- John Barry, “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America”
“I want to feel sunlight on my face
I see that dust cloud disappear without a trace
I wanna take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name...”
- U2, “Where the Streets Have No Name”
Events that mark the end of a way of seeing the world.
Possibly the end of that world itself.
Think bombing Pearl Harbor, walking on the moon, and surfing the Internet.
Think killing JFK, dismantling Berlin’s wall, and attacking NYC.
Think Katrina’s water, South Africa’s apartheid, and Covid-19’s pandemic.
Collective, global, humanity-embracing, languid and roiling, penetrating, history-altering events.
Washing away surface.
Revealing character.
Forever changing.
We stop.
We inhale.
We process.
We exhale.
We wait.
We live.
“If you show up without this wristband, it’s bad”.
She was one of the last nurses I’d see before my “Event”.
She adjusted it and gave me another solemn warning:
“If you show up without this wristband, it’s game over, and you don’t want that, so don’t lose your wristband”.
No, no we don’t want that.
No wristband losing, misplacing or mangling.
No bad, no game over.
My fresh wristband is my Willy Wonka Golden Ticket.
My entrance to the Big Game.
My interior life coded onto a roughly 8 inch, indispensable, do-not-even-think-about-taking-it-off strip of white and blue plastic.
I’ve worn plenty of wristbands in my life.
Concerts.
Bars.
Markets.
Festivals.
Fairs.
I needed a wristband at a festival once where 1,000’s were in attendance, and when the woman put it on me she remarked, “Wow, your wrists are huge...hope this fits!”
1,000’s in attendance.
1,000’s.
She singled out my wrists.
Freakishly large, apparently.
I think that’s wrist-ism.
Singer-songwriter Paul Simon wrote a song called “Wristband”.
It starts off with a couple of verses about needing a wristband to enter a club he’s already playing in, then it takes a dark turn with scathing lyrics about class disparity:
“The riots started slowly
With the homeless and the lowly,
Then they spread into the heartland towns
That never get a wristband...
Kids that can’t afford the cool brand
Whose anger is a short-hand
For you’ll never get a wristband
And if you don’t have a wristband
Then you can’t get through the door
No you can’t get through the door
Wristband, my man,
You’ve got to have a wristband
If you don’t have a wristband, my man
You don’t get through the door...”
My fresh wristband is the gold standard, the mother of all wristbands, the latest souvenir in a dizzying string of personal events marking the end of my way of seeing the world.
7 months worth of intimate, seriously-what’s-happening, devastatingly, intrusive, personal events.
If you’re here with me in spirit, reading my thoughts, graciously, quietly, tracking and treading these rocky ground steps with me, then you’re familiar with my litany of Covid19-related junk.
Covid-19 royally sucks - with all of its life-draining, hellish, anti-body beating, morphing, ugliness.
I won’t bore you or elicit pity by listing all of the (excuse my anger language) fuck you symptoms it sent my way, ad infinitum.
But please know this.
Everything on that list - every single thing - has been a washing away surface, character revealing, forever changing event.
Every almost not gotten, hard fought for, life giving, I need to breathe breath; every stroke-induced, I-can’t-do-shit-anymore, physical therapy revealing exercise; every what-fresh-hell-is-this utterance from another doctor; every I’m-just-really-really-scared-and-tired-and-I-just-want-my-life-back tear that I try and fight back at the weirdest times - like right now as I’m writing - is and has been an event.
An event.
An.
Awful.
Unholy.
Exhausting.
Crippling.
Event.
“You’re one of the blessed ones”.
“You shouldn’t even be here, but I’m so glad you are”.
“When I tell my colleagues about you, they’re pretty stunned...”
Quotes.
Verbatim quotes.
From this week’s hospital/nurse/technician/doctor visits.
Some remembered me.
The ones that did were visibly surprised.
That’s unsolicited, heavy stuff.
Tough to process stuff.
Gives me chills, keeps me awake at night, how-do-I-move-forward-now stuff.
And the wristband.
The wristband says I’m going back.
Back in to my heart being exposed in a way it’s never been exposed before.
Literally, a chest cracked, “open heart” exposed way.
Back to the please-let-me-continue-to-be-one-of-the-blessed-ones status, gate keepers.
Back to the I’ve-never-felt-this-way before mode of this is my new normal level way of life.
I stop.
I inhale.
I process.
I exhale.
I wait.
I live.
I’ve spent the last few days reading the memoir of civil rights icon John Lewis.
It’s called, “Walking With the Wind”, and it’s simply staggering.
He’s as much or more of a rockstar than Jagger, Mercury, or Bowie.
He’s a beautiful man.
He writes of a spiritual awakening he experienced in terms I’ve never heard before, and trust me, I’ve read about many spiritual awakenings.
Listen to his heart:
“It was at this time I began believing in what I call the Spirit of History. Others might call it Fate. Or destiny. Or a guiding hand. Whatever it is called I came to believe that this force is on the side of what is good, of what is right and just. It is the essence of the moral force of the universe, and at certain points in life, in the flow of human existence and circumstances, this force, this spirit, finds you or selects you, it chases you down, and you have no choice; you must allow yourself to be used, to be guided by this force and to carry out what must be done...that is the basis of what we call faith...”
I love those words.
I love the mystery.
I love the primal calling.
I love John Lewis.
I’m no John Lewis, but I’m not stupid.
When enough people tell me I’m lucky-fortunate-graced-blessed to still be breathing even while staring into another formidable abyss of a life-altering event, I’ll take it as a sign that I’m still slightly, guiding hand, chased down, wrist-banded, invincible for a reason.
I stop.
I inhale.
I process.
I exhale.
I wait.
I live....
