Topping Off 2020

 Topping Off 2020 

So this has been a year. I’ve spent some time writing, including daily responses to the headlines of violence here in Minnesota back in June. And on other current and predictable topics. But later, drawing on my small-town boyhood, I tried to write something hopeful, something poetic, something with the glories and sunshine of youth and the Beatles. What came out was a piece called Blood Poisoning and then I dug up my older hometown piece, Three Cold Holsteins. Both gruesome. Wonder why it went that way, this year? 

And so then to try to reverse that stream, I wrote Sutherland Falls Survey, a nostalgic narrative of growing up in Proctor, Vt. The Proctor facebook group really liked this incomplete paean to a privileged childhood. (The poems I have not shared with them.) I post Survey, those poems and more writing here on my blog: https://jaywwrote.blogspot.com. 

I listened again to a favorite new rock song today and decided that the lyrics line up pretty well with my thoughts for 2020. Hope amidst horror. Find ways to fill lives. 

Life ain't always empty 

Life ain't always empty 

Life ain't always empty

 Life ain't always empty 

Life ain't always empty 

Life ain't always empty 

Don't get stuck in the past 

Say your favourite things at mass 

Tell your mother that you love her 

And go out of your way for others 

Sit beneath a light that suits ya 

And look forward to a brighter future 

Life ain't always empty (repeat 5 times) 

Sink as far down as you can be pulled up

 Happiness really ain't all about luck 

Let your demeanour be your deep down self 

And don't sacrifice your life for your health 

When you speak, speak sincere 

And believe me friend, everyone will hear 

Life ain't always empty (repeat 5 times) 

Bring your own two cents 

Never borrow them from someone else 

Buy yourself a flower every hundredth hour 

Throw your hair down from your lonely tower 

And if, and if 1 You find yourself in the family way 

Give the kid more than what you got in your day 

Life ain't always empty (repeat 5 times) 

Never let a clock tell you what you got time for

 It only goes around, goes around, goes around 

Take your family name for your own great sins 

Cuz each day is where it all begins 

And don't give up too quick 

You only get one line - you better make it stick 

If we give ourselves to every breath 

Then we're all in the running for a hero's death 

Life ain't always empty (repeat 5 times) ………...

            That was the year of the sneer now the real thing's here (A Hero's Death, Fontaines DC 2020)

 “If we give ourselves to every breath, then we're all in the running for a hero's death” - yes, a decent way of making sure that life ain’t always empty. 

Not many years ago, I suppose a part of my atheism, I scoffed at the idea of “spirit.” But the feelings of humans, we know, are often more consequential than other neuron flows we call sensory perceptions, inductive logic, the concept of before the big bang, historical analysis, commitment to the rule of law, etc.. This year I resolve to recall, record and share some of the things that have bolstered my spirit, that have made sure my life ain’t empty. Many events I have been fortunate to share with Karen, Matthew, Sara and their families and with other family, friends and fans. Others were mine alone. I sure hope that you’ve had some you can recall and share. Sorry for such a long prologue. I am a very privileged and lucky man.

❏ Rumi’s devotional poems recited in Farsi (or Persian) in a BBC podcast; Rumi is claimed to be a native by a dozen nations and, in Farsi or in translation, I can hear why. 

❏ Maria Schneider’s instrumental condemnation of the Data Lords and praise of the natural world arrayed alongside her discovery of her dad’s QR card (ham radio ID) via the internet; the discs set in a beautiful case with lovely art and sentiments. A Windom, Mn native, she has the best big band/small orchestra going.

 ❏ The spring-summer-fall progression of the lives of three particular bald eagle families along our Mississippi.

 ❏ Watching former colleagues shouldering bigger responsibilities in public interest work, at the Legislature, Department of Revenue, Legal Aid programs, U.S. Attorney’s office, Volunteers of America, Department of Human Rights, MN Center for Environmental 1 A Hero’s Death by Fontaines DC, Dublin, 2020 2 Advocacy, Minnesota Housing, on the bench, in housing and economic justice leadership posts here and nationally. And, of course, Sara and Matthew each doing law enforcement work, using their own training, skills and commitments. 

❏ Our friend (and new mom) Megan’s visits for PT help and tips that I now practice with Karen almost every day. 

❏ Cycling through glorious California redwood groves, including one park later badly burned in the summer fires. Thanks Mike and Eleanor! 

❏ Completion of another case to improve housing policies for foster children and their families. 

❏ Excellent public employee disability benefits for union members in Minnesota. 

❏ The Dillinger Four’s song titles, such as: Parishiltonisametaphor, Let Them Eat Thomas Paine and Minimum Wage is a Gateway Drug. 

❏ A wash of well-being from endorphins after 30 non-stop cycle miles (on my way to 6203 miles). 

❏ With Karen, the heart-filling sights, sounds and touches of grandchildren. 

❏ Borrowing from and donating books via neighborhood Little Free Libraries. 

❏ Donating our COVID stimulus funds for the causes of fighting hunger and climate change and supporting dance, public art, justice and social change. 

❏ Margaret Atwood’s poem Flatline “Flatline” 

❏ Reading the great descriptions of the Gabilan Range, the flow to Moss Landing and the horrific destruction of a family in Steinbeck's East of Eden, and having that pale in comparison with the terrible power of Sylvia Plath’s correspondence, followed by the greater devastation of her Ariel poems. I can read only one or two of those poems in one sitting. 

❏ A sound, feel, taste and smell when biting into fresh-picked backyard Honey Crisp Apples..

❏ Expanding my knowledge of ancestors’ lives and the worlds they lived in. 

❏ Medieval French song of parting for a Crusade, mixing dedication to an ungodly war, dedication to a god and immersion in lust (on a Stanford podcast). 

❏ Hoping that my friends’ Hmong-American dad, now a “John Deere man”, got an equal shot at the billions of U.S. farm subsidies.  

❏ Good cheer, flexibility and sacrifice by workers at Kowalski’s, Khyber Pass Cafe, JS Coffee, 5 Star Auto, The Depot in Hopkins, Maverick’s, USPS, Mississippi Market, Shamrocks, NOW Bikes, Health Partners, public safety, On’s Thai Kitchen, Bonnie, Randy, transport and delivery services. (Sorry to all I omit.) 

❏ Video of the Proctor Phantoms girls winning another state soccer title, (the boys lost on penalties in the finals). 

❏ Traveling to Washington, California, Duluth, Minnehaha Parkway, through the Sogn valley and up to the High Bridge overlook with Karen. 

❏ 13 hours of election judge work to assist Minnesotans to cast their ballots, whatever their preference. 

❏ In this time of dark isolation, five times a week we visit a family we’ve known for a while, they are entertaining but dysfunctional: Tony, Carmella, Uncle Jr., Syl, Vito, Dr. Melfi, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Bobby, Ma. Yeah, The Sopranos, they really sing. 

❏ Stimulated by the food and intimacy of jazz, art and new friendships at Khyber Pass Cafe. ( read more on blog Jay Wrote) 

❏ Re-reading her letters and uncovering the hidden humorist, the woman who was my mom. (blog) 

❏ Getting and analyzing his 1941 W. Va. logging camp photos, reading his letters and datebooks and uncovering the depressive in the shadow (and much, much more), the man who was my dad. (blog)

 ❏ A podcast relating a modern atheist’s pilgrimage from the Massif Centrale in France to St. Jacques de Compostela in Spain and pushing beyond, through angry shepherd dogs, to the burnt pagan offerings at the Cabo Finisterre (end of the world). 

❏ The sight of neighborhood kids running house to house, bouncing with ever-improving cartwheels. 

❏ Wallace Stegner’s descriptions of life-long friendships and the summer landscapes where they vacationed for 50 years in and around Greensboro, Vt (near my mom’s childhood home) in his semi-autobiographical novel Crossing to Safety. The narrator’s wife falls ill with polio there at about the same time as my mom’s family suffered infections.

 ❏ Completion of a tribute to my late friend, teacher, colleague and American Indian Movement leader, Patricia Bellanger. (blog) 

❏ Hillary Mantel’s description of Thomas Cromwell’s mind wandering at the edges of memory, sleep and terror in The Mirror and The Light.

❏ Our family reunion, even when COVID dwindled it to us and a single niece. (Briana quarantined with Matthew, Courtney, Molly and Mara - who renamed her: “New Friend.”) 

❏ Nabokov’s terrible and wonderful “performance” of Lolita, as if he was dancing on a piano lithely tapping between keys of delight and disgust, butterfly net in one hand…. 

❏ Discovery of the music of Shelly Manne, Chad Mitchell Trio, Cloud Cult, Jason Molina, Idles, Mountain Goats, Bully, Nubya Garcia, Edgard Varèse and more. 

❏ Walks in St. Paul alleys, river bottoms and Mississippi ravine. 

❏ The musky sweet tang of oven-dried, homegrown cherry tomatoes we’ve used in sauce, on pizza, and more for meals in late autumn. Karen= executive chef, Jay = sous chef. 

❏ The wondrous fortune that the musicians and engineers of 60 years ago made pop and jazz recordings of astounding clarity that home equipment would not reproduce for decades to come. (Ex.: Sinatra, Basie, Coltrane, Monk and Peggy Lee ). 

❏ The flavor of Cabot Farmers’ Cooperative 3 year cheddar, especially in Karen’s potato bake. 

❏ Realization that the intrinsic human value of people with the most profound disabilities may lie in their ability to summon the best of those who love them and those who care for them and thereby better the world. Yes, this can be hard to keep in mind in the day-to-day. Credit to: Pierre Mertens of Child Help International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (https://www.ifglobal.org) and his memoir of loving and caring for his daughter, Liesje. https://www.child-help.international/join-in/buy-a-book. And to life. 

❏ Wayne Horvitz with Seattle Modern Orchestra premiere of 188 Sullivan, reflecting on the meeting of Charlie Parker and Edgard Varèse in 1954 in NYC (Blog). 

❏ Peter Kramer’s artistic and philosophical responses to “a bad night on Lake Street”: a colored-in drawing of a dawn moon over a doe browsing amidst the falling stones of the Pioneer and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery (on Lake Street). A tribute to the burned down Town Talk Diner (on Lake Street) and his prescription for his street: “So pour a little love on the debris and watch it grow back.” 

❏ A Macalester classmate’s granddaughter moved to the house across the alley. With her parents. 

❏ For a few months, dinners with four friends of nearly 50 years duration, outdoors in the main.

 ❏ Cycling with Mike, Howard, David, Martin, Dick, Tonio, Tom B, Tom C.  

❏ 

        A Phantom Throw In 

A 16 year old in maroon badged with grass stains, masked, 

grasps a ball behind her head, sprints six steps to the sideline, stops, 

her firmly planted feet a fulcrum, 

and leveraging the accumulated power of 

her thrusting body, her shoulder strength and arms’ extension, 

she launches it goalward and moves her world. 

                                I imagine she is a classmate’s granddaughter. 

❏ The phrase: “I see nothing here but a vacuum with a sparse dusting of probability waves.” The imagined answer of a visitor from another dimension of the universe to the question: “What is this (man)?” Neal Stephenson’s Anathem. 

 Bee productive, full and happy. Life ain’t always empty.