Nothing to kill or die for...and no religion too.

 I posted this on Facebook.  Social media is such a conundrum.  When I post ordinary, humdrum pictures or comments, I sometimes get loads of feedback.  Then, when I post something I think might spark some controversy, or at the VERY least, a bit of a conversation...some comments...I get.....crickets.  So, I posted this picture.  

It is a work of art done by a local artist here in my little hill town in Italy.  It is being displayed in one of the pharmacies in town because the municipality had a "drive" to showcase local artists....Penne has talent, if you will.  This particular artist's previous work ..the one displayed in the very same venue...was a rather brutal depiction of domestic violence.  It was difficult to look at, and yet, some very famous and important art has been "difficult to look at."  It wasn't my cup of tea, so to speak, but I appreciated the message.

Living in Italy for the last three years has opened my eyes to certain dichotomies.  There is a lot of magical thinking going on here.  Lots of churches, lots of people making the sign of the cross....while at the same time embracing "Babbo"...the Italian version of Santa Claus...and horoscopes....omigod...a really big thing here....and there are others..the Bufana..the witch of the Epiphany.....it's a long story....and makes no sense whatsoever.

So, here is the painting I shared to very little comment on social media.  I personally felt it merited some discussion, wonder, comment...especially emanating from a small hill town in nowhere Italy...so, I share it here.  Feel free to add comments to the blog if you wish.

The title is "It was raining outside."

Let's get right down to the real nitty gritty

 Part Two: 

The Covid test came back negative.  I was wheeled into an elevator and taken up to the 4^th floor.  I was left in the hallway while the transporter brought my papers to the nursing desk.  I heard “Americana!  Americana!” as I waited. 

Another freshly painted hall, spotless, gleaming floor…with the usual rolling carts of supplies and a ………….Madonna.  A rather elaborate Madonna, adorned with real beads and a shawl.  Centrally located mid hallway…by the nurses station. It’s something you just get used to in Italy.

In just a few  minutes a young girl came out and took me to my room, not far at all from the nursing station.  A large but very spare room.  No curtains on the one window…but one of those metal shades that rolls up and down outside, common in Europe.  No curtains between the two beds.  No curtains at all which translates into no privacy.  A small crucifix in the middle of the wall above the heads of the beds.  IV stands, but no infusion pumps.  Meal trays next to the beds, but nothing whatsoever on them.  By this I mean no water pitcher, glass, straw, tissues, toothbrush, toothpaste.  No hospital gown or socks.  Nothing.  I would have to stay in what I wore this morning, which, luckily, was just a tee shirt and loose pajama type pants.  I was wearing slip on Sketchers but no socks, so if I wanted to use the bathroom or get up for any reason, I would have to shove my surgically altered feet into my shoes each and every time.  Patients even need to bring their medications from home, they are not dispensed from the hospital pharmacy. Since the room was spacious but spare, every sound was amplified and bounced off the hard surfaces. After a while it hurts the ears. This is national healthcare.  No frills.

(There is a private hospital in Pescara, a 25 minute drive away, which likely has “frills” but there was no time for that nor would I want to impose upon my friend who was already going out of her way to help.)

I got as “comfortable” as I could.  There was a very old lady in the room with me and I had the immediate impression that she was going to be trouble.  “Buonasera, Signora” she said.  I nodded to her and replied in kind.  Perhaps she didn’t hear me because she repeated her greeting at the top of her rather able lungs.  Yeah…she was going to be trouble.

Before anything else, I grabbed my phone…realizing that it was running out of battery power, and texted my husband for soap, cups, socks, a towel, a hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, change of underwear and phone charger. The only thing I did have was a small portable pack of tissues.

Again, quickly and efficiently, two young ladies (student nurses) came in to do vitals, an EKG and set up an IV of saline solution.

The food staff delivered dinner, but nothing for me.  The old started with her questions ad infinitum.  “Why don’t you eat?”  This would be repeated every day, three or more times a day.  “What is your name?  No!  That’s a  month!”  Oy vey.  “Why don’t you eat? Aren’t you hungry?”

The call buttons for the nurses have a three tone descending ring in the hallway.  Something I would come to dread. My roommate used hers with abandon. 

Turned out she was 85 years old, never married, lived alone and she fell and screwed up her entire right side but mostly the shoulder and hip.  She was confined to bed.  Her mind might not be as sharp as it could have been but her mouth worked just fine.

A nurse came in and started antibiotics.  While I am accustomed, obviously, to US hospitals and all the accoutrements that they include, IVs without infusion pumps work just fine.  In fact, the many, many times I had to have medicine infused for RA, those damned pumps often developed some kind of problem, making it necessary to redo the elaborate set up, fiddle with the controls and hope to get it working right again.  Why?  Is it only to add expense?

And clearly, not providing niceties such as a comb, toothbrush, soap…saves money and has nothing to do with good medical care.  Just wish I had known prior to leaving the house.

I was tired, in pain, uncomfortable, hungry, thirsty (I didn’t even get water) and trying to adjust myself in the hard bed with a hard pillow, when I saw a nurse coming toward my room with a Trader Joe’s bag.  Hurray!  Supplies!  I could brush my hair, brush my teeth (with my trusty IV by my side) while wearing socks, and get my phone charged up. 

The night was surreal.  I was overtired and very unhappy.  And trigger happy roommate kept the nurses call button busy all through the night. The good news was that no one ELSE disturbed me…no middle of the night vitals and the hallway lights were off until six a.m. Problem was, I finally fell asleep somewhere around five.  One hour later I was awakened for a blood draw.

Housekeeping came around and did the floors and bathroom.  IVs were kept going all day, bathroom needed to be used about every two hours, shifts changed.  In the early afternoon the young students arrived and they were all so sweet and enthusiastic and they wanted to practice their English on me!  One young lady has a father who lives and works in Australia.  She remarked how she can understand “American” English so much better than “Australian” English.  The other, actually the same girl who originally brought me to the room, stuck her head in just to say, in English…”Hi, guys!”  A young man has a friend in New York and visited there four years ago.  He was lamenting how much money he spent.  Yeah, tell me about it!!

Wednesday was much the same except my pain was diminishing and sometimes I had the IV bottles removed for a while.  So, I asked if I could take a shower.  Well…………you can….but….the shower is broken. !!!!?????  I tried anyway.  The shower, which also had no curtain, had a considerable leak in the middle of the flexible hose.  I could “shower” with the pressure low…but there was no way I could wash my hair.  It helped, at any rate.  Cleanish me, clean underwear, clean socks.

That day my admitting doctor and another older doctor marched in.  The older one gave a cursory “exam” and told me I needed surgery.  Surgery??  I was told I didn’t need surgery.  Now I need surgery. This was the first I heard.

I said I thought the treatment I was getting was sufficient.  With that the older doctor got huffy and raised his voice and said the pain would come back again and again and again.  He turned away from me and marched out of the room.  Well, that didn’t go very well.

When I was admitted I expected to have surgery ASAP.  Then the admitting doctor told me there was a non-invasive treatment…the IV antibiotics.  Then I was told surgery again.  Now?  No, you go home and schedule surgery “if you want.”  OMIGOD…here we go again…if you want.  What if I want your damned medical opinion????

I spoke with my husband…I thought about it.  I was not sure how this was going to be reconciled.

Needless to say, my sleep once again was fitful. 

For a brief period, this one night, we had a third person in the room, another ancient woman, even older than the mouth.  Another victim of a fall.  Tiny little slip of a woman.  Her daughter, it turned out, was a doctor…una dottoressa. Also a smoker…I could smell it and see it by her skin.  At any rate, she only stayed the one night and was moved to another room the next morning.  The good news was that her mere presence kept the mouth quieter for the one night even though sleep eluded me.

Thursday.  Lights on at 6 am.  “Why don’t you eat? Aren’t you hungry?”  My admitting doctor, the snot nose doctor and yet another march in.  This one I managed to catch a glimpse of his name on his jacket.  I knew the name….he was recommended by a dear friend who is now also assistant mayor of this town.  He is also the head of the department but soon to retire. I wondered if our friend had anything to do with his appearance.

He examined me.  He spoke a tiny bit of English.  “You are from New York?”  “Yes, but I live here now.”  He said he would advise that I go home but schedule surgery for the near future.  I agreed.  “Ha!  But she didn’t WANT surgery yesterday!” said Dr. Snot Nose.  I replied, in Italian, “I needed time to think.”  Both my admitting doctor and the head of the department had no problem with that. 

Before he left I asked when I could go home.  Friday.  Tomorrow.  YAY!!!  “O forse sabato” (or maybe Saturday)…..No!!!!  hahaha…just kidding.

Finally, I was given something to eat….a boiled piece of chicken cutlet and overdone (thank goodness, the only way I like them) carrots.  A cup of tea.  Magnificent.  Manna from heaven. Menus for the patients are one more thing not present in "no frills" health care.  You get what you get.  Period.

For the first time, I slept about 4 hours straight.  Tired, relieved and something in my stomach after  5 entire days.  If the mouth called the nurses station, I didn’t hear it. 

Morning came and I was hyped.  I got up, brushed my teeth and hair…packed up my few things…and lo and behold, there was my admitting doctor at only 7 a.m.!  One last check, one last IV antibiotic…he wrote the papers, scheduled surgery…and I was free to go! 

No frills…but I am forewarned now and know what I will need to bring with me next time.  Overall, but for one snotty doctor (like I never encountered snotty doctors in the US?) the care was very good.  Everyone else was attentive, cheerful, kind and most of all, competent.  The building is old, possibly post WWII or soon after in the 50s….but clean.  Some of the misunderstandings I am sure were cultural and due to my language difficulties. Really, I have little to complain about.  And, by the way, the bill is ZERO.

Diamond bracelets Woolworths doesn't sell...

Part One:

To be truthful, I started having occasional sharp, fleeting pains months ago, sometime over the course of the summer.  I naturally ignored them, hoping they would magically go away.  Of course, they did not.  They got worse.  And worse.

I had “an attack” in August.  Calling on my limited knowledge from many years of working for doctors in hospitals, I wondered if this was a gallbladder attack.  Or my old umbilical hernia?  Or a hiatal hernia?  Was I dying?

That attack passed in a matter of hours and all was well again, except for those nagging, fleeting stabs that came here and there.

I had an appointment with my primary doctor here, not for this problem, but because I felt that my arthritis was worsening over time.  We (my friend/teacher/translator) mentioned the pain to the doctor but got all caught up in the arthritis issue and blood tests and specialists……and that was that.  That was a Thursday.

Friday the pain persisted and was markedly worse.  Saturday continued in that vein. By Sunday I was in significant pain, unable to eat, walk…think.  Other than that I did not want to enter an ER or hospital on a Sunday.  I suffered through…all night long…until Monday morning when my friend/translator took me to the local hospital’s ER. My first experience with this institution.

As a small, obscure hill town in the least populated part of Italy, the locals pride themselves on this hospital.  Its existence is one reason we chose this town.  It was, in fact, the Covid center of the region throughout the quarantine.  My friend and neighbor calls this hospital “a gem.”

I did not get a sense of what the actual edifice looks like.  I was somewhat indisposed.  It was a gorgeous, sunny, perfect autumn day.  The first stop was the registration desk.  We had to wait in a small room with only about five chairs….until the gentleman in front of me was done.  Then we entered another tiny room…two chairs and a man behind a desk.  Name, health card, what’s the problem?  Tap, tap, tap into the computer.  Then we were directed across the way to another location.

This was the waiting area for the ER (Pronto Soccorso), and there were quite a few people there.  I am not sure if they all were patients or with someone else, but I was ushered through the automatic double doors immediately (hurray!). It looked like…an ER….gurneys and curtains.   Someone came and started using his fist against places in my back (checking for kidney problems) and then he punched me in the gut!!!  Seriously!  I cried out, doubled over…..

I was put on a gurney, bloods taken, IV started, three Covid swabs and an ultrasound ordered. *I didn’t feel a thing…totally painless. Except the swabs.

Rather quickly I was moved to a wheelchair and taken up to ultrasound where I lost my companion.  They would not allow her in due to “radiation.”  While it was obvious the building was very old, with some worn spots in the floors (which were spotless) the walls were freshly painted.  I waited.  I have no idea how long I waited….maybe close to an hour.  Finally a young doctor arrived, apologizing, saying he didn’t know I was there.  He spoke English pretty well and told me he had a friend in NY and visited him recently on the birth of his first child.  He also told me I had gallstones.  Che sorpresa!

Then I was wheeled to the surgeon’s office.  I had no idea where my friend was or if she had any idea where I was.  Swell.  The surgeon was also young.  His “office” was very large, with a gorgeous view of the mountains.  There was also an exam table  with surgery lights available above.  He examined my swollen and very sore abdomen.  Then I sat in the chair in front of his desk while he perused by lab results and the report from the radiologist.  Oh, how I wish my friend were with me!!!  I can speak “everyday” Italian, but I am not familiar with medical terms and my brain tends to go completely blank when I am nervous.  I was nervous times ten and tremendously uncomfortable. 

If I understood him correctly he was telling me that I didn’t need surgery at that moment, but perhaps I should stay in the hospital for treatment “if I want.”  If I want?  If I want?  I said I could not go home “like this.”  In broken English he said “You want to stay with us?  If you want….”  Si!!

Having worked in the US for doctors for so long, I assure you my “bosses’ never proposed a treatment to someone, much less a hospital stay….”if you want.”  I was baffled by that.  What is YOUR opinion, Doctor?  What should I do?  I don’t have a medical degree! Give me some guidance!

Then I got wheeled back down to where I started, outside the ER and just a minute later my friend showed up!!!  “I’ve been looking for you!”  Well,  I think it’s all done now, although I don’t quite understand why……….

I told her there was no need to stay any longer…PLEASE go home….You’ve done enough……so grateful just for the ride alone.  She hesitated but did head home.

I had to wait another hour or more for my Covid test result to come back.  Since it was my first ever, it had to be sent to the central lab in Pescara, the county seat….tick tock…… 

Can you tell me? What's ailing me?

It is October 21^st and I had my first appointment with my primary doctor here in Italy. 

I had had an initial appointment with another doctor when I first arrived.  I did that out of necessity because I have some chronic conditions that require daily medications.  I wasn’t particularly impressed with the doctor.  She didn’t speak of word of English, which is fine, but she acted like she was afraid of me and wanted to know if I spoke French.  Sure…Bonjour.  Merci.  I took French 50 years ago in high school but not a lot of it has stuck since I never had occasion to use it.  (Although I have been brushing up via Duolingo lately)

Well, here I am, three years later, five years into the “remission” of my rheumatoid arthritis symptoms.  It was a particularly dry and hot summer and I was uncomfortable.  I blamed it on the heat.  That is, of course, until the summer heat gave way to Fall and cooler temperatures and I still felt lousy.  Increased pain. Increased stiffness.  Crippling fatigue. Getting crabby.  I need to see a doctor.

The last time we signed up for the healthcare for the year, we chose another doctor recommended by a friend.  He also speaks no English….but, nevermind.  This is Italy, after all.

I made an appointment and arranged to have my Italian teacher (who is half Italian, half British and raised in England) to come with me.

Off we went today to UTAP…the center of medical offices in the town. UTAP is down the road from the supermarket and Cafe Franco.  To the west are lovely views of the mountains.  It is located in a ridiculous building that is three stories with many, many steps and one little elevator that sometimes doesn’t work. 

Pre-Covid, this is where I walked once a month to renew my prescriptions.  I had to go to the “first floor” which in the US is the second floor…and wait in line to reach a lady at a desk who would take my health pass and my medications and enter them all in the computer and then issue me a number on a little post-it sticky pad sheet and then go sit and wait. 

Just a big room with plastic chairs lining three out of four walls…a Madonna sitting in one corner…Catholic country, you can’t escape it…..and open space in the middle for the line, which sometimes would wind out the door.  Eventually, a lady would emerge from a side door to the right with a fist full of papers and start calling out numbers.  Venti.  Venti uno.  Venti due.  And then you would dutifully march up with your sticky pad and receive your prescriptions.

Covid changed all that.  Covid changed everything.  After that…and to my somewhat horrified delight, we had to telephone for our scripts.  Delighted I didn’t have to make the trek, wait in line, wait again and slog home, but terrified of the telephone.

I practiced what to say.  It mostly went well, sometimes not so well, depending on who was on the other end of the line.  There are one or two very nice ladies who don’t freak out when they hear an accent…and are patient enough to listen and….omigod! They understand me!  There are others who simply hang up or pretend they cannot hear you.  Luck of the draw. As I get more comfortable with the process and the language, the whole procedure goes pretty well most of the time.  Then they send the scripts via email.  You can either print out the bar codes at home or take your phone to the pharmacy and the scripts get filled. (no charge)

To see a doctor, one would go to the 2^nd floor (the third floor in the US) and check in with the secretary and also get a number.  The room has rows and rows of attached seats, much like an airport where the patients wait. There was an LED monitor on a wall which informed those waiting what number each doctor was ready for.  Most internist doctors’ offices were located there. 

Well, back to today.  The elevator was working and I pressed two. Up it went to “one” and then the light went off and I was alone in the pitch dark in a little metal box suspended between two floors.  I was momentarily terrified but then the doors opened and there was my teacher…..(she went up the many stairs) but we were on level one. 

The room where I used to get my scripts has been emptied…no chairs, no Madonna….one desk where there used to be two and the end…and at the entry door  an ad hoc “office” was set up.  Plexiglass barrier….double desk…computer…printer…other office stuff…..I began to slowly pull myself up the stairs to level two when I heard “Signora!  Signora!’…that would be me…..and my teacher explained that the elevator works for level two when they tell it to. 

Ok…back to the elevator…..up to two.  All the airport seats are empty.  In fact, the whole place is empty, like a ghost town.  The once bustling office with two stations and telephones, printers, computers, records….is dark.  “Chiuso.”  The doctors’ offices are there, with their names and hours printed on papers beside the doors.  We cannot find the doctor I am supposed to see.  ?????

So, my teacher goes back downstairs…oh….no…his office is down here.  No worries, we will send him up when he gets here!

Well, for whatever reason, we still had to go back down and see him in a small room that was behind another room on level one. 

He was right on time.  Jeans and a thick knit crew neck sweater.  He’s probably in his forties…he is slim but has a tiny paunch…what they now refer to as a “dad” body…his hair is so close cropped it hardly exists.  He has a nice face, a ready smile….he is told that I ‘speak Italian and I understand if you speak slowly.”  He tries. Hahahahhaa…very hard for Italians to speak slowly…hahaha.

I have a 30 year history of rheumatoid arthritis.  He said what I truly expected a good doctor to say…”You need a specialist.”  Damn it!!!  Why do you have to be a good doctor??!!!!! 

What this means is…the odyssey begins. 

The huge advantage of having my teacher/friend/translator with me was that she managed to finagle me to have my initial bloods drawn here at UTAP rather than at the hospital, which is up a tremendous hill and a labyrinth in and of itself.  My bloods will be drawn in early November. 

As an American, I will have to pay an initial fee for the first blood draw.  All of 60 euro.  My teacher was astonished.  Why should you have to pay?  No!  There must be a way around this!

I had to explain to her it is because we are not part of the EU…it’s fine, 60 euro is NOTHING compared to what I have had to pay in the US for certain blood tests…calm down…it’s nothing. I will pay with a smile on my face. Happily.

Now, her next challenge is to make an appointment with the specialist.  She tells me her husband also needs to see a rheumatoid specialist, so she would have had to arrange something one way or another. 

As far as I know, the specialist is in Pescara, the large beach town and administrative center of this province.  It is about a 25 minute ride.  We don’t have a car, but, as my teacher told me, she would have to take her husband anyway, so maybe the two of us can be seen on the same day?  I was given the name of a particular rheumatologist from another friend (who is now the “vice mayor of our town!) That seems to be how things work here, friend of a friend, word of mouth, call this one, get a name.  Otherwise, the convoluted bureaucracy can become confusing and frustrating.

There is also a little matter of some abdominal pain, which we mentioned, but that got lost in all the other talk, so I am in limbo with that.  Not sure if it is an old umbilical hernia coming back to haunt me or the gallbladder acting up.  I was hoping to avoid an emergency room but between questions in both Italian and English and scripts for blood tests and appointments for blood tests….well. Plus it’s a bit odd having a companion with you at a doctor’s visit. 

Meanwhile, I am still at square one and the saga continues……. 

I can't get no satisfaction

 Ah, life in Italia!  Fantastic food, clean air and water, beautiful surroundings, nice people and so many things that just don't make any sense whatsoever.

Let's see if I can explain this.  

We have Wi-Fi.  Obviously...I wouldn't be here on this blog without it!  Ok...we used to get bimonthly bills which we paid at the Post Office (Yes! You can do that here!) Sometimes going there is a pain, due to weather or long lines, but it is still pretty convenient. 

But, why don't I just go online with my bank and arrange for automatic debit?  Ahhhhhhh, well......THAT is not so easy.  You can't.  You just can't.  I could pay them individually online, but it is not possible to set up a "payee" for automatic debiting in this country.  Why?  Beats me, I have no idea, but people mumble things about security and blah blah.  

In order to set up automatic debit, you have to consult a rather unpleasant gentleman in the Post Office.  I've tried and I've mentioned this fellow before.  The last time he claimed that the "code" (what code?) was incorrect and it could not be done. 

That was then and this is now.  And now instead of bimonthly bills, we have monthly bills that arrive via email, making the little trek to the post office a tad less convenient than it was before. These emails usually arrive at the very beginning of every month. 

All was chugging along as it should until October.  No email.  I checked my "junk" file....nothing.  Hmmmm.  I could call their customer service line, but I know from past experience that they speak very quickly and like all customer service lines, you have to "enter #2" here and "enter #1" there before you can get through to a person and I tend to get nervous on the telephone to begin with, so we went for help.

Aldo is a guy who is a wine merchant with a small cafe around the corner.  He lived in the US for decades, so he is fluent in English as well as his native Italian.  He called the customer service line and found out several things.  One, they seem to be changing the billing cycle yet again, so the bills have not gone out as yet.  Ok...we are not in arrears.  Wait!  Yes we are!  There is a......TWO EURO (!!!) balance on the account and for whatever illogical reason, unless we pay the two euro right away, with a credit card, our bill WILL be withheld and our service disconnected.   WHAAAAAATT?

Fine, I whipped out my international credit card for Aldo to read to the guy on the phone,  Number, name, expiration, code.  Nope.  Not going through.  Why?  It's an international card, I have used it in multiple places over the last three years.  Try again.  Nope.  No good.

My husband then pulled out his AmEx card, good "all over the world."  No, sorry, no good.  

So Aldo pulled out HIS OWN card and paid the damned two euro with his.  His worked.  All is well in Wi-Fi land again and absolutely NONE of this makes any sense at all. Why were we never informed about this two euro?  Why was it not just forwarded onto a subsequent bill?  We will never know. 

Well, fascists are not very welcome here, we are in little to no danger of being victims of a random shooting, it is very unlikely to flood and there is universal health care. 

Sit down, have a glass of wine...it's a lovely evening...ah, Italia!

I heard there was a secret chord...

 I came late to the appreciation of Leonard Cohen.  Well, perhaps that isn't really true.  I was enamored of several of his songs way back in the 70s, but I had no idea who he was and I never bothered to find out.  They were songs.  Songs I liked a lot.  "Suzanne" and "That's No Way to Say Goodbye."  Who wrote them?  I couldn't tell ya.

Life plunged on and I heard some others of his songs, still never registering from whom they came.  I was travelling on the big highway of the USA...highway 80, and in a Starbucks somewhere.  All the stops look the same, so I have no recollection of which one it was, but a song was playing.  Starbucks offered CDs for sale and the one playing was "featured."  I literally lingered inside with my coffee just to hear it to the end.  To the end..."Dance Me to the End of Love"...this one by Madeleine Peyroux.  I was mesmerized.

I was an habitual viewer of NCIS while living in NYC and New Jersey.  On Tuesdays, after a stressful, interminable day at the hospital, I would fervently wish that I would be on a train, and another train and catch a bus home, if all went well, without unforeseen disasters, just to be able to sit down by 8pm and watch an episode.  One episode, at the very end, where everything was tied up  neat and tidy, there was a scene of a man singing a song.  It sounded, perhaps, vaguely religious, but....not entirely.  And it, too, was somehow hypnotic.  I later learned it was Cohen's "Hallelujah."

The truth is, I really only learned about him with his death.  Suddenly, there was so much to read about him, so much to understand.  I regret I had not known sooner.

I am currently obsessed with "Hallelujah."  I was walking on the passaggiata the summer or fall before Covid hit and there was a mother and child in the playground that runs along the side of the walkway.  The little girl was on a swing and singing "Hallelujah."  That was when I realized that the song had been co-opted by the religious.  Certainly, a six year old child could not understand the metaphors and nuances of that song....no, of course not.  They changed it.  They changed the lyrics to suit their purposes.

There are allusions to religious figures in the song...the word itself (hallelujah) appears to come saddled with religious baggage.  It doesn't have to, and it doesn't in this song.  It is an....epiphany, of sorts...an offering of gratitude, perhaps....a celebration....but not of a religious figure or a single flavor of god.  

I read that Cohen had many, many, seventy or eighty...verses of this song and finally honed them down to 4 or 5.  I would love to read the others.  It is a song about a songwriter who is an unsung hero.  The artist painfully self aware that he does not have the recognition he deserves.  It is also about sex.  It is also about loneliness, love and loss.  It most definitely is not about a church..any church...THE church. It makes me angry that that section of society copped this song, changed it and yet, if not for that, the song might never have become well known.  How ironic. 

I had been listening to Cohen's own version of it......and then I discovered KD Lang.  She knocks this puppy right out of the ball park.  Close your eyes and listen.  Hallelujah.

KD Lang "Hallelujah"

The long way home

Funny how random things can spark your memory.  Things long forgotten, maybe not important but....memorable.

Why in the world did I remember this?  Was it people on Facebook posting about concerts? (Things I could rarely afford)  Was it others just popping up songs from "my" era?  

Anyway...way back when I was a struggling working "goil" in New York City...a medical secretary, something I was hoping to educate myself out of, but that didn't happen....I took a walk on a beautiful autumn afternoon.  I had nothing else to do.  Just a walk, to enjoy the "window shopping" and the sunshine and crisp autumn air.

I walked all the way from 93rd Street down to Rockefeller Center, which was not a feat for me back in those days.  I'm talking about the late 70s.

Something was going on.....I saw a sign, I saw them setting up....Rupert Holmes.  Rupert Holmes!!!!  He was going to sing in the Center....in front of "Mercury"...where the ice rink is set up every winter.  I was aware of him, I was sort of a fan, I guess....I had an album.  

So, I decided...damn it!...I am going to DO this!!!  I sat down in the cafe right by the stage...as near as one could get....I got handed a "menu".....and the least expensive thing I could get was single glass of wine.  Even that was a stretch for me at the time...six dollars!!!!  My guess is that would translate to about 18 nowadays.  For a single glass of wine.  Fuck it.  I did it.  I asked first if it was alright that that was all I ordered.  Since it was the middle of the day and there was virtually no one else there...they let me get away with it.  (And yes, six dollars, for me, at that time, was a serious amount of money to blow).

In retrospect, I think that was my very first "concert."  I nursed the wine as long as I possibly could.  It was a long time ago and no one rushed me, no one was rude.  Kind of amazing.  I got to listen to someone I knew from the radio and records...in person!  Right there!!!  I was thrilled.

I was a little nervous about "blowing away" the money.....but, really....the experience and the memory were worth it.  

And the funny thing is, it is mine alone.  I was completely by myself the entire time, the entire day, other than for my cats waiting for me at home.  Sometimes I lament that people with whom I shared cherished memories are gone, either from death or circumstance.  Ultimately, I realize you don't  need someone else to value your favorite recollections. They are all yours, always,

Rupert Holmes - Long Way Home - YouTube