magical. the starry tufts of white floating on the breeze. seeds from wild flowers, they are on a course not of their own volition. white filaments of dandelions, designed to fly and leave a wake behind their path, fluff past, on their way to parts unknown. part of the wind. dandelions’ wispy seeds can be aloft over a half mile before parachuting their way to the ground. no gps, no triptik, no maps or intended destination.
much like how it feels right now. a part of the wind.
in this time of global pandemic, of racial protest, of economic strife, of political chaos, it feels as though the wind has taken me. battered to and fro, it feels as it there is no determined destination, no way to avoid the headwinds, no escaping the jet stream. the wind just picks me up and takes me, each day, to a different place. never physically far from the place of origin, it makes me feel just enough of a lack of control that i am ill at ease, never quite settled, never quite sure, always a bit tentative, always wary.
and instead of letting the breeze blow and riding it like a standup board in a serene lake, i resist. i find the need to know – where am i going? – too pressing, too unnerving. i paddle against the current, seeking ways to see, to move in a direction that makes sense. but it’s ineffective. i tire and give it up to the myriad of air currents swirling around me.
it is what it is. we are, indeed, a part of the wind. just starry tufts.
i played “this land is your land, this land is my land” on the ukulele the other day. were woody guthrie to be alive, he may have added another verse to this song, this one depicting the russian roulette game that people in this country are playing with the coronavirus.
it’s astounding.
these are NOT normal times, no matter how much you might want to ignore that little fact. and since these are NOT normal times, you should be mindfully considering at-great-length anything you want to do that IS normal.
“from california to the new york island. from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you and me.” when was the last time that it occurred to you that what you do affects others? was it today? was it last week? was it ever? what amount of sacrifice are you willing to take in order to protect others and yourself and put this country on a healing trend so that things MIGHT be able to be normal again SOME day?
are you out at the bars? are you at a restaurant, maskless, ordering from your masked server without a care in the world except whether you would rather the sparkling water or the tap? are you having dinner parties, group gatherings, barbecues in your backyard? are you on vacation? are you talking out of one side of your mouth and acting out of the other? are you duplicitous; do you want people to believe you are being careful and mindful, but on the other hand, it is your life after all…… are you putting anyone in harm’s way? are you renting cabins in small remote towns that have hospital/medical systems that would be stricken by a surge in numbers, something that you might bring there, even inadvertently? are you at the beach? the club? the public pool? are you making plans to go to disney as soon as it opens? are you wearing a mask when you are outside your home? are you social distancing? do you really care? or are you like so many people – irked by any degree of self-sacrifice, believing you are an entity unto yourself? are you buying into conspiracy theories and falsehoods? do you think this global pandemic is overblown? do you feel inconvenienced? do you think we should just throw caution to the wind and take-our-chances? are you upholding ignorance? are you mimicking the repulsive behavior of a president who doesn’t care about anything but his re-election and will spout off lies to your face, your actual face?
“when the sun came shining and i was strolling, and the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling, as the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting: this land was made for you and me.”
for you and me. there’s a responsibility there.
today my daughter told me that someone called her an asshole when she asked them to as-per-the-law-where-she-is put on a mask to enter the shop. and SHE’S the asshole??? this person could not put a small piece of cloth over their nose and mouth to protect others and my daughter is the asshole???
because of this person and their apathetic incomprehension and their unconscionable extraordinarily selfish behavior – repeated ad nauseam across the land that’s made for you and me – i cannot see my beloved daughter. “it’s a pandemic,” she wrote. “all the respectful tourists stayed at home.” she is at risk. the numbers are rising where she is and the people who should stay in their states-with-exponential-growth and wait-to-travel are populating her area in droves. without a care in the world. without giving a flying flip. and with no shame. and so it’s not safe there. how dare they.
“this land was made for you and me.” act like you belong in a community, like you belong in a country, like what happens to people across the land affects you too, like you care even an ounce for others. it’s actually pretty simple: don’t be an asshole.
“it ought to be…commemorated with….illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” (john adams on the celebration of the declaration of independence)
they had fireworks at the walt whitman mall on route 110 in huntington. sometimes we’d go. we’d park in the parking lot and watch fireworks overhead, my dad quietly admiring them, my mom zealously gleeful. those times we left the charcoal grill, hot dogs, hamburgers, beans and chips behind, i loved anytime we went – a child who was innocently proud of my country.
they had fireworks over the lake. we’d go every year. we’d walk over to the rocks and, climbing up and over the top, we’d sit on a flat-top boulder, mosquito-repellent in the air, and watch. in later years, people would set off firecrackers right near us and that was frightening as a parent with small children. but i loved anytime we went – an adult in the middle of early parenthood who was mostly proud of my country.
for years now they had moved the fireworks that had been set off on one of the beaches to a spot down by the harbor, set off by the public museum. we used to walk down with our blanket or chairs-in-a-bag, oohing and ahhing over a fancy display that belied the size of our city, but something stopped us the last few years. it was palpable, the dismay. red took on different meanings, especially in hatwear. the pride of being-an-american was tarnished with the behavior of a new president who gloried in obnoxious, toxic-talk, whose example was nothing shy of injurious, who touted his own self-serving agendas. we didn’t go to the fireworks.
last year they had fireworks at the ballfield on island. we were days-new there and attended a barbecue late afternoon and in twilight hours, but we knew that dogdog and babycat, both getting used to the littlehouse, would be fearful of the loud booms in this place we didn’t yet know, so we didn’t attend. we heard they were beautiful, but we didn’t miss going.
this year they didn’t have fireworks. the city cancelled them because there is a global pandemic. but people gathered nonetheless and the sounds that mimicked the soundtrack of a warzone went on for hours into the wee night. two yards over, the neighbor had m80s and a giant illuminating-the-skies display. next door, the neighbors set off fireworks lower to the ground, while clapping their hands to the loud and raucous displays in the sky around us.
we had seen footage of the fireworks over mount rushmore the day before. we had seen footage of the hate-speech given on a day of supposed-celebration for our country, but instead filled with chasm-digging language, filled with loathing and disdain, filled with the narcissistic viewpoint of a self-indulgent small unkind man whose anger granted him a job where the hatred others feel toward humankind is given a voice, is given power, is, sickeningly, given control. yes. footage of the fireworks and the pomp and circumstance in south dakota. a new definition of the word “patriotism”. embarrassing on a global scale.
we sat on the deck just a bit, but the thick fog of smoke made it impossible to breathe. the many-families-of-children in the yard out back were screaming loudly and it made me think of earlier years, more innocent years, years when social distancing wasn’t a thing (although it’s hardly a thing now), years when we weren’t advised by intelligent medical staff to wear masks in public (again, hardly a thing). it made me think of times i could point to the president of the united states and speak of him (no pronoun neutrality for there is not yet a “her”) to my young children, without disgust, without the rising nausea that results from listening to hate-talk, without explaining why he’s lied thousands and thousands of times to this country, without the intentional explicitly divisive vitriol coming from some sad place in his soul. we went back inside the house and reassured dogdog and babycat. we just could not attend, physically or emotionally. what is there to be proud of?
i wonder whenever and wherever there will be organized fireworks nearby again. the fireworks that encourage love of country. the fireworks that make you have goose bumps of excitement and a sense of pride. fireworks that remind us of the uniting of all people. fireworks that speak to liberty and justice for all. fireworks that are a recognition of “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
the explicitly divisive rhetoric spewed from the top down is suffocating us and is no salve for the wounds, new or old, that have been imparted on this country’s populace.
while i was doing some work david was in the truck sketching and writing haiku. yes, he’s that kind of guy.
“wear a damn mask,” a friend wrote on his facebook page. another friend re-posted these words of a stranger, “those who have stayed inside, wore masks in public and socially distanced during this entire pandemic are the same people who are used to doing the whole group project by themselves.” another friend wrote, “if you aren’t wearing a mask in public, tell me why so i can unfriend you.”
it’s a hot topic. there are two sides of the fence. you are a believer or you are an atheist. and nary shall the two meet.
people are bitching and moaning about mask-wearing and social-distancing and it does not cease to amaze us to see people gathered together in, well, gatherings, without masks on. every day the numbers climb. every day people ignore it. i feel i am a broken record.
let’s face it – in this united states of america, a country steeped in intelligence and research, the richest and most advanced country in the world, the president not only has gathered his populace in rallies without masks and social distancing, but he is going to celebrate the 4th of july early in south dakota beneath the granite countenances of presidents who have gone before him, who actually DID behave as presidents, who actually WERE brave, who actually THOUGHT about doing the right thing and then DID it, even if it was hard. he is encouraging people to attend, with their health and very lives at risk, just to see his smug un-masked face while he watches fireworks that haven’t graced this fragile fire-risk-environment for a decade. now there’s a bit of intelligence for you.
maybe it doesn’t matter that the entire european union has decided that americans are not welcome to their countries. maybe it doesn’t matter that canada has decided to close doors to americans. maybe it doesn’t matter that states in the northeast have mandated quarantines for visitors from other states. maybe it doesn’t matter that there is no federal umbrella of concern sheltering all-fifty-states-and-five-territories-in-this-together from undue and exponential harm.
i’d like to ignore this, perhaps not speak or write about it again. maybe i could retreat into ostrich behavior, stick my head in the ground and just move on. maybe i could just act like everything is normal. maybe i could talk myself into it. maybe if i subscribe to fox news and OAN and media sources that tout conspiracy theories and far-right extremism and fawn over this president’s lack of regard for humankind, maybe then i could not wear a mask around you, i could refrain from socially distancing near you.
maybe.
but i think not.
because, well…
science is science. medical advice is medical advice. and facts are facts.
some things just happen despite it all. for us, it’s lettuce.
despite the global pandemic, despite the absolute necessity of social change from deep roots of racism, despite political chaos, despite the economic impact we have felt, despite the isolation, despite the loneliness of missing, despite the challenge of seeing others maskless and cavalier, despite the sheer lack of responsible federal leadership in this country, despite our country’s inability to respond appropriately to a health crisis, despite questionable ally stances, despite ignoring the human-caused-destruction of mother earth, despite a pitiful inequity of economics, healthcare, opportunity in america, despite the mixed messages, despite the glib words of those ignoring the upward trend of a deadly virus, despite untruths, despite actions-that-speak-louder-than-words, despite mean-spirited messages and agendas, despite people and leaders screaming across aisles over constitutional rights, despite children killed by gun violence, despite extremism, despite empty words of piety, despite rage-filled brutality, despite an incapacity to live peacefully in community, despite unanswered questions and confusion, despite a lack of reassurance, despite the worry, despite the fear, despite the challenges, despite not-knowing, despite the grief, despite the yearning for normal, some things happen.
in the middle of my meltdown yesterday, i’m sure i uttered, “i just want normal.”
but normal is subjective now.
there is a deep schism between the normal of the of-course-i’ll-wear-a-mask-maskers and the it’s-against-my-constitutional-rights-to-make-me-wear-a-mask-non-maskers. a deep schism between the sides of the aisle. a deep schism over this global pandemic, the economy, healthcare, equality, blatant racism. a deep schism over confederate monuments. a deep schism over basic respect. a deep schism over truth.
a chasm of difference. it makes me wonder what, if anything, can bridge it, what can create a common story, what can make us a populace that cares about each other?
scrolling through facebook is depressing. there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country doing normal stuff: eating at restaurants, having drinks at bars, gathering with friends, going on trips, boating, fishing, at the beach or the pool, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.
driving downtown is depressing. there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country just-down-the-road doing normal stuff: eating inside and outside at captain mike’s, gathering at eichelmann beach, hanging out at the lakefront, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.
trying to plan anything is depressing. we need to go to see david’s parents. i desperately need to see My Girl and My Boy. there are so many details to keep each other safe. there’s nothing normal. it’s freaking confusing. we plot the trip west, a roadtrip, thinking about 19 hours across the middle of the country, thinking about arriving at my at-risk-in-laws’ house, having not picked up any additional possibility of passing covid-19 to them. where do we stop safely? where do we get gas? where do we use restrooms? how can we be sure they will not be recipients of anything we bring along? we care.
and yet, there is the rest of the country – the ones screaming at city hall meetings, the ones seeking judgement against requiring masks-for-safety, the ones who throw pointed word-daggers arguing against the danger of this pandemic, the ones arguing for other causes of death, the ones voting out all precautions for the state of wisconsin, the ones who stand in front of the entire country and arrogantly (and without a grain of truth) state, “we’ve flattened the curve!” how is it that the leadership of this country gets away with this? no wonder half of the country wears no mask, states and does whatever they damn well please. WHAT pandemic?
it’s depressing. missing the moments that make up life – chances to easily be with family, friends. chances to have a bite out without worrying about aerosols. chances to sing with others, to sing for others. chances to go to concerts and plays. chances to gather around a kitchen table or the island at your best friends’. chances to stop and hug your decades-long neighbor. chances to hold your grown-up children and kiss them and make them roll their eyes. happy hour with friends crowded onto a deck. parties in the backyard. normal stuff.
it was on a marquee outside a store, “a little normal would be nice.”
i couldn’t agree more.
i told tom i had a really hard day yesterday. he said, “you have to grieve.”
the old file cabinets are in the closet in the studio. at some point i organized all – well, most of – my music, lugged a couple metal cabinets up from the basement and spent a few days filing. there’s overfill in a few cardboard bank boxes on the floor. maybe someday i’ll get to those.
yesterday i was looking for a piece of music i thought i had. i went to the drawer it should be in and starting rifling through the books and sheet music. every title i looked at brought back memories: “moon river” made me think of my uncle allen, who took voice lessons and sang that song beautifully. “all i need” made me think of days at moton school center, comparing ‘general hospital’ notes with lois over lunches of peanuts and diet cokes. “the rose” made me think of earlier years of promise and love.
i forgot about what i was searching for and dragged out a pile of music, sheets spilling out onto the floor as i struggled to pull them from their tightly filled drawer. books – collections of artists or full transcribed albums – called my name, begging to see the light of day. i whispered to them i would be back for them. it has probably been decades since they were opened.
standing at the piano, not another thought in my head, i started shuffling through sheet music and playing. it was no longer 2020, transported instantly back to the 70s, the 60s, the 80s.
had i opened a different drawer i would have found all my old piano books, my old organ music – tools of a student learning her eventual trade. in those drawers are the books my children used for their music lessons, for band and orchestra. in those drawers are the books i used as i attempted junior high oboe and college trumpet lessons. in those drawers are the pieces that kept me on the bench for hours as a child and then as a teenager, practicing, playing, dreaming.
other drawers yield a plethora of more advanced piano and organ music, years of accumulated resources. there are drawers of choir music, both sacred and secular, from years and years of directing and conducting work. and still others house the scores of music i have written, staff paper and pencil, finished in calligraphy pen.
it made me want to just clear a day off. liberate my mind from every worry, every task, every watching-the-time responsibility. brush off the dust of the dark drawers from the lead sheets and scores and play.
i’d love to gather a whole group of friends around the piano and sing through john denver and billy joel songs, through england dan and john ford coley’s “we’ll never have to say goodbye again” and paul mccartney’s “maybe i’m amazed” and david soul’s “don’t give up on us” and the carpenters’ “bless the beasts and the children” and led zeppelin’s “stairway to heaven”, through carole king and james taylor and pablo cruise. through the ‘great songs of the sixties’ book and the ‘sensational 70 for the 70s’ book and fake books from all time. just take a day – a whole day – and sing. and remember together.
in light of the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic, this would have to be virtual, i suppose. so that might not be such a good idea. but maybe d and i could just take that day. think of nothing else but music and where it has brought us, where it brings us. our long stories.
a few things can instantly place you back in a moment. songs, scents, pictures. a whiff of my sweet momma’s favorite perfume has me immediately missing her. john denver singing anything off any number of albums of his that i owned places me in my room hanging out on my beanbag chairs with my slick 3-in-1 turntable/8-track/cassette stereo or driving my little bug around the island. wings’ “silly love songs” or elton’s “don’t go breaking my heart” and i can feel the hot sand under my beach towel at crab meadow.
an empty canvas. a roadtrip with no predetermined destination. where do you go from here, davidrobinson?
an empty staff. a roadtrip with no predetermined destination. where do you go from here, kerrisherwood?
artists’ journeys, rife with intersections, foist decision-making upon us in our quest to create. simply starting is sometimes an uphill challenge. the questions are never easily answered. the value of what we are doing is never really clear. or is it – the value assigned to what we are doing is never really clear?
we have a daily decision, a choice to “begin anywhere” (john cage) and speak to the world around us and what we see through artists’ eyes. we write, we paint, we compose. we either create or we step away from the canvas, the staff paper, the qwerty keyboard. we know that nothing we do will change the world. we know that everything we do, like you, will change the world.
where do we go from here?
last night anderson cooper’s chyron read, “meanwhile, back in the real world.” the real world. a world fraught with chaos, trembling with the fever of a pandemic and the disease of racism. we, as people, turn to the sages of old for words of wisdom. we turn to art for honest displays of emotion. we turn to music for expressions of pain and hope, grief, despair, love, action, change, fear, questions.
questions like – where do we go from here?
Every day just gets a little shorter, don’t you think? Take a look around you and you’ll see just what I mean People got to come together, not just out of fear
Where do we go Where do we go Where do we go from here?
Try to find a better place but soon it’s all the same What once you thought was a paradise is not just what it seemed The more I look around, I find, the more I have to fear
Where do we go Where do we go Where do we go from here?
I know it’s hard for you to Change your way of life I know it’s hard for you to do The world is full of people Dying to be free So if you don’t, my friend There’s no life for you No world for me
Let’s all get together soon, before it is too late Forget about the past and let your feelings fade away If you do I’m sure you’ll see, the end is not yet near
Where do we go Where do we go Where do we go from here?
clearly there are a lot of people who own registered cars in wisconsin who do not read.
how do i know this, you ask?
drive behind anyone with a wisconsin plate and notice where they have put the year sticker. people place these stickers all over the license plate. when you start looking you will see a variety of methods – in the middle of the plate, stickered all around the edges, smack over the raised lettering. however, these stickers are delivered to you in the envelope pictured above. this envelope leaves little doubt as to where to place the stickers – any and all of them. they are not meant to fill in the white space on the plate, nor to cover the numbers and letters metal-stamped on the plate.
so do they not read? that, in itself, i see as a bit of a problem. somehow it seems necessary to be able to read and follow directions in order to be safely out on the road, driving around.
now, i would understand if the state of wisconsin department of motor vehicles just sent you a sticker in a plain envelope, without specific directions attached. you might wonder, “golly gee, where does this sticker go?” but to receive such clear and concise and labeled instructions, how is it that a vast number of drivers, supposedly responsible drivers, have scratched their heads and tore off the backing and stuck ’em anywhere they wanted? what are they possibly thinking? what is the point of this stuck-anywhere-sticker-thing? is it a display of rebellion? is it a display of apathy? do they think it’s artistic? i wonder.
because it just looks like they over-and-over-again don’t read the directions. it’s not like you need cliff notes for the eleven words, “place year sticker here first time and at time of renewal.” plus there’s the arrow. pointing. to the place the sticker goes. what’s so hard about this?
it makes me wonder what else they don’t read or pay attention to. in a world with a global pandemic, we surely need people to read, stay apprised, follow safety instructions and directions for flattening the curve. we need people to be responsible and care about guidelines put into place, specifications to fairly regulate, to simply be in accord.
now, i can’t help but wonder: are the people with stickers all over their license plates the same people – the customers at the corner store – who sneered at us because we were wearing masks during this pandemic?
we cleaned the garage this weekend. our garage is old-old-old. it has a little bow in the front and there is a bit of an issue with the walls no longer in alignment with the foundation. the decades-old automatic garage door opener no longer opens it. que sera, sera.
there was the usual assortment of garden tools and clay pots, chairs-in-bags and chairs-without-bags, the wrought iron table and umbrella we hadn’t put out yet, random bags of potting soil, milorganite, sand, a plethora of spiders and their webby homes. there are old doors in the rafters, the tricycle My Girl and My Boy rode, a red wagon, the hammock. there are jacks, a snowblower-that-doesn’t-work-but-we-should-have-repaired, a wheelbarrow that has seen many trips down third avenue. our bikes hang on hooks; we wonder if i will be able to ride this summer – the whole two-broken-wrists-thing has put a damper on things. there is a woodpile rack waiting for us to re-stock, have a few bonfires in the firepit or the chiminea. and there is my old vw bug. smack-dab in the middle of this tiny one-car garage is my well-loved 1971 super beetle.
it was father’s day yesterday when we moved it out of the garage, me behind the wheel, clutch in, gear in neutral, hand ready on the emergency brake as david pushed. it hasn’t been started in years and i could hear my sweet poppo groan with me from another plane of existence as i looked it over. dirty from a few years of garage-sitting, it sure-enough wouldn’t start and i ticked off a list of things that likely now need fixing. these are things i can’t do anything about right now, so i did what i could do something about.
i got a bucket of warm carwash-soapy-water and a good sponge and my dad and i washed our bug together.
i could hear him telling me about when he and my mom picked it up brand-new in germany for their roadtrip around europe, about how it was shipped back home to a port in new york. i reminded him about how he ‘sold’ it to me in the mid-70s and how i drove that little car everywhere – rain, sleet, snow or ice – and it always kept me safe. i reminded him about how my little miniature-collie-mixbreed-dog missi used to ride in the well (i could hear him laughing when i retold how she one day actually pooped in the well.) we talked about its color iterations – it was born baby blue (marina blue, they called it). somewhere along the way we had earl scheib’s paint it navy and later on down the road it was painted white, its current color. i drove it with my best friend sue back and forth to florida, a trip where she learned how to drive a stick shift. it lived in new york and then florida and then wisconsin. it’s been dragged behind tow trucks and up on flatbeds. it bowed out of the drive moving up to wisconsin, so we pulled it behind us with a tow bar. it’s had a couple engine overhauls and lots of tires. i know how to adjust the timing and the carburetor myself. i’ve played countless john denver and loggins and messina cassettes at full volume in this little car. the heat was either stuck on or stuck off. my poppo reminded me that it had 455 air conditioning – four windows open at 55mph. i drove it to get both my degrees in florida. i drove it through a drive-through to get a milkshake the day i went into labor with My Girl. it’s been around the block.
i gently washed the dirt off of my little-white-vw-bug yesterday and realized how time had flown by. i was struck by how – right now- in the middle of a pandemic and unrest – time seems to drag. both are true.
yet i know that one day, as i ponder this time – in all its dragging chaos and emotional upheaval – i will look back and realize time, precious time, was actually flying by.
i sat down on the rusty metal bumper and missed my dad.
reverse threading 