“But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights
The television, virtually every hour on the hour: “Breaking News”.
Me (after watching too much British television): “Oh bollocks, what the bloody hell is it now?”
It was that kind of year.
For everyone.
Politically.
Financially.
Spiritually.
Physically.
Relationally.
Career-ally.
Ok, not a word.
But a year.
A year to forget.
A year of uncertainty.
A year of moments.
A whirlwind of moments.
Better yet, a chaos of moments.
“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed; your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide...”
Good words, those.
My story, this mountain, this climb - these ‘Rona Tales - have, I hope, become a page in someone else’s survival guide.
If not a whole page, then a paragraph, I hope, at least.
You’ve seen those social media memes and images on platforms like Tik-Tok, Twitter, FB and Instagram?
You know the ones, the 2021 upgrade version of the old “before and after” pictures?
Now it’s the “how it started” next to “how it’s going” shots.
Like the one of LeBron James from October on the anniversary of his 17th year in the NBA.
“How it started” picture: LeBron going up for a dunk in his Cleveland uniform.
“How it’s going” picture: King James in his Lakers colors staring at a wall of NBA championship trophies.
Clearly going well.
Most everyone’s well-intentioned “2020 how it started” memes had images of party hats, glitter, multi-colored balloons, more glitter, and happy, anticipatory, glittery people.
The “how it’s going” images?
To quote the old Beatles tune, “Ah, look at all the lonely people, where do they all belong?”
Clearly not going well.
At all.
Glitter?
Not so much.
Rough stuff, that 2020.
2021?
Starting out like 2020 2.0.
Ok.
Enough with the 2’s.
I’ve got a meme.
A meme for my ongoing, smoldering, long-hauling voice “issues”.
Still there.
Still off.
I’ll let a slice of a previous post serve as the “how it started” side:
(From Tales, Episode 4, pt. 3: Lamentation and Rage)
At the urging of my cardiologist, I made an appointment with an ENT - ear, nose and throat specialist - due to my ongoing vocal issues.
Resulting from my carotid endarterectomy.
Resulting from my stroke.
Resulting from my Covid-19.
Resulting from...my life.
The good news, after sitting in a sound-proof, hearing testing booth, is that my hearing, according to the technician, is “Beautiful, your hearing is perfect”.
Sigh.
Something is beautiful.
Hallelujah.
Lamentation, rage, and hallelujahs.
I’ll take it.
I’ll covet it.
I’ll treasure my beautiful, perfect hearing.
My voice however, not so hallelujah.
Not so beautiful.
Not so perfect.
“Years ago I treated Luther Vandross” said my ENT doctor as the probing began.
“He was in town and asked for me, I was young and just starting out, so of course I went”.
Luther Vandross.
The hands treating me treated Luther “The Velvet Voice” Vandross.
That’s something.
That’s cool.
“He told me that his handlers and managers thought his voice was like a trumpet - you just take it out of the case every night and blow...” mused the doctor while he was inserting a long, thin tube with a camera on the end into my nasal cavity to view my throat.
And yes.
It’s as unpleasant as it sounds.
“But a voice doesn’t work like that”, said Luther, “It just doesn’t...”
Luther would need voice therapy, just like I was about to be told I needed the same.
“Vocal paresis”, said Luther’s fixer to me.
”Fortunately your vocal cords aren’t paralyzed, but they aren’t moving as much as they should, and it’s called vocal paresis”.
“A few months of therapy and you should start seeing some improvement...”
Sigh.
Deep, deep sigh.
Therapy.
Ongoing therapy.
More therapy, and more therapy to come.
That’s the “how it started” side.
That was June.
A lot has come and gone since June.
A couple of seasons, a baseball championship, an election and an insurrection.
A lot.
A lot for me too, personally.
I won’t regurgitate it all here and now, but mainly it was the triple bypass and cardiac therapy.
A fair amount on top of what had already gone down last year.
A chaos of moments.
Through it all my voice has remained consistent.
Consistently not so beautiful.
Not so perfect.
Not so hallelujah.
Not so...me.
A gravelly-ish-faint-fade-ish-there-goes-my-anything-remotely-resembling-a-little-Prince-Smokey-Sam-Smith-falsetto-and-anything-upper-registery-closed-off-and-closed-for-business affair brewing.
And that brings me to the “how it’s going” side.
This past week that side came into view.
This past week.
January 25 through February 4, the Year of Our Coronavirus, 2020.
I think about it with a veneer of reverence.
In sepia tones.
Hushed.
This past week a Facebook memory popped up, a virtual reminder of last year.
Lauren and I were home sick, and we’d just canceled our trip to NJ to visit family.
Instead of a flight the next day, I’d be on my way to the ER.
“We’re both not feeling great. I’m ok”, she wrote.
Chukk on the other hand, has a ways to go”.
A ways to go.
Prophetic words.
Not to belabor the point, but, well yes, I will belabor it.
“It” so radically changed the course of our lives.
Still.
“It” being what would eventually be understood as covid19 and its’ aftermath in my life, in our lives.
Healing still occurs, a year later, in strange ways.
This past week we made pizza and I was looking for a large container of garlic salt.
The one I used last time I cooked.
I couldn’t find it.
I asked Lauren where it was and she gave me a raised eyebrow, smiled and said, “That’s been gone a while...you haven’t cooked for over a year, remember?”
Oh, right, that.
I forgot.
“Chukk on the other hand, has a ways to go”.
This past week my “how it’s going” side came into view.
“Partially collapsed lung, a chronic condition for you” said the doctor.
A December chest X-ray ordered up due to some lingering breathing stuff led to that prognosis.
“No emergency, we’ll just keep an eye on it”.
So there’s that.
How it’s going.
Glitter?
Not so much.
Then there was the consultation with the speech therapist.
(The consultation I should have had last year when my deductible was paid up and now it’s a new year so new deductible...bollocks...)
A good meeting, another “Oh God, that’s awful, I’m so sorry” reaction to the telling-of-my-Tale-to-another-inquirer-as-to-why-I’m-there.
I’m used to it now.
Lots of breathing exercises (there’s that lung tie-in), recorded “s” and “z” sounds, questions about how my voice makes me feel (quiet these days, actually, it makes me feel quiet), and a “good news, bad news” scenario for me.
I’ve gotten used to those now, too.
The good news are assurances that progress could happen.
Could happen.
No promises, no everything-will-get-back-to-pre-covid19-life-when-we’re-finished talk.
But progress for sure.
Some progress.
A sprinkling of glitter.
The bad news?
Leaning a little more towards the vocal paralysis than the vocal paresis scenario.
Shit.
Paralysis never seems like a welcome participant in a good news scenario.
Ever.
I described for her how before all this happened that I knew what needed to be done vocally if I was out of singing practice and I had an upcoming gig.
The vocal exercises I’d run through.
Usually in my car, but still.
The songs I’d practice to.
The notes I’d need to hit that signaled to me I was ready.
Nothing too scientific, just a very instinctual, interior and organic grasp of my voice.
I told her how no matter how much I practiced it wasn’t happening now.
Like a lid or a cap had been put on my vocal cords.
No old voice cutting through.
No new voice cutting through.
No familiar, emerging tones on the sonic landscape.
An instinctual knowledge that something was different.
Is different.
Very different.
I can sing in my car all day (which I can’t, cause you know, breathing) and it isn’t happening.
“That’s right” she said.
“It’s because there’s been a structural change in the anatomy now, it isn’t just about practicing anymore”.
Boom.
“Structural change in the anatomy”.
Structural change.
Not the “how it’s going” I was hoping for.
I was holding out for more glitter, less chaos of moments.
“Oh bollocks, what the bloody hell is it now?”
“There are things known and things unknown, and in between are the doors...”
- Jim Morrison
To be continued...
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