“I know it’s a pain,” she wrote. “But every minute you spend on it, you’re getting closer.” Closer to what? I thought.
Closer to Madness is an instrumental musical composition by Canadian guitarist Jesse Cook. He is an amazing musician whom I discovered when selling CD’s out of my bookstore, twenty-five years ago.
Or, did she mean closer to her? Maybe she meant closer to stability? Perhaps contentment? Closer to what I want? Those days are over. Memories is what I got. I replied, “A pain? that’s an understatement. I need a session!” Or, a drink. I think, but don’t write.
It
What is “it”? My life, I suppose. Which seems, for the last six years, to be getting worse with every year. Is it getting old(er)? Coupled with diminishing resources and options? The loss of agency and control? Disappointment brought on by betrayal and abandonment? Who is responsible for bringing me ever so closer to madness? Maybe it’s the noise?
The Noise
The noise is, I suspect, that which is relentless now. And non-stop. The noise is constant–a bombardment of thoughts in my head. The thoughts in my head don’t stop. Moreover, they always end badly. Everywhere I go, and look, the chatter is spurred on by people clamoring to be noticed–to be seen and heard. To matter. To be somebody! And this is fueled by THE PHONE. The phone is Evil. Nevertheless, we can’t live without it. It’s Moby Dick! The phone is an obsession and it’s driving us all mad.
Maybe “it” is the phone? It is what “they” demand I use to manage my life. I show up at the office and they’re not there. “Call this number.” I’m told by some C-student with an associate’s degree from a community college, sitting at a desk looking at a screen, behind a plexiglass shield. With a container of something, with or without a straw; and a box of tissues. As she, or he, or they, push a piece of paper towards me under the cut-out in the shield. Sometimes – they’re wearing a mask.
Those, whom I need to talk with, work remotely from home. Or, the decider is in another state–Texas, Illinois, Arizona. Often, I can barely understand them because English is their second language. I yearn for an authentic, honest human being with whom I can see and touch. Whomever it is, they want to validate I’m who I say I am, which requires The Phone and a password and a code. I scream (in my head) I’m dying from loneliness!
Closer to Madness
is what I am. Cook’s composition depicts that sense brilliantly. It is the noise in my head made beautiful. The music makes me want to stomp my feet and clap my hands. To jump up and down. Though the madness is close–closing in. It’s Moby Dick’s charge.
…
I tell her, “Everything, the whole of my health and well being, is downstream from my mental health.” She and I exchange a moment of intellectual intimacy. We are closer … 
