Shaky Lives

Ten million Americans have something called Essential Tremor. I'm one. You could be another.

In a better world, Jill Sobule might be as famous as the judges on American Idol or maybe someone like Elvis Costello. She writes witty, literate pop songs, sings like a bird, and can shred on guitar like Angus Young. You may remember her zippy airhead anthem “Supermodel” from the 1995 movie “Clueless” or her alt-rock hit “I Kissed A Girl” (yes, the title was ripped off by someone who shall not be named).

Jill has written tons of great songs since then and done lots of great shows. She’s a funny, charming, and supremely confident performer. But the thing I like best about Jill is that she does all this with hands that sometimes shake for no reason. Like mine.

There’s a name for this: Essential Tremor. There are other names. “Minor Motor Incoordination,” which sounds as uncool as it gets. Until you learn the other name is “Gross Motor Tremor.” The Mayo Clinic defines ET as “a nervous system condition, also known as a neurological condition” that can affect almost any part of the body. The hands are most often involved. But the head and the voice can get in on the act. The effects can be amplified by stress, fatigue, or temperature extremes. Interestingly – sometimes conveniently – alcohol can depress those effects. It can depress other things as well, but let’s not go there.

About ten million Americans have been diagnosed with the shakes, according to a few estimates. Some, like me, are born with them. Others develop them as adults. “I think I must have had it since I was in my twenties,” Jill Sobule told me. “You wouldn’t have wanted me as your waitress bringing you coffee.”

The prognosis is hardly dire. No one dies from Essential Tremor. Though a neighbor of mine, who considers herself a health expert, once shouted “that can lead to Parkinson’s” at me, there is no proof of that. Sometimes, the tremor gets worse. Sometimes it doesn’t. There are beta blockers like Propranolol that can help. And there are surgical options involving Deep Brain Stimulation. Here’s a brief clip of Jill playing “Supermodel” while getting electrodes stuck into her brain.

https://twitter.com/jillsobule/status/1628077685476933632?lang=en

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting there should be a Jerry Lewis-style telethon. In fact, if you ever, by some chance, find yourself back in baby limbo and someone presents you with a form that says “Must pick one condition,” I’d urge you to skip blindness and eczema and go straight to “ET.” You might have to forgo a career as a dental surgeon or a pickpocket, but the world of licensed massage therapy is all yours.

So why am I writing this? Well…

1)    Something affecting two to three percent of a population is probably worth a free Substack post. There’s a decent chance that you could have this and not know what it is. Maybe there’s value in just naming it.

2)    You might have met me and wondered what you’ve been doing that’s making me so damn nervous.

The answer is nothing. It’s all good. But that’s the main thing about being a Shaker: the difference between what everybody else thinks is going on and what you think. In your head, you’re having fun and in control while everybody else believes you’re in the midst of an anxiety attack or delirium tremens. Most people are understanding when you explain. Others not so much. But fuck ‘em. Every writer needs an angle, so realizing that there’s a difference between the way you perceive how you are in the world and the way everybody sees it can be a gift. Especially if it’s not something soul-crushing, like racism or sexism. You think it’s funny the way I light a match? That’s okay. I’m taking notes on the way you do it.  

There’s a practical aspect too. I’ve always had atrocious handwriting, because of the shakes. I press down so hard on the page to keep the pen steady that the paper sometimes curls up like a scroll. But instead of only relying on the computer keyboard, where the temptations of the internet are all too close, I’ve written the first drafts of my last few novels in longhand. The reason is simple. Because I have to bear down so intently on every word, I think more clearly and write more concisely when I have a pen in my hand.

Anyway, I went to see Jill Sobule perform the other night at Joe’s Pub in lower Manhattan. I’d called her before the show and she graciously talked about the procedure she’d had done, and the two electrodes in her head that she revs up every morning. “If I wasn’t a performer, I wouldn’t have had the procedure,” she’d said. “But it was the pandemic, so what else was I going to do?” Of course, I was looking to see if she was still shaking when she played. Sure enough, when I focused I could see her fingers tremble on the neck of her Vagabond Traveler guitar. But the chords rang out, her voice was saucy and sweet, and after a few numbers, a full band came on and the place rocked. She told jokes, she sang songs of innocence and experience, and when she mentioned someone she knew had once touched Billy Joel’s leg hair during a show (a longer story), a female fan reached out and rubbed Jill’s leg to the crowd’s delight. By which point, I’m fairly certainly no one in the house was worrying about minor motor incoordination or any other abnormal neurological condition.  

Afterwards, I ran into Jill in the hall outside the pub and told her how much I’d enjoyed the gig. She smiled, formed a chord shape with her left hand, and said “the shaking wasn’t too bad, was it?”

“No,” I told her. “It wasn’t too bad at all.”