Three Voices, Millions of Stories

“My story of coming out is no harder than anybody else’s,” or words to that effect, says a Manhattan lawyer. But, sorry, I’m not buying in. Why? Because Richard Socarides was coming out to Charles Socarides, and however famous the first Socarides may be now, the second Socarides was probably even more prominent. He was a well-known Upper East Side psychiatrist, a lecturer or professor at Albert Einstein University, and a specialist in treating the illness of homosexuality by “conversion therapy.”

In short, for the son, it was a true, “oh fuck” moment.

It ended happily, to a modified degree: initially angry, Dr. Socarides settled down, wrote his son a loving letter, and went right on believing that homosexuality was an illness. But family trumps some things.

I know all this because I got hooked on what is the 21^st century equivalent of Word is Out. Remember that? If not, here’s Wikipedia:

Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives is a 1977 documentary film featuring interviews with 26 gay men and women. It was directed by six people collectively known as the Mariposa Film Group. Peter Adair conceived and produced the film, and was one of the directors. The film premiered in November 1977 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, and was released in 1978.

The interviews from the film were transcribed into a book of the same title, which was published in October 1978.

Well, that’s the official story. But I suspect that—more than the filmmakers will ever know—there are personal stories, stories that went something like this.

By the time I saw it, after it had premiered in the film festivals and been shown in art venues or wherever people saw such things, it would have been 1980, when PBS could finally muster the guts to risk a slash in public funding and air the documentary. So for days I had seen clips advertising the documentary, and I had set aside the hour to watch. My real worry was that my old TV—black and white with a 13-inch screen, and oh, it required two men to lift—would break down.

Did I have butterflies in my stomach and sweaty palms? A dry mouth? I may have, because even to watch the film, alone in my studio apartment in Madison, Wisconsin, felt radically subversive.

It was in the air, but it was never spoken. “He’s a fag,” people would whisper. “Don’t drop your soap in the shower,” people would snigger. “San Francisco” was code word for something that was so unthinkable that it couldn’t be named. It was worse than cancer.

Here’s how it was, since I—blogfully devoted to my Readers—have invested $2.51 to bring you the opening words of Consenting Adult, one of the earliest novels about a family’s coming to terms with a gay child:

She came to the end and stood as if tranced, without tears, nothing so easy as tears, stood motionless in the sensation of being smashed through every organ, through every nerve, every reasoning cell. Love for him, pity for his suffering, pride for his courage in telling her, horror at it, at the monstrous unendurable it— a savagery of feelings crushed her, feelings mutually exclusive yet gripping each other in some hot ferocity or amalgam. She read the letter again. Then only did she begin to cry, but not the ordinary crying, nor she the ordinary weeping woman; it was, rather, a roaring sobbing, of an animal gored. She heard her own sounds, and went to her bedroom door to close it, though there was no one in the apartment

Hobson, Laura Z. (2011-12-27). Consenting Adult (Kindle Locations 28-31). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

Horror, monstruous, ferocity, gored, sobbing. Oh, sorry, overlooked “savagery….”

OK—Hobson may never have been accused of an excessively light touch, but she wasn’t too far off the mark, either. Because coming out meant that you had been doing laps around and through hell for months. Even to think ‘I might be gay,’ was unimaginably scary.

So yes, I probably had sweaty palms that night when I turned on the TV because that, in a way, was to invite in the possibility that yes, I might be gay. Because my lack of the famous, adolescent, raging-bull lust for girls had been dismissed as, “you’re just not ready yet…..” (Yeah? A 16-year old getting erections in Algebra, and I’m not ready?) Oh, and then there was, “You’re just waiting for the right girl to come along….” (Guys? I’ve seen short girls, tall girls, fat girls, skinny girls—in short, every sort of girl—and not one of these is the “right” girl?)

“The homosexual,” you see, was an abstraction—but seeing a guy telling the story of coming out to his father? I was in tears. So much so that I can tell you how it went:

Son: Dad, I gotta tell you something important.

Dad: OK, let me grab a cigarette…

Son: Grab the pack…

To watch the documentary was to invite lesbians and gay men into my apartment, look at them, size them up and—most importantly—size myself up. Would I look at them, be repulsed, turn off the television, and embrace my newly-discovered straight self?

Do I have to tell you?

Well, I was thinking about all this yesterday, as I came upon Socarides via a wonderful project, “I’m from Driftwood.” Hmm—and what was Driftwood?

A small town in Texas, and the hometown of the founder of the project, Nathan Manske. Manske was inspired by a sign held by Harvey Milk, reading “I’m from Woodmere, N.Y.” So Manske began to wonder—we are all from somewhere. What if we went on the road, and collected the coming-out stories of everybody, famous but mostly not, of people as they endured that most challenging moment? The fifty state tour was born!

In a way, it’s a bit like “It Gets Better,” about which I have always had problems. Why? Because too often it felt like “it gets better” was more about us—those of us who have made it to the other side—making ourselves feel better. We survived, we thrived, we are now on television, and rich, and famous, and oh—here’s my perfect life, and you can do it too!

Yeah?

I’m sixteen and have pimples and all my friends are women or fucked-up artist types, and my father knows everybody in town, and he just told me he won’t support the ERA because it was for homosexuals, and ALL HIS KIDS ARE NORMAL. So, look: I’m so happy for your perfect life, but you know what? It just makes me feel worse….

Somehow, I’m from Driftwood feels different. I might be wrong—I often am—but I know one thing.

The project should be much better known.

Conversion Therapy Minus One

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White Light (reposted)

This post was originally published on October 31, 2012. I leave you with it, in anticipation to a post coming soon....

It was only after I saw my shrink, today, that I fully understood what I had done.

Resolved the defining challenge of my life.

Defining because, yes, it had ruled me since I can remember. I couldn’t get the sounds in my head out of the cello. I raged, I bit myself—never puncturing the skin, but leaving the indentations of teeth marks for hours. I once broke a bow, slamming it on the strings of the instrument.

I knew it was in there; I couldn’t get it out. And with the rage came the depression. Black days, awful days when the minutes dragged, when no amount of will could banish the demon that lurked in the corner, always crouched, always ready to pounce.

Things I didn’t care about I did well. Teaching, never a problem.

The cello?

An agony that I couldn’t do, and couldn’t not do. I couldn’t breath at the cello, I held my breath until I had to gasp. My shoulders cramped, so tight was I.

I was practicing for hours at a time. There were days it went well. I floated down the street, beaming at strangers.

Most days it didn’t.

Late at night, in Chicago. Raf asleep, Marc alone in an empty apartment. I would be meditating, and almost get through.

I called it the breakthrough. The music would get out, I would get out, the struggle would be over.

I’d win.

Or be free.

I’d masturbate, hoping to use the energy of orgasm to push me through that door. And use Rush, amyl nitrite. I’d see a white light, I’d move closer, the orgasm would stun me. But I never got through.

Last March, I relived the moment I lost my mind, back in December. Had two weeks of struggle, of fierce concentration and mindfulness. It took five minutes to save a document. I washed dishes as if the process were a koan. I retrained myself to do everything.

At the end of the day, I would be exhausted. I’d sit and read what someone else had written.

I’d laugh out loud.

“He’s so funny,” I’d say.

“He makes the most amazing leaps,” I’d say.

I was reading that day’s post in a blog called Life, Death and Iguanas.

“I’m taking the writer to get his teeth fixed,” I told Taí. She was in a storm of worry ten islands down the Caribbean. I made sure he ate. I obsessed about his having water at all times. I needed to take care of him, this gifted guy whom I have nothing to do with.

And everything….

“He didn’t go away, I could have lost him,” I’m telling the shrink. And then, “hey, aren’t you guys supposedly to have Kleenex?”

He gestured to the side table.

Well, they are our confessors, these shrinks. And at one moment, retelling the story, I jumped back, back to a dark apartment, back to a man in agony, back to a man with his brain flooded with chemicals, and a light, a light, a light I could not get to. A light that would recede and leave me so stabbed with alone.

I’m gasping, now, as I was gasping in that red velvet chair, as I was gasping at the cello.

I have just had an orgasm I have never had. Nothing physical, no hands to wash, or floor to wipe. And no, I saw no white light.

I see that white light when I sit in my chair, at five in the afternoon and read the absurd, the tortured, most—the gifted—words he’s written.

He’s filled with that light, and I tell him, “fuck, you’re amazing.”

Don't know....

Kevin Breel is 19 years old, a standup comedian, and depressed.

Three adjectives, or maybe—he might say—two adjectives and a stigma. Because that’s what mental illness is, he argues in his TED talk—there’s still a lot of shame and blame about being sick in that part of your body behind the eyes….

Well, as someone who swallows 20 mg. of Lexapro and 15 mg. of Remeron daily, I was more than prepared to listen. Also to consider the question: has anything good ever come for me from my long years of depression?

Change a life—I had never known those many, many dark days when it was only habit and custom that got me out of bed. I never sat in those toilet stalls at Wal-Mart weeping silently, never canceled classes and sat in my classroom and stared at the walls, trying to banish the thought, “I want to kill myself,” which had become the mantra echoing through my mind. I woke up every morning, felt happy, and went about my business.

In short, the forty years of depression never happened—they felt as good as I feel today.

First reaction?

God, do I wish!

Breel argues that one of the benefits of depression is that it allows you to see the bright side of life, and that you have to know the valley to appreciate the mountain. Yeah? I’m not sure; would I appreciate walking more if I had spent time wheelchair bound? Don’t think so….

The depression may have made me more sensitive to others—that’s true, I think. It also gave me a certain strength—if I survived those years, I’ll probably get through today.

And yes, I’ve read Thomas Moore’s books and I think they’re good—and I don’t buy in. Sure, if you’re going through a divorce, or a significant loss, or a major life change—you may experience the dark night of the soul. But there is one hell of a difference between a major life event and a major depression.

Consider it—I was in a stable, long-term relationship; I had a job, a home, pets, and a loving family. I was also excruciatingly depressed. Yeah, you could argue that the job wasn’t the right one, that a creative side of myself was unexpressed. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the depression. The only answer was medication.

Sorry—but to say anything else is just more stigmatization, another way of saying, “oh just buck up and adopt a positive attitude.” And so, by the way, is the recent spate of articles saying that antidepressants don’t work.

Yeah? Let me tell you what doesn’t work—exercise, music, writing, time spent in contemplation, meditation, talking with friends. How do I know? ‘Cause I do all of these things on a regular basis, and guess what? If I miss two days of Remeron, I start to feel shaky and anxious. That happened to me two weeks ago, but I was smart enough to go to the pharmacy, explain that I had run out of the pills two days before, and that I had an appointment with my doctor in a couple of days.

They know me, nodded, and got me the pills. I took the Remeron immediately, though my hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the glass. And I felt perfectly fine forty minutes later.

I feel now that I’m spinning my wheels—that I need to write something and I don’t know what and it’s scary. I’m not undisciplined, I’m not a coward—but something is blocking me. So I may do the dark night of the soul—why not?—and sit down and confront myself. But trust me—no depressed person could do that. That takes every molecule of mental health—a depressed person doesn’t have the strength even to think of it.

That said—I wonder if there really is a stigma today about depression or admitting to a mental illness. Part of it is having come out as a gay man—after you do that, admitting to depression is a sort of snore. But it may be true—for many years I could not get help, and it took a screaming brother and a panicky husband to drive into the arms of a psychiatrist.

“I want to die,” I once told a student, who popped back with, “that just means you’re not listening to God.”

The fury that surged through my body was liberating—perhaps nothing she could have said was more beneficial. And so we come to the theory that depression is simply rage or some other negative emotion suppressed.

Maybe—but can we just do whoever-it-is theorem? Remember—the idea that when there are two or more competing explanations, go with the simplest? Here it is, then.

We’re gonna have to go back to the idea that there are two major types of depression—one situational and reactive, the other biochemical. And we absolutely have to get through our heads—asking anyone with a biochemical depression to do anything except take medicine is like asking a diabetic to adjust his blood sugar without insulin.

The other thing we need to do? Interventions—because a depressed person cannot get help by himself. I robbed myself of forty years because I couldn’t reach out and couldn’t get to a shrink. Until the crisis came, I was stuck. So it’s simple—we ask everyone close to us if they’re depressed. If the answer is yes, we call a shrink, make an appointment, and tell the person, “I’ve made an appointment for you, and I’ll go with you.” It’s the only way to do it.

Was it really 40 years? Were there really no good times, happy days, smiles, light moments?

Yes and no. Of course there were good times. But depression is a psychic pair of sunglasses that seem to get brighter and darker on different days, but never seem to be taken off. Change the metaphor—depression is the movie in black and white, when all the rest of world is watching in color.

And if the medium is the message? In other words, was I watching a different movie because I was seeing it black and white?

Don’t know.

Think so. 

Don’t know….

Hard to Do Good to....

There are days when the topic presents itself, when the island outdoes itself in some species of lunacy or illogic that the post virtually writes itself. Today?

Well, I started out trawling for an interesting story. I can therefore tell you that there is a guy, Patrick McConlogue, who observed a homeless person living down by the Hudson River in New York City. McConlogue thought there was something interesting about the guy—he didn’t seem crazy, he wasn’t talking to himself, he was reading and writing. So McConlogue, who is a software engineer, devised a test—he would approach the person and offer two alternatives. The first, he would give the guy $100. The second alternative was a laptop computer, three books on Java script writing, and lessons every morning for three months.

Guess what? Leo, the homeless guy, chose the second offer. And it developed that Leo is a sharp guy—he’s particularly passionate about the environment…but let McConlogue describe it:

It turns out Leo is a genius particularly concerned with environment issues. As I sat there becoming increasing stunned, he rattled off import/export prices on food, the importance of solar and green energy, and his approval for “efficient public transportation initiatives [referring to NY’s new Citibike]”. He is smart, logical, and articulate. Most importantly, he is serious. It’s up to him if dedication is also his gift.

So he returned the next day with the following stuff:

      Samsung Chromebook with 3G (access to code academy etc).

            Beginner: “JavaScript for Beginners”

            Intermediate: “Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja”

            Advanced: “Javascript the Good Parts”

            Solar charger for the laptop.

            Something to hide the laptop in. (Anyone have ideas? Email me: pmcconlogue[at]gmail.com)

McConlogue then went on to write a blog post entitled (infelicitously) “Finding the unjustly homeless, and teach them to code.”

Vitriol exploded across the Internet. Were there “justly” homeless people, critics demanded? Was McConlogue really suggesting….

One guy tweeted, “I hope the homeless guys takes the 100 bucks, just to mess with this condescending dick-face.

Guys? This guy is a software engineer, not a public relations expert. Of course he was suggesting that some people deserved to be homeless. Oh, and remind me again—what are you doing for the homeless?

“It’s so very hard to do good to people,” Margaret Mead once said. You want to help—but is that money you give some homeless person going for food or drugs? And will Leo—despite his brains—be able to stick to three months of learning Java script?

My gut tells me that Leo is very likely bipolar and is currently exhibiting no symptoms—but what do I know? At any rate, it’s an interesting experiment—and I hope it works.

So that got me thinking about The Soloist, Nathaniel Antonio Ayers, Jr.—the former student at Juilliard whom Steven López, an LA Times reporter, befriended. Ayers dropped out of Juilliard when he had a psychotic break—and he never quite got his life back again. So López got involved, got Ayers an apartment, contacted Ayers’ sister; he did a mammoth job of helping a person who…

…was not always easy to help.

What do you do when you convince a landlord to rent an apartment to a psychiatric patient, and then the tenants start complaining—why is that guy in 4D walking around outside the building all night?

He’s pacing because he’s hearing voices and he’s scared to be in his apartment. Or he attributes some magical power to a ritual in which he must walk nine times around the building, saying a talismanic series of phrases. And if he gets it wrong, he has to start all over again. Or maybe….

You get the picture.

OK—so Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. made a film—also called The Soloist in 2009. And what’s up with Ayers now? Now that the book has been written, the movie filmed? Anyone still concerned about Ayers?

I’ve looked. Ayers’ sister has a foundation to help artistically gifted people who are suffering psychiatric illnesses, but there’s not much info on Ayers there. So the most recent info came from Pat LaMarche in Huffington Post from April of this year. Here’s part of what she wrote:

Ayers wants to change what people call him. He wants to be Tony Ocean. He has emblazoned the new name all over his violin case; his trumpet case hasn't yet been monogrammed.

Ocean says "his" reporter made him a household word: "I have a reporter. His name is Steve Lopez, from the LA Times. He made me famous. I went to the White House. I was in the China Room. I flew Alaska Air. They made a movie about me and about his book." It seems this fame is the reason Ocean has dumped his old name. "I threw the other one away. I want to be Tony because I like the food there." Ocean took the menu for Tony's lunch counter out of his trumpet case to emphasize the name change, "and because my mother liked to call me that. I picked Ocean because I like the sound of the ocean. I like the rolling sound as it comes and goes."

Ocean likes the sound of the music he hears on Skid Row too. "I was a Cleveland-born person. I decided to move here because the center of town has Beethoven. And you can get food. They have a pot full of beans and they will give you some," Ocean explains without mentioning exactly who "they" are. Then he referenced his audience as a reason to stay, "And Steve Lopez says, 'you were playing your violin for your friends.'" And that's reason enough for Ocean to stay on Skid Row.  

Well, most people make their choices in real estate based on something other than where Beethoven is. And those people who do, like Ayers?

Not easy to do good to….

On Shrinks and Singers

“You really should review Iguanas,” I said to my shrink, to whom I had given a draft (and a very rough one at that) on my first visit early last year.

“I’m not gonna commit to that,” he said.

‘Hmmm, that’s very close to where “no” starts,’ I thought.

Well, those long years of toiling in the Wal-Mart fields taught me a few tricks.

“You know, your life is not gonna be fulfilled until your read that book,” I said.

He just laughed.

I should have known he wouldn’t buy in. True, he is a bit unschooled. He has only one diploma in his office, unlike the dozens any respectable doctor would have. So apparently he just attended that little school up there by the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You know, the one founded by…

…John Harvard.

Right—so we can move that concern to the inactive list.

If you’ve never done it, the process of seeing a shrink is curiously personal and impersonal. There’s the shrink, who knows a lot about you. There’s you, who may know very little about the shrink. It’s a one-way window—the psychiatrist peering in, the patient seeing his own reflection.

Which may have been why I felt like a bit of a stalker, when I spent half an hour this morning this morning researching the guy. I had looked him up before my first visit; you really should know into whose hands—rather brains—you’re entrusting your psyche.

Here’s what I read:

Alan del Castillo was raised in Puerto Rico, the son of British and Spanish parents. He has pursued a rich variety of musical disciplines parallel to his medical career. He has traveled often in Latin America, absorbing musical influences from throughout the continent. He first fell in love with South American music when he was studying medicine while living in England. There he met Chilean refugees who deeply influenced him. He performed classical music with the University College Choir and Chorus of the Philharmonic Orchestra of London for 3 years, as well as recording for the BBC. After moving from London to Boston, he continued to play South American music with the trio Andanzas, recording and touring widely. He currently lives in Puerto Rico, where he practices psychiatry, though more often than not he comes to the U.S. to tour with Sol y Canto, particularly since the 1999 release of their CD, "En todo momento," which prominently features Alan as a vocalist. A talented singer, Alan's soulful quena and ocarina playing is one of his fortes.

OK—I’m a cellist, he’s a singer; that might work. Then I met the guy, liked him (which is nice) and trusted him (which is everything).

Well, does he pass the litmus test? That is, is he one YouTube? (Confession, I am not—so who am I to judge?)

The answer—very appropriate for a psychiatrist—is maybe. Sol y Canto is there, and is (with the exception of the songs aimed at children) wonderful. It’s clear—these are talented and committed people, the Amadors and company who make up the group. Rosi Amador is one hell of a singer, and her husband Brian is a great guitar player.

And they’ve attracted attention—garnering reviews from Billboard, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and People en español.

Right, but where’s the good doctor, with his soulful quena and ocarina? In addition to “En todo momento” he also has recorded “El doble de amigos.” So I went to the group’s official site, logically if not very originally called solycanto.com, and listened to the little snippets they give you as musical samples. Besides Rosi, there’s another singer, a tenor.

But is it del Castillo or Brian Amador?

Fitting, somehow, that I don’t know, as I also don’t the man. I get glimpses, of course—he is blessedly far from being the sphinx that most Freudians are. He’s a gentle man, with a dry sense of humor, and—says Raf, who met him at a party—a very good mimic. He hates to drive, and thinks of retiring in a small Spanish town. He gets my being gringo, but can become very Puerto Rican on seeing an old friend—a receptionist who used to work in the office. He’s my age, but is still running around with a backpack—hasn’t he figured out he’s not back in Harvard Yard?

He uses silence, of course, as a good shrink should do. Which means that he’s quite happy to let the silence grow—he doesn’t return the conversational ball immediately. He’ll wait and see—is there more?

Or perhaps he’s reflecting, testing my comments in his mind. Or observing.

And though I suspect the thrill of being a shrink may have dimmed some for him, he does it with consummate skill. I’m lucky to have him.

Now, doctor, what about that review?

White light

It was only after I saw my shrink, today, that I fully understood what I had done.

Resolved the defining challenge of my life.

Defining because, yes, it had ruled me since I can remember. I couldn’t get the sounds in my head out of the cello. I raged, I bit myself—never puncturing the skin, but leaving the indentations of teeth marks for hours. I once broke a bow, slamming it on the strings of the instrument.

I knew it was in there; I couldn’t get it out. And with the rage came the depression. Black days, awful days when the minutes dragged, when no amount of will could banish the demon that lurked in the corner, always crouched, always ready to pounce.

Things I didn’t care about I did well. Teaching, never a problem.

The cello?

An agony that I couldn’t do, and couldn’t not do. I couldn’t breath at the cello, I held my breath until I had to gasp. My shoulders cramped, so tight was I.

I was practicing for hours at a time. There were days it went well. I floated down the street, beaming at strangers.

Most days it didn’t.

Late at night, in Chicago. Raf asleep, Marc alone in an empty apartment. I would be meditating, and almost get through.

I called it the breakthrough. The music would get out, I would get out, the struggle would be over.

I’d win.

Or be free.

I’d masturbate, hoping to use the energy of orgasm to push me through that door. And use Rush, amyl nitrite. I’d see a white light, I’d move closer, the orgasm would stun me. But I never got through.

Last March, I relived the moment I lost my mind, back in December. Had two weeks of struggle, of fierce concentration and mindfulness. It took five minutes to save a document. I washed dishes as if the process were a koan. I retrained myself to do everything.

At the end of the day, I would be exhausted. I’d sit and read what someone else had written.

I’d laugh out loud.

“He’s so funny,” I’d say.

“He makes the most amazing leaps,” I’d say.

I was reading that day’s post in a blog called Life, Death and Iguanas.

“I’m taking the writer to get his teeth fixed,” I told Taí. She was in a storm of worry ten islands down the Caribbean. I made sure he ate. I obsessed about his having water at all times. I needed to take care of him, this gifted guy whom I have nothing to do with.

And everything….

“He didn’t go away, I could have lost him,” I’m telling the shrink. And then, “hey, aren’t you guys supposedly to have Kleenex?”

He gestured to the side table.

Well, they are our confessors, these shrinks. And at one moment, retelling the story, I jumped back, back to a dark apartment, back to a man in agony, back to a man with his brain flooded with chemicals, and a light, a light, a light I could not get to. A light that would recede and leave me so stabbed with alone.

I’m gasping, now, as I was gasping in that red velvet chair, as I was gasping at the cello.

I have just had an orgasm I have never had. Nothing physical, no hands to wash, or floor to wipe. And no, I saw no white light.

I see that white light when I sit in my chair, at five in the afternoon and read the absurd, the tortured, most—the gifted—words he’s written.

He’s filled with that light, and I tell him, “fuck, you’re amazing.”

To the edge once again

It’s the reason so many psychiatric patients eventually exhaust all but the most devoted of their support system.

Come clean—I stopped taking one of my meds.

But be fair—I told my doctor, my psychiatrist that is, and though skeptical, he agreed.

It’s called Remeron and it has two faces. The first is to lift the spirits. I looked it up on a great website—crazymeds.org. OK, maybe not the most reliable, but definitely more readable than the drug-sponsored sites.

This guy’s take (site is obviously written by a manic)?

Remeron is legalized marijuana.

Might be. Because it does exactly what dope did to me, those many years ago when I was young and experimental.

Remember the munchies?

“Coffee ice cream!” I shouted over my shoulder at Raf, who was puzzled—why was I going to CVS at 11PM? And why couldn’t I stop and answer, so urgent was the craving?

Oddly, I don’t actually like coffee ice cream—but four hours after taking Remeron 15mg PO at HS (that's for Ruthie, to remember her nursing days) I would commit armed robbery to get it.

Well, it wasn’t doing my blood sugar any good—to say nothing of my cholesterol. And my other antidepressant—Lexapro—had worked fine for two years, until Wal-Mart sacked me when I was working my way through the death of Franny. 

I convinced the psychiatrist. And I tapered off the drug, as instructed.

First days were fine. Actually, almost better than fine. I was in Culebra and had an exalted moment. I was on the morning trot, listening to The Creation, when it hit me, how uncannily apt the music of my journey had been. Starting with Winterreise as I went into the bottom of death and despair. Then Beethoven, the Heiliger Dankgesang—as I moved through sickness to health. Lastly, The Creation, as I gave birth and set forth a Franny—a new Franny, my Franny—into the world again.

The Creation—get it? The gods aren’t subtle around here....

We came to a hill, Franny and I—she was trotting alongside of me—and the Haydn came to a long, achingly beautiful ascending—acsending, catch that word?—passage.

Right, so we were three: Franz Joseph, Franny and I.

So I had Franz Joseph in my ear. I reached out and grabbed Franny by the shoulders and hugged. And we sailed up the hill together.

Right—all was well for the next couple of days. But then I stopped writing. Got off my normal schedule. And two days ago, had a very strange thing happen.

Hypoglycemia.

Well, it’s happened before. And somehow, it was 2PM and I hadn’t eaten anything. So I went to the café, and they made me a very good, very large tuna sandwich.

Oddly, the sensations didn’t go away. For me, hypoglycemia is about anxiety. I get desperate / frantic to eat.

You do, and it goes away.

Why wasn’t it?

Right—went to CVS and bought orange juice. Drank the full container. 

Still felt hungry.

Then Miss Taí calls—she’s sensing a rat, or maybe something fishy. I tell her about the hypoglemia. Call tomorrow.

By the time Raf arrives, I’m pretty much a wreck. Now I’m having muscle cramps, and I decide I need magnesium. And oddly, the muscles cramping are ones that never cramp—my fingers and the top of my ankle. Then I notice that I can’t really breath. Well I can, but not easily. And damn, what’s going on with my blood sugar?

Why am I so anxious?

And why was I still feeling strange the next day?

And feeling dammit it’s not fair why has my life been so fucking hard I’ve had to STRUGGLE FUCKING STRUGGLE for fucking years now and I’ve never had it easy and fuc kingf can fuqeiufam l;alcqm09rinf             p’

Phone rings. Miss Taí, wondering how my mood is? 

Can’t talk, I need to eat, call me tomorrow.

But she made me think. This couldn’t be hypoglycemia. Come on, Marc—you’re an old nurse. Think it through. What’s different?

I go into the kitchen. Why am I here? Why is a banana in my hand? Am I supposed to eat it…..

You can eat it if you want. Now go back into the kitchen.

Why am I standing in front of the sink?

Water—you need water.

And now the pill.

I see the pill in my palm. I take it and swallow it. It is four fifteen.

At five, I am doing dishes. I am telling myself, ‘you’ve also been given stuff many people have not. You are way talented in ways many others are not. You see things others don’t. You had wonderful parents, and have a long stable marriage. Yes, it’s been hard. But others have had it harder….’

OK—so Taí?  Call me at four—let’s figure out how to sell this book.

And thanks!