Rock Bottom

Looking back at the last couple years for Alan, I see a whole bunch of accomplishments and disappointments. From my vantage, I saw good grades, good friends, keeping appointments, and a strong effort to do the good thing. I also saw difficulty keeping on top of responsibilities, trouble sticking with a job, and too many times saying "f--- it," which inevitably led to trouble -- my bike getting stolen, an OWI mostly from being a smartass to a park ranger, blacking out in a stairwell. His life was a lot of ups and downs, but there were so many ups, and I was so proud of him.

He didn't see things like that. Those accomplishments didn't matter. His experience was that of a burden constantly being on him. The oppressive feeling of responsibility when you don't think you are going to live up to expectation and the fog of melancholy were always there. When he did well, or when he was having a good time, he truly did seem to feel good. It just didn't last; it always faded back into the fog.

He must have felt like he was constantly hitting rock bottom, and when he hit its surface, it would shatter, revealing an even deeper chasm in which to fall. This summer, I thought he had reached the bottom. After his OWI, Mom and Dad briefly moved him into an apartment closer to downtown so he didn't have to find a way to get downtown without a car. I checked on him regularly, but his sleeping schedule was way off, and it was hard. He had quit his job and was looking for work. He was focusing on substance counseling, and we were working on getting him to get mood treatment as well.

One evening, I took him out to dinner, and we listened to his music in the car. I had introduced him to Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet, and he had put it on his phone. He thanked me for showing him the piece.

He had also discovered Mingus and Moanin'.

I think he said that Jordan had played it for him in New York. I can't imagine he had never heard it before given how many times Uncle Steve and I played and talked jazz with him, but this was an epiphany for him. It spoke to him.

I remember thinking that these two pieces were the sounds of his rock bottom. I thought he had nowhere to go but up, and he seemed to be looking that way. I had no idea how much further he would fall.

Theory

When Alan was an adolescent, he started to struggle to connect with Mom and Dad. Who doesn't? When things got really tense when I was visiting from college or from med school, I would drive him out to Barnes and Noble to let him calm down. I told him that I, too, had struggled at that age with them. It's hard to be mature enough to form all these thoughts, but not be mature enough to know when they don't matter. For me, it was Lynne Slattery Schroeder who first set me straight on that. For Alan, I felt it was my job. I told him that parents were like that -- that you couldn't change them, and that it was easier to change 5 hard things about yourself than one easy thing about someone else.

On the drive, we would listen to my Dave Brubeck CDs, and I started ear training with him. We talked about basic music theory. We used pieces with weird meters to practice hearing the beat.

Blue Rondo a la Turk, 9/8 broken up as 2-2-2-3/3-3-3:

Take Five, 5/4:

I think he played a version of this at his senior recital with Ed Hou and Ryley Crowe. I am waiting to get footage of this from our parents. I also played it with our jazz band, Gyrase, in med school. Too bad we never played it together.

Unsquare Dance, 7/8:

Later, Uncle Steve and his friend Jordan would introduce him to more jazz, but this was his start. Our sharing of music went both ways. He was always introducing me to new things, but this was something I introduced to him.

In retrospect, this was the beginning of our tradition of car conversations. It often felt like we were each other's co-pilots, driving through life together. I'm sure now, I'm not the only one feeling a bit lost without Alan in the passenger seat.