A Storm for Every Calm

“Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye, — though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life, — in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: — through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.” - Herman Melville

I am not generally one for drinking away my sorrows, but I was driven to try last week - and not just because it was raining outdoors and gloomy in. November 13 was a sad anniversary for me; one toasted with B&B and a PG Netflix movie. Of late, my “pondering repose of If” more closely resembles a heavy mental lumber through the deck of memories – more ponderous than pondering. The focus of my attention devoted to pondering of “If” has narrowed its beam light a dying flashlight down the damp basement steps to replace a fuse. Last week, I was so sad I would have traded my tickets to the moon for a couple of metaphorical C batteries and a pair of shoes with insulated soles.

So, to cheer myself up (this was before the B&B) I tried to think of a funny joke. Hmmm….

One of the funniest jokes in the world, to me, has always been: Why do elephants drink? Why? To forget. Now, to appreciate why the answer to this riddle was so hilarious when I was 10, you need to know the precursor cliché about elephants never forgetting. So, the joke has built-in nod-and-wink to those of us clever enough (like I was at 10) to know the secret handshake to decode this shibboleth of a joke. It’s even funnier as I age and begin to consider how hard it must be for an elephant to actually drink enough to get drunk, given its body weight.

Melville totally captures a bleak time when the earth has been long parched by the dead drought of earthy life. And I totally relate to his comparison of this soul-deep inborn longing to return to the cool dew in the Garden of Eden as it was before snakes invaded. The halting and stumbling progress of our lives toward some imagined “If” is, Melville seems to say, is a journey with an end shrouded in riddles like a dilemma, inside an enigma, wrapped in bacon. Like a hilarious riddle but with the punch line we don’t quite get until we die.

If I had a dollar for every time I wandered from “… doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of "If". If only I had a dollar. If only. Fifty cents. I'd be richer than Oprah.
If. But. But it’s sunny today. Today at least, I get a brief remission in the symptoms of my seasonal affective disorder. If only it would stay this way.

From Wisdom to Madness Via Woe

"Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness."
Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Trying to educate myself about my new irregular heartbeat and deadening drug side-effects has been like giving myself up to fire. I’ve had irregular heartbeats intermittently (no, that’s not redundant) for a few weeks. When I finally got to the doctor last week, he blew off my list of side effects from the rat poison and the antiarrhythmic saying I’d had a life-changing experience, so some disruption in mood was to be expected. Which did nothing to make me wiser and a lot to make me madder.

My side effects include menopausal hot flashes that leave me drenched in sweat, itching skin that seems to move around my arms and legs like ants when I try to sleep, mood swings that make menopause look like a slightly cloudy afternoon (no that’s not redundant either), unprovoked crying, feeling totally overwhelmed at the least little problem, and headaches. He increased one of my prescriptions because my blood pressure is also elevated. All doctors do these days is practice medicine with prescription pads - meaning he paid attention to the one symptom a prescription pad purports to cure (without consideration of what new side-effects it might cause). When I drop something on the floor, instead of cleaning it up, I just say fuck this and walk away. I’ve pretty much lost interest in everything except my favorite kitty. So I suppose that’s a good sign – the kitty part, not the other stuff.

The backyard has defeated me. I now consider myself a lapsed gardener. The neglected table-top miniature pots with moss in them have now succumbed to high heat and a shut-off sprinkler. They were to give me something cool and calm to meditate on. I plan to go outside to see what stage of slow and gruesome death by lack of hydration they are in as soon as I finish my caffeine-free coffee that tastes like worn-out socks. I’ve also vitrually stopped drinking alcohol too, which hasn’t exactly contributed positively to my outlook.

Despite its failure to operate as a quilting machine, my new sewing machine works quite well as a sewing machine, so that’s a ray of frickin’ sunshine in my currently dismal life. To restore the balance to the universe, I made pillow cases for TCG’s two tiny pillows and embroidered the following rhyme on one: Goodnight my dear,/ And sweet repose./ Lie on your back/ So you don’t squish your nose.

I did a lot of medical research on line, being careful to distinguish between batshit crazy wacko sites and, say, Mayo Clinic and NIH.gov, a process which involves a minimum of a third grade education and the application of judgment which, surprisingly, doctors seem to think those without a postgraduate degree in some biological science are incapable of exercising. Turns out the cute ER doc who mentioned that cannabis use is linked to tachycardia might have been right. I say might, because he fact that the relevant research was conducted on healthy 20-something men and involved only smoking (rather than oral ingestion of) marijuana may not be significant, and wasn't terribly specific about dosing. Now because I lack a medical-related degree I might just be blowing smoke here, metaphorically speaking, of course. I’m refraining from my go-to herbal cure for depression at least until I finish adapting to the rat poison and apparently non-functioning shit that’s supposed to regulate my heart. I may or may not bother to see the cardiologist. At this point in my research, I’m leaning to getting some blood tests for cardiac blood markers like C-reactive protein and other inflammatory cytokines like Tumor Necrosis Factors that are better indications of stroke risk, but what do I know.

WRT the non-functioning antiarrhythmia med, called Amioderone, I found a study (could only access the abstract) that said: “The management of AF (atrial fibrillation – what I had) can vary among individuals depending on factors such as underlying heart condition, age, stroke risk, and the severity of symptoms associated with AF. The Atrial Fibrillation Follow-up Investigation of Rhythm Management (AFFIRM) trial randomized AF patients into 2 treatment strategies: heart rate control without attempting to maintain normal rhythm versus heart-rhythm control that attempted to maintain normal rhythm through the use of medications. Both groups received warfarin (aka, rat poison). The study showed that there was no advantage of one approach over the other in terms of survival. Patients treated with heart rhythm medications were hospitalized more often for their treatment and were exposed to possible side effects of antiarrhythmic medications. Therefore, the selection of treatment strategy is often guided by symptoms. Anticoagulation should be considered for all patients at increased risk for stroke” (Chung MK. Vitamins, supplements, herbal medicines, and arrhythmias. Cardiol Rev. 2004 Mar;12(2):73–8).

Now, as an uneducated drug-addled old broad, I read that as saying the Amioderone was more trouble than it was worth. My doc read that part of the 9-page research paper I compiled in doing my research, and shook his head patronizingly and said “You should ask your cardiologist about that”. So, should I survive the questionable care of these distracted mechanics, I might do that. Funny story about the side effects of Amioderone: “Though this medication often gives great benefits to people with irregular heartbeat, it may infrequently worsen an irregular heartbeat or cause serious (sometimes fatal) side effects.” I’m pretty sure death is a “fatal side effect” but I’ll have to ask my cardiologist to be sure.

Serene and Bright

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;
But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.
William Wordsworth, “To a Young Lady Who had Been Reproached for Taking Long Walks in the Country”

Melancholy is easy. Serenity seems to be a bit harder, perhaps more so as pale grey hairs begin to outnumber the dark ones. Things fade, as do people, flowers, draperies in the sunny windows, and bones of beached whales bleached by the sun and smoothed by the tide.

So, my hypertufa Pequod is poised on the side of the pond, ready to hunt the elusive white whale. The fish fountain at right only spouts water when the sun shines serenely and brightly on its small solar panel. Apart from the fact that he’s hardly white, he spouts from his mouth rather than his blowhole. So, Melville would probably not appreciate my horticultural tribute to Moby Dick.

Mr. Mosshead has been moved farther into the shade as the summer sun closes in everywhere. I’m not sure if he’ll survive in the south-facing side of the house. While he evokes serenity, he doesn’t do bright. Perhaps I should return him to the spot out front where I harvested the moss. The spot in perpetual shade also gets the direct runoff from a sprinkler head that creates the ideal conditions for moss. Not exactly the lingering summer twilight in Lapland, but perhaps more appropriate to his needs.