Anhedonia

This is my view as I take my evening cocktail.  The neighbors walk by and wave.  Some come up to say hello.  Little children in strollers look over and smile.  They astound me, some so small I wouldn't think their eyes would see so far.  After this, I go inside to start making dinner.  I'm glad I've pulled my camera out and started taking pictures again.  

I cooked up the photos I had taken with my Leica Monochrom b&w digital camera.  They were disappointing, of course, but I sent two of them to my Miami friend with a note:

I don’t think I’m really a social media guy.  I stopped by the pub on my way back to my mother’s house.  I shot a few pics with my Leica film camera which I’ll develop soon, and with my cool-assed Leica Monochrom b&w only camera.  This is how and what I shoot.  Whaaahaaa!

She wrote back:

LOVEEEEEEE

am I allowed to post these?

These are beautiful  

They really weren't bad.  They were actually O.K.  

Really?  I thought they would be all wrong.  Sure you can post them.  I’m doing them for you! 

I was relieved.  

stop underestimating yourself! You’re an amazing photographer  

Now you can go ahead and smirk at this exchange, but it was important for me.  I haven't had a single bit of what used to be called "positive reinforcement" for. . . how long?  Years?  I'm living in a void, a vast expanse of dread and nothingness.  If you are unfamiliar with it, to you my moaning rather sounds like either a terrible whining or a parody of a Samual Beckett play.  

I read this in the N.Y. Times today.  

Anhedonia has long been defined as a reduced ability to experience pleasure, but in more recent years, mental health clinicians also associate it with a lack of motivation to seek joy.

The foods that once tasted great might now seem boring. The museum that used to elicit feelings of awe no longer holds any appeal. Even getting out of bed might feel like a chore for someone with anhedonia — and they may start to withdraw from important people in their lives. 

Holy shit!  Bingo!!!  I've been too long in the Waste Land.  

Once someone comes up with a drug to treat this, commercial t.v. will be full of its ads.  

Yesterday, one of the kids reached out to me from the factory.  

Are you around next week? Finally getting around to the 2025 SunRail crawl. It’s next Friday! 

I used to be on a group text but haven't heard anything for a long, long time.  I figured I'd been relegated to the grave of dinosaurs.  

Later, I got another text from my old secretary.

Lunch next week? Maybe get a few of us together  

 I told them each I would have to check my mother's schedule.  So I did.  I'm not able to make it next week.  

The boys went to happy hour on Wednesday.  I couldn't go to that, either.  

I don't sleep.  In part, my mother roams around during the night banging things in the bathroom across the hall from my bedroom or in the hall closets that are even nearer.  But now there is pain.  I cannot find a position in which to lie that doesn't cause me neck pain, first small but growing to a stirring crescendo.  Neck, knee, and back.  Is any of it stress related?  

Anhedonia.  I was never a hedonist, but I used to laugh a lot.  I used to enjoy things immensely.  I used to have fun.  

On Wednesday, Michela turned 49. She considered forcing herself to celebrate, but when two friends offered to take her out, she said no.

First, she would have to spend time getting ready. Then, she would need to participate in conversation, act enthusiastic, appreciate the moment.

“All that takes so much effort,” she said. “I just don’t have the energy.”

Hmm.  Sounds too familiar.  

So if my feeling good about a few kind words in text annoys you, you can go fuck yourself.  

I'm glad I took that photo of my mother.  It captures the mood and tone of that moment sublimely.  

Now I must put my mother's morning meds together.  That's alliterative.  It could be a good title--"My Mother's Morning Meds."  It is Friday.  How do you celebrate?  

How will I?