July 26, 1982 (Day Eight): Part Two
May. 20th, 2026 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ahunter3The unstated goal of biofeedback appears to be to get us to doze off. The most obvious and self-explanatory readings are for heart rate, respiration, and muscle tension, and although we weren’t specifically instructed, nobody in the biofeedback lab is ever focusing on making these numbers go up. The less clearly defined measures, the galvanic skin whatever-it-is and sweat rate and the various brain wave patterns also have associations with relaxation. Don’t sweat it. Alpha waves. Chill out.
I’ve tried to push the colorful lines around in different configurations to see how it would feel. What would it be like to have low heartbeat, high respiration, low muscle tension, and sweating like crazy? But I don’t really have that kind of granular control. Maybe it will come with practice. Watching the line patterns is kind of calming anyhow. I zone out for awhile, and then my block of time is over.
After lunch, I head down to the piano, where I’ve invited several of the folks on my unit. I start playing “The Hitchhiker’s Song” but my voice isn’t warmed up yet and I don’t like the way I sound. My throat is too tight, too tense. I apologize and do some vocal warmups then kick off the song again; this time I am driving the phrases comfortably. I’m mostly relaxed but my abdomen is taut, like someone about to pick up heavy suitcases. Supporting the vocals. Belting it. The piece is a narrow-band song, with most of the notes falling within a span of a fifth, although fairly high in my range. Then there’s a middle part that goes higher.
I twist around on the piano bench after letting the last chord die out.
“I like the piano part, the way that intro starts off”, George tells me. “You start with that high bit, and then each time you repeat it, you put a little more under it.” Valerie and Ronald are also nearby, standing against the wall listening, with Jake and April and Ellen at the little table that George had helped me drag into the space earlier in the week. I’ve got an actual audience.
“You sound good”, April tells me, “so don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t sit there and do what you’re doing. But I’ve known people who could play crazy good. And you could yell out any song, like ‘Levon’ or ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and they could just play it perfectly with all the riffs and frills and shit. And they aren’t famous and making money from it. And you don’t quite have those chops. I think this notion you’ve got that you’re gonna support yourself and get your message out into the world by playing the piano and singing your songs, that’s wishful thinking.”
Noelle points out, “You write some stuff that’s pretty good. That piece you wrote about being here in Elk Meadow, that was pretty and powerful. Like the guy singing it, he’s got all these strong feelings, all sad and angry. Maybe you could get someone who’s already in the business to sing your songs and play them.”
Whenever I listen to musicians who’ve successfully made it, it seems like there’s a wide range of talent out there. Some people who could do damn near anything, like April described, but some others who just had a particular sound that nobody else was making. I wasn’t convinced I couldn’t somehow catch on and get popularized, under the right circumstances. But like the rest of the whole communicate-with-society thing, I don’t know any secret tricks for making that happen.
While I’ve been in internal reverie, thinking about my prospects as a musician, Jake has been speaking to Ellen. I start to pay more attention. “It gets messy when it’s your family”, he tells her. “You start out trying to divide the world into the ones who are really on your side and the ones who are dragging you down, but then there’s family.”
April adds, “You got to believe in yourself. They can either line up behind that or they can get out of the way.”
I scooch to the end of the piano bench closest to where they are sitting. No one shrinks away, including Ellen, so I guess I’m not unwelcome.
Later, I contribute, “I have to agree with Jake. It’s complicated when family is involved. That makes it a lot of wear and tear, and I’m sorry you have to deal with that right now. Is this mostly about the vacation stuff?”
Ellen nods.
April gives her a brief hug. “You got to believe in yourself. You are tougher than you think. Tougher than they think.”
“Yeah”, I chime in again. “You’ve been through so much, and that makes you a survivor. You’re tough. You don’t take shit from me, so you shouldn’t take shit from anyone else either. You get to decide.”
Jake hugs Ellen from the other side.
I find myself wishing I knew more of the backstory about what was going on. But it does seem like Ellen has been profoundly isolated somehow. I remember a John MacDonald series where the main character has a soft spot for characters he designates as wounded birds, and ponders that tendency in himself. There could be sexist things about wanting to be a caregiver and rescuer. Getting off on the other person’s vulnerability and your own power as gallant knight and all. But, at the same time, isn’t that also a lot of what the feminine role is built around, the interactive mutual empowerment that comes from taking care of? So what does it mean, if and when I’m the person doing that?
* * *
I show up at Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m not happy to be here, but Mark implored me to attend. Get something out of it. Yeah right.
I listen to the testimonials and the focus on the step of recognizing that a higher power could restore us to sanity.
Ronald says, “I tried everything, you know. I think I knew I needed God in my life, but I wanted God to do lines with me, you know, I wanted God as a drinking buddy. It wasn’t until I bottomed out that I reached out and asked God to save me.”
Valerie testifies, “I just couldn’t cope any more, not on my own. I am not a churchy person, so I don’t believe in God, but I reached out to the universe and I just said ‘I can’t do this alone’ and I turned everything over to what I felt was there.”
Gary doesn’t like me sitting there in sulky silence. “C’mon Derek, let’s hear what’s going on with you”, he prompts. Doing that raspy folksy voice of his.
I sigh. “One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about in AA is the prayer you always end this thing with. It’s all aimed at giving in and giving up. My sense of higher power isn’t focused there. I think your Serenity Prayer is upside down. I mean, it should be... ‘God, grant me the wisdom to know the difference between what I can change and what I cannot, and the courage to change what I can, and when all else fails the serenity to accept the things I cannot change’. I want the wisdom and the courage. I even think maybe I already have the courage. It’s the wisdom. Show me which things I can change. And how. That’s what I want. If I know for sure that I can’t change something, I think I can accept it, but first I want a chance to change the things that I can.”
Gary gives a half-smile. “Cute. But I mean tell us about your higher power.”
“Seriously? You mean I get to introduce you to my religious perspective?” I grin. I don’t often get discussions to veer towards me so nicely. “My atheist friends like to hassle me about my ‘need’ for there to be a God. What shortcoming there is within me that needs for there to be a God.”
I let my grin settle down to a wry smile. “The most intensely I ever prayed, I started out with ‘God, I don’t know if you’re out there but if you’re not, you ought to be’. I asked some questions and I got answers. Which was kind of startling.”
Gary snorts. “Got yourself a hotline to God, huh?”
“Everything is still subject to scrutiny. I think I’m okay with answers popping into my head as if out of nowhere, but they still have to make sense, you know? I do sometimes use the word ‘God’ to refer to something that seems real to me. So I’m not an atheist. But God likes to be understood, not just blindly followed.”
Valerie chimes in, “That’s kind of how it is for me, too. I don’t know if it’s the same as what other people mean when they talk about God but it works for me.”
“Well, Derek, it sounds to me like you want to hedge your bets”, Gary says, basically ignoring Valerie. “You say you need God in your life but you aren’t ready to let go and turn your problems over to him. That’s your problem, you know, you think you know better.”
I nod. “There may be some truth to that. Learning to trust and letting go of control and all that.”
“So why don’t you give the Elk Meadow staff a chance to help you? We’re right here, all you have to do is relinquish and accept!”
“Well, I did come back to Elk Meadow. That was my choice, twice now, and I’m here. And I am participating in the parts of the program that seem useful and helpful. But I don’t have Elk Meadow confused with God, Gary. You staff folks have control issues of your own you should be working on.”
Gary scowls.
—————
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on Substack and LiveJournal. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
I’ve tried to push the colorful lines around in different configurations to see how it would feel. What would it be like to have low heartbeat, high respiration, low muscle tension, and sweating like crazy? But I don’t really have that kind of granular control. Maybe it will come with practice. Watching the line patterns is kind of calming anyhow. I zone out for awhile, and then my block of time is over.
After lunch, I head down to the piano, where I’ve invited several of the folks on my unit. I start playing “The Hitchhiker’s Song” but my voice isn’t warmed up yet and I don’t like the way I sound. My throat is too tight, too tense. I apologize and do some vocal warmups then kick off the song again; this time I am driving the phrases comfortably. I’m mostly relaxed but my abdomen is taut, like someone about to pick up heavy suitcases. Supporting the vocals. Belting it. The piece is a narrow-band song, with most of the notes falling within a span of a fifth, although fairly high in my range. Then there’s a middle part that goes higher.
I twist around on the piano bench after letting the last chord die out.
“I like the piano part, the way that intro starts off”, George tells me. “You start with that high bit, and then each time you repeat it, you put a little more under it.” Valerie and Ronald are also nearby, standing against the wall listening, with Jake and April and Ellen at the little table that George had helped me drag into the space earlier in the week. I’ve got an actual audience.
“You sound good”, April tells me, “so don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t sit there and do what you’re doing. But I’ve known people who could play crazy good. And you could yell out any song, like ‘Levon’ or ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and they could just play it perfectly with all the riffs and frills and shit. And they aren’t famous and making money from it. And you don’t quite have those chops. I think this notion you’ve got that you’re gonna support yourself and get your message out into the world by playing the piano and singing your songs, that’s wishful thinking.”
Noelle points out, “You write some stuff that’s pretty good. That piece you wrote about being here in Elk Meadow, that was pretty and powerful. Like the guy singing it, he’s got all these strong feelings, all sad and angry. Maybe you could get someone who’s already in the business to sing your songs and play them.”
Whenever I listen to musicians who’ve successfully made it, it seems like there’s a wide range of talent out there. Some people who could do damn near anything, like April described, but some others who just had a particular sound that nobody else was making. I wasn’t convinced I couldn’t somehow catch on and get popularized, under the right circumstances. But like the rest of the whole communicate-with-society thing, I don’t know any secret tricks for making that happen.
While I’ve been in internal reverie, thinking about my prospects as a musician, Jake has been speaking to Ellen. I start to pay more attention. “It gets messy when it’s your family”, he tells her. “You start out trying to divide the world into the ones who are really on your side and the ones who are dragging you down, but then there’s family.”
April adds, “You got to believe in yourself. They can either line up behind that or they can get out of the way.”
I scooch to the end of the piano bench closest to where they are sitting. No one shrinks away, including Ellen, so I guess I’m not unwelcome.
Later, I contribute, “I have to agree with Jake. It’s complicated when family is involved. That makes it a lot of wear and tear, and I’m sorry you have to deal with that right now. Is this mostly about the vacation stuff?”
Ellen nods.
April gives her a brief hug. “You got to believe in yourself. You are tougher than you think. Tougher than they think.”
“Yeah”, I chime in again. “You’ve been through so much, and that makes you a survivor. You’re tough. You don’t take shit from me, so you shouldn’t take shit from anyone else either. You get to decide.”
Jake hugs Ellen from the other side.
I find myself wishing I knew more of the backstory about what was going on. But it does seem like Ellen has been profoundly isolated somehow. I remember a John MacDonald series where the main character has a soft spot for characters he designates as wounded birds, and ponders that tendency in himself. There could be sexist things about wanting to be a caregiver and rescuer. Getting off on the other person’s vulnerability and your own power as gallant knight and all. But, at the same time, isn’t that also a lot of what the feminine role is built around, the interactive mutual empowerment that comes from taking care of? So what does it mean, if and when I’m the person doing that?
* * *
I show up at Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m not happy to be here, but Mark implored me to attend. Get something out of it. Yeah right.
I listen to the testimonials and the focus on the step of recognizing that a higher power could restore us to sanity.
Ronald says, “I tried everything, you know. I think I knew I needed God in my life, but I wanted God to do lines with me, you know, I wanted God as a drinking buddy. It wasn’t until I bottomed out that I reached out and asked God to save me.”
Valerie testifies, “I just couldn’t cope any more, not on my own. I am not a churchy person, so I don’t believe in God, but I reached out to the universe and I just said ‘I can’t do this alone’ and I turned everything over to what I felt was there.”
Gary doesn’t like me sitting there in sulky silence. “C’mon Derek, let’s hear what’s going on with you”, he prompts. Doing that raspy folksy voice of his.
I sigh. “One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about in AA is the prayer you always end this thing with. It’s all aimed at giving in and giving up. My sense of higher power isn’t focused there. I think your Serenity Prayer is upside down. I mean, it should be... ‘God, grant me the wisdom to know the difference between what I can change and what I cannot, and the courage to change what I can, and when all else fails the serenity to accept the things I cannot change’. I want the wisdom and the courage. I even think maybe I already have the courage. It’s the wisdom. Show me which things I can change. And how. That’s what I want. If I know for sure that I can’t change something, I think I can accept it, but first I want a chance to change the things that I can.”
Gary gives a half-smile. “Cute. But I mean tell us about your higher power.”
“Seriously? You mean I get to introduce you to my religious perspective?” I grin. I don’t often get discussions to veer towards me so nicely. “My atheist friends like to hassle me about my ‘need’ for there to be a God. What shortcoming there is within me that needs for there to be a God.”
I let my grin settle down to a wry smile. “The most intensely I ever prayed, I started out with ‘God, I don’t know if you’re out there but if you’re not, you ought to be’. I asked some questions and I got answers. Which was kind of startling.”
Gary snorts. “Got yourself a hotline to God, huh?”
“Everything is still subject to scrutiny. I think I’m okay with answers popping into my head as if out of nowhere, but they still have to make sense, you know? I do sometimes use the word ‘God’ to refer to something that seems real to me. So I’m not an atheist. But God likes to be understood, not just blindly followed.”
Valerie chimes in, “That’s kind of how it is for me, too. I don’t know if it’s the same as what other people mean when they talk about God but it works for me.”
“Well, Derek, it sounds to me like you want to hedge your bets”, Gary says, basically ignoring Valerie. “You say you need God in your life but you aren’t ready to let go and turn your problems over to him. That’s your problem, you know, you think you know better.”
I nod. “There may be some truth to that. Learning to trust and letting go of control and all that.”
“So why don’t you give the Elk Meadow staff a chance to help you? We’re right here, all you have to do is relinquish and accept!”
“Well, I did come back to Elk Meadow. That was my choice, twice now, and I’m here. And I am participating in the parts of the program that seem useful and helpful. But I don’t have Elk Meadow confused with God, Gary. You staff folks have control issues of your own you should be working on.”
Gary scowls.
—————
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on Substack and LiveJournal. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
no subject
Date: 2026-05-20 03:38 pm (UTC)Fwiw, I'm Quaker by faith.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-21 03:11 am (UTC)Gary, my dude, you have creepy culty control issues, as does your boss, and... yeah, pretty much the whole of the Elk Meadow staff. :( Oof.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-21 04:07 pm (UTC)thanks for reading!!