Mental illness gray

The shamanic significance of weighted blankets and the "city that care forgot".

While sitting in the Austin airport waiting to go to New Orleans for my birthday, my husband leaned over to show me a meme on his phone. It was a woman’s tweet, inquiring:

“Do weighted blankets come in any other color besides ‘mental illness gray’?”

I lost it, dying of laughter. For the last week or so, I had been looking for my own weighted blanket in my house, describing it to my husband as “institutional gray” more than once in the desperate hope he might trip over it in some far-flung, forgotten closet.

I mean, the jokes about my strained mental health, the looming end times, and this pathological need for the medicine of a weighted blanket kind of wrote themselves.

So, while I was certainly personally attacked by that meme— and yes, do have a few related mental illness diagnoses, before you get all riled up about that— there was something about seeing it in writing that provided me a necessary release.

Just as I looked away from the meme, a child of no more than three years was screaming and tearing a croissant apart violently in a strange, dark corner of our gate. My husband leaned over and said, “The Corner of Despair” like he was in an old, Vincent Price horror movie. I started laughing uncontrollably again.

Then, A group of seemingly related travelers walked past us in matching t-shirts. The “funny” message on them? “Airplane mode”.

I spit my water out, shook my head and remarked, “Society really is over, isn’t it?”, feeling a strange kind of release at just acknowledging we’ve floated past the peak and were now witnessing the civilization-level decline writ large.

I mean, of all the myriad witticisms or word puns or sarcastic jokes or literary quotes or references from which to chose for your group’s matching trip t-shirt, and you go with “Airplane mode”!?!?.

I could no longer deny that the end was nigh.

I put my headphones back in and found myself listening to an interview with British writer (and genius) Douglas Murray, who at that very moment quoted C.S. Lewis, saying:

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.”

Then, Douglas went on to explain, “Society wasn’t always precisely like it is now, but in many ways it’s also always been like it is now. There have always been things in the way. The question is whether or not you can get over them. If you wait for the optimal conditions to find the beauty in life, you’re rather missing the point.”

Holy. Shit.

This was one of those undeniable shamanic scavenger hunt moments in which the clues and omens and portents align in perfect, symmetric significance.

See, the last several weeks, months and yes, even years had, as of that precise moment, left me feeling a bit bereft. I won’t bother listing my many losses and complaints and sources of grief here, but suffice it to say that I wasn’t feeling particularly bullish on civilization and the spiritual promise of beauty it has previously (and rather consistently) offered to me and others.

I needed to see these things. Laugh at myself. Laugh at “Airplane mode”.

And to remember that, while conditions were not optimal, they were never really optimal. Every society has gone through its own deliverance ritual littered with ego deaths and spiritual awakenings. Mine was just perhaps more stupid and banal than those of previous generations.

I mean, “Airplane mode”?!?!

Christ on a cross.

This energetic shift was the first marker in an incredibly magical birthday trip to New Orleans. It was spirit preparing me to shake off my own case of “mental illness gray” and embrace the noise and color of a city that’s always teetering on the edge…and never really seems to give a fuck about it.

My husband is a chef who loves French and Creole food— with a particular gusto for seafood— so the first thing we did after getting to (the very haunted) Hotel Monteleone and changing out of our traveling clothes was go to dinner at Peche, a local (and modern) seafood restaurant on Magazine Street.

We sat at the bar which, for the record, is always the best seat in the house in any good restaurant. The first bartender that came by had been at Peche since it opened in 2014, and we talked about the history of the food scene in the city. The second bartender had a bunch of really intriguing tattoos, one of which was an undeniable Chicago icon: the Chicago Picasso statue, situated in the Loop.

The Chicago Picasso

I made a comment that I walked by this statue everyday walking my dog. As only another “Chicago person” could, he remarked, “Oh, so you were right in the shit, huh?”. I told him where we had lived and why and when we left during Covid lockdowns.

We all looked in each others’ eyes and a visible pain rose to the surface.

He replied: “Covid made me fucking hate Chicago.” The grief in his voice was palpable and, seemingly upset, he walked away.

Was it a sad moment? Sure. But it also reminded me that there were more of us out there. The remnants and the refugees that knew what happened to our beloved and very special energetic ecosystem was wrong, and who sought solace in other, special places that still have a psychic heartbeat.

After all: “Asgard isn’t a place. It’s a people.”

We then went to French 75, the literal bar where the cocktail of the same name was invented. And our NOLA-local Uber driver on the way there did not disappoint.

We bonded over the theory of how ancient religious services most certainly involved psychedelics— as outlined in the book The Immortality Key— and how our country was creeping (or perhaps vaulting) into fascism.

As we were exiting the car, he told us who to mention to get a good table, an experience of kindness, hospitality and city-specific inside baseball that I haven’t experienced in more than three years.

As nostalgic tears sprang to my eyes, he said, “Welcome to the city that care forgot” in an undeniable New Orleans accent.

At French 75, the hostess helped us find an ideal table, and our server/bartender came by in a full service tuxedo, replete with tails. I described a vague cocktail experience I had at the same bar more than ten years before, and she totally knew what I was describing.

French 75

Relieved by the experience of intuitive service and ancient tradition, I told her how heartened we were to see New Orleans bounce back after Covid. My husband and I had been there the year before the pandemic, and then once during it on the very first day things had opened back up. She smiled at me, and though she was young (certainly younger than me) she said some of the most Catholic monk shit I’ve ever heard:

“New Orleans calls to her those that can resurrect her. And, in bringing her back from the dead, she resurrects us, too. She will never die, even though she dies all the time.”

I mean, try getting that shit in a TGI Fridays in suburban Ohio.

Fuck. All. The. Way. Off.

And I realized I had heard a quote like this recently, too. It was in the fourth John Wick movie, in which John Wick and the amazing character “Cain” both say:

“Those that cling to life, die. Those that cling to death, live.”

And this has always been the message of New Orleans, a city living in rot and decay and celebrating both the living and the dead since the very beginning. It never clings. It always allows. And, because it dies as is needed, it continues to live and thrive.

The next day, the spiritual hits came even harder.

We went to Chart Room early in the afternoon, a cash-only, locals-heavy bar in the French Quarter.

The bar at Chart Room

Here, we met Mike Kelly. Mike lived in the quarter with his brother, who had suffered several strokes as a result of more than 12 years with brain cancer.

And guess what? Mike wasn’t waiting for optimal conditions to find the beauty in life.

He told us about how he cured his depression and anxiety with psychedelic mushrooms, and how he loves the controlled chaos of New Orleans. How everyone just leaves each other alone. How there’s no real violence, unlike his experience of living in Seattle in the early aughts. How he made sure all the bars in the Quarter don’t serve his brother more than three drinks to ensure his safety, considering his medical condition.

And he explained a small grouping of flowers and artifacts that we noticed on the bar:

“Oh, that? That’s for Hotel Bob. Hotel Bob worked at Monteleone for 50 years, and was a regular here [at the Chart Room], coming in almost everyday for a beer after work. He retired at the hotel but didn’t have a place to live, so the hotel gave him a room. So he kept working at the hotel until he died. He just died the other day, so that’s for him.”

If you want to know what’s been missing in our society, dramatically so in the last three years, it’s exactly this.

It’s honoring people like Hotel Bob. Remembering him. Acknowledging that his presence was additive and his life was worthy of honor despite the fact that he had no libraries named after him or stock portfolios to speak of. He couldn’t help get your kid an internship at Goldman Sachs or interview you on his podcast. He didn’t “have a brand” or sell anything or offer anyone any social, financial or other advantage in concrete, commoditized terms.

And guess what? None of that shit mattered.

These people value each other for the simple fact that they exist.

They view each human being as greater than the sum of their parts or the function they can provide another.

People are more than mere tools or obstacles.

Rather, they are a spiritual and interpersonal alchemy that makes life worth living for everyone.

Hotel Bob was worthy of getting waked at the Chart Room because he was Hotel Bob.

Full stop.

And that evening, this theme crescendoed into a full ugly cry-fest with my husband and I in the private dining Tabasco Room at Antoine’s Restaurant.

The Tabasco Room at Antoine’s

Antoines was created in 1840. Yah. That's an almost 200 year old restaurant, owned by the 5th generation of the same, original family.

Same fucking menu. A wine cellar with bottles that go back to the Crusades.

And they let you just do private dining.

Like, for free.

You just have to know the inside baseball to get there, a weaving series of tunnels of phone calls and names and codes and a very small deposit, which gets applied to your check. You know: the cool stuff that all of our great cities used to thrive on.

Ever since I first dined at Antoine’s more than 14 years ago, it’s been the Tabasco Room for me. Red and black and named after the very family behind the brand of hot sauces, the Tabasco Room used to be where married politicians met their mistresses…giving the room the not-so-secret moniker of “The Boom Boom Room”.

We were informed that we had eaten there more times than even Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and might actually hold the record for couple with the most visits to the Tabasco Room.

What a badge of honor.

When you dine in the Tabasco Room, you get a server and a server’s assistant. They tell you about their lives. They tell stories and jokes and enjoy your evening as much as you do. There isn’t a drop of corporate, pre-written bullshit in this place…and it shows.

Our server was LaFage Keys, aka “Keys”, and his assistant was a man in his 50’s named Demetrius. Demetrius rode his bike to work so that he could have a beer after working 14+ hours. He would then go home to his rat terrier “Choo Choo”. Choo Choo had a new girlfriend, and would sneak away to see her. Despite the obvious signs of arthritis and injury and effects of a hard, long life, Demetrius was looking for a second job.

Cafe Brulot custom cup at Antoine’s

He had not an ounce of fatigue or hopelessness in his voice.

Demetrius thought life was beautiful.

And, as Keys set my Cafe Brulot on fire ( it’s a high-octane booze + coffee potion that eludes the laws of physics) and poured it into the almost-200 year old “diabolique” cup (designed specifically for this beverage at this singular restaurant), I started to kind of lose it.

When he left the room, my husband and I looked at each other and just started crying. Yes, we fucking loved this city. Yes, this was the beauty that Douglas Murray and C.S. Lewis and many others have been talking about.

I had invited Keys on my podcast, and to explain the “why” to my husband I simply said, “I’m building an arc”. He nodded, emotional. Of course, it wasn’t a literal arc and I wasn’t suffering under the delusion that I was saving our species like the Biblical Noah.

But the arc we need now isn’t literal. And it shouldn’t be singular. Rather, the arc is about capturing this beauty, these ideas and these people, in whatever format we could.

Before it’s too late. Before the world turns into a soulless algorithm. An all-inclusive cardboard cruise. An anti-human hells cape of sterility and predictability.

Sometimes, we need the snapshot to revive the memory. And the memory matters.

The next day, our trip continued to be emotional and special. I ran into an old and very dear friend at Compère Lapin. Jordan had been a server at one of my local West Loop haunts when I lived in Chicago. He and I spent years sharing stories, talking of his plans to leave the city and ride elephants in Southeast Asia.

Compere Lapin

When I ran into him, I asked him how it went. And you know what?

He had actually fucking done it.

He had travelled all over Thailand and Vietnam during Covid, returning directly to New Orleans just the year before. He, too, knew that Chicago had suffered a spiritual death. He, too, knew that New Orleans hadn’t. That it possibly never could.

(“Those that cling to life, die. Those that cling to death, live.”)

And I was thrilled for him that he got to live his dream, however messy and hard and wrought with challenges, all of which were hinted at in our brief exchanges as he served nearby tables.

He had really lived.

He did the thing he said he was going to do, and when I gave him this compliment he turned to me and said “Well, so did you.”

I was stunned.

I almost lost it completely. Instead, I smiled.

I also did do the thing I always talked about, late at night and filled with high-end Japanese whiskey. I did the thing. In fact, I was doing the thing.

TOTEM is real. I did it. I ride my elephants in Southeast Asia everyday, too.

And, like Jordan’s adventure, it’s hard and the suck is big and there are unexpected twists and turns and stresses.

But it doesn’t make it any less of a successful adventure. In fact, those might be the hallmarks of a true adventure.

I’m home in Austin now, and there’s no more “mental illness gray”. I’ve stopped my search for my institutionally-colored weighted blanket, and I slept through the night for the first time in more than a month.

No restless legs or anxiety.

Is everything in the world okay? No. As C.S. Lewis had said, conditions are certainly not optimal. But we cannot pause our search for beauty pending conditional changes, otherwise we inadvertently contribute to the erosion of these same conditions ourselves.

In other words: the search for beauty is beauty itself. When we stop looking, we stop making the very thing we need.

Today is my 40th birthday.

There are no guarantees.

I could get diagnosed with brain cancer or be swept up in hurricane. I could go bankrupt. I could be shot in the streets while walking my dog.

Or, I could live and thrive. TOTEM could actually work. The Skeptical Shaman Podcast can contribute to the arc in unseen and un-metric’d ways.

And, while I can do what I can do, the bottom line is that I’m not in control. None of us are. And we’re all dying all the time. Everything is.

In shamanism, we’ve always understood that attempting to control the human experience on this spinning rock in space is truly insane. Our society, our press, our religions and political parties and tribes are all insane.

The only sane thing is to search for the beauty while we’re here.

“Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty. To believe there is an order to our days, a purpose.” -Westworld

-Rachel