Yesterday was the first Friday in May, so the first Sunset Singing Circle of 2019. I only discovered it a few years ago but it started in 2002. Battery Park City started it as a response to 9/11, renewal through song. I was going to say that Terre Roche has been leading it since then but I’m not sure that’s true. Terre, is it? She’s certainly been leading it for almost the entire time. It’s held in Robert Wagner Jr. Park. Terre and friends play instruments, Battery Park City provides songbooks and yoga mats, and whoever wants to can sing. Yesterday was Pete Seeger’s birthday and Pete always said that singing wasn’t something you listen to, it’s something you do. At the singing circle we all sing, we all bond, we all feel better. We become a community, e pluribus unum.
As the earth moves in its orbit around the sun we feel a need to note landmarks so we can say, “We’ve been here before.” Some are holidays, some are personal, but we all observe some of them. For me there’s New Year’s Day, opening day of the baseball season, Pesach, The Sunset Singing Circle, Clearwater, my birthday, Falcon Ridge, The World Series, Thanksgiving, Caroling with Terre, The Robinson Rohe Christmas show, and ending where we began with New Year’s Eve.
Terry Pratchett understood man’s relationship with reality as well as anyone. In Hogfather the Auditors try to destroy the Hogfather, the Santa Claus of Discworld. We are told that if they succeed the sun won’t rise tomorrow. They are foiled. When asked what would have happened if they succeeded we are told that a ball of incandescent gas would have come up over the horizon. The event would be stripped of meaning. It’s not objective reality, but it’s subjective reality, all that we directly experience. These landmarks in the year are not set in stone, they don’t follow natural law, but they bind our personal cosmos. I went to my first Singing Circle of the year, I passed a milestone, I know where I am.
The weather was cold and dank. We couldn’t see the sun, let alone the sunset. The crowd was sparse. That made it more intimate. People shout out what song they want to sing next. I usually chime in at the beginning when people are shy to keep things moving then let others make their suggestions. With so few people I got to make many suggestions. There is a balance. For the first time ever I arrived late, all of a minute, but that meant they had started singing. Lucky for me it was a song I knew so I didn’t have to find it in the book; I could just start singing. It was Where Have All the Flowers Gone in honor of Pete Seeger’s 100th birthday. I suggested we follow it with Turn Turn Turn. Later we did If I Had a Hammer. We always end with Goodnight Irene. It was the Weavers that had the first hit with that. Pete’s spirit filled the singing.
I come to the circle straight from therapy and I tried something different this time. I usually take the 4 train to Bowling Green and then look for a place to eat. This time I searched online while I was still in Grand Central Station. I found that there is a barbecue restaurant in Brookfield Place so I got off at Fulton Street and walked over there. The pulled pork was excellent and the corn fritters with honey chili dipping sauce great. I just checked on my Google Maps timeline, it was Might Quinn Barbecue. From there I walked along the water to Wagner Park. This is going to be my routine for now on. Maybe I can talk Fred into joining me next time. Of course next week will be the day after my surgery so I’m not sure if I’ll be up to that much activity. I’m going to play it by ear. I’m usually resilient so I’m optimistic.
I should mention therapy; it was only my second session in the last 7 weeks. My therapist had to cancel three times, I had to cancel once, and there was Good Friday. I had a lot to talk about. Much of it was taken up with my healthcare progress. The progress is not about my physical health, but my mental health; I was able to deal with the setbacks and adversity dealing with my insurance. That’s the difficult part for me. Having surgery is easy, taking care of the possibility of not being insured is hard. I fear, fear itself. I have confidence is my doctors and I even have confidence with my ability to deal with physical problems and even death. My psyche follows its own rules.
I woke up a few times last night with unprovoked anxiety attacks. I was not thinking of anything; I was just extremely anxious. I could feel that tightening in the pit of my stomach. I had to meditate to get out of it. I had the presence of mind to check something that I had long suspected. When I first got the crippling anxiety attacks, the thinking you are having a heart attack kind, I found that I could hardly move. If I tried to move quickly I was winded. I couldn’t handle stairs. I felt the way I imagined my mother did when she had heart failure. I was not getting enough blood. I figured that instead of having the usual reaction to fight or flight hormones, the heart pounding and pulse quickening, I was having the opposite. I recently discovered that my phone has a health monitoring app that amongst other things can take my pulse. I took my pulse as I was in the middle of the attack last night. It was 60 beats per minute. I’m normally in the mid to high 70s. My psyche doesn’t just do its own thing, my body does too. I am going to have to discuss this with my psychiatrist. It might have bearing on my diagnosis.
I better finish this up as I’m going into Brooklyn soon. I should have lots to write about tomorrow.
Wise Madness 