Tiny Joys, Pt. 11: Holding Joy and Pain Together

Prepping for surgery, and all the emotions that come with it.

If I go to a Grateful Dead cover band show, I’ll call out obnoxiously from the crowd, begging them to play “Terrapin Station.”

In part, because it is one of my favorite songs, and also because it is hilariously long and I know they will probably never play it. One time, I asked a musician in a cover band to play it while they were taking a break, and he stared at me.

“Asking me to play that song is like asking me to make the Mona Lisa with crayons!” he exclaimed, and walked away.

Jam bands are known for their very, very long songs, so this shouldn’t scare them off. But Terrapin Station is 16 minutes and 23 seconds long, and it’s the longest studio recording ever made by the band, which is really saying something.

Still, I love it. I always have. An excerpt of the song was my high school graduation quote. Obviously, it took up the entire space on the page:

“Inspiration move me brightly
Light the song with sense and color
Hold away despair
More than this I will not ask
Faced with mysteries dark and vast
Statements just seem vain at last”

Over the past few years, however, the song has taken on new meaning for me. When I first started feeling anxious about going into eye surgery a few years ago, I would go for long walks and listen to the song, over and over again. It calmed me.

Then, sitting in my hospital gown before going into surgery, I’d sing the song to myself as I waited for my surgeons to call me in. This song has become a calming meditation of sorts, a source of joy and inspiration, even in the most uncertain of times.

Now, I find myself listening to it more and more as my surgery approaches next Thursday. I can see myself there in my hospital gown, singing it to myself, waiting for the song to get me through this.