From Prometheus to Magic Mountain.
We
met at Barbes for a quick drink.
Hadn’t
seen each other for years, since Clearwater, when the kids were young and the
parents still around.
How
are you, I asked.
Worst
two years of my life.
Lost both my folks.
After
Mom died, Dad moved in.
He’d ask for mom every day, he told me.
Where
is she, he wondered. I lost her.
He
was 91.
They'd been together forever.
Where is she?
Every day he asked it, repeating the panic and horror, myth
of the eternal return.
Telling him, I felt like Prometheus.
He'd feel like shit for the rest of the day.
So finally, I started saying,
I don't know.
That’s an honest answer I replied.
Who of us really knows?
I could swear it in a lie detector test.
Riding
home from Barbes to Big Tiny, I thought of Prometheus.
“For it would be better to die once
and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life,”
wrote Aeschylus.
On the surface, all looked well, the
city alive, people getting vaccinated, less masks about.
“New
York to adopt new CDC mask guidelines effective Wednesday,” announced Cuomo.
Still,
a great white roamed along
NY,
NJ WATERS..,said the papers.
Back
on Smith Street, Catherine and Caroline chat at Big Tiny, friends dropping in
for crawfish.
Bands play across Brooklyn.
Jazz @bigwrenchpiano...the whole
neighborhood was sitting outside on Hoyt Street, greeting, commiserating, chatting away, listening to tunes.
The virus still raging, Brian was collecting coins for India.
“@lukemarantz with @mattmarantz, @allanmednard and Rick
Rosato. This is a great quarter for a great cause, India Covid relief through
@give_india.”
Everything changing.
The sun greeted us Saturday,
Hungry March Band at Venice Beach,
democracy and beats.
A full day, community event on ranked
choice voting with bands in motion.
Out to Nostrand we rode to see the African Record Store.
For pints on the street.
Bands up and down Union Street, at Grand
Army,
on 5th Ave, in the street.
The little one was at Prospect Park.
Sunday, the teenager and i walked to Red
Hook.
Playing Holden Caulfield,
walking the streets, finding a new voice, gender play, a twisted dandy, plaid
on plaid, as Holden buying a “"Little Shirley Beans" record for
Pheobe on a Sunday, walking the same streets, dad filming not so successfully
for the school project.
Times changes.
Kids
move.
They
find something.
They
push us away.
It’s
their job.
We’re
just like each other, with mirroring intensities.
We
see each other trying, growing, separating, expanding, searching, finding
something.
Street
clashes and stories.
Parents
are Prometheus Bound,
Trying
to do the right thing, not quite able to avoid the hurt.
Repeating
and repeating, back and forth, clash, regret repeat.
All afternoon, we talked about the Magic Mountain a place
where we all seem to be navigating
Covid long haulers and vaccinations mixing, separating the
healthy and the sick, vulnerable and the well, the worried well not sure what
to do with it all, masks off and on and off, not sure where it is all going.
Thomas
Mann writes:
“Space, like time, gives birth to forgetfulness, but does so by removing an individual from all relationships and placing him in a free and pristine state--indeed, in but a moment it can turn a pedant and philistine into something like a vagabond. Time, they say, is water from the river Lethe, but alien air is a similar drink; and if its effects are less profound…”
It
makes me sleepy reading it.
They
all have TB or do they?
Are
they really sick?
COVID
is the Magic Mountain, a place where people are still depressed or languishing,
some coming out of it, others still caught in the meaningless, slow movement of
time, fluid, passing, not quite on top of things.
It
gives birth to forgetfulness.
“Can
someone truly be the intellectual master of a power to which he is himself
enslaved? Can he liberate if he himself
is not free,” wonders Mann.
On hiatus, Micah lists his symptoms, months after contracting, thinking
he had recovered from COVID:
“I
have a nearly constant headache that is at its worst in the morning, but continues
throughout the day.
- I suffered from mild, manageable
tinnitus before COVID, but now the sound is much louder, often deafening.
- Brain fog is real. I have difficulty
remembering dates, times, names, and details. I often can’t track conversations
or follow my own train of thought or make confident decisions or find the words
I want to use...
- I am always short of breath and I
always carry a heavy, hollow feeling in my chest…
- I can only sleep for about three hours
a night, even though I am fatigued all day, every day.
- I have daily body aches and
gastrointestinal issues.
- Whether it is its own long-haul
symptom or whether it is a product of dealing with all of the above symptoms, I
am experiencing some deep mental health issues. I have been lucky in my life to
have never before suffered from depression or anxiety. Having had no experience
before this, along with trying to maintain a reputation for sunshine and
glitter, makes it hard to admit that I am mentally suffering now.”
Micah is on the Magic Mountain.
A lot of us are.
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