we read was the story of a quirky pianist (so naturally I played piano) who had lots of children, and the story was set in an Irish Catholic neighborhood of Chicago, around the time of Prohibition. Very well-written and humorous, and I got the honor of reading the lead role. After that, two of the guys from the group and I went out and talked, and shared a basket of French fries, and caught up on each others’ lives. It was nice, and genuine, and I appreciated it.

Thursday I raced over to my favorite new sushi place to meet Genie-Wa. She’s here visiting her mom and interviewing for jobs so that she can move back here again, which I for one am very glad about. Her rental car was a white convertible, and after some trial and error, we finally figured out how to put the top down. Perfect timing, too, because the seemingly interminable months of shitty, depressing weather are finally starting to break here in Portland, so I’m sure she’ll have plenty of opportunities to race around and enjoy it.

As we were heading our separate ways, my hospitalized friend called. Since she doesn’t have a phone in her room, she has to walk clear across the building into a public area, and sometimes there are people milling around, and other times the place is empty. Sometimes people are using the phone, so she has to walk clear back to her room and try again later. She spends most of her days sleeping. Weekends are particularly long, because the doctors aren’t on duty, so I’m going to go visit her this morning, actually, before my afternoon cello gig and evening accordion gig. These will be the first shows I’ve played in over two weeks. I had to back out of four different gigs since this happened, but now I feel ready to play again.

Last night I went to Slabtown to see three bands; Lasers All The Time, Shim, and Hockey. All amazing. I already had Hockey’s CD because the drummer works with me. I first listened to their CD in my car, and I was so impressed with it that it stayed in constant rotation (as they say in radio jargon) for two weeks.

I was supposed to meet my dad for breakfast at 9:00 this morning. Around 8:00 I heard a strange tapping on my door. It wasn’t a knock, but it sounded like someone was tapping my door with something wooden, or maybe metal. Freaked me out, because strange knocks that early in the morning, particularly in my hidden apartment, are almost never because of good news. So I nervously opened the door, to find my dad on my doorstep. “Would you believe. . .I’m early?” he asked. Sheesh. Naturally, my place is a complete disaster area, because I haven’t been home for the last three nights, and I just rearranged my furniture and everything, so I felt nervous about the early-morning knocks, and also about the disarray of my place.

The visit went okay, though. He asked about my friend, and asked a bit about what our relationship was like, and how she was doing, and seemed (somewhat uncharacteristically) empathetic and understanding. But again, he was nice, and genuine, so I certainly appreciated that.

I’ve noticed quite a few blog visits from two different places recently; one of which is in the Portland area, and the other is in the Bay Area. I have a pretty good idea of the places that the regular readers are from, and of those of my friends who read this blog, but these are both new ones. If you’re one of the long-term readers of BFST, you’ll understand why I raise an eyebrow at sudden bursts of energy like that. That’s all I’ll say about it.

Took my cello in for a quick and easy repair the other day. It has a ‘wolf’ tone, which is a common affliction for cellos. It’s hard to explain, but certain notes make the body vibrate excessively, and the horrible, warbling tone it produces when that happens is called a wolf. I don’t know why it’s called that, but I’m just glad that it’s minimized now. They never completely go away, apparently. The repair guy said that the cello instructor at the main university here in town has a cello that’s worth nine hundred thousand dollars, but it has that wolf tone, which was minimized by sticking a piece of a wine cork down between the body and the tailpiece. So funny, and now I have one there too.

And now it’s time to drive out to the hospital.

OneYearAgo

My friend got moved to a new room today, on a different floor, with different nurses and stricter rules about calls and visits. She called while I was driving home on my lunch break, so I didn’t know that my phone was vibrating. She sounded worried and sad in her message. She said she’d try to call back this evening, and wasn’t sure how I’d even be able to contact her. She left a number, which I called as soon as I got her message. It was busy, so I kept trying and trying. After a couple of minutes, I finally got through, but instead of my friend I found myself talking to a disoriented stoner guy.

Worried. Concerned. Frustrated.

Dammit.

Monday was a day of huge leaps of recovery for my friend. The drugs she took seem to have pretty much cleared out of her system on that day, and since then she’s been talking, and crying, and walking a little, and slowly but surely getting her strength back. She was able to use the phone yesterday, and we had the chance to talk for about half an hour. She sounds and seems like her usual self, but she’s still got a very long road ahead of her. Some of the things we talked about were heart-wrenching.

I found myself feeling guilty that I hadn’t found her earlier. She had been lying there not for an hour or two like I had guessed, but for more than a day. That broke my heart. Someone told me this morning that “you never know what good is going to come out of all this,” and while it may feel like a hollow platitude, at least it’s better than some of the strange or even hurtful things people have already said to me.

I finally got the chance to talk with CincinnatiFriend, whose opinions I value more than anyone’s, especially in matters like these. She put it into perfect perspective by saying that the only people we can help are the people who want to be helped. If they’re intent on harming themselves, they’ll find ways to do it, and they can be very crafty about hiding the warning signs. She also said, essentially, that the only way we can deal with difficult things is to do what we can with the information that we have available to us. Hindsight is always 20/20, and we shouldn’t use our newer knowledge to beat ourselves up later.

The biggest truth of all, though, is that I’m just incredibly thankful that my friend is alive, and that she’s in the right place, both geographically and emotionally, to get the help that she needs.

My friend is alive and slowly but surely recovering, but her condition was worse than we originally thought. She spent the first night and most of the second day on a respirator because she couldn’t breathe on her own, but she’s off it now. She mumbles incoherently, still unable to talk or follow commands. She has to be kept on sedatives, and under pretty much constant supervision, because otherwise she tries to pull out her IV tubes. She won’t be able to speak or have any visitors for a few more days. The doctors won’t know the full extent of her condition until after the drugs have run their course, and she comes back to full consciousness.

I’ve mostly been staying home, except when it’s absolutely necessary to leave, for food or something. I’ve found that everyone has their own way of dealing (or not dealing) with this subject, and communicating about it. Advice, especially from people who don’t know my friend and what our relationship has been like, is not welcome at this point. It also makes me cringe, I’m not sure why, when people tell me, “Wow, you’re a really good friend.” It’s okay, you know? People don’t know what to say. They’re trying to help, but it’s just not helping.

The problem, I think, has something to do with language. Language is, at best, a poor substitute for actions and feelings, especially concerning subjects like spirituality, or death, or delicate emotions. As Joseph Campbell once said, “There are the things we think about, and there are the things we do, and then there are the things we talk about.” Language is the only tool we have, though, so that’s what we have to use, despite its shortcomings and flaws.

When it comes to difficult or confusing emotional matters, everyone has their own way of coping, and of sharing. It also seems that people tend to do and say what they think they need to do and say, instead of just asking the suffering person what he or she needs. The best thing people have said is, “I’m here, just say the word if you need anything.” My mom had plenty of things to say, but she’s a bit clueless (“Wow, you and your creative friends; such highs and lows. . .”). No, mom, this is a person who is a true survivor, and who has lived ten lives in her thirty-five years, and experienced things that most people, thankfully, will never have to experience. She and I have been there for each other when no one else was. I never imagined that I’d have to be there for her in this way.

When I go out, I see places and things that remind me of her, and that brings a lump to my throat or tears to my eyes. I’m easily distractable, and I’m not a very good driver when I’m in such an emotional state. So I stay home, and I listen to the bird songs in the air, or the wind blowing through the trees, or the rain falling. I check my e-mail a million times a day, in the hopes for another update. I haven’t really been listening to much music, and I haven’t been able to play any instruments either. Today I made a real breakfast of scrambled eggs with pesto and a tiny bit of spicy brown mustard mixed in. I’ve run out of a few things, like fruit juice, so I need to walk to the store again today.

Yesterday I tried to hang a big mirror to open up my dark living room, but it was so heavy that it pulled the nail out of the wall and crashed to the ground, destroying the frame in the process. With any luck I’ll be able to find another one that I like soon.

I’m still trying to decide whether or not I can handle going to work tomorrow. If I feel the way I do today, I’ll probably stay home again.