As a former smoker, hard drinker and long-time ex- Valium addict, I have an intimate acquaintance with asthma, bronchial fevers and nasty hacking-cough-colds. They are rare in my life in these days, I haven’t smoked in decades, I don’t drink at all any more, and I gave up valium after my divorce, nobody told he it would be hard. It is no longer hard. Life without drugs is more rewarding to me than life with drugs, but there are those moments when I remember what all that stuff sometimes did for me.

This week, I’ve been wrestling with a cold that just laid waste to me, took my voice away, left me weak and coughing, feeling old and worn out and discouraged. I knew what I had to do.

Once in awhile, when I am sick, I am fortunate enough to score (legally) some of that prescription codeine-based cough syrup that dries me up, puts me into the deepest sleep, and takes me on some magical and enchanting journeys.  Last night, sick of being sick, tired of coughing, I got into bed, kissed Maria good night, took some good chugs of my sweet syrup – I only have one small bottle, it is already gone – and fell right into the arms of Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer who made so much wonderful music and died before I even really  understood what music is.

I don’t know how I came to spend the night with Billie Holiday, I do love her and her music, I have listened to it on-and-off for much of my life. She was sitting in a big dark ballroom, just me and her, by a giant black piano, she had a cigarette in one had, a glass of bourbon in the other – this is how she often recorded her music – and she looked sad and wise and mournful and loving, as she often did. I sat in a chair nearby, and then the two of us were holding hands, sailing through space she was singing “Good Morning Heartache,” and I began to sing the song with her, “Goodmorning, heartache, Here we go again, Goodmorning heartache, You’re the one who knew me when, “Might as well get used to you hanging around, Good morning heartache, Sit down.”

Billie and I were sailing along in the sky,  there were bright stars all around us,  we were floating over the ocean, then Manhattan, andI told her the song reminded me of my feelings about fear, how I used to say good morning to fear every day, I got used to it hanging around.  Then I told her how much I loved her singing, how I remember her song “That Old Devil Called Love,” and I told her I had found love, I told her about Maria, and she started crying – Billie Holiday was very emotional, like Maria, she often cried while recording, and I remember singing that song with her as we sailed through some caves and valleys together, I had to look the lyrics up when I woke up, I couldn’t remember them all, I was still quite hazy and I don’t have a great memory for lyrics.

But these were simple, they came back to me.

“It’s that old devil called love again.

Gets behind me and keeps giving me that shove again

Putting rain in my eyes, tears in my dreams,

and rocks in my heart.”

And when I woke up, the light was creeping through the frost-bitten windows, Maria was wrapped around me, Lenore was dozing at my feet, Red on the floor next to my side of the bed.  I had slept a long time, I had my voice back and I felt human again, and stronger. I do not feel old this morning, nor weak.  I am taking Maria out for lunch to celebrate her remarkable sale of more than 100 potholders yesterday during her first Plaid Friday sale. I almost missed it.

Did the cough syrup cure me, bring me back to myself? Or did Billie Holiday, the power of creativity, of music,  maybe taking my hand and bringing me along with her on this magical trip? I think it was both, sometimes we need help keeping the magic in our lives.