Me and Schubert, Back In The Saddle

Hard to believe that just three weeks ago I was nursing a 5 inch incision on my back and a repaired disc in my spine. How time flies when you’re healing with the help of your family and opioids. In fact, that first week is sort of a blur looking back. The meds kept the pain at a minimum, so I was actually able to enjoy spring break with the kids. Movies, comics, music, ice pack on my back, and the changing of the gauze.

By the time the Sunday rolled around before the kids went back to school from Spring Break it all started to sink in and things got really heavy for me. I was an emotional wreck. Needless to say, the pain meds clouded me from pretty much all the pain, both physical and emotional. After a good sob session I was better. Got the trauma of the whole surgery out of me and it was on to the continual healing.

Today was my first day back to work after being gone nearly 4 weeks. I’m only on half days this week, but I will be returning to full duty next week. I gotta say, it felt pretty good being back at work. Despite all the pain and anguish work can cause, it feels good to be back among my working peers(at least a few of them, anyways.) When you’re off work for that long you tend to lose your sense of self. There’s a certain amount of self worth regarding myself that I do get from work. The getting up, the coffee in the morning, the clocking in, processes, conversations, laughing at the expense of others,…it’s all part of work. It’s all part of what helps to make me, me. I’m not saying I couldn’t work from home. Hell, I would in a heartbeat if I could. But since I don’t, being at home for three weeks healing and watching Netflix, spinning records, reading books, well it begins to feel like something’s being wasted. What? Well I’m not sure, but I think something definitely was.

I guess what I’m saying is that I may not be a working class hero, but I’m sure as hell working class.

So what’s any of this have to do with Franz Schuber? Nothing, really. Last week one morning I drove my son to school. On the way home on the “Symphony” channel on the XM Satellite radio in my wife’s Ford Flex I heard Franz Schubert’s Impromptus D. 935, OP. 142 on the way home. Something about it really struck something in me. In that 20 minute drive home I’d constructed this epic film about a hitman who goes straight and tries to do right only to have the life he chose and served for the most part of his adolescent and adult life come back to haunt him. I was so taken by the piece I immediately wrote the title down when I got home so I wouldn’t forget it. A day or two later I found a copy of this particular piece on vinyl on Discogs and got it for a mere $4. With shipping it ended up being $9. It arrived in the mail today and sounds stunning.

So that’s that.