We don’t get up early enough. We don’t play with the kids enough. We don’t walk on the grass enough, we worry too much about losing. We don’t throw the ball enough, hike through the woods, climb the low trees, eat fruit off the vine, go for a drive. We don’t tell enough stories, listen to records, dance for no reason at all. We don’t call old friends who are hard to find, aunts and uncles who made us laugh, stay longer with our parents talking about the times we had, talking about the rain. We don’t journey enough to places close by, we don’t find beauty in what there is plenty of, we don’t appreciate what is common, we don’t celebrate what is in our grasp. We’ve lost the art of contemplation, of solitude, of fasting, of quiet walks. We forget the world exists in each step, the saints and martyrs, philosophers and missionaries walk with us, whisper about the temporal state of life, the immortal flight of a bird. Life is the way we sit around and laugh until two. Life is the feet on the coffee table, the tie undone, the kids asleep in their beds. Life is the sound of water in a pool, the sound of tea poured into china cups, the sound of distant thunder at dusk. Life is unwrapped gifts, cards in the mail, the smell of bacon on Sunday morning; drinking beer with friends on Friday night, the first cold day in autumn we need to wear a sweater, life is the spring grass showing beneath the melting snow. It’s the mother in the door waving to her youngest child moving away. It’s the father at the observation deck waving to his son on the plane. It’s the letting go of small hands; it’s the giving away of the bride, it’s the days that pass without a phone call.
Life is the distance between a falling leaf and the ground.
Michael texted from Spain a few days ago. He was boarding a train. I don’t know where he was going, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t either. I don’t know where he gets it from. The empanada doesn’t fall far from the oven.
**
Mark Z is in a hearing and META is being sued by hundreds of parents across many cases because FB and Instagram might be “dangerously addicting,” with bad influence on their tweens, including suicide. Question: Where the hell were the parents when the kids were nose deep in tech? Why aren’t parents of fat kids suing Hershey’s? Why aren’t the parents of wired kids with enlarged hearts suing Red Bull or Monster? Why aren’t the parents reading to their kids when they’re toddlers and teaching them the value of imagination? Why aren’t they instilling in them the value of life and individuality? Oh, that’s right, they’re on Facebook talking about who they saw at their college reunion.
**
Three months ago on Facebook I said Trump is not interested entirely in Venezuela as an endgame, that it was solely a means to and end, that he wants Cuba. Yesterday they announced their support of the current interim president in Venezuela, and it won’t be long before a deal is cut to get their oil at rock bottom prices. Meanwhile, no fuel or food has entered Cuba and they are quite literally dying, with no tourism, not business, no nothing. But wait, “we” can save them. Putin doesn’t care; especially if in exchange djt backs off his barely-there-anyway support of Ukraine. I think djt and the hotel side of his life has been Havana Daydreaming for quite some time.
**
I now have about forty pounds of Hershey’s chocolate. I use the cup holder on the treadmill at the Y to hold the wrappers.
**
Michael is now in Prague. I told him about the strudel; he told me about the Pilsner.
**
Ilia Malinin came in eighth place, falling twice in his free skate. Good. Here’s why: I support the US team, of course, but not his outrageous ego. He is the self-proclaimed “quad God,” and in one interview before the games he wondered not in any joking way why anyone questions his excellence. He dropped to eighth place; hopefully he dropped his ego as well.
**
Conversation a few days ago at Big Johns, a convenience store about twenty miles from here:
Guy eating chicken (I kind of know him so I felt comfortable responding) : “It’s those fucking Antifa’s. They can all fuck themselves.”
Me (I stopped eating all meat, including chicken, but that’s neither here nor there): “Holy Crap! You support Hitler! Stalin!!”
Guy: Fuck no! (laughs) Hell, no I don’t support them!!
Me: But…but…they’re fascists!!
Guy: Damn right they are!
Me: So you’re against them and people like them?!
Guy: Damn right, Bob! What the fuck?
Me: So then you’re against those fascists???
Guy: Yeah (chicken spray).
Me: You’re…you’re Anti Fascist! Antifa!
Guy: Not the same thing! (silent) Is that what Antifa means?
Me: Yes.
Guy: Fuck, I thought it was the name of some radical anti-Trump group!!!
Me: Well, yeah, it is.
**
When the fog starts to lift but is still in the trees and resting above the pond and river, my mind is focused and everything in my life seems clear and obvious. We need nature to clarify that which is muddled by cinderblock and drywall. We need nature to remind us to breathe.
**
The last thing Dave texted to me was “And we’ll all be together again.”
The last thing Fr. Dan said to me was “I’ll call you tomorrow night, Bobby.”
The last thing Letty said to me was “I love you, Bawb. Look for me with the birds on the porch rail.”
The last thing my mom said to me was “I’m so confused.”
The last thing my dad said to me was “What hotel am I in? HA! Hotel! I wish I was at a hotel! What hospital am I in?”
The last thing Eddie said to me was “I’ll call you this weekend.”
The last thing Cole said to me was “I hope your journey on this earth reveals itself to you.”
So now I wonder on a daily basis what the last thing I say to someone is. I’d hate for it to be something negative or down, something benign or flippant. Despite my Roy Kent tendencies, I’m determined to keep Ted Lasso in mind when I’m with others, especially when I leave others.
The last thing I say to most people is “see you soon,” or “talk later.” That’s normal I suppose, and somewhat hopeful and mostly about right.
I’d like to peel away the layers I’ve adopted over the course of decades. I’d love to let go of tethers, let the twirling plates drop to the ground and shatter. When we were in Spain, I discovered how wealthy I felt when I had just what I carried across the Pyrenees. And when we were at Spirit Lake, I learned quickly how much more at peace I am and remain when the distractions are three thousand miles east. And when I was sitting around a camp fire in eastern Senegal with no water, no news, no electricity, not anything different over the course of a hundred years, the conversation never ran dry, the laughter always pure and honest, and the stars—oh, wow, the stars—I lay on my back at night and drifted in the saturated sky for hours.
I find myself in less need now of most things than I ever have before. I’m going to spend more time in nature, in Oregon, in the Catskills, in France. In Ireland and Alaska. I want to listen to the earth as she was meant to be heard, not through the filters of inventions and progress.
It’s raining tonight, finally warm enough to not snow or sleet, but cool enough to know it’s winter. The drops on the skylight above my head soothe me like they do when they do so on a tent when I am inside resting and the world is raining. There is something magical about how being in the wilderness can keep my attention, and Muir is right when he wrote that the clearest way to the universe is through a forest wilderness. Still, it’s taken me some time to understand why: it is absolute presence. I am wholly in the moment, the rain, the cool temperature and the sound of the rain and often geese in the distance looking for a field or pond just at the bottom of the hill.
Nature knows nothing except now. I sit at this desk and everything in this room has ties to back when. Mementos of travels, piles of unfinished work, guitars and a few bins of items from autumn or Christmas I’ve not yet put in the attic. It is the same anywhere in the house, with songlines running right through to some other where or when. But the minute I step outside and gaze deep into the woods or walk the hill to the river and look out across the bay, nothing exists but now in that nature, and I am completely aware of the air, the sounds, the conditions on the water and the cloud cover. And Zhuangzi’s note that “the sound of water says what I think” is present and true. There is nothing else like the sound of water in nature, rain, rivers, small creeks which have carved around and through rocks since before humans created the notion of earlier and later, created the beasts known as before and after, created the disabling “remember when we” and “why don’t we.” Cities and towns are linked always to others and plans and histories. Even at events people sit and talk about other places, different times.
But in nature, in the mountains out west or the porch out front, I can sit and listen to the rain and slow my pulse to something primitive, something organic, and I can dial up Emerson who suggested we adopt “the pace of nature; her secret is patience.”
No, I’ve had no mushrooms tonight, no Rioja or Malibu. Maybe a little. But no, my awareness tonight is from the rain, and I know Dar Williams’ comments “The beauty of the rain is how it falls” brings me closer to why I’ve managed to suspend the passing of time, for now, anyway.
The river is icy tonight; not frozen at all but frothy on the whitecaps, foam along the sand. The sky was clear last night adding to the bone-chilling air, and the stars and planets filled the horizon. Tonight, however, it is cloudy, low dark clouds heavy with snow and eventual ice as a storm approaches, one like we have never seen before, so we are told. This is, this is not, a metaphor. Yesterday morning the sky and the bay seemed one, both calm, a mirror, still, complete peace, and the blue of the sky and the blue of the bay were only interrupted by a white cloud stretching across both. Tonight the water is rough, choppy, the spray stings the skin, and standing outside too long is dangerous, deadly.
Nature does what she wants, as well.
A soft sound came out of the woods earlier, rustling but heavier. I thought it was a deer at first, or the fox who visited the other night, or perhaps the racoon family which lives in one of the trees behind the shed and spends much of their time under the shed. But it wasn’t. A cat came out of the brush and sat on the icy stones and stared at me. I tried to coax her to the porch, but she simply meowed and moved away. I followed briefly but that only chased her further, so I retreated inside remembering my own cat who died some years ago and who, when he wanted to come inside, would leap from the front rail to high up the screen door to look through the thin windows at the top. When he saw me get up to go to the door in the back, he’d leap back to the porch, run around the house and slide inside. The cat earlier looked a little like him, a grey tabby, but this one had too much white. For a little while I was fine in the encompassing world of the cat in the driveway, and I felt such peace to be so present.
There will be Ice tomorrow. Again. So before I went inside, I stood for a moment in the chilly air and listened to the silence stretching far across the river and the bay, far inland as well, through the woods and into the night. No marches here tonight, no protests, no threats. No starving children waiting for medical care in Gaza or homeless in Ukraine, freezing. No unpredictable folly, no disparaging comments, no ridicule or mockery or distasteful gestures. No needless deaths or poor excuses, no narcissistic nonsense, no impatient though warranted commentary from allies. We live in a world now where no one is reading opinions unless they already agree. Heather Cox Richardson is preaching to the choir. So is Fox news. ICE shoots at will. The president acts without restraint. Congress doesn’t act at all. The news stopped covering the Epstein Files, Venezuela, the bombing of boats in the Gulf, the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, the impending shutdown, the redistricting debacle, the purchase of the Supreme Court justices. I can’t breathe.
I’m moving on, maybe longer than planned. Across the pond and then the river and far out beyond the Norris Bridge up river I heard geese approaching, their honks growing in volume and number, until they scattered about and landed in the fields and the ponds and the shoreline, hundreds of them, more, and they quieted down so that only a few calls could be heard and after ten minutes or so it was quiet again, the water choppy forcing them to find the sand, and other than that, just the silence of a heavy sky about to snow.
I have spent mornings here for three decades and no mornings are the same, the geese or ducks or herons and me, the rising sun, the setting sun, the hole in the sky of the moon, and we, it, are never the same. It is the same in the Uinta’s, the Catskills, the Blue Ridge, the same in the fields of Neunen, the trails throughout the Commonwealth, Nogales, St Petersburg, the Mala Strana, the Sahel, the Lofoton’s, the same silence, same presence, the same sense I never want to leave. The peace that comes when you know you have no need for yet more change.
I am fine here, at the water, or there, in the hills, or down along the clear endless coastline with water moving in and then away, completely oblivious to the mayhem, the seeming end of a republic. I am fine in a state of unknowing, cousin to the ostrich, brother to the deceased, though still here just the same.
And it occurs to me tonight as the streets of Minneapolis are aglow with the burning fires of defiance, and the world is ridden with anxiety because of one demented mind, that I have always been this way, along the Great South Bay, the Allegany, the canyons in Arizona, and the central New England hills where kettles of hawks kept me company on clear summer nights, not so much avoidance as control, predictability and allowance. I could so easily disappear to the east of Tangier, to the west of Coos Bay, to the North of Minnesota where if we focus on what we should focus on, is exactly where the light gets in.
So I have chosen, as well, in the spirit of Shen Yu, to only experience what I choose to focus on.
I’m thinking of doing a kid’s show. Maybe an adult show but as if we’re kids. I’m not sure; I just thought of it when I started typing just now. But it could work.
I’ll call it Bob’s Log House. or Bob’s Got Way Too Much Time on His Hands.
I’ll play a song for all the seniors as we sit in a circle around a bowl of Cheese-Its and a few bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and I’ll play “Today,” or “This Land is Your Land,” or “I’m All Out of Fucks.” A bowl of gummies to share, perhaps.
And then we can have a special guest. Someone to explain Medicare, or someone to explain K-Pop. And there will be questions and I can move from person to person like Phil Donahue, and tilt my head slightly as if my follow-up question should be carved in marble for its brilliance. Then we’ll give the guest a BGWTMTHH t-shirt and coffee mug. It’ll be great.
Like SNL and other shows, we can have a News Update, and I could comment on what’s happening in the news, in Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, and, of course, Greenland. I’ll keep the information as valid and accurate as possible, but since it’s my show I might toss out the occasional declarative observation, such as, “Apparently the President is attempting to get away with as much as he can in his first two years since he knows once the GOP is voted out of congress, he is fracked.” Or, “The Bills look good to beat the Broncos this Sunday.” I’ll keep it light, of course.
And I’ll finish each show with a stroll outside to the river; it doesn’t matter what the weather is since the weather was here first and I’m just passing through, and sometimes we need the storms and winds and rain to remind us we can still feel something, that all of the emptiness we constantly sense from others, slips out of our mind when a crisp wind comes down the Rapp and tightens our skin. And we’d walk to the river as I and whatever special guest might join me–sometimes my son, sometimes Kevin from next door or Wayne from the village, and maybe sometimes artist William Clarke or Governor Abby Spanberger–walk quietly until we both toss out short comments about what we discovered today.
Like how I just learned that if you take the pit of an avocado and slice it up, boil it until the water is dark, then let it become lukewarm, it is a powerful pain reliever to rub on your joints and skin, better than the emu stuff even.
Or how in Switzerland it is illegal to own just one guinea pig, or that Australia is wider than the moon (and way wider than the Mississippi), or that a shrimp’s heart is in its head, or how Romans used to drop a piece of bread in their glass before raising a glass, hence, to make a “toast.”
I have more. And you will hear them if you watch the part of the show where some guest and I walk to the river and mention that the shortest regional flight in the world is on Loganair and goes the entire 1.7 miles from Westray to Papa Westray, Scotland, in about 90 seconds. People will love this segment and it might make BGWTMTHH a viral hit.
And it’s educational so I could have gotten a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but they’re gone so I can point out in that quick segment the irony of the defunding of the CPB because a tiny tiny tiny fraction of NPR’s budget comes from the CPB; the vast majority of that money was going to local NPR stations to help fund local programming, so now those shows are being cancelled, but the stations have to fill the time with something and since they pay one fee for NPR no matter how much or little of it they use, they are filling in the empty local timeslots with MORE NPR. So that DJT in his effort to get less NPR by defunding CPB, is helping to spread the bass-heavy, treble-absent voices of America. Who doesn’t love irony. I could have an Irony segment where I sit on my porch eating bacon and talk about irony.
I will never run out of material.
Like how when someone is cremated, the eyes vaporize. They just, well, vaporize. And I can’t shake that one. I think of all the beauty in the world, all the fields of the Netherlands with windmills and canals, and the dusty trails of West Africa, or the village streets of Mexico, or the rivers–all the rivers–and the tears from unbearable sadness and unforgivable laughter, and the idea that the eyes don’t so much burn up as much as they vaporize like a tissue tossed on a firepit that lifts into the air, into the darkness, its light fading quickly, and it is again part of the air and the world. That. That the eyes vaporize. Maybe I’ll end one of the shows on that, and the picture can fade out to quick images of places that are too beautiful to look at sometimes, and the faces of people who live inside my soul.
Tune in, my friends, for the new Netflix show, “Bob’s Got Way Too Much Time on His Hands.”Coming soon.
It is January 3rd. Again. Spins around every winter, and over the last few years it seems as if we dropped a few summer months, maybe some weeks in October. Because it is January again, and my chances of reinventing myself are growing fewer.
Like anyone else, I would do a lot of things differently, especially over the course of the more recent years. But I can’t. The best I can do is start now, and keep starting. As many times as it takes.
Because, honestly, life is beautiful, but we insist on talking about the ugly. And as Confucius pointed out: Life is easy, but we insist on making it complicated.
Much peace my friends.
If I had my life to live over
by Nadine Stair
******* If I had my life to live over, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day.
Oh, I’ve had my moments, And if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those people who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.
If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.
Sure, some of you will tune in to watch the Apple Drop in Times Square, if it is, in fact, dropping this year. In fact, throughout New York State, balls drop at midnight. But some of us prefer the big bologna drop in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, while others tune in to the Peach Drop in Atlanta.
But if you prefer to go to sleep early, catch the Lego Drop in Winterhaven, Florida, at 8pm. At Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, a giant conch shell drops to the bar, while in Indianapolis they drop a car. Honestly, a car. In Easton, Maryland they drop a crab while in Havre de Grace, Maryland they drop an eight foot by five foot foam, illuminated duck. In Hagerstown, of course, it’s a donut. In Pensacola, Theresa will be watching the Pelican Drop, while in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I fully expect both my friends Barbara and Sean to watch the Peep Drop. It should be pretty quiet.
In Beaufort, North Carolina, they drop a pirate, and in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, much to their…they drop a ball of popcorn. In Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, just ten miles from where I used to live, they drop two pickles, while in the capital of Harrisburg it’s a strawberry. I have no idea why. My cousin Ed said his head will drop on the pillow in Austin just after midnight, whereas Toledo will weigh in when it drops its Cheese Ball. In Boise they’ll drop their new Glowtato–a potato internally illuminated, of course. My favorite, however, is in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where they drop a 19 foot illuminated chrome chili pepper.
The whole notion of dropping the ball in Times Square began in 1907, organized by Adolph Ochs, owner of the New York Times, with nothing dropping at all in 1942 and 1943 due to “dimouts” during the war in case of invasion. Instead, attendees spent a moment in silence for the fallen. This year, the ball which descends at midnight is more than twelve feet in diameter, has a surface of crystal panels made by Waterford, and contains roughly 32,000 LEDs. But this year for the first time ever, there will be two balls (have at it late night hosts). The second, which will begin to fall at 12:04 am, is red, white, and blue to commemorate the 250 anniversary of the country.
It’s definitely a night to drop things. We drop hints about things we want and a few pounds as part of the new resolutions. Plenty of people in the entertainment industry use this significant date to drop their new album, their new book, their new movie, their old boyfriend, and the occasional dime bag.
In the old days neighbors would take it upon themselves to drop in and wish everyone a Happy New Year, while relatives are likely after a few more rounds to drop the charade and tell us how they really feel, and we’ll argue and argue until one of us, finally, says, “let’s just drop it.”
I’ll be outside as well, at the river, watching the nearly full waxing gibbous moon wash over the Chesapeake and it will take my mind off of the passing of time, the coming of the New Year, and the spinning of the earth like a ball, like a top, like a “tiny blue dot.”
We used to meet at either 77th or 78th street, depending on who went first and when they graduated (or would graduate). I was in the class of ’78 so I would park across Atlantic Avenue and walk across the dunes to the beach and spread out the blanket and then swim. I was not a fan of laying around soaking up sun. I preferred to throw a frisbee or walk down the beach to the tourist areas from 42nd Street down. But when everyone showed up, usually by late morning, we’d all hang out and talk, music on some transistor.
And we’d swim, body surf, wade at waist level talking, the occasional jelly fish finding one of our calves. I remember several years of almost always having salty lips and hair, the soft, warm feel of sun on my shoulders and neck. This was how I grew up, at least during my high school years. When in the water, though, I spent most of the time scanning the horizon. Spain, Portugal. Africa. They were out there. The war in Vietnam had ended my sophomore year and when I graduated, Ford was president. None of that mattered. No, what mattered was where we’d meet that night, whose house, and should we keep it to ourselves or should we let everyone know, like the time fifty or more people showed up to Dave’s house over on Broad Bay, and an equal amount at my house once when my parents were off to a convention. It was all very innocent, and no one had to call the police. We were teenagers figuring it out, and the best I could figure, what I wanted was out there somewhere, across the horizon, past where Robin Lee Graham and Joshua Slocum had sailed. Down the beach toward the places Jimmy Buffett talked about in his early music we and other beach-dwellers were listening to ten years before the rest of the world. He spoke of margaritas in mason jars and friends from Monserrat. Jonmark would get out his guitar when he got home, noting exactly how the songs were played, whereas I would get out the maps noting exactly where I planned to go. Funny, JM still plays and I still navigate my way around this globe. And we’re still dear friends. Yeah, who we are is tethered very much to who we were.
At 77th Street, though, back when we went there, there was an old huge, two story house with first and second floor covered wrap around porches right on the dunes, and I wanted that place so bad. At the time I believed I could have spent the rest of my life on that porch, walking to the water, back to the house, put on some music and talk to friends. I thought that was a pretty ambitious plan. And, in fact, it was, but I was missing the ambitious part. Go figure.
Anyway.
I was at the bay this morning watching a long “shelf” cloud settle in from the north, and the water was glassy, the sun almost above the clouds in the southeast, but not yet, and I understood something with an acute sort of clarity—sitting out in nature with someone, or alone, but with someone is far more engaging, with enough to make the day comfortable—some water, some food, a comfortable chair, is my Minimum Acceptable Required Stuff.
It turns out that after several million miles it is all I need. Oh, and music playing. When I was young I was certain I needed to “make it” in the world, not yet knowing that my true ambition would be to end up where I started. Gotta love irony.
Here’s what I’ve learned since then: nothing. I know a lot more than I did at that time, of course. I’ve been around the block and that kind of experience alone prepares me for what’s next. But the only lesson I absorbed since then is that I really didn’t need to go seek happiness; I needed to create it where I already was. It reminds me of my young college days when I was in constant search of peace of mind in a place I was having trouble adjusting to, and one night I wandered into a friend’s apartment in the dorm—Fr Dan Rily—who was sitting with three or four guys from the floor, and I joined them for a few hours where we talked about nothing at all, but we laughed a lot, and when they left I stood up and told Fr. Dan that I hadn’t been that much at peace since I had arrived on campus, and he smiled his wide, mustache-covered smile and said, “Bobby, that’s because tonight you brought the peace with you.”
I won’t stop traveling; it’s in my blood. I just might stop looking for something else. A hike to some snow covered trail or a morning trip to the bay to watch the geese wing by or the dolphin surface on their way back to the ocean is enough to mark the day. Then it becomes easier to allow that “Sweet Surrender” John Denver sang about back during those beach days take over.
New Year’s Resolution List: To eliminate everything from my life that doesn’t make me feel alive and present. I don’t have enough time anymore for the rest of it. I think Ill head down to 77th street this week and see if that house is still there.
“My” cottage at 77th Street. Built in 1917 by fertilizer magnate F.S. Royster.
For some years now I’ve spent time toward the end of December thinking about the significant moments of the year, which can often include some tragedy, of course. But I quickly became a fan of this wide-lens scan of the previous twelve months. It helped me focus on moments that meant something instead of memories just bouncing around my brain, turning them into little more than some passing haze between other, seemingly more important hazy thoughts. It didn’t take long to figure out that those five significant moments truly were the most important days of the year, and they deserve a more intense recollection. So I listed them for myself and thought about them, focusing, concentrating, then almost reliving them. Yes, even the sorrowful parts.
These are the five that emblazed themselves into my mind so that even just a brief touch of an aroma might bring back the day with complete clarity.
Gwynn’s Island, Virginia. Michael submitted a few pieces to a juried art show at the Island’s museum, and as a result he had to make several trips there to drop off the work, to go to the opening, and then to pick the work up after the show, so I joined him. We hiked the beach one time and ate at one of our favorite Mathews County places, Richardson’s. It is always relaxing when we go on one of our hikes through the trails or along the various coastlines of the area. On that day we dropped off his work and discovered the hidden gem of a museum with artifacts dating back to John Smith’s sojourn there and his storied subsequent swim in the Chesapeake not far from here, where he was stung by a stingray, giving the point its name. But the second trip there was most memorable as the turnout for the art opening was excellent, and they set up an excellent table of food and wine, while the artists and guests admired the work. An art historian and teacher sat as judge, and Michael’s work won first place. Her explanation of her choice was touching and as an art appreciation professor myself, I truly admired how well thought out her choices were (this isn’t Dad speaking, really). One of his rewards for first prize was a gift card to the popular local joint, Hole in the Wall, where we ate on our third trip down. This all seems fast and so local to rank as one of the five moments of a year, but it is hikes like these, combined with the display of his work, that brings such peace I cannot find many other moments during which I’d rather spend my time.
Curious Men:Lost in the Congo. While the official release date for my new book is not until January 4th (as that is the birthdate of the subject of the book), it is available already and receiving the copies in the mail meant more to me than my other works. This one was very personal, and it had been a monkey on my back for forty-five years. The work has been through so many versions, I cannot honestly tell you the final version is the best one, but it is the one that I believe works best for me now. In the end, I discovered the book was not about me and not about my friend. It is about trying to figure out life when out on your own for the first time, and what we choose to pay attention to and choose to ignore. What is most significant about this work and the release of the book is this one is the first book I’ve written which was done so entirely for me. I wasn’t thinking about audience, about others who knew the story, not thinking about critics or publishers, editors or bookstore owners. It was for me. It is the most honest thing I’ve written, and I still could have taken five more shots at it and not been completely satisfied. Releasing this book has more significance than I could ever possibly convey (and it is doing very well thank you very much).
Spirit Lake, Utah. Okay, so this one is special. We drove up in June to an area where snow still drifted across the trails and the temps at night fell into the low forties at best. No running water, no electricity, a wood burning stove in a cabin the size of an SUV, with a firepit off of a porch out front. Our cabin was “Sacajawea,” and we left it often to walk down the hill to Spirit Lake, lay on the dock and watch the stars, or more often to hike some of the trails climbing above 11K feet, where a few times we saw moose. Rarely in my life have I been that relaxed, that detached from everything which causes stress, and able to say what I wanted and talk for hours without any thought about how it came out. I was never so present. How often do we find ourselves so much in the present moment that all matters of concern slide away? It happened that entire trip.
The Netherlands. The only tense moment of this trip was at the end, when I was returning the car to the rental lot at the airport, and I accidentally left the airport and found myself on an interstate headed back to Amsterdam, and a sign which read, “Next exit 14 miles.” I texted to say I’d be really late getting through security, then I sped, spun about some cloverleaf, slipped into the rental lot thirty minutes later and tossed the keys to a man who wanted to inspect the car. I took off running and panted my way through security. The rest of the trip was perfect. To walk the fields where Van Gogh walked and painted, to stay in an Airbnb just a mile from where he lived with his parents in Neunen, to dodge bikes and cars in Amsterdam and stumble upon a festival in Volendam. I will say here that I had a blast, laughed endlessly, remained silent for hours without worry of the quiet, and wondered
beyond words what circumstances found us there with such presence of mind. There was the small village where a stroll into someone’s backyard yielded a take of water buffalo cheese and yogurt, and I met my new friend, Sparky the Water Buffalo. An old woman in a housedress came out to her own barn where we looked in cases at water buffalo ice cream and other items, to sell the goods without a word of English. By far, however, the highlight of the trip was a small ceremony for Staff Sergeant Edward L. Miller of Pennsylvania who died on December 17th, 1944, at the Battle of the Bulge, and where I stood silent while his niece rubbed sand from Normandy in his name, made an etching of his stone, and met the family who has taken care of his grave since the war. While they spoke to each other, I looked about these grounds of the American Cemetery at Margraten, at the more than 8000 fallen soldiers, and said to one of our hosts, “These men were no older than my students,” and the weight of war, of the Miller family’s loss, of this memorial journey across four thousand miles settled in my chest. What an honor to be part of this in a small, outside way. I can still smell the freshly mown grass as they were cutting it while we stood nearby. I can still hear the voice of the young woman at the park who spoke with such respect and honor. What a day. What an incredible trip. I’ll leave off the part about driving in Delft.
Mom. On April 12th my Mom, Joan Catherine Kunzinger, died at almost 92 years old. Joanie was the smartest, most honest, most caring, most loving woman I have ever encountered. Her strength as a young girl who had to take care of her siblings, as a young bride with two and then eventually three kids, as a wife taking care of Dad when he was not well in the last years of his life, and as a widow who hauled herself around absolutely always laughing, appreciating the fact she was simply alive and grateful. That is the word for Mom: Grateful, for everything, She could make friends with a lamppost and everyone I’ve ever met who met Mom, loved her. Her solidly Irish and Italian background came through strong, and she was forever a New Yorker. But Mom was at home wherever she was. I was fortunate enough to make more than fifty short videos of her talking about her life, but I cannot watch them without breaking down. Still, here’s the significance of her being on this list this year: She wasn’t expected to die. Not when she did. The day before I left for the Netherlands, I made a video of Mom in which she recites a poem about tulips, and laughs. I promised her I’d
bring her cheese, and she was very excited (despite her predictable “oh please don’t go to any trouble” comments). Two days after I returned but was still at my sister’s home in Pennsylvania, Mom fell while getting up from Bingo, and she hit her ribs on the chair. She never recovered as her paper-thin lungs were already beyond strained. I made it home in time for her to look in my eyes while she lay in her bed. Her eyes swelled a bit when she saw me, but she quickly fell back to sleep. She died that night after I had driven home.
But here’s the thing about this: I have in front of me a picture of the family the morning after the funeral, and we’re on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach, clearly and appropriately enjoying each other’s company, just as Mom would have wanted. My sister made a comment when captioning the picture about this being “Mom’s legacy.” That hit me well. There is her life, right there, in the three kids, the five grandkids, the five great-grandkids, and it’s only just starting. Mom taught me through example to appreciate just the reality that we are alive now, but not for long, so we must love. I never got to tell her all about Amsterdam as she was very excited about me going and was looking forward to hearing about everything. Instead, I ate her cheese. She would have laughed at that.
The days Michael and I spent at New Point Comfort before the art show, the narrative of Curious Men and why it means so much to me, Spirit Lake, the Netherlands, Mom—all of these are the most significant moments of the past year because of the people; only because of the people.
I hope from now on when I recall events from my past, I recall them solely because I had the chance to love and be loved and let that always be what I remember.
I never like starting a piece with a quote. It feels too simplistic and yellow-journlismesque. But here goes:
“Sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.” This comes from the famous incident when Itzhak Perlman, the polio-stricken, world-class violinist, who during a performance at Lincoln Center, snapped a string at the beginning of a concerto. Rather than stop and move awkwardly backstage to replace the string or the violin, he simply nodded to the conductor to continue, then immediately adjusted his playing on just three strings, not missing a note. The quote had as much to do with his own life as it did that singular performance.
It seems to me that no matter how much we make the best of those holidays which follow a significant loss, the loss is still present; it has to be. To pretend everything is normal, or worse, that annoying pandemic-born phrase, “the new normal,” is a foolhardy act. No, it’s not normal. There’s a hole in the world right in the middle of the gift-giving, the conversations, the Christmas dinner–especially the dinner. We adjust, of course, we work the best we can off of the three strings left, everyone shifting slightly to accommodate the newly-needed positioning. But it certainly can be the elephant in the room.
My mom died in April, and it wasn’t exactly expected. Certainly at nearly ninety-two with already compromised health, I would not call her passing a shock, but when I left for the Netherlands a week earlier, she was fine, even jovial. While gone we bought cheese, and my intention was to share it with Mom. But she died just two days after we returned. Dad’s death was much more anticipated, and at the risk of sounding cold (Merry Christmas Everyone!–nice topic for today, don’t you think?), his death was almost immediately accepted. He had declined so far over the course of the previous two years, and in the one brief moment of lucidity he had while I was present, he told me he supposed he only had a few days left–said it as a matter of fact, an acknowledgement of something he almost welcomed. But Mom had no intention of going anywhere yet.
So we adjust more now than we did back then, though in both cases, the change was noticeable. Dad’s also because his passing was just two months before Christmas.
But here’s what I noticed: I’m paying way more attention these days to those that are here. Hanging onto the conversation longer, thinking more about the gifts I give–are they personal enough and not some last minute purchase to “get it done.” I’m listening more this year–to my son, to my siblings–I’m aware of the spices in the dressing, the timing of the dessert. It’s as if those of us who remain have made the music by filling up the empty spaces with what love we have to give, no longer assuming any of the rest of us will be here next year.
Perhaps I am more focused. The more loved ones exit, the closer attention I pay to those still here in the play, on this stage. Oddly, I can nearly pinpoint the exact moment my adult life began, and someone gave me a present this Christmas which reminded me of that time back then, and two essential truths emerged: That really happened, and I’m still here. We waste so much time not talking to others; we have mastered the art of euphemism and avoidance. We figure that we have time to figure things out, plenty of time to tell them what we’re feeling. And then often without warning they’re gone. So why not turn to those who are left and say, “Listen, I need to tell you what you mean to me…” Being able to still do so just might be our departed loved one’s greatest gift to us. We don’t have everyone we started out with, but we have those who are left, and we have the truth of us in each other’s lives.
I believe the holidays which follow the passing of a loved one, while difficult, just might be the most honest, the most open and transparent. I missed Mom today, and always I miss my father, but this year too I missed, again, Letty, Fr Dan, Dave, and so many more who left in the last sixteen months, left without me taking the time to say what I would have said had I known I’d never get the chance to say anything. No more. That’s their gift to us, right there. This year instead of their absence being only sad, it is also motivating. It’s like they’re still in the shadows silently telling me to love, to just love. And like Virgil’s personified Death, they twitch my ear and whisper, “Live. Live now…I am coming.”
a view from this wilderness 