Synopsis
Chapter III. Redditō
My new handsome abode. I looked outside the window. It was a grassy, flat field, with a large oak tree centered by a circle of plastic folding chairs. Every morning, crisply at around 7:15 plus or minus ten minutes, the sun rose and shivered off the darkness to gaze onto my bed.
My bed, just a simple futon was now pressed under the barred window. I asked for the staff to remove the bedframe (hinting at certain risks) but the real reason was so that the Sun’s rays would strike directly at my face at her rise. The lowness to the ground, was additionally another struggle, good adversity, good grounding first thing in the morning. Ah, another morning, 7:18 am, my watch ticked. I have not woken to the sunrise in many years, but in this last week, I’ve woken up 5 out of 7 times. The other two times, I was still awake. Pressed against my wall, underneath a lantern. Ah yes, the rest of my room. There is a lantern built into the wall, which used to hover at about arm’s level under a desk. But I had them remove the desk, and there are no ceiling lights or a fan in this room. . . odd, I know, but I requested all of these things, and they provided, apparently I was not the only one who thought and was troubled as I. It is perhaps a universal experience, or maybe Rhett would say more aptly, there are only so many possibilities from a limited set of variables. . . or something like that, I don’t know. I sometimes remember how he talked, and a bit of his voice, and long phrases, but, oft their meanings are lost on me now. . . Perhaps I understood them once. . . but those days are long gone, he is long gone as well as I.
I am getting distracted, the rest of my room, yes, there is a suitcase filled with all my clothes and a few books and well, that’s it. My room is small and even with these few items there is not much space left. I don’t feel any deprivation however, I actually enjoy the snugness in this room. I leave my window open at all times as well, it does get cold at night, but it’s good for my body and my soul to feel some discomfort. The first week of course, was miserable, there were some side effects from the medication, but mostly it was the cold and the tremors that rattled me. I had to be restrained a few times. But its okay, I’m better now.
My door isn’t locked or anything, I’ve regained that privilege and befriended most of the nurses. A few of the other wards here are friendly enough. But I haven’t really cared much to socialize here. I don’t know if its a feeling of shame or association, probably not, but I’ve truly preferred to be by myself. It has left time, for myself alone. Being alone is nice even when I am sober. To rise with the Sun! To stroll out, shirtless, and just sit under that oak tree, in a small break in the branches, where the warmth cuts through. It is quiet here. Perhaps this is what I have been missing the most: Silence.
My mind feels slow, everything takes seconds longer to process, I really don’t know how I was a lawyer. I honestly feel rather doltish. Alcohol made me feel smarter than I was in my stupidity. This is a nice refresher, a reminder, a small taste of humility again a taste of reality.
Nevertheless, my mind in the absence of my worries feels empty, but it doesn’t feel lonely either, if that makes sense. I know I am without direction, but I do not feel lost.
Maria, my darling love, snuck two books into my luggage. I should’ve thought of it, but then again, I wasn’t doing much thinking—in fact she dropped me off without telling me where we were going. One book she picked out, then another she grabbed from my library. The first, Ovid’s Metamorphoses; the second, Also Spake Zarathustra. She knows me better than I give her credit for and for how much she cares. I don’t deserve her.
The other thing I do miss however, is my music. I have had this ravenous ache in my ear for Franco Corelli. The silence has me humming and on occasion singing butchered scene variations from Pagliacci and Turandot that have come to me from the void as the most vivid memories. Lately, I’ve had daydreams of being on stage and matching Caruso in his arias. . . Perhaps in another life, another time, I would be like noble Masini, ardent, powerful, with entrancing projection. . . I don’t need to be the best of all time, just the niche selection, a legend of my own La Forza del Destino. Perhaps I would have been better even, what matters is to be a true master of my craft—popularity be damned.
Enough! I broke into an Aria as a legendary soprano, staged upon a plastic chair, struggling for balance, but letting that thought of danger bleed into my voice’s desperate projection and despair. The blood we shed for our art. . .
I palpiti, i palpiti sentir,
confondere i miei coi suoi sospirrrrrrrr…
Ciaaaaaaaelo! Si può morirrrrrrrr!
Di più nonnnn chiedo, non chiedooooo.
Ahhhhhhhh, cielo! Si può! Si, può morrrrir!
Di più nonnnnnn chiedo, non chiedoooooooo.
Si può morrrrrrrire! Si può morrrrrrir d’aaaaaaaamor.
I fell over, face first into the grass, rolling onto my back as I spit out some lemon-flavored turf.
Haha! I shot up from the floor. The show must go on! The show must go on! Put on your clown suit and get on stage you ingrate! I laughed and spun in a circle, grabbing Zarathustra before I returned gleefully to the floor’s embrace.
I opened up Nietzsche, I was still on Act 1, the child! Ah! I read, with this duality of familiarity and newfound enjoyment. I had forgotten how much I loved philosophy, how a single sentence can send me down a long series of dialectical thoughts within my mind, challenging and discovering so much about this wonderful world.
Life in its quiet simplicity, in touch with nature, with the self, oh it is marvelous. Everything comes to me now with a greater sense of presence, not urgency, but awareness. *It doesn’t matter if I am to live ten years or a thousand, I would still lay in a field of grass every morning, feeling the Sun upon my flesh. Reading the same books, again and again, living the same life, loving the same women, without any regrets. . .*