I’m an idiot. Eddie Barbash, the sax player in of Stay Human, The Late Show house band led by Jon Batiste has spend the summer hiking the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. I know Eddie from his days with the Tres Amigos, and try and catch him whenever he has a gig of his own. On my calendar for tonight I had seeing him at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2. I’ve been looking forward to this since it was announced. Late last night I went to ask a friend if she wanted to go with me. I went to the Rockwood site to send her the link, and discovered, to my dismay, that the gig was last night. I hate being an idiot.
I went to see my psychiatrist yesterday. I had recently changed from Zoloft to Prozac and she wanted to check in on me. Thanks to screwed transit I missed my appointment on Friday but that was for the best as I’d have had to see her again on Monday anyway as on Friday – Sunday I had panic attacks in the middle of the night; the kind that cause physical pain. I knew what it was and that it wasn’t a heart attack, but it was still frightening. It kept escalating and I don’t know how I’d be able to handle it if it didn’t stop. Fortunately it responded very quickly to panic Buddha breathing and extreme meditation. I know that sounds contradictory but how else could it work so fast? My mind responded to the flood of fight or flight hormones by clearing quickly.
Still that was an unpleasant experience and required a doctor’s visit. I was afraid she’d take me off the Prozac. It had worked so well on my mood that I didn’t want to do without it. She did the opposite, she increased the dose by 50%; I’m now taking 30mg. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to function. I certainly commuted well. She sent the prescription in while I was seeing her. I got a text that it was ready, from the pharmacy, seven minutes before I got there I felt comfortable enough that it would be ready that I headed straight there.
Today I’m off to see the orthopedist about my joint pain. I’m afraid he’s going to say, “What do you expect? You’re old.” I’m not going to speculate, I’ll wait to see what he has to say.
Today’s the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I Had a Dream speech so I listened to it. When it was over YouTube played Robert Kennedy’s speech announcing Dr. King’s murder to an African American crowd in Indianapolis. When I posted those two videos online I said that I’m like Nanci Griffith:
I was a child in the sixties
Dreams could be held through TV
With Disney, and Cronkite, and Martin Luther
Oh, I believed, I believed, I believed
Which made me listen to It’s A Hard Live Wherever You Go. I’m a strict rationalist and a cheerful hobbit, but like Rick Blaine, I’m also a rank sentimentalist, and I cried at each of the videos.
Those were not tears of sadness, but appreciation. We’re still waiting for the day that MLK described but we’ve made progress. It’s not guaranteed, I can’t prove it through logic or empiricism, but I think the day will come. The reason tears came to my eyes is that we live in such a Brave New World, hat has such people in it. It’s easy to spot the world’s annoying people, the selfish people, the hateful people. But that’s not most people. I look around at the people I know, and I’m amazed. I don’t just mean famous people I know my reputation, MLK, RFK, and Nanci. I mean my friends. Some are brilliantly creative, some are amazingly generous. I look around me and see marvels. A fairy country as marvelous as Oz materializes on a hay farm near Hillsdale every summer This is not the stuff of fantasy but reality.
Many people are discouraged, they listen to the news and hear of hate, and fear, mendacity. I see these things too. Every day I spend some time angry at Trump and his supporters. I get angry as subway solipsists. I get angry at friends posting stupid things. None of that blinds me to all the decent people doing wonderful things. I still believe. Since I moved Wise Madness from Diaryland I lost my quotes at the top of the page. I need one of them now.
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are …
-James Branch Cabell
We survived Two World Wars; We survived Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. We survived living on the brink of nuclear destruction. I’m willing to wager we’ll survive what’s going on now. Maybe this is the Prozac speaking but I’m sure it’s not. There’s no law that says, “things work out for the best.” History has shown that the don’t; but history has shown that we somehow muddle through everything.
“Ever since Bilbo left I have been deeply concerned about you, and about all these charming, absurd, helpless hobbits. It would be a grievous blow to the world, if the Dark Power overcame the Shire; if all your kind, jolly, stupid Bolgers, Hornblowers, Boffins, Bracegirdles, and the rest, not to mention the ridiculous Baggineses, became enslaved”
“Indeed there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: and elsewhere other powers still dwell. There is power, too, of another kind in the Shire. But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength.”
But in the end The Dark Lord fell to a Baggins, a Gamgee, and Smeagol.
A miracle has occurred, I finished writing this before ten. Now I have time to make breakfast, shower, and maybe even watch John Oliver, before I go to the orthopedist.
Wise Madness 