The heart is right to sing,
when the good dog works and works,
his life fulfilled,
his destiny fulfilled,
his human served,
the heart is right to cry,
when the good dog dies,
or is left behind,
by the frailty of life,
the fickleness
of humans,
the cruelty of fate.
The good dog lives for this:
to work and serve till the end of day.
Till the end of day.
All of our lives are bounded by life’s faces and shadows – by death, illness, loss, joy, creation, loss, sorrow, pain and exhilaration. We have all lost people, lost friends, animals, suffered sorrows and disappointments, this is our universal experience, grace is our response to the reality of life, our acceptance of it, our ability to grow, change, empathize, find our centers and keep our fires glowing. I am reminded every day how wondrous life is, how rewarding it can be.
Whenever I’m in Grafton, Vermont, I go and visit the covered bridge there, it was built in 19=870, re-built in 1995, barely survived Hurricane Irene. Something about the design attracts, me, inspires me.
As a former smoker, hard drinker and long-time ex- Valium addict, I have an intimate acquaintance with asthma, bronchial fevers and nasty hacking-cough-colds. They are rare in my life in these days, I haven’t smoked in decades, I don’t drink at all any more, and I gave up valium after my divorce, nobody told he it would be hard. It is no longer hard. Life without drugs is more rewarding to me than life with drugs, but there are those moments when I remember what all that stuff sometimes did for me.
This week, I’ve been wrestling with a cold that just laid waste to me, took my voice away, left me weak and coughing, feeling old and worn out and discouraged. I knew what I had to do.
Once in awhile, when I am sick, I am fortunate enough to score (legally) some of that prescription codeine-based cough syrup that dries me up, puts me into the deepest sleep, and takes me on some magical and enchanting journeys. Last night, sick of being sick, tired of coughing, I got into bed, kissed Maria good night, took some good chugs of my sweet syrup – I only have one small bottle, it is already gone – and fell right into the arms of Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer who made so much wonderful music and died before I even really understood what music is.
I don’t know how I came to spend the night with Billie Holiday, I do love her and her music, I have listened to it on-and-off for much of my life. She was sitting in a big dark ballroom, just me and her, by a giant black piano, she had a cigarette in one had, a glass of bourbon in the other – this is how she often recorded her music – and she looked sad and wise and mournful and loving, as she often did. I sat in a chair nearby, and then the two of us were holding hands, sailing through space she was singing “Good Morning Heartache,” and I began to sing the song with her, “Goodmorning, heartache, Here we go again, Goodmorning heartache, You’re the one who knew me when, “Might as well get used to you hanging around, Good morning heartache, Sit down.”
Billie and I were sailing along in the sky, there were bright stars all around us, we were floating over the ocean, then Manhattan, andI told her the song reminded me of my feelings about fear, how I used to say good morning to fear every day, I got used to it hanging around. Then I told her how much I loved her singing, how I remember her song “That Old Devil Called Love,” and I told her I had found love, I told her about Maria, and she started crying – Billie Holiday was very emotional, like Maria, she often cried while recording, and I remember singing that song with her as we sailed through some caves and valleys together, I had to look the lyrics up when I woke up, I couldn’t remember them all, I was still quite hazy and I don’t have a great memory for lyrics.
But these were simple, they came back to me.
“It’s that old devil called love again.
Gets behind me and keeps giving me that shove again
Putting rain in my eyes, tears in my dreams,
and rocks in my heart.”
And when I woke up, the light was creeping through the frost-bitten windows, Maria was wrapped around me, Lenore was dozing at my feet, Red on the floor next to my side of the bed. I had slept a long time, I had my voice back and I felt human again, and stronger. I do not feel old this morning, nor weak. I am taking Maria out for lunch to celebrate her remarkable sale of more than 100 potholders yesterday during her first Plaid Friday sale. I almost missed it.
Did the cough syrup cure me, bring me back to myself? Or did Billie Holiday, the power of creativity, of music, maybe taking my hand and bringing me along with her on this magical trip? I think it was both, sometimes we need help keeping the magic in our lives.
Sunday I was at a book talk/signing in Chester, Vt., and my voice started cracking mid-way through, it got scratchier and scratchier, I kept clearing my throat. I suspected I was getting sick and the next day I got walloped with a grade A cold, I lost my voice completely, I was just exhausted and moved around in a fogy and haze. I got to the nurse practitioner Wednesday and she listened to my froggy squeaking and ruled my illness a common cold. Just make sure and rest she said, and i thought, oh sure, I’ll rest a lot on a book tour. But I didn’t have much choice.
Maria had some fun with my voicelessness, we went off to our Inn and I couldn’t speak at all, it was funny for sure, but it also got to me in an interesting and peculiar way. My throat hurt so much I began to wonder what I would do if I didn’t recover, if I lost my voice for good, what it would be like to live in a world of listening. I don’t think I have ever lost my voice, even at my worst I always spoke up for myself – sometimes too loudly. I value silence now in meditation and I kept away from my technology all through the Thanksgiving holiday, the break was refreshing.
But the experience of voicelessness was a powerful experience for me – I can’t quite speak yet, although it is better. I had to find other ways to communicate with Maria, I used hand signals and loud whispers, she understood almost all of what I was saying. I listened to conversations, I experienced a silence within my self that I came to like – our world is so noisy, so filled with messages and alerts. I like contributing silence.
I seemed to pay attention more, to hear more and notice more, without my words scouting the world in front of me.
The quiet felt melancholic to me after awhile, almost lonely, I began to think of the voiceless, literally and metaphorically, the people who can’t speak or are never heard, even if they have a voice. Speaking is our way of navigating the world, I felt some twinges of panic at not being able to express myself, I carried my camera with me everywhere, if I could not speak with words, Perhaps I could capture some images that would speak for me, photography can do that.
I couldn’t make phone calls, couldn’t engage in the small talk that occurs when one runs into other guests at an inn, did they think me rude for nodding at them and walking by? My voicelessness made Maria nervous at first, she said she was not used to a Jon Katz without a voice, neither was I. It is remarkable what we take for granted, we humans, I cannot remember ever losing my voice before, I will appreciate it when it returns, I will be grateful for this eerie and different (and spiritual perspective) in the meantime. I had a dream last night about monks in a silent order, I wondered if they didn’t learn to trade emotions by feel and smell, the way animals do.
My voice is not back yet, neither is my strength.
