September, 2007.
I awake in what is easily the most excruciating physical pain I have ever experienced, and I'm
including childbirth. A lone gunman (I picture him in a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a
pack of Chesterfields tucked smartly in one of them and a tattoo of Che Guevara on the sinewy
bicep below) has opened fire in my head with an Uzi. The pain is everywhere; my eyes are
watering, I sneeze uncontrollably, and each jolting expulsion whips the outraged nerve
endings into frenzied interpretive dances representing Emotional Betrayal, Social Unrest,
Class Warfare, The Dismantling of The Soviet Apparatus, and what feels to be a fairly uncanny
Three Stooges impression.
I grab the clock beside my bed; four a.m., ever the hour for the body to introduce its new party
pieces to a captive audience. It knows aid is far away; everyone's asleep, including most
dentists, except for the ones on vacation in Tahiti, and good luck raising them on the phone
for an emergency consultation.
I begin weeping. Two large spikes (the kind used to nail up medieval tapestries, or Jesus on
the cross) are being driven into the hinges of my jaws. At least when you're in labor you get a
cute little baby at the end of it. This feels like the arrival of Beelzebub; at any moment I expect a
winged demon to fly out of my mouth. Then I remember something I read long ago in a book of
home remedies for cheapskates who'd rather doctor themselves than pay good money to
someone who actually went to medical school -- teabags! I run to the kitchen (that is to say, I
tiptoe very slowly and cautiously, lest I set off fresh artistic demonstrations from the
combat-booted Red Army Dancers.) Grab the box of Lipton teabags, tear a bag out of its
envelope, douse it with whiskey and jam the whole mess into my mouth.
Here is where I am very grateful to be single, because I must look insane, unless the male of
the species has developed an Aw, Honey, You Still Look Cute While You're Crying and
Drooling Brown Gludge With a Lipton Teabag Label Dangling From Your Mouth gene, which I
am pretty sure he hasn't.
I begin pacing the floor, holding my head in my hands like a bowling ball, emitting long
keening moans that I sincerely hope my neighbors mistake for mad whoopee in progress chez
Julie rather than causing them to suspect that I may be in serious distress. The
whiskey-soaked teabag burns, but it is also relieving the pain. Eventually I remove the teabag,
pop a couple of Tylenol and return to bed, hoping that the pain will remain at bay long enough
for me to get a little more sleep.
It does.
Then it comes back the next night, only this time the gunman has brought reinforcements, a
gang, a club, a mob of saucer-eyed shooters with a grudge against the way the world is run.
Nothing helps. I lie crucified with riotous pain, the kind that forces you to reconsider
everything you have ever believed about anything, the kind that either strengthens or
undermines religious inclinations, the kind that makes you realize that this must be what the
whole world feels like sometimes. I think of India. I think of Darfur. I think of people living in
cardboard boxes, of small children in noisome hovels. A philosopher in a foxhole, I cast about
frantically for shreds of situational stoicism: I haven't got it so very bad, you know; as bad as
this is, it's fifty times better than what much of the rest of the world has suffered and is suffering
this very minute. I can get up and do something about this. It is finite -- it will end soon. True, it
may come back, but I have options. I can do something about this.
Yeah, yeah, whatever.
I realize how much of my life has been free of pain, and how little genuine gratitude I have felt
for that. I remember a quote from a book by Paul Monette, something that a friend of his said
about the clarifying powers of illness -- The cure for metaphysical pain is physical pain.
There may be something to that. I certainly haven't given a thought to anything as piffling as
existential despair since this damned toothache started, although I suspect I would if it went
on for much longer. Hell, I'm Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man." Take the diamonds. They're
safe. Get me out of here.
I reach for the notebook and pen on the table by my bed; I open the notebook to a blank page
and write "The Aching Tooth." I am not sure what it means just yet -- I will leave the analysis of
it to a later time -- but I know it has clarified something for me that I probably wouldn't have
seen or understood otherwise. It has also kept me distracted from the pain, diverted my
concentration from it to that, and has given the pain meaning, a place to be, a means for me to
comprehend and cope with it.
Pain, pain. It can tell us fine and secret things, about ourselves and about others. Is there pride
in bearing up too well? I'm sure I don't know, but my guess is there probably shouldn't be.
The music comes a day later.
February, 2008 --
A PBS program on English painter JMW Turner, and my first sight of his stupendous
SUNRISE, WITH SEA MONSTERS, ca.1845
It knocks the wind out of me, makes me gasp and reel at its power and beauty. I leap to my
desk, grab another notebook and pen and scrawl in huge block letters, "SUNRISE WITH SEA
MONSTERS -- THERE'S THE TITLE OF THE CD!!!" (Because it's all about me, isn't it? Is there
anyone more shameless and opportunistic than a songwriter?) I remember the lyric and song
I'd originally titled "The Aching Tooth," and its images of sea-things struggling to stay
down/knowing air was what would make them drown/knowing nothing but the blameless sea,
and the final line -- it's six a.m., I'm almost there -- my note of gratitude that I'd made it to
daylight, that the night full of pain was nearly over and my vigil at an end. The similar images
startle, and it seems only fitting that I tip my hat to the mad old painter who altered the world
with his vision, and vice-versa. (Who knows? Maybe he had a toothache too.)
I rename "The Aching Tooth": it is now and forever "Sunrise, With Sea Monsters."
Tooth -- impacted molar (I discover later.) Pain -- intermittent. Poor old Julie -- got a song. Fair
trade.
Just.
I awake in what is easily the most excruciating physical pain I have ever experienced, and I'm
including childbirth. A lone gunman (I picture him in a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a
pack of Chesterfields tucked smartly in one of them and a tattoo of Che Guevara on the sinewy
bicep below) has opened fire in my head with an Uzi. The pain is everywhere; my eyes are
watering, I sneeze uncontrollably, and each jolting expulsion whips the outraged nerve
endings into frenzied interpretive dances representing Emotional Betrayal, Social Unrest,
Class Warfare, The Dismantling of The Soviet Apparatus, and what feels to be a fairly uncanny
Three Stooges impression.
I grab the clock beside my bed; four a.m., ever the hour for the body to introduce its new party
pieces to a captive audience. It knows aid is far away; everyone's asleep, including most
dentists, except for the ones on vacation in Tahiti, and good luck raising them on the phone
for an emergency consultation.
I begin weeping. Two large spikes (the kind used to nail up medieval tapestries, or Jesus on
the cross) are being driven into the hinges of my jaws. At least when you're in labor you get a
cute little baby at the end of it. This feels like the arrival of Beelzebub; at any moment I expect a
winged demon to fly out of my mouth. Then I remember something I read long ago in a book of
home remedies for cheapskates who'd rather doctor themselves than pay good money to
someone who actually went to medical school -- teabags! I run to the kitchen (that is to say, I
tiptoe very slowly and cautiously, lest I set off fresh artistic demonstrations from the
combat-booted Red Army Dancers.) Grab the box of Lipton teabags, tear a bag out of its
envelope, douse it with whiskey and jam the whole mess into my mouth.
Here is where I am very grateful to be single, because I must look insane, unless the male of
the species has developed an Aw, Honey, You Still Look Cute While You're Crying and
Drooling Brown Gludge With a Lipton Teabag Label Dangling From Your Mouth gene, which I
am pretty sure he hasn't.
I begin pacing the floor, holding my head in my hands like a bowling ball, emitting long
keening moans that I sincerely hope my neighbors mistake for mad whoopee in progress chez
Julie rather than causing them to suspect that I may be in serious distress. The
whiskey-soaked teabag burns, but it is also relieving the pain. Eventually I remove the teabag,
pop a couple of Tylenol and return to bed, hoping that the pain will remain at bay long enough
for me to get a little more sleep.
It does.
Then it comes back the next night, only this time the gunman has brought reinforcements, a
gang, a club, a mob of saucer-eyed shooters with a grudge against the way the world is run.
Nothing helps. I lie crucified with riotous pain, the kind that forces you to reconsider
everything you have ever believed about anything, the kind that either strengthens or
undermines religious inclinations, the kind that makes you realize that this must be what the
whole world feels like sometimes. I think of India. I think of Darfur. I think of people living in
cardboard boxes, of small children in noisome hovels. A philosopher in a foxhole, I cast about
frantically for shreds of situational stoicism: I haven't got it so very bad, you know; as bad as
this is, it's fifty times better than what much of the rest of the world has suffered and is suffering
this very minute. I can get up and do something about this. It is finite -- it will end soon. True, it
may come back, but I have options. I can do something about this.
Yeah, yeah, whatever.
I realize how much of my life has been free of pain, and how little genuine gratitude I have felt
for that. I remember a quote from a book by Paul Monette, something that a friend of his said
about the clarifying powers of illness -- The cure for metaphysical pain is physical pain.
There may be something to that. I certainly haven't given a thought to anything as piffling as
existential despair since this damned toothache started, although I suspect I would if it went
on for much longer. Hell, I'm Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man." Take the diamonds. They're
safe. Get me out of here.
I reach for the notebook and pen on the table by my bed; I open the notebook to a blank page
and write "The Aching Tooth." I am not sure what it means just yet -- I will leave the analysis of
it to a later time -- but I know it has clarified something for me that I probably wouldn't have
seen or understood otherwise. It has also kept me distracted from the pain, diverted my
concentration from it to that, and has given the pain meaning, a place to be, a means for me to
comprehend and cope with it.
Pain, pain. It can tell us fine and secret things, about ourselves and about others. Is there pride
in bearing up too well? I'm sure I don't know, but my guess is there probably shouldn't be.
The music comes a day later.
February, 2008 --
A PBS program on English painter JMW Turner, and my first sight of his stupendous
SUNRISE, WITH SEA MONSTERS, ca.1845
It knocks the wind out of me, makes me gasp and reel at its power and beauty. I leap to my
desk, grab another notebook and pen and scrawl in huge block letters, "SUNRISE WITH SEA
MONSTERS -- THERE'S THE TITLE OF THE CD!!!" (Because it's all about me, isn't it? Is there
anyone more shameless and opportunistic than a songwriter?) I remember the lyric and song
I'd originally titled "The Aching Tooth," and its images of sea-things struggling to stay
down/knowing air was what would make them drown/knowing nothing but the blameless sea,
and the final line -- it's six a.m., I'm almost there -- my note of gratitude that I'd made it to
daylight, that the night full of pain was nearly over and my vigil at an end. The similar images
startle, and it seems only fitting that I tip my hat to the mad old painter who altered the world
with his vision, and vice-versa. (Who knows? Maybe he had a toothache too.)
I rename "The Aching Tooth": it is now and forever "Sunrise, With Sea Monsters."
Tooth -- impacted molar (I discover later.) Pain -- intermittent. Poor old Julie -- got a song. Fair
trade.
Just.
DIARY OF A SONG
| Too bad I can't enjoy it. |
