Long about Friday evening, I started losing my voice. At the time I didnâ€t think much of it. I was having dinner in a loud restaurant and had been – unsuccessfully – fighting off a cold for most of the week. That I was struggling to be heard seemed perfectly natural.

By mid-day Saturday, it became clear something else was going on. My voice would come and go, breaking and booming by turns. Honey, ThroatCoat, and even a healthy dose of bourbon were brought to bear on the problem to no avail. Finally near the end of the evening I simply gave up trying to speak altogether and was making myself understood through gestures and text messages.

I spent most of Sunday not speaking at all; trying to rest my voice in hopes it would return given proper respite. Unfortunately, this morning it is as bad as itâ€s ever been. Inconveniently, a considerable portion of my job requires I be able to speak to people on the telephone, so I am picking through assignments searching for the things I can resolve without consultation; in itself a rather tedious chore.

More than all of that, though, I am rendered completely unable to sing. This became particularly apparent on my long drive home from Bend yesterday when music was my sole entertainment. My sore and wretched vocal cords still flexed in anticipation, whether I willed it or no. I learned pretty quickly to limit my playlist to songs I didnâ€t know well enough to sing; else my larynx – so well-trained to produce melody at the slightest provocation – might be unable to rest from such reflexive action.

My voice is unquestionably my favorite thing about me. That I might lose it so entirely leaves me feeling hobbled and humbled both. So then, I take that this should teach me sincere gratitude upon its presumed return. Until then Iâ€ll send my prayers aloft in silence that it be soon.

In his song “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” Bruce Springsteen mentions a disappointing development. “That waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me,” he sings. “She said she won’t set herself on fire for me anymore.” I’m assuming nothing like that has happened to you recently, Scorpio. Just the opposite: I bet there are attractive creatures out there who would set themselves on fire for you. If for some reason this isn’t true, fix the problem! You have a cosmic mandate to be incomparably irresistible.

Perhaps I’ll leave a trail of tinder in my wake…