Putting Deacon King Kong on Repeat by Elsie Ramsey

In the whisper of borrowed time that was early March 2020, I went to a reading at the Philadelphia Public Library. Clearly it was fate; my favorite living author, James McBride, appeared clutching his masterful novel like a visiting angel. “May God hold you in the palm of His hand”, say the members of Five Ends Baptist, the little ‘nothing’ church at the novel’s moral center. They are saying it to me. But again and again I don’t hear.

I didn’t purchase the book until weeks later when my lockdown depression was loosening and I could read again. I should say listen because audio books are my new discovery and it’s through Dominic Hoffman’s reading that I live. Deacon King Kong’s been on such heavy rotation for months that I’m on the verge of committing passages to memory. I paused today to consider why this particular book has kept me through the violence and psychosis of America during COVID. I’ve done lots of reading but this has been the one to keep me.

It’s 1969. Heroin has arrived in Red Hook. South Brooklyn is still a heterogeneous mix of Italians, blacks, and Latinos who live side by side. Racial tensions simmer but never boil over into violence. The thematic content deals with fate, and resilience in the face of bitter disappointment. McBride shows us life on the socioeconomic margins; his characters find deep, cross-cultural connections based on shared experiences of pain. They fight against the brokenness born of failed marriages, parental neglect and institutions not “concerned with our health” (the mafia or a criminally dysfunctional housing authority, depending on the character’s ethnic origins). And we witness rebirth following millions of small deaths, none of which claim ultimate victory.

How apropos for a time that’s forced us all to the margins!

McBride’s fully drawn human beings shoulder burdens handed down like a penance to the innocent. Generational trauma is mentioned all throughout the novel but equally central are surrogates (church, “chosen family”) that have life saving power.

Our protagonists are good guys who live principled lives in spite of institutional disregard. Potts, an Irish policeman has been demoted for trying to be a “super cop” during a time of flagrant police corruption in New York City. Our hero, the elderly drunkard Deacon “Sportcoat” is hunted by those same cops for firing a protest shot (literally) against heroin’s looming threat of annihilation.

The narrative is full of dizzying digressions that are not digressions at all. Inside the tangential flights, McBride’s message finds its purest expression:

“…while in Manhattan the buses ran on time, the lights never went out, the death of a single white child in a traffic accident was a page one story, while phony versions of black and Latino life ruled the Broadway roost, making white writers rich—West Side Story, Porgy & Bess, Purlie Victorious—and on it went, the whole business of the white man’s reality lumping together like a giant, lopsided snowball, the Great American Myth, the Big Apple, the Big Kahuna, the City That Never Sleeps, while the blacks and Latinos who cleaned the apartments and dragged out the trash and made the music and filled the jails with sorrow slept the sleep of the invisible and functioned as local color”.

Tremendous compassion for human weakness does not preclude the searing indictments of a New York City collapsing under the weight of its own greed. But the bigger picture emphasizes abundance, excessive and ever present. The treasure we seek, McBride suggests, hides in the invisible and ordinary places.

“If all you can remember are the useless things, maybe those aren’t really the useless things” thinks 19 year old drug dealer Deems, preoccupied during recovery from a gunshot wound to his ear, by the memory of giant ants that march through the projects every year.

Those big red ants, carried back inadvertently by a resident returning from a trip to his native Columbia, defy death administered in countless, imaginative ways by a young Deems and friends. They elude study by graduate students sent out from the City College of New York and NYU, institutions “desperately jockeying for public respectability” adds McBride, beginning another digression that’s NOT A DIGRESSION.

With a drug war looming, the 19 year old’s associates and childhood co-conspirators await instructions from their leader, the most “ruthless drug dealer the Cause Houses had ever seen”.

“Watch for the ants” he tells his crew.

Again, he’s talking to me. And this message comes through loud and clear so I look for the important things masquerading as ordinary.

I urge you to read or listen now, before life resumes its normal routines. McBride’s masterpiece is big enough to occupy all the empty space we feel most acutely from the margins.

Films, Sanity and Black by Elsie Ramsey

Every night, with a small handful of exceptions, I’ve watched a movie in lockdown. I discovered the Criterion Channel and my first, truest love (books) are feeling threatened.

It’s been a deep, magical dive into the visual realm. My heart, intellect and spirit have been calmed, awakened, challenged, shattered and rebuilt by cinema’s look at the human struggle.

Two genres have captured my imagination with unparalleled force; film noir and what I’ll call simply “1970s New York City Realism”.

Noir speaks to me about the nature of female power as understood by men. Truly fertile ground for psychoanalytic musings. Women are:

Duplicitous

Spectacular

Corrupting

Fickle

Brilliant

Let the psychobabble flow…!

Then there are the trips back in time to a New York flooded with muggings, police corruption, Andy Warhol inspired loft parties and sex acts in midtown movie theaters. Each of these films will stay with me for the rest of my life:

Midnight Cowboy

The Conversation

Serpico

Klute

Find them — stream them — be changed by them.

Images inspired by the women of noir.

Makeup/Hair by Sadiq Trusty

Model: Me

Fragile as a Child by Elsie Ramsey

Today I left the house to do two errands. It was eventful in contrast with the past weeks of what feel like dress rehearsals for an uncertain future. I will remember nothing of such days days in a year or two.

Errands in the car are exciting. I look forward to light brushes with strangers, delighting in eye contact and banal conversation. It’s not an overstatement to say these breaks from the bubble wrap of confinement are life sustaining.

The meaningless rituals of life’s movement to center stage gives the people populating such encounters great power. Connection through plexiglass strikes me as a lovely affirmation of humanity’s virtues, a feeling I savor for hours.

The opposite feels just as true. Today, 2 hostile interactions pushed me to the brink of tears that could be described as both absurd and warranted.

The first was a Sephora employee’s stern scolding that by touching a Jo Malone bottle, I’d ruined it. No sampling is currently allowed! Now she couldn’t sell it (not true at all). “Are you buying this?” was asked rhetorically like I’d broken a piece of art. I was stunned by the animosity in her voice and outraged by the suggestion of purchasing a pricey fragrance in response to being shamed. As I left, I saw her disinfecting the bottle and returning it to the shelf.

Licking my wounds back in the car, I drove to my 2nd errand—a small, specialty grocer. Leaving the car across the street with the blinkers on, I ran in to buy a steak and some bacon. It’s an upscale place so you order from a butcher who lovingly selects and cuts your meat. It was far too loving and I fought back a request to hurry. Before I turned around to pay, I realized my mask wasn’t even on. Pulling it up, I turned to place my meat, beautifully tied in twine, on the counter while digging for a credit card. The young man about to ring me up said “Hi”.

Too distracted by the prospect of a ticket for pleasantries, I remained silent. Then came the infliction of grievous emotional harm.

“You’re not going to say hi OR wear your mask properly?”. A hot stare followed.

It was surreal to find myself standing in deeply wounded silence for the 2nd time in under 90 minutes.

I mumbled something about being distracted because of my parking choice. He looked contrite and issued a genuine sounding apology.

It’s been hours since this happened and I STILL feel wounded. I’m sitting at home in posture of pity.

Honest to God, I don’t think I’ve been so fragile since childhood, when a classmate could shatter my world with a mildly offensive reference to a shortcoming. Or an unfavorable comparison of my dog’s behavior with theirs (our black lab once ran onto the field during a school baseball game and resisted capture for an eternity. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so embarrassed since).

COVID has done this to me. I’m like a babe with no emotional armor and I must put an end to it.

I’m a grown woman. With good qualities. For one thing, I’m nice.

One of mid-adulthood’s best features is the falling away of those delicate sensibilities that bring so much misery to youth. The violent ups and downs are now far milder hills and flat terrain. Misunderstandings that used to turn into complete, existential crises, are just misunderstandings.

If you’ve seen Gigi, Maurice Chevalier’s “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” expresses the sentiment quite well:

“The Fountain of Youth is dull as paint
Methuselah is my patron saint
I’ve never been so comfortable before
Oh, I’m so glad that I’m not young anymore”

Tomorrow I’ll dust myself off and return to being a 40 year old who doesn’t stare at the ground when spoken to sharply.

Adulthood has its merits.

The New Way by Elsie Ramsey

On the East Coast, we’ve now been living in phases of quarantine for half a year.

The finish line is still not in view.

Let’s take a moment to pause and think about the miracle of MAKING IT THROUGH SIX MONTHS.

Sure, it’s taken me two tele-therapy sessions a week, additional medication and YouTube energy cleansing content that sounds chimes through the apartment.

And yes, it’s been a cage match against a bitter foe–the sleepless night.

But we haven’t lost our minds.

Me and the lovely people I know who live with mood disorders meet every week virtually. No one is babbling incoherently. Everyone is showering. Our personalities remain recognizable.

There’s only one word that comes to mind in accounting for this victory.

Grace.

The Devil We Knew by Elsie Ramsey

Before Corona, in another lifetime, Americans lived a life of collective malaise. Whether you realized it or not, our way of life was subverting your true, genuine happiness.

Our leaders could have made different choices. Choices that would make us less financially vulnerable, isolated and fearful, but they didn’t.

It was an America with one core belief: Rugged Individualism. Or put another way “You’re on your own”.

Individualism as a value has many merits. But America’s report card, if issued four months ago, would be an ugly one.

I’d like to state some facts about our country’s distinguishing features so we’re not talking in abstractions.

As you read this tiny list, think about how we’re at an inflection point that affords us a unique opportunity. Imagine eliminating or even just minimizing any of these American realities:

On any given day, and in any sort of setting, it’s not unlikely you could get shot.

On any given day you could be completely wiped out financially by a health crisis or death in the family.

Are you black? You and your loved ones are in serious danger of dying or being seriously injured at the hands of the police. That cop will likely pay no price.

Just three.  

If you’re clinically depressed and/or anxious for the first time due to quarantine, it’s natural to want to resume activities.

Same for those who were clinically depressed before quarantine because it probably got even worse these last several months. I belong to this group.

I’ve been chomping at the bit since day one.

But we really, really need to think about what we’re going back to clearly and objectively before we fall back into the old, miserable routines. They aren’t even “comfortable” anymore in spite of the familiarity.

This could be our last chance to go for broke. To rebuild, not modify.

Let’s begin.

The Silence is Deafening by Elsie Ramsey

We’re in the midst of a global pandemic. America is shut down. Captains of industry, elected officials and journalists are feverishly communicating their concerns in print and over the air waves. Many have noted that it feels similar to a dystopian novel–our social and political structures failing spectacularly. And day after day, hour after hour, I hear almost nothing about the mentally ill; arguably the most vulnerable population in the world.

There are some notable exceptions. They stand out like signal flares against the backdrop of a dark sky.

One such exception is the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. On Saturday he noted to reporters the “truly significant” psychological toll the virus has taken on human beings: “People are struggling with the emotions as much as they are struggling with the economics,” he said. “This state wants to start to address that.” He asked psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists willing to volunteer to contact the state to help set up a network to provide mental-health assistance for people who are anxious or isolated.

God bless him.

Mentally ill people are used to being invisible. Until a mood disorder precipitates a tragedy–shooting, suicide, or general act of violence–society isn’t interested. Once the tragedy occurs, society’s disinterest turns to naked disgust. So these are the two polarities American opinion pivots between; loathing and callousness.

But shouldn’t the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic and mass isolation shake loose some concern for this constituency? You’d think. I mean, maybe right?

Or maybe not. At least not in the volume afforded to other vulnerable groups.

So allow me to share why this virus, and the panic, social distancing and sheltering in place, is potentially lethal (in the emotional sense) to those living with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder.

I’ll focus on the depressed group, of which I am a card carrying member.

Even in times of relative social and political functionality, I tend to feel isolated. This feeling is so detrimental to my wellbeing and so pervasive that over the years I’ve developed aggressive measures to contain it. The centerpiece–most critical!–to my approach, is being in public. In the company of others. Even if we’re simply co-working and not communicating.

It’s simple but non-negotiable if I don’t want to stew in my own depressive juices.

Now I’m home. All day. Every day. Fortunately I don’t live alone because that would put me in a full on danger zone. I change rooms and go for walks. There is no timetable for how long this will last. I go hour by hour; limping through the days.

Oh how nice it would be to feel acknowledged. I’m desperate to see some cable news coverage that includes mental health experts discussing this emergency. Or our elected officials. Or anyone with a substantial platform.

I’ll keep waiting, everyone, while sending up my little signal flares.