It’s easier some days to find that right vibe than it is others. This one was the image, almost understated, but somehow captured that sunrise post-insomnia feel. It’s a split image. It’s a stutter step. A strobe. It’s a man who though in clear focus, is not quite integrated. That’s insomnia. That’s cluster headaches. They’re back. They burst in at night and that’s pretty much it. If they come for you, you never know really when they intend to leave. They’re the most unwelcome houseguest you will ever know. The doctors don’t know. There are drugs. There are experimental treatments. There are volumes of ideas that work for one person but not the other. I’m the other. I’m special. I’m somewhere else, but not all the way here.

PROFLIGATE, the music project of a single man apparently, does a good job of capturing the morning after, though it’s unlikely that was the intent. The intent wasn’t to make something conventionally beautiful, and that’s pretty clear as well. It’s interesting though to travel a familiar sonic landscape without the usual discomfort, and I’m sure Noah Anthony, the man behind the sound, wouldn’t be thrilled with the association. Or maybe he would. I don’t know. All I do know is that this (to me) is a rather claustrophobic, ambient landscape that I’m so familiar with.

I do love that the cover image is a fair representation of some of the songs, in focus, but chopped and strobed and skidding to a halt from left to right, or back. But that’s an aside.

The re-entry of the cluster headaches into my life isn’t welcome at all. I keep thinking that maybe one day they will disappear for good but it’s probably not going to happen that way. True that since the New Year I could have taken better care of myself and stayed ready. My self-care routine has lapsed in many aspects. The details aren’t necessary, but suffice to say that health, physical, mental and spiritual, can’t be taken for granted. It’s more important with every passing year.This last year has been a rollercoaster also, We’re only a few weeks away from the one year anniversary of New York City locking down into this semi-quarantine. My biggest issue through it all has been physical health, and that in turn hits the mental and spiritual aspects, and recent lapses in routine have exacerbated something it would seem. My goal an hour ago was to sweat out the poison, but there is simply no energy. Taking care of that is the fastest path out too, but it’s not going to be this morning. Maybe later. I’m not well at the moment, so I’m going to post up this music to mark this point in my trek through this mess. It’s not about finding my way back. It’s just about leaving some record that I was here, this morning, in this particular state. I’ve no insights nor inspiration to leave with it. Just a note, perhaps, a little billet-doux to The Universe.

Where is here? I don’t quite know. I’m in some manner of low-key distress, mentally and physically and emotionally. I’m pissed off and frustrated and not just with myself. I am feeling that I need to re-center myself and integrate the self to one, instead of the fractured, or sliced, image. Perspective is difficult when the cluster headaches have come. They’re so incredibly unsettling that it’s hard to ascertain which feelings physical and otherwise, are real and which are just exhaustion. I think I’ll call the doctor this morning. And it’s funny because there is every chance that I’ll feel great by mid-morning. This affliction is cunning that way, beyond that it sneaks up to ambush you in the middle of the night. You just never know how seriously to take it all. I’ll call the doctor anyway.