What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.
~ Sylvia Plath
Nobody likes a sob story, so I shall try not to torment my reader with sobbing, moaning, or whimpering. Yet here is something indicative of the United States of Armed-Buzz-Cutted-Uniformed-Officer-Worshipping-Nonthinkers. To get deeply personal, I am in treatment for bipolar disorder and alcoholism; I have been for some time. After my divorce (2010) I made two (obviously) unsuccessful suicide attempts, swam into the deepest ocean of booze I could find, had unprotected sex (thank whatever maker-critter that exists that I am not dying of something slow and creeping), and picked fights with guys much bigger and more agile than I. But I continued to read, write, and even lecture. Through it all, my ex-wife never once dropped me a line to ask about the piece of phosphorescent detritus that my life has become. So be it. However, one bright day, as I sat in my favorite spot by the lake, guzzling from a bottle of cheap gin and reading Keats, I finally decided to put a stop to the decline -- I called the Alcoholics Anonymous hotline and entered a rehabilitation clinic. That was back in 2013. Sure, there have been relapses since then, but for the most part I have remained sober. Yet under the miscropscopic and, yes, well-meaning care of the psychiatric professionals who treated me, it came to light that I am bipolar. Anyone who doesn't know what that means, well, google it. But the short version is this: I get happy and energetic for a day or two, and then I fall into a deep pit of despair and I want to die. So I am on medication and I go to therapy every week; I attend support groups and even -- despite my atheism -- go to A.A. meetings and say the Serenity Prayer with all the other depserate men and women who are taking it one miserable day at a time. I continue to write and have recently done a pretty fun lecture on Hemingway and a few other greats, near-greats, and ingrates of the literary world of the not-too-distant past. Anyway ...
A few days ago I had a notably horrible day. I awoke from a vivid dream of my ex-wife: a love-making scene that lingered after waking -- I could still smell her shampoo and taste her daffodil flesh. The dark corridor of my building was filled with the scent of pot smoke, and someone was arguing in an adjacent apartment. I walked outside, lit a cigar, and felt like every motion was an exercise not merely in futility but in cosmic mockery. I felt as though my very existence was an affront to everything that flourishes under the sun. I called my psychiatrist and went in for a very long session. We talked at great length, and she encouraged me to attend a performance of the student orchestra at the local university, which I did -- after asking a woman old enough to be my mother to go with me (but that is an ongoing drama with little bearing on this account). It was a nice time: Mozart's 14th symphony, rather languid but pleasing. When I returned home, I drank a few beers, took a few klonopin, and went to sleep. The days meandered: I read a new Clive Barker book, nothing deep, and listened to a lot of Art Blakey and even some Sun Ra. And now for the kicker ...
Just a short while ago, as I was finishing my dinner, a knock came at my door, and when I opened it I was shocked to see two burly armed police officers and a petite, unthreatening woman staring me down. She was a representative of the clinic where I go for my psychiatric treatment, there to check up on me (fair enough). But what bothered me was the two grim-faced officers, hands on weapons, staring at me like I was a criminal. So Edward being Edward, I asked them if they were planning to shoot me in the back. They didn't answer, so I said, "Oh, you won't shoot me, I'm not black." Again, no response, just threatening stares. After assuring the woman that I was not planning to harm myself or anyone else, I demanded that they leave my apartment. They did not immediately did so, as they should have by law. Instead, they made me wait while the woman called her "supervisor" to report the outcome of the visit. Shortly thereafter -- after the armed goons looked around my private residence -- they left.
Is this the United States I am living in? Apparently, one cannot have a mental illness without trigger-happy conformists showing up at one's door whenever they feel like it. In case you haven't figured it out, I despise cops. Anyone who wants to walk about armed and have the power to incarcerate one's fellow citizens should not be permitted to do so. Only the truly caring, altruistic ones among us ... Oh wait, where the fuck are they?
So here I am, in early middle age, looking down a barrel of hopelessness. I have no woman in my life, no real friends, no career any longer ... Shit, I don't even have a cat (landlord won't let me). Why do I write, and care. I picked up a book about Pope Francis today, planning to review it. But who will care? I'd like to say "fuck it" and stop at the liquor store before it closes (I have about an hour). Someone said that every writer writes for some one special person. I write for my ex-wife. She was the goddess who painted the world with the ever-shifting colors of her diverse, fascinating mind ... and tantalized me with the liquid silk of her clothes and the delicate arches of her feet, that made the ground grow rigid at her touch, as I still do -- albeit an imaginary touch.
BY ROBERT HERRICK
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!
