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Music lit me up and doused the fire


Okay, this is weird… good weird, though.

I’d been in a really bitter, increasing pain jag for days, and though a dose of Norco and dramamine gave me one good night Wednesday night, the pain started ramping up again once the meds wore off on Thursday morning.

That was bad. Very bad.

The Norco usually breaks the cycle. I definitely did not want my body thinking it was normal and appropriate to keep cranking up the pain.

I worked in the yard Thursday late morning (John keeping me from overdoing on any one thing, because I couldn’t track well enough to notice), because I just had to move through the pain to keep it from making me lock up.

Then I took a disco nap, dressed up minimally, and went to see Boz Scaggs at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton, which we’ve been looking forward to for a month.

Side note… I haven’t been inside the Calvin for 30 years, and it looks it around the gingerbreading, but apart from the art-nouveau panels it was in great shape.

The opening artist was a solo acoustic set by Jeff LeBlanc, who has had some success but not that much; an unfair position to be in, because he has the creamiest tenor I’ve ever heard in the rock/folk-rock realm, a pleasing and rather classy onstage personality, and a delightful way of framing and playing his material. He has matured just since recording this:

I mean, John Mayer can just shut up and move over. Beautiful.

The Boz show was outstanding.

He used to go in for pyrotechnics and flash, I’m told, but this show was just pure, perfect musicianship. His 7-member band fattened up the sound in the smoothest, tightest way — every note perfect, every beat perfect, and the band grinning and digging into the show like they were as happy as we were.

Bonus: I finally understand what musical stage lighting is supposed to do. I’ve seen a few shows and, apart from the spotlight, the shifting colors and intensities just seemed to be either distracting or hokey. The lighting actually worked this time, and I only noticed because there was one single slightly missed cue, and then I noticed how flawlessly it had been guiding my attention and floating with the music until then. I could see everyone, but each musician was distinct, and the soloists glowed. Every moment was beautiful. Who knew?

I was absolutely jamming. Every song was just a whisker better than the last (perfect) song, and everyone was having a fabulous time. I was lost in it, elated. I was rocking in that ecstatic state that a great performance can put you in… and suddenly, I swear I felt my brain move: my left front inferior pareital portion and my right lower temporal lobe and some bits elsewhere gave a squirm, a shift, and then clunked into a more comfortable position.

Then I realized I was in no pain. No pain! I mean, NO FREAKING PAIN AT ALL!

I’ve got to look those parts up and see what they relate to. I may be overthinking it, of course.

Fast forward past a couple post-show hours of “wow” and a happy thunk into the pillows; waking up to a beautiful dawn and feeling, in the words of Tony the Tiger, grrrRRRRREAT.

Still have allodynia, where a breeze feels a bit like a hot iron sliding over my skin. Still feeling a bit fragile, like my body might tear at the seams if I try too hard. Still not pushing it (which means I gotta get off this keyboard.) But my baseline pain is back down, well below the event horizon of functionality, and I can sit and stand and move and there is NO FIRE. NOR FIRE AT ALL.

Those coals banked in my feet and hands and knees and every single bone of my spine and so on and so forth are just gone.

This is a good day, folks.

Next on the agenda, after finding our own home and getting the outstanding business nailed down: Music lessons. I don’t know in what, but all those scientific studies about the different ways the brain benefits from hearing and playing good music are suddenly making a boatload of very personal sense. Victory! Thank you, Boz & co. 🙂

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