Our Sick Thinking

Nobody will write a better check-in this month than Elizabeth Gilbert, but you should try. Also, in this issue: The Tao Te Ching. A darn good poem. And more!

All our Sundays are paywalled — but if you can’t afford to pay for a subscription at this time, email me: ajd@thesmallbow.com and I’ll hook you up.

Sundays are for the noise. — AJD

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First things first: WE NEED MORE SEPTEMBER CHECK-INS

Tell us how your recovery program is holding up. 300-400 words. Anyone who contributes gets three free months of TSB.

Here’s a good example:

“I started taking antidepressants for the first time in my life and I feel like a moron for not seeking help sooner. Because, though I know there's no magic solution, and I'm just starting to acclimate to playing with my brain like a chemistry set, somewhat shockingly, they are working for me. The bottom's lifting; they're raising the floor. One can only hope it holds for the long term, but it feels like a big step towards achieving the dream: becoming a Normal Guy, having a normal time.”

Send yours to: tsbcheckins@thesmallbow.com

SUBJECT: SEPTEMBER CHECK-IN

Alright, thanks, let’s get to the other thing.

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The Elizabeth Gilbert check-in I referenced was not sent into The Small Bow, but she went to The Cut, instead. And it wasn’t a three-paragraph check-in like we’re used to, but instead an eye-popping excerpt from her new memoir, All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, which most people who read this newsletter have probably already read, but just in case, here it is.

If you don’t want to fight through another paywall, here’s my quick summary:

World-famous Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert divorces her Eat, Pray, Love husband because she fell in love with her dying female best friend, Rayya, who’s a recovering heroin addict. They do some serious drugs and have some serious acrobatic middle-aged death-bed sex before she passes on.

What I remember most about that time is how electric I felt. My entire body and imagination were thrumming with the prospect of living without any limits or rules whatsoever — of doing whatever the hell we wanted; of throwing off the shackles of respectability and responsibility; of burning up the last few months of Rayya’s life as her literal “ride or die” lover; of gunning through our short but intense romance with such a heightened level of passion that I truly believed we would generate enough love to last me for the rest of my life and I would never, ever have to suffer or feel pain again (not even after she died!). Somehow we would both be rescued, transformed, and immortalized by the sheer blasting heat, joy, and liberation of this once-in-a-million-years love story.

Isn’t that the dream?

It is, but it doesn’t last very long. Rayya attempts to gain a few more years through chemo, but it only makes her sicker and miserable. Enter morphine. Then cocaine. Then, Rayya was drowning in full-blown addiction again in addition to full-blown cancer—and Gilbert was too over-the-moon to let go.

Did I abandon myself completely the first time I suggested that perhaps she was becoming addicted to the cocaine, and she told me I was a “needy fucking crybaby” who needed to “back the fuck off from talking about shit you don’t even fucking understand,” and I stuck around after that for more abuse?

Or was it when she and I (who had never once had an argument in 17 years of friendship and love) suddenly started fighting every day, as I begged her to look at me again like she used to, to touch me like she used to, to speak to me like she used to? Was it when I started hiding in the bathroom at night, weeping on the floor, while she hid in another bathroom, grinding down her cocaine into a finer and finer powder?

Or was it when I tied off her arms or legs for her while she shot up, watching over her carefully (even holding the light for her so she could find her veins) to make sure she had everything she needed? Just so I could be in the room with her? To make sure she still wanted me, loved me, and approved of me? To make sure that she — who had clearly already left the world behind, and who was also, by the way, dying — would never, ever leave me?

Reading it made me nostalgic—and weirdly jealous of her involvement in that chaos because that’s definitely one of my favorite dreams.