Measuring the lines

Controlling what we can, to avoid what we can’t

My first and only experience with psychedelic-assisted therapy was not something I had planned to do. Some friends told me they were going to attend a ketamine circle and asked if I wanted to join. I’m generally a curious person, and I had recently read Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. I took the invitation as a nudge from the universe, so I went.

We were outdoors, under a canopy of trees on a balmy day. Each of us had brought a blanket and a pillow, and we arranged them on the ground. The facilitator spoke with us one-on-one and then recommended a specific amount to take based on our body size, our previous experience, and our intention.

I took the small pile of white powder back to my blanket and followed the facilitator’s instruction to divide it into ten lines. Once the session began, we would hear a bell every three minutes. The sound of the bell would be our signal to snort a line, using a small straw. I realized that I had never actually snorted a line of anything. Does it work just like in the movies, I wondered? Is there any special technique? (Yes it does, and no there isn’t.)

As the facilitator spoke with the other participants, I cut and re-cut the lines with a credit card. It was very important to me that all ten be precisely the same length. Then I started to worry - how would I make sure that I did five lines up my right nostril and five up my left? Should I alternate sides? Or would it be better to do the first five on one side and the next five on the other, so I would be less likely to lose track?

As I was obsessing over this, a light breeze rustled the trees. I threw my body over the pile of white powder as though I were shielding a lit match from a gust of wind. God forbid my ten perfect lines should be disturbed - or worse yet, carried off into the sky like Dorothy flying to Oz.

At that point in my life I had decided to leave NPR but not yet made the announcement. So as everyone in the circle shared their intentions for the trip, I chose one of my own. I would focus on transition and closure.

Then the first bell rang.

Left nostril!

I stretched out on the blanket and felt pleasantly floaty, like I was detaching from the physicality of my body.

The second bell rang.

Right nostril!

The song “Falling Together” by Jamie xx started playing in my head. One line in particular - where Oona Doherty says, Let go, let go, let go. The great let go.

By the time the third bell rang, I had to remind myself that I had arms, that at the end of those arms were hands, and that those hands were capable of putting a straw up my nose. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth bell, I realized that the breeze I had been so concerned about was tickling my face, and I didn’t care. The lines would be just fine without my protection. Let go, let go, let go. The great let go.

The bells kept ringing, and line by line I soared past any thoughts of transition and closure. I entered a land of ones and zeros, fractals and zaps.

A couple of hours later, as I emerged from the experience, I remembered how intensely I had focused on measuring the lines. “You silly man,” I thought to myself. Moments before an unknowable journey, I had poured my energy into something that was knowable but meaningless - something that I could control. Looking at it from the other side, I realized how hard I had been working to distract myself from the great let go. Then I puked onto a tree. Apparently that’s typical.

Since then, “Am I measuring the lines?” has become a kind of shorthand for me. It’s a way of asking myself if I’m focusing on something inconsequential and controllable to distract myself from something important but overwhelming. Among the many lessons I took from the ketamine experience, that is the one I think of most often.

The idea pops up in places I wouldn’t expect... Like a discussion I had this week about protein.

In the latest episode of our podcast, “Engagement Party,” my co-host Audie Cornish and I try to figure out why protein is suddenly in everything - sodas, breakfast cereals, snack foods, and more. There are obviously lots of different reasons, and our conversation touches on many of them, from GLP-1s to RFK Jr. basically flipping the food pyramid on its head.

But as we talked about people obsessively counting their macros (a word that I have chosen not to learn the actual meaning of), I wondered: Are they focusing on a thing they can control to distract themselves from things they can’t? In a chaotic world full of big unsolvable problems, does tracking grams of protein offer a sense of order and knowability? Are protein-maxxers just measuring the lines?

At a birthday party recently, a friend and I were eating cupcakes while we watched men with abs steer clear of the snack table. The friend taught me the word “orthorexia.” He explained that this is an eating disorder characterized by an obsession with consuming only healthy or “virtuous” foods.

I’m not a medical expert or a nutritionist, and I don’t believe that everyone who tries to maximize their protein intake (or everyone with abs, for that matter) has an eating disorder. But I do think an obsessive focus on measurable outcomes can be a way of avoiding the bigger questions and problems that swirl around us. If it helps you get through the day, more power to you. We all have our cooping mechanisms. But I’m dubious that protein pop-tarts will make a meaningful difference.

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Extra! Extra! Extra!

This week on Engagement Party, we also talk about the wave of concert tour cancellations this summer. Some people are referring to it as “Blue Dot Fever.” (Watch the episode for an explanation of where that name comes from.)

There are so many hurdles to being a successful touring artist. Talking about all of the ways it can go wrong makes me even more grateful to have the opportunity to perform with Pink Martini. It feels like a small miracle that this “little orchestra” has now been making music around the world for more than 30 years. I don’t take it for granted that audiences keep showing up.

In the next few months, I’ll join Pink Martini for more than a dozen shows across the US, Canada, and Europe. My summer with the band kicks off with four sold-out hometown concerts in Oregon next weekend. Then we get to return to the Montreal Jazz Festival, which is one of my favorite music festivals in the world. In July, I’ll join the band in Europe for performances in Hungary, Romania, Turkey, and Greece.

You can find all of my upcoming tour dates here. And if you can’t make it to any of Pink Martini’s live shows this summer, you can still see me each week on Engagement Party. New episodes drop every Friday morning, on the CNN app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in, both there and here!