Where I Went When I Went Away

The story of my breakdown

I’m sure no Ukrainian has suffered less from this war than me. After all, I’m uninjured, healthy, still living in my flat with my kitties. I suffer not from the pounding of shells or the fear of imminent death, nor have I suffered the heart-breaking loss of friend or family. On those occasions when I’ve slipped into a catatonic stupor, I’ve been fortunate to have friends bail me out. There’ve been times when I’ve been overcome by the helplessness of being without the necessary evil of cash on hand, times I’ve eaten crackers for my day’s sole meal, but the closest I ever came to collapsing into a heap and sobbing, weeping for the sweet release of death, oblivion, (and perhaps new adventures), was when my computer was inoperable and I was cut off from all my brothers and sisters. In short, I’ve suffered nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to those fighting to save our country.

Yet, I am an old, weak creature, and after six months of this surreal nightmare, at times I’m no longer capable of being in and of this world. Sleep rarely comes easily to me, but, I can drink myself into sweet oblivion as well as any sailor. Sometimes, though, a good drunk ain’t enough. I literally need to escape the world of clocks, calendars, money, people, and responsibilities for 24 or 48 hours. This week it was well over 100 hours away from everything. Upon surfacing back to consciousness after such a lengthy sabbatical, I’ve been disoriented and unpredictable since my nervous breakdown.

So, where did I go? Would I like to return? I’ll get to the former point, but as for the latter, yes, absolutely, in a heart-beat! This is day seven of this holiday, and I’m still not keen on it ending, but I felt I had to write about it.

In the early, scary days of the war, I had visions of my building being blown up, debris and dead bodies filling the courtyard. What fired me up, what angered me, was the waste, the tragedy of loss. Not me; who am I? The loss I obsessed about, that grabbed my heart, was my personal library. I’ve often bragged about how I came to this land with but 4 books, (Being required to tote everything I needed to live on for a year, maybe longer, in a strange, unknown country didn’t leave much room for books.), but now, a decade later, I’d built up a fine personal library of 144 volumes. (Yes, I counted.)

In my reveries about the future, I’d always imagined presenting my dear friends with selected volumes and donating the bulk to the library which kept me sane the first 6 years, where I could find and savor a book in English for free. If I got blown up, that wa’n’t gonna happen. I had to start moving the books, or they’d be forever lost.

I gazed with fresh eyes upon my shelves, and I found at least 50 I knew I wouldn’t be reading twice in the next 5 years. Those had to go first, obviously, but I still wanted to read most of them right now, (double-checking, as it were, if I might wish to return to their worlds again.) Surprisingly, 4 books survived the original purge, (Bulgakov, Murakami, Lessing & Gibson, FWIW.) The majority I savored one last time, knowing they’d soon be re-entering the world of people, Odessans, & future English teachers. They’d have a life after me, as they should. Needless to say, reading fine books while in this mental state is so peaceful, calm, and optimistic. This is how I’ve maintained my (relative) sanity during this invasion.

Naturally, I began with the lesser books, and they provided a necessary escape, but just short ones, mere hours at a time. I’m currently getting into the heavy stuff. These worlds so real, these characters so fascinating, these opportunities to visit a fellow human’s mind, were addictive. (Unlike my many other addictions, this one’s actually healthy!) I needed a week off from teaching the D.P.’s, but I also didn’t want to deal with any humans at all, so I took a trip into books. “Stoner,” “A Confederacy of Dunces,” “Dead Souls,” Bukowski, a fantasy about baseball, and most surprisingly, William Bennett’s “A Book of Virtues” were where I resided this week. (If you’re wondering about a Reagan crony writing about virtues, congratulations! You understand irony.) This last was a book given to me, and inscribed by, my ma & pa. I’m reading it again for the last time, knowing it’ll be soon set free and immortal.

A late episode of “Freaks & Geeks” featured the advisor giving Lindsey a copy of “American Beauty,” by The Grateful Dead. As she carried it around school, a stoner asked if she’d ever heard it. After she admitted to not knowing the album, he began chuckling, declaring that he wished he were in her position. “To be able to hear that album again, for the very first time — WOW!” That’s how I feel about these books I’m donating; someone else will be reading this for the first time. How cool is that?!?!

Two score years ago, I envisioned my death scene — on a hospital bed, surrounded by 2 or 3 kids, maybe 5 grandchildren — that was my immortality, my offspring. Thirty years ago, I realized my only hope for immortality lay in some prepubescent’s memory of their fabulous teacher. Five years ago I was down to ‘maybe some Ukrainians will remember me fondly because the English skills I imparted transformed their lives.’ I now believe my legacy is that a certain library in Odesa will have dozens of books, donated by me. That’s something I’m proud of.