A Thousand Miles Away

I Never Really Got Off That Bike

Edvard Munch: Evening. Melancholy, 1891.

When I was suspended somewhere between boyhood and being a man (which is arguably where I remain), I rode a motorcycle. A small, 250cc bike that Honda made for only a couple years. They called it the Rebel. That teardrop shape of the fuel tank made it look as if it wanted to be a Harley. But the sound of it, the size of it, and even the look of it was a far cry from the real thing. Kinda like me.

And yet, that little bike took me from Central Jersey down to Richmond, Virginia, on out to Central PA and up to Boston, Mass. I rode it through rain and even freezing temperatures. Sometimes it would get so cold, I only hoped for the moment when my body would just go numb so I could bare it a little longer. The rain had a way of kicking up off the front tire and landing in the top of my boots. To the point that when I finally pulled over for a break, I could take off my shoe and empty out what looked like a gallon of water.

The thing about those rides was the aloneness. It wasn’t one of those fancy bikes with the music you could play on the ride. It was just the sound of the engine (such as it was — not so much a rumble, but a tenor’s rev). And the wind. A lot of wind.

But that would give me time to think. Think about my love for childhood friends who’d gone on to college — where I was supposed to be, but skipping out on. Think about that girl from high school. My first love and wondering how she was doing. Even though she didn’t want to be with me, I still wished her well. I just wanted her to be well and happy and loved. Think about that next song. What’s that next song inside of me that I can hammer out on any out-of-tune piano in some dive bar I could happen into off the Penn Pike where the proprietor might let me play for tips.

The thing is, I was so far from the world. Even when I was among the world, I was still so far from the world.

And that’s what it’s like.

I never really got off that bike.

In recent years, I’ve learned about such things as Bipolar disorder (or some such diagnosis). So it’s given me somewhat of a vocabulary to understand this disposition. And I’ve adopted a few wonderful practices like meditation that, for the most part, has changed my brain. A neuropsychologist described to me that the brain and the nervous system have what’s called neural pathways. And when I meditate, I’m changing those pathways… or something like that.

But the thing is, I guess I still have glitches. Because there are these moments. And days. And seasons when I’m so far away. I might be in a room or a house full of people. People I love. And yet I can only hear the wind. And feel the cold. And only hope that I can last long enough for the cold to make me numb enough that it doesn’t really hurt anymore.

When I’m on that bike, or in that mental emotional spiritual space, I have vague recollections of this other person. It’s like a person who’s hollering across a canyon. And it’s me. But I can only hear the echoes of the hollers of that person. And that person is someone who can be among people and enjoying the ones I love and… I don’t know… normal. But it’s only some distant idea. Something fleeting like that beautifully colored tree I saw off of I-85, those yellows and oranges and reds among all that green, in a late October as I rode past it at about 75 miles an hour.

But that’s not me. Not now.

When I’m this way, I can’t imagine being that way. I mean, I can fake it. I’ve learned how to labor through it. Trudging out of bed. Fumbling through the bathroom. Even brushing my teeth. And once I’m in the day, there are invisible conveyor belts that can sort of carry me through it. But all the while, I’m a million miles away even though my body and my face are among people and doing seemingly normal, even productive things.

But I’m a million miles away.

And I think, this world fucking hates me. She hates me. He does too. This body. This soul. Is so broken. How can anyone love this body? This soul? It’s so damn broken.

Today, the air doesn’t feel like air so much as mud as I move through it. But there’s still a day. And business. And responsibilities. And the world doesn’t really give a shit about Bipolar or depression or some other such fancy psycho babble. They need their stinkin windows cleaned. Or their talent placed. Or this deal to go through. Or help to run the meeting. Or the kitchen cleaned. Or... that’s my life. And yet my world is a thousand miles away.

Along the road, I’ve tried to name this thing. Earlier in life when I shared this with someone, the response was something like, “What do you have to be depressed over?” And then they listed all the ways my life was great and all the blessings and privileges I had.

Which, by the way, I hate that fuckin word, "privilege." How about I take my supposed privilege and shove it up your ass? We weren’t rich. We weren’t poor. We were a teacher’s salary and a guidance counselor’s salary and a house in Jersey and no Jordans and no Jordache jeans. As if merely having a roof means you’ve forfeited the right to be depressed. As if suffering has an income threshold. Never mind that I dropped out of college because of this darkness. One of many. But that one went on for two and a half years or so. Can’t call it depression though. Because, you know, privilege.

In families like mine, suffering is a competitive sport. Everyone talks about it. Woody Allen didn't come out of nowhere. But when someone of my generation brings it up, the response is as predictable as the sun coming up in the East. It always comes back to the forebears.

What my grandmother “Baba” went through to leave Chernyy Ostrov (Russia at the time, then Ukraine). What my Aunt Rosie saw. They never said it, but it was implied by the other stories they shared that Rosie or my other aunt Rosie (Rayzel) or maybe even my own grandmother Batya (Bess) was raped by a Cossack during one of the many pogroms our people endured. That, as I understand it - or imagine it - was the last straw before Chaim Rubin (Baba’s father) and Channah (Baba’s mother who I was named after) finally decided to leave the shtetl, their home, the place where our family likely lived for 800-1,000 years. What they had to leave, what they had to endure, what they had to sacrifice to come to America... they "earned the right to be crazy" as my father put it at Aunt Rosie's funeral. But me? "What did I have to be depressed over?"

So I learned to keep my mouth shut about it. Or at least feel guilty. That cultural inheritance that salts our tears and our food, our humor and wisdom. And memory. Shared memory.

But a little later I made the mistake of naming it again, this time to someone from the church Lisa and I were going to. Savannah was still a baby. I was a relatively new Christian. Didn’t really have a sense of the different denominations. Definitely didn’t have a sense of a particular form of fundamentalism that has a way of being the least like Jesus. A John MacArthurian form of Christianity. I wish I knew better. Because when I said the word depression to this obedient Johnny Mac follower — one with all the certainty of the colonizers of this continent — his bumper sticker-esque prognosis was simply, “You don’t have a depression issue; you have a sin issue.” Uh, thank you very much. Now I really wanna jump off a bridge.

Thinking back to those days on the Rebel, there was one time I rode out to see my buddy who was going to Penn State. Got there just in time for a Friday night kegger. And when some of the frat brothers started puking around a barrel at about 3 in the morning, I got on my bike and went. Only this time I rambled up to Route 80 and went West instead of East. Got to Pittsburgh and kept going. Got to Toledo and kept going. Got to Cleveland and kept going. Crossed over into Michigan and thought, I have no fuckin clue where I am or where I’m going.

That was thirty-something years ago. These days, the meditation and some other things mean I have more good moments than bad, more good seasons than bad, the ones in that darkness. But god damn. Sometimes I have no fuckin clue where I am or where I’m going.