For The Clinical File

The day split in two and both halves fell out of my hands. I told a friend an hour ago that I was sleepy, and I was, so after saying goodnight I shut off the light, got into the sheets under the quilts and... began listening to a busy talk radio station in Los Angeles.

It might as well be the alternative universe, L.A. It is so familiar, but as mirror- reversed as England.

I visited L.A. in 1988 at my dad's invitation, while he was working there and considering moving there. I flew in from snowy Iowa and on arrival I remember a mossy tint to the air and an unnatural warmth. It was like all the outdoors was indoors. The sky should have doors and windows. Some egress.

Also, the sky seemed too close.

How strange it was. To me, California is where you go in complete resignation: you're in God's mouth, maybe his teeth, as Sebastian Dangerfield would say. Or, it's like after taking a pill, when it's too late to make yourself pyuke.

My prejudices about California are dear to me. They're like my fingerprints and I don't want to go around with bald finger tips. (That brings another automatic thought: I believe if I lived in California I would drift into some sort of arch criminality. Or perhaps just criminal arrogance. I believe I could be especially cruel in California. This is probably because I know I couldn't hope to distinguish myself being especially mellow, laid-back and non-judgemental. "Kind", I guess I mean.)

(I must distinguish myself. It's my instinct, I can't do anything about it, short of a lobotomy or an overwhelming spiritual experience. Maybe this "terminal uniqueness" is characteristic of what folks call "alcoholism".)
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So I am up, thinking of anything but the missing halves of my day. I received some bad news around 3 o'clock in the afternoon which changed everything, as far as the eye could see.
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Yesterday I'd started reading Song of Solomon. I wanted elemental phrases of endearment, for one thing.

"thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

"Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them."

You can smile as I did at first, but this is the King James Bible and you can't get more genuine than that.

Her hair is a great unexpected, galloping sign of new wealth and salvation.
Her teeth are like a new white keyboard after dusting, and not one gap, no missing '!11!1!!'.
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But now I am also thinking of the myriad ways women can be grievously hurt. There is a line in Song of Solomon, "I am sick of love", and perhaps that refers to something else but it still jumped out at me, amidst the beautiful verse.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.


Matthew Henry writes:

"Oh how much better it is with the soul when it is sick of love to Christ than when it is surfeited with the love of this world!"


Someone said that the tragedy of mankind is how much he can endure.
Like it's a pity how somethings don't kill us. You would expect to die.

"Can they imagine the darkness
which will come from on high?
When they will beg God to kill them
but they won't be able to die" ,

...Dylan sang in his first gospel album.

It was late and obviously my mind was disordered, my thoughts following from a confusion even of feelings.
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Early in treatment they had a wall-hanging or poster, which read "How Do You Feel?" It flummoxed some of us, who were so used to saying "high" and "hungover, or "great" and "f_ng dyin' here".

Abandoned Abrasive Absorbed Absurd Abused Accommodating Acknowledged Admonished Adored Adventurous Affectionate Afflicted
Affronted Afraid Aggravated Aggressive Agitated Agonized Agreeable Airy Awkward Alienated Alive Alluring

Ambiguous

Ambitious Amorous Amused Angry Anguished Animated Annoyed
Anxious Apathetic Apprehensive Ardent Arduous Argumentative
Aroused Arrogant Astounded Attentive Beaten down Betrayed
Bewildered Bitter Blah Blessed Blissful Blunt Boiling Bored Bothered
Brave Breathless Breezy Bright

You get the idea. It wasn't a lack of vocabulary, it wasn't English as a second language. We'd been flattened in our years of substance abuse. We were inarticulate. The list of possible feelings was not exactly inviting at first.

I remember my thinking, you don't mean "ambiguous" , you mean "ambivalent". That's what I said I was for a month or two.

No more.