Would You Rather?

You can kinda see it there

It’s a game I’ve played with youth group at church over the years, and it’s always good for some laughs (or groans). The players ask one another about their preference of two usually unpleasant options, the goofier and more out-there the better. Examples--would you rather climb Mount Everest on stilts or swim the Atlantic Ocean in boots? Would you rather eat a live slug or a dead rat? And so on. I’ve rarely been confronted with choices in life like these (would I rather have the same song stuck in my head forever or an itch I can’t scratch forever?). In almost every case, I have gotten away with answering “Neither” and it’s been just fine.

 

But when it comes to the side effects of my antipsychotic meds, I don’t have the luxury of choosing. They save my life, period, so I have to put up with some really annoying symptoms related to the drugs—and be grateful I can take medication at all. But if I DID have my druthers, there’s one side effect I’d give a good bit not to be saddled with.

 

It’s called tardive dyskinesia, and I hate it. Simply, it is uncontrolled movement in part of the body, caused by certain chemicals (such as the pills I take for bipolar disorder). Some TD’ers move their arms and legs incessantly, even during sleep (not great for a good night’s rest). Mine manifests as frequent lip-licking and other mouth movement. It’s been going on for 14 years, and while I’m so used to it now that I don’t often register it, when I catch my face on video I'm horrified. Once aware, I make a very conscious effort to stop, but can manage an expression of repose for only a couple of minutes before my mouth is off to the races once again. It’s worse when I’m tired, and at night my jaw aches from all the extra exercise it’s getting.

 

I try to compensate when in public by talking so much that people don’t notice my extra expressiveness, and I’ve either been a success or folks are too nice to point it out. Note to those reading this: now that you know, please don't bring the subject up with me; this is tough enough to write about without gabbing about it as well. But I wanted to be honest, as many people struggle with TD.

 

I just read about a medication (of course there's one) that is supposed to lessen TD. My initial delight was tempered by a quick read of THOSE side effects, which include significant heart rhythm problems and Parkinson’s-like symptoms. Turns out there is no magic fix short of going off the psych meds (even then the problem may linger), and that I will not do.

 

So: would I rather have manic depression, or live with a little facial challenge? I won't ever go back to the way things were before my diagnosis, therefore…I guess I’d rather keep licking my lips.

 

Sigh.

 

A moment of facial peace 

Quickly Heightening

                                      Maybe I should have been typing this morning, but I was here instead...

“Satire is what closes Saturday night.”

                                                --playwright George S. Kauffman (he was kidding, sorta)

 

Topical satire usually ages about as well as milk: good for a week or so, then phew!!! The need for speed when penning a humorous critique of the news makes writing it difficult—especially nowadays, when the news is so patently absurd that it already reads like humor (or maybe horror). But a great satirical piece is a joy to read/hear/view, and I’ve long wanted to try my hand at it.

 

Besides, some satire transcends its time. What writer wouldn’t want to be compared to Orwell, Voltaire, or Swift (all masters of the genre)? You don’t have to live in 18^th century France or England to appreciate the irony of Candide’s “best of all possible worlds”), or to admire the lampooning of society’s superficial values in Gulliver’s Travels. Maybe I can pen an essay so sharply critical, yet so clever, that students will be perplexed and bored by it hundreds of years from now!!

 

So this month, I signed up for an online class called (what else?) “Writing Topical Satire” with a humorist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's and other swell places. When the hour came to log in and the teacher appeared onscreen, at first I thought her teenage daughter was pulling a prank. But no, this (really) young adult was our instructor! Like my Rose and Julie, Caitlin lives in Brooklyn, which I’m coming to understand is the center of the universe, the way Manhattan used to be.

 

During 90 fast-paced minutes, I learned the following:

 

1)    How to search the news for a topic that really engages me

2)    Where to place the jokes (end of sentence/paragraph, please!) Sadly, I’m on my own to actually come up with the jokes themselves.

3)    How to write a draft (really quick), edit it (quicker) and submit it (super-quick, before the topic is either covered by someone else or has grown stale).

 

I appreciated the significant amount of info contained in a mere hour and a half, and her emailed notes to the class were awesome. It was worth the price of tuition to finally learn what “heighten” is. That’s been a common remark about my rejected humor pieces (“some funny stuff, but it just doesn’t heighten enough.”) I was always too embarrassed to ask what the heck they meant; turns out “heightening” is starting out pretty believable, and escalating to ridiculous as the piece progresses. Now I get it!

 

We leave Lewes first thing tomorrow morning, after a wonderfully relaxing vacation (meaning, I didn’t get much writing done at ALL, and am convincing myself this had been my intention all along ). There are still a few precious hours left, though, so maybe it’s not too late to churn out a satirical masterpiece! I simply need to select my subject, tightly focus it, write a bunch of hysterically funny jokes and, above all, heighten!  

 

I’ll be sure to post a link to my New Yorker essay as soon as it comes out. You’re most welcome!

Camp Nana-Pa

On the trail with Pa

I was never a camper, happy or otherwise. No lanyards, or singalongs, or bonfires, or mosquito-plagued cabins with chums. The only “camp” experience I recall was day camp the summer after fourth grade in Ardsley, NY. The main takeaways from that were the lime-green-and-white polka dotted shorts I was so proud to wear (thankfully no photographic record exists), and the discovery that if you froze a can of Coke and put it in your brown bag, it would thaw by lunchtime.

 

Most summers after my Nana died (she had always treated us to time in Normandy Beach, NJ), my primary July/August memories involved excruciating boredom (they say it’s good for kids to be bored sometimes; I’m here to tell you: NO!!!!) I’d return to school in the fall able only to recite from memory the tabloid accounts of Liz Taylor’s 42^nd remarriage to Richard Burton. 

 

Nowadays, several friends are helping to make sure their grandkids have a wonderful summer (ultra-challenging with all the COVID limitations on our normal activities). In Georgia, Angèle is running “Camp Mémé,” complete with special T-shirts and a cool treehouse for her grands. In Seattle, Perrin and Pat are leading young Giles and Malcolm through “Granny and Grandpa Camp” (lucky for them, Grandpa is a marine biologist, so searching for sea creatures in tide pools is both fun and educational). 

Looking back, I’m not sure what my parents could have brought to the table as camp counselors beyond advanced cigarette smoking techniques; perhaps it’s just as well they didn’t try.

 

As for Steve and me, we have Aiden and Peter for several days here at the Delaware shore, and we’re loving it. The boys and their parents have been down a lot in the past few weeks, but this is the only time we are the sole caregivers on duty, so that Mama and Baba can prepare a livestream piano-violin-flute concert from Oreland for their fans tonight.

 

So far, so good with “Camp Nana-Pa.” Thursday night was ice cream and storybooks and watching sunset from the porch. Then Pa organized a Friday morning adventure for just the three guys, hiking and exploring Cape Henlopen State Park. Afterward, late afternoon beach time and the Pixar movie “Cars” (which they’d never seen). Baths, dinner and the boys were in bed before 8; we weren’t far behind. As I tucked them in, Aiden said, “Nana, we love being with you and Pa.” I'm telling myself this was not inspired by the ridiculous amount of sugar we’ve allowed them to consume.

 

In this incredibly difficult time, it’s great to know that our little ones are surrounded with multi-generational love. Those who can’t interact face-to-face are making an extra effort with calls, notes and FaceTime. We recognize that, even if the kiddos aren’t fully aware, this is not the summer we would have wished for them (or anyone). And so we are doing our best to make a bit of magic.

 

Actually, we could all use some of that right now.

Sunset with my favorite friends

Soul of an Octopus

                                     

I recall entirely too much of the false narrative of American history as imparted by my big textbook, circa 1967: Columbus’ voyages of “discovery,” the delightful relationship of settlers and Native American buddies, etc. It’s taken me most of a lifetime to find the truth, and I’m still working on it.

There is a much better way to learn. I consider myself a connoisseur of nonfiction writers’ scholarship, and say “thank you for doing the heavy lifting on this or that topic! Your charming style has informed me about great apes, professional basketball, amoebas, orange groves! I am both enlightened and entertained!!” I do wonder why more schools don’t avail themselves of this terrific way of teaching (using the works of Jane Goodall, John McPhee, Annie Dillard and the like)—why they don’t scrap the often error-filled, usually snooze-worthy textbooks altogether.

 

The best nonfiction combines useful information with another, deeper dimension. And so we come to my favorite read of the summer to date, Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus. The writer encounters several octopuses (yes, octopi is incorrect), in the New England Aquarium and in the ocean, and learns to love these incredibly mysterious and beautiful and intelligent creatures. Athena, Octavia, Kali and Karma are eight-armed wonders who can open locked boxes and show affection for friendly people (and marked annoyance towards other folks). Their skin changes color constantly as they navigate their marine world, camouflaging to protect themselves, but also revealing their moods. A giant Pacific octopus can pour itself through an opening of just a few inches (they are real tank escape artists). Montgomery observes their sophisticated behavior and asks—do these amazing creatures, so different from us in so many ways, share a “universal consciousness” with us? Do they have souls?

 

She concludes, "(Some say) the soul is our innermost being, the thing that gives us our senses, our intelligence, our emotions, our desires, our will, our personality, and identity… ‘the indwelling consciousness that watches the mind come and go, that watches the world pass.’…I am certain of one thing. If I have a soul — and I think I do — an octopus has a soul, too.”

 

Just as I do not feel threatened by, for example, the possibility of universal salvation, I do not think my soul is in any way diminished by considering that all living creatures may possess souls as well. If we are all indeed God’s creations, doesn’t it make sense that we each carry some spark of the divine? I found myself weeping when I read about Octavia’s tender care of her thousands of eggs, her last duty on earth. I was mesmerized when Sy stroked the smooth skin of Kali, both human and octopus soothed by this simple, affectionate interaction between species.

 

Will I become a scuba diver? A marine biologist?  No way. But I know I'll look at these enchanting sea animals differently from now on, and respect their unique and important journeys on the planet we share.