David's Inferno (39 page)

But, you know? That was okay.

It was noon by the time I got to the memorial for the flight, where I spent a few minutes of quiet contemplation surrounded by people who were talking loudly about what it must have been like, and gee they didn't know
that
many people died, and I wonder how often people who lost relatives must visit the place. Quiet contemplation isn't what it used to be.

Dictating notes and feeling profound, I went up to the lighthouse and ate breaded salmon. It burned the top of my tongue and seemed so bland, it probably came from British Columbia instead of the ocean a few hundred yards away.

By the time I left Peggy's Cove, it was raining heavily. While I was trying to decide which exit to get off in Halifax, I felt a familiar jarring in the back of the car. I didn't even have to stop to see if I had a flat. I managed to get off the highway and pull into a gas station. The rain was getting torrential.

But, you know? That was okay.

I got a little air into the tire with one of those fix-a-flat cans and drove slowly to a tire place a couple of miles away, had a new tire put on, and took off again. Two hundred miles later, I arrived in the town of Mabou, halfway up Cape Breton Island. I followed a sign to the local campground. When I asked the owner how much it would cost, he said $10. When I pulled out my credit card, he said $20. Somehow that made me feel right at home. I gave him the cash, set up my camper and went into town.

Mabou is most famous for being the home of the Rankin Family, one of Canada's most long-lasting and award-winning folk musical groups. They own a restaurant in Mabou called the
Red Shoe Pub
that's, naturally, well known for its live music. There wasn't any music that night.

I sat down and when the waitress came over to see if I wanted to start with a drink, I opened my mouth to say coffee and the words, “Jameson's, on the rocks” came out.

But, you know? That was okay.

The next morning, I started talking to the guy the next campsite over. He was from Michigan and, it turned out, also a road biker. He came there every year to ride in the Labor Day Cabot Trail ride and told me there was a lot of good biking around Mabou, too. We went on several long rides over the next few days. He even managed to convince me to go to a Céilidh (pronounced Kay-lee), a traditional evening of music and contra-type-dancing, with people from 6 to 100. For the next several hours, I was flung unceremoniously from person to person as they tried to keep my hapless feet from ruining the entire rhythm of the thing. Most of them laughed. One woman in her 80s made it wordlessly clear that people like me were the bane of her existence.

But, you know? That was okay.

I went for a long bike ride myself the next day. I got lost and dehydrated.

But, you know? That was okay.

I never even made it up to the Cabot Trail—thereby missing one of the most not-to-be missed biking experiences in America.

But, you know? That was okay.

And so it went. Three days later I started home, following the northern shore route. That evening I arrived in a town called Parker's Cove as the sun went down in a blazing sunset. I didn't really see that sunset. I was driving around lost, looking for a campground, and the low contour hills just inland kept blocking my view. As I finally found the place and paused to see the spectacular colors, they all dissolved into pre-midnight blue. I'd missed yet another celestial vision.

But, you know? That was okay.

I got to the ferry the next morning. Took it to Bar Harbor. Spent a few days biking and eating, and now, drinking. I was getting a little lonely. I was beginning to wonder how long I had to stay on the road in order to make it an official “last breakdown road trip.” I still had a knack for obsession. I wanted to do this right. I was still anxious about leaving any psychosis on my plate.

Eight days after I'd left, I gave myself permission to start heading home. I spent a night in Camden at my cousin's. The first night in a real live bed since I'd left. We talked for a long time that night and the next morning. Family stories that ranged from warmly hilarious to vaguely troubling.

The next day, around noon, I finally drove home. Down Route 1 to Portsmouth, NH and then Route 4 over to Concord, to Route 9, to Route 123. Familiar roads all. Road that I'd driven many times over the last 30 years, in a whole lot of different cars and a whole lot of different moods. I got on Route 91 at Exit 5 in Westminster/Bellows Falls. One exit from home. Seven miles later, just before my Exit 4, I had a flat tire. I pulled over and jacked the car up. As I wiggled the tire off, the car fell off the jack and almost tipped over on to me.

But, you know? That was okay.

Four years later. A winter morning, 2012. 6
A.M
. I'm sitting too close to the woodstove, waiting for the cabin to warm up. Legs really hot, fingers really cold. Coffee already lukewarm.

I'm feeling kinda off. For good reason. Last night I was troubled by some stuff. Outer, not inner. No big deal, just little things. So I decided to take the
Law & Order
Cure.

This famous non-prescription treatment involves pouring a glass of wine or beer, sitting down in front of the TV, picking up the remote, turning on the USA Network or TNT, and watching successive episodes of
Law & Order
—one after another after another, until your mind is a blur of strange murders, the even stranger
people who may or may not have committed them, and the deeply troubled detectives and lawyers who struggle to preserve some semblance of justice and sanity in the midst of it all. Detectives and lawyers—or, I should say, actors and actresses—who have perfected looks of tragic poignancy that would make any depressive proud.

This treatment, although pleasant, is usually just a short-term solution. It's usually followed by twisted dreams during the night, a headache the next morning, and the realization that I just gotta do whatever it was I was avoiding the night before and get on with my life.

I'd like to go back to sleep, but I have too much caffeine in me. So I start looking around. My cabin is a mess. I still have boxes of childhood stuff that I've been meaning to sort through (i.e., throw out) since my mother moved out of the home we grew up in and made me take them. Which was almost twenty years ago. I have drafts of novels, piles of paper, and half-filled notebooks scattered all over the place. There are things pinned to the wall I haven't looked at in months. There are paper clips on every surface, photos in frames that have fallen over, tangles of wires near every outlet, little organizing contraptions that haven't organized anything in years.

Five years ago, this scene of chaos would have been enough to break my heart. It would have sent me back under the covers, out on a manic bike ride, rummaging in drawers for a Valium or sleeping pill, or calling every alternative therapist I could think of to see if they could possibly see me today, preferably this morning, preferably
right now
.

Today, thanks to three different medications and, undoubtedly, many mysterious forces beyond my control, I have other options. I can sit still and keep looking around. I can have an idea. Then another. And another: Okay … I'll move this here and that there and clear off that surface so I can start organizing this material here, and, in a show of remarkable courage, throw away every stray paperclip I see …

Then
I start thinking about writing this little piece. And
then
about going in the house and getting another cup of tea. And
then
coming back out and writing something else. And
then
having breakfast. And
then
taking a nap! Gee, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm feeling
inspired
.

All pretty trivial. But, for someone with a history of depression, there's nothing trivial about it. Because, at least for me, the opposite of being depressed isn't really being happy, it's being
inspired
. Full, as the etymologists would explain, of
divine
breath.

I used to think of the period from October 2005–October 2007 as my “lost years.” Now, I think of them as my “lost-and-found” years. I look pretty much the same as I did in 2005 … a little grayer in the beard … a few more lines in the face … I don't bike quite as fast as I used to … I've put back on the pounds that I lost back when my metabolism was constantly on overdrive … people tell me I'm as smart and funny as ever (Phew.)

So, beyond brain chemistry, astrological alignments, midlife crises, and raging kundalini, why did this happen? In the spring of 2007, as I began to return to my version of normalcy, I wrote Emily:

A few hundred years after Dante died, people began calling books with sad endings “tragedies,” and those with happy endings “comedies.” That's why his masterpiece had that rather odd descriptive tacked on to its name. But remember: his original title was
The Vision
.