I’ve been recovering from the severe all-day akathisia attack I had on Tuesday December 2nd, the day after my appointment with my psychiatrist Dr. Z at the Allan Memorial Institute — which went much better than I’d anticipated, as he agreed to stop the injections and not to force antipsychotics on me after I described how bad the akathisia was. I told him the attacks had persisted months after I had stopped a brief trial of Abilify in 2022, and I suspect the fact that akathisia can be a serious emergency-room risk convinced him perhaps pretending I’d been psychotic wasn’t the way to go. That and the fact I made sure he knew I am going ahead with filing my report to the ombudsman and will likely sue him in future if things don’t improve between us.
Yesterday, Wednesday, I slept a good part of the day, as I was completely exhausted from my nervous system having been under attack so unrelentingly the previous day. I cancelled an appointment with the vet for Stella’s annual shots, as the last thing I wanted was to risk another attack while being clear across the other end of the city and stuck in public transit or an expensive Uber ride.
The receptionist said I would need to pay a no-show fee and I kindly asked for her to speak to the vet about it, since he’s had me as a client for over two decades — two cats and three dogs over the years — and I suspected he would agree to at least charge me a little bit less than the full fee. He very kindly waived the fee altogether after I explained I’d been suffering from severe anxiety caused by medications I was forced to take. Sometimes oversharing is beneficial. If I’d kept it to myself, I would be over one hundred dollars out of pocket, with nothing to show for it right now. My vet is a dear man, and I will have to find some way to make it up to him when I see him next.
When I got up this morning after a good ten hours of sleep, I was not feeling up to much, but as it turns out, I’ve had a rather productive day, which included doing two rounds of Sun Salutations — the first around noon, and the second around seven p.m. I’ve been promising myself to get back into yoga for ages, and my longtime therapist of 20 years Beverley Conrod, had often recommended Sun Salutations as a simple way to get back into the practice, and I figure if I do them daily and sometimes occasionally manage to do 2 or 3 rounds interspersed throughout the day, that will be a solid workout.
But the large task today was this:
I finally unpacked six boxes of books.
They’d been sitting untouched for four years since my move here in November 2021 — an embarrassing museum installation titled “Books I Will Definitely Unpack One Day” which somehow got put off indefinitely. The majority of my Folio Society volumes had been the only ones to escape early, tossed onto the living room shelves I had someone put up for me at the beginning of the year without ceremony. I just shoved them into the living room shelves without any sorting or grouping. They look beautiful no matter what, and I don’t own thousands of books, so the disarray never bothered me enough to tackle it.
And then something uncanny happened.
Because I had not unpacked any of my editions of The Rubáiyát until today — not one — yet somehow, as I opened three separate boxes (none of them labelled with anything other than the vague “Books”), three different editions appeared, one after another.
They had been packed separately years ago, the boxes had been shuffled around many times since, and yet today they surfaced in sequence as though choreographed and insisting on grabbing my attention.
Three editions of the same book emerging from three different boxes that had been shuffled around for years… and all within the same hour. I took it as a sign that I was overdue for a re-read.
And since today was a domestic-rituals-kind-of-day, I might as well show you the Tilapia Laksa I made for lunch — it was absolutely delicious.
I made a point of transcribing some of my favourite quatrains from FitzGerald’s ‘translation’, which is more in keeping with invention than actual faithful reproductions, which I am more likely to find in my Penguin edition translated by Peter Avery & Hugh Heath-Stubbs.
While checking my LibraryThing entry, I realized I actually own a fourth edition: an Oxford World’s Classics that also reproduces FitzGerald’s version of the text.
Since they practically jumped out of their boxes at me, I sat down and transcribed the quatrains that called to me the most. FitzGerald’s “translation” is really an invention of his own sensibility — but its atmosphere is undeniable.
Here are the eight passages from FitzGerald which pleased me enough to transcribe into my journal:
Selected Quatrains from FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát
7
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
26
Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
28
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d —
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”
32
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seem’d — and then no more of THEE and ME.
46
For in and out, above, about, below,
’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
62
Another said — “Why ne’er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;
Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love
And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy!”
72
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth’s sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
74
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know’st no wane,
The Moon of Heav’n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me — in vain!
Next on the list will be the Penguin edition — the one that claims to show what Omar Khayyám actually wrote, rather than what FitzGerald felt like writing. It’s a beautiful volume in its own right, and I’m looking forward to seeing how much of Khayyám survived the Victorian imagination.
Totally Surreal 
Let me know what you think!