Greetings to you from 1974! That might mean I’m still in high school, though I’m writing from the comfort of my Ashfield couch — which, judging from its mid-century modern façade, could be a few decades older than the era you’re reading this in.
A month ago, I was hopping around in 2025 when, one morning, I got up, did some work and then fell into four naps that day. Not much like me, but I had to get ready to leave for my annual sign-writing gig at the Newport Folk Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival after that. The days leading up to my departure didn’t get any better energy-wise, so I stopped at my doctor’s office where they took some blood and other samples, and I headed off to Newport, tired, but duty-bound.
The next day, the nurse called to say that I had an infection and sent a prescription that it fixed me right up. Well, it did for a few days anyway, and then I fell into the malaise again, working hard to stay awake and on my feet until at least 7:30 every night. Who played the festivals this year? I couldn’t tell you, though rumor has it they were pretty good.
The Newport Jazz Festival finally ended, and I loaded up my truck and took off without saying goodbye to anyone, as I didn’t have the stamina for hugs or even conversation. I drove the three hours back and decided to stop at my doctor’s Northampton office again, just to see if they had any insight into what was going on.
The insight they had was to put me in an ambulance and send me off to the closest emergency room, Cooley Dickinson, where I spent the evening getting checked out, the leading suspect for my lethargy being some tick that had filled me with his own special brand of Lyme juice.
The good doctors at Cooley Dickinson gave me a round of doxycycline and sent me home just in time for a newfound allergy to that medication to bust out in an all-over blossom of hives. So, I went back to the doctor’s office and they sent me directly to the hospital in Greenfield. At Baystate, they checked me in, confirmed that I did indeed have Lyme disease, and kept me for four whole days, giving me an alternative medication that needed to be admitted through a port in my arm.
Lesson No. 1: Do not go to the doctor thinking you’ll be back in an hour; take everything you’d need in order to communicate with the outside world to tell them where you are.
Not having done that, I began my trip back in time, relying on the old-fashioned, wall-connected, push-button phone that came with my hospital room to call a friend and ask if he might bring my cellphone and computer to me, which he did.
But, upon its arrival, my own sturdy cellphone evidently looked around that hospital setting, took apparent offense at the presence of old-school technology, decided I just didn’t need it anymore and checked out, crashing into total darkness that no charger could pull it out of. It was dead, with no more life in its unrechargeable battery, so I was stuck using the 1967 phone until my release on Friday evening.
But, no problem, because not only did I still have my computer that I could at least email from, but I live in Ashfield where, since we’ve only had a cell tower since about five months ago, I still have a landline. When I was released back into my home setting, I was able to communicate verbally with the world again.
And then, at about 2:30 this afternoon, the service that holds both my internet and my landline lost its grip on life and sent about half the town into web-silence. No cellphone, no internet, no landline. I am now writing to you with a fountain pen, on lined stationery.
But, you know, it’s kind of soothing to be back in the mid-1970s with nothing to interrupt my rest or attention. Sleep, I understand, is probably what I need most to rid myself of this Lyme infection and, with nothing to pull me away from it, I’m getting plenty of that.
Fortunately, the new anti-Lyme medication I’m on stems from a later era and seems to be healing my affliction nicely. Thus, I will live happily here in the 1970s, concentrate on getting well and draw myself a calendar on some construction paper so that I can keep track of my upcoming doctors’ appointments again.
Nan Parati lives and works in Ashfield, where she found home and community following Hurricane Katrina. She can be reached at NanParati@aol.com.