Michele’s Hat

I toss awake in the depths of the night, alone in an unfamiliar bed. I stumble to the window and contemplate the landscape from 25 stories.

            The streets are deserted.  A snowstorm swirls outside. The buildings, awash in artificial light, glow softly.

            Ir Bageshem. A Naomi Shemer song lyric comes to mind.

            City in the rain. Jerusalem buildings are constructed of limestone, and emit a soft, pink glow when the rainy reason begins. The stone emits the same glow that now wraps Bean town.

            I have been trying to heal.  I am in Boston to undergo another round of photophoresis, the voodoo process that fools my T cells into believing they are at home,  not in an alien host that needs to be destroyed.  I am the host here.  No guest should ever treat their host this way.

            Cancer. The death of a thousand duck bites.  “What’s wrong?” friends ask.

            “You’re getting better.  You have more energy. Cheer up,” they say, “Life is worth living.”

            Perhaps.  But refresh my memory. Why?

            I think of  Ethan Hawke from  Reality bites

“There's no point to any of this. It's all just a  random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. A Quarter-Pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt.”

And then there’s Woody Allen:

Why is life worth living? It's a very good question….. Those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne...the crabs at Sam Wo's... Tracy's face...

I wince at the thought.  The reason to live : food and pedophilia.

I live because others want me to live.  My death would bring unhappiness to many…well, to several, anyway. More to the point, I’ve come to view suicide as the ultimately selfish act. Taking one’s life leaves a hole in the lives of so many others. 

             I haven’t thought of self-destruction in a while.  I take this to be a good sign.  Still, I have a long way to go. Let’s go back  to Woody Allen.  I don’t care about his icky past.  The man gave us Annie Hall.

            “Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. For me, I would say... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony... and Louis Armstrong’s recording of Potato Head Blues. Swedish movies, naturally. Sentimental Education by Flaubert Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra.”

            Frank Sinatra? Wasn’t he married to Mia Farrow, Woody’s girlfriend who adopted Soon-Yi, Woody’s current wife?

            Woody’s monologue credits art as a reason to live.  This brings me to the point of this piece: The healing power of art.

            I  have a membership to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, about a quarter mile from the Farber.  After a long day of therapy, I stroll to the MFA and wander  the galleries.

             A famous Childe Hassam painting hangs there.  Children feed  pigeons  off the Commons. It’s winter in the late 19^th century  and the   Boston sky holds the same pink light  that shines  softly at three AM  three miles from the site of that famous paining.

            The painting is soothing, familiar.  The same snow, the same light. The same Commons, the children walk down Boylston street, then clogged with trolleys before the green line was built to carry commuters  beneath the Commons.

             Art can be comforting. I find  familiar details in art that echo in  our own lives.  I  cringe, thinking of  the late Robin Williams  from  Dead Poet’s society.

            “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. You are here , the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”

This is my verse.  Michele’s verse is her medical skill, of course, but also, her art.

We were residents at  Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital.  Another time, another city.  She is a physician and a quilter.  She and her family  have given me untold  comfort and support  during these queasy,  neoplastic times. A few years ago, she  made me a felt ski cap, a  piebald Jesters’ hat to wear  when the chemo  further attenuated my already   thinning hair.

            It  always brought me joy.   It was a symbol:  Even  in the bleakest moments,  life  holds  color, comfort and love.  It served as a  handy link to the un cancered world.  When I felt like talking about the Big C and Me, I could tell  curious strangers that this was my chemo cap, and that would  lead to long conversations about the precarious nature of life.  Last month, we were attending a Broadway play, and a theater worker announced, over a bullhorn “ All of you may enter,   except for that guy with the red ,yellow and blue hat. I want to talk to him.” This sort of stuff happened daily when I wore the hat. I must say, I didn’t mind the attention.

            The hat  is art in its most basic form: Beautiful.  Comforting. familiar.

            And now, it’s gone,  taken from  a  restaurant coat rack.

            I was heartbroken.

            I have tried to buy a similar hat. They don’t exist.  I shopped for one in Boson where  all  hats must bear   GO BOSOX or HARVARD.

               Michele is working  on a new cap. I will wear it  daily, I will sleep with  it, my  Linus blanket.  We have second chances in life, whether through haberdashery or Chemotherapy.

            I stare out the window.  CNN is on. The snowstorm drives the  Boston News cycle. The governor has declared a snowpocalypse.  What if they close the blood bank, where I undergo my treatments?  I’ll stay  here another day for therapy. There will be chaos , confusion and concern, but, for  now, all that exists is a city of  snow.

Retuning to Woody Allen:

  “I like the rain. It washes memories off the sidewalk of life.”

I like the snow,  it’s a window to the past, to art, to other cities.   Best of all,  it will give me opportunities to wear my new hat.  

I think of the  Naomi Shemer song:

ir bageshem sachah lanu kachah -
hachaim yafim kedai lachem lichyot!

--A city in the rain speaks to us. Life is beautiful, it’s worthwhile to live.

         Shit. I haven’t had an optimistic thought in months. The treatment  must be working.  Maybe it’s the hat. Thanks, Michele.