Feelings

I lay in bed in the after-twilight of a dream. I was crawling through a tunnel in the brush, a trail with tight curves and no conspicuous exit, and my dear brother Eddie was urging me to keep going. Do we always have to know, when we enter, where the path will lead? Embrace the mystery, my brother says. Be a little brave.

I am trying to be a little brave. There’s a lot of input lately, and I seem to be infused with it, unfiltered, wobbly with both wonder and anxiety. Henry James had some advice for me: “Feel, feel, I say - feel for all you're worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live.”

So here I am, feeling.

It has been a strange and eventful week. Early one morning, I drove to Santa Barbara for an MRI and a series of x-rays to help determine what is going on with my spine and whether surgery is advised. I had not slept at all the previous night, so I was quite punchy. The technician showed me a playlist before I lay down to begin the MRI, and I chose "classical music". She asked if I wanted "light" classical or classic classical. I asked for the real thing. She also placed a little rubber bulb-shaped call ball in my hand connected to a cord and said I could squeeze that if I was in distress.

And so, with very dramatic, thunderous strains of Beethoven in my one good ear along with the robust banging and tapping noises of the machine, I lay still for twenty minutes and even dozed off once or twice, reassured by the feel of that call ball in my hand. I was thinking that a little distress ball would be a handy accessory to carry around through life, always connected to help. (My religious friends might say that's called prayer.)

I also received word during the week that a dear old friend of mine, a Bluegrass musician I knew long ago and faraway, is in hospice, not expected to recover. Memories came flickering back: the epiphanies of our late night banter, the empty streets of Syracuse filling up with snow. It was 1975. The soundtrack of my life was high and lonesome in those days, and it was nice to have a friend to talk to at 3 a.m., someone smart and kind, a mandolinist par excellence and a witty conversationalist. We were very young, and I was stalled, but he was footloose, fueled by music and possibility. The decades galloped by. We lost touch. It’s hard to think of him old and near the end now.

Later in the week, I walked up to a windswept ridge and visited another friend, a new mother, who also happens to be a musician, and she held her baby in her arms and told me that her love for this tiny daughter is so intense, it hurts, and it cannot be contained. “I am broken open with love,” she said.

I know how that is, when love breaks you open––everything rushes in.

Meanwhile, my poet mentor, Dan, reminded me in an email that paying attention is the most important thing, and he’s usually right. I also received an actual letter in the mailbox from a fine old fellow with whom I used to teach, and I walked the deserted road at the west end of the ranch where there were fields of yellow flowers, friendly horses, and a sharp blue line of ocean.

It’s interesting––I have been “busy” with so many projects, but now I am remembering the days in terms of glimmering visuals and connections with loved ones. Only that.

In the course of a different walk, Carey and I paused on an uphill climb and split a candy bar, and I can’t explain it, but it was the best tasting candy bar ever. The trees cast great shadows across the landscape, and we saw a meadowlark and three deer.

And I was forced to face repeatedly, as all of us not in denial are, that a cabal of clowns and criminals are committed to destroying our country.

But the hills were green and breathing, the wind flung flowers in the air, and an enormous moon, round as a dinner plate, rose like a beacon and cast its magic light.

I thought again of my dear friend from those distant days of Bluegrass music and miserable winters and late-night conversations as he embarks upon his final journey. After his first stroke twenty years ago, he had told me, “My fingers don’t remember mandolin. But people learn. I’m resolute.”

Resolute. That’s the word he used.

He also said, “I can hear the cicadas…I’ve waited for this. And I hear them.”

My friend was still amazed.

I am holding my metaphorical call ball, paying attention, and being as brave as I can. I admit that I’m bewildered, but people learn. I’m resolute.