Writing

Amy Tan inspires me.

Michelle McNamara inspires me.

I can no longer write with a pen. My hand is unsteady. This makes the writing illegible at times. I used to enjoy feeling the pen glide along the paper…. But no more. Sometimes writing and signing checks is difficult.

But I struggle with what to make public. What to not write except in my mind. But I forget. When I write, I can relive as I reread the past. It comes back to life. But somethings are best left unwritten, I think.  Like, should I do an essay on “Me and My Men” and describe the romantic encounters of my life? I don’t think so…. And then other times, I think…… why not?  Should I write a treatise on “My Friends and Acquaintances”, and record the details of what others feed me, in terms of social interaction that I seek or experience?

I don’t think one person can provide a soul with all the human contact that it needs. We get little pieces for each relationship. Slivers from chance encounters. Sometimes chance encounters offer opportunity to resume a multi-life entanglement.

Like my 19-year-old self, at West Chester State College, a sophomore transfer and commuter student… with two hours to kill between classes…. Wandering in to the “commuter cafeteria” for coffee and a smoke.  Round tables, each seating 8 to 10, fill the large room…. Probably about 30 or 40 of them.  I find a table with Viet Nam vets, and Barbara and I take a seat.  Why? I don’t recall. Maybe she or I know one or more of the guys from a class in common? Actually, I think John and Skip were in my World Geography class….. maybe that was the link.  But I didn’t write it down at the time, so I really don’t recall what prompted the meeting.  Barbara was a 30-something year old, plum and matronly “alternative student” …. Was that what they called older women returning to college after having a family? But I didn’t write it down at the time, so I don’t recall the phrase used to pigeonhole Barbara and her kind.  She had a husband and two almost middle school aged sons. She was a primary school education major. That’s where I got to know something about John Lewis. He told me about this first encounter….. he told me years later that he looked at me, listened to me, and said to himself, “This one is different.”  His lives and mine are deeply entangled.

I recently watched “I’ll be gone in the dark”, a documentary about the Golden State Killer, based on Michelle McNamara’s blogs and ramblings.  When she died in 2016 from an accidental overdose, taken in attempt to tame her demons and relieve her insomnia, her friends dissected her electronic and paper notes that were her writings.  What the found is very similar to my stash of musings.  Outlines for unwritten books. Individual chapters, separate stories and disjointed streams of consciousness.  Yes, I think I have the basis for many books already written.  It just requires discipline and focus to pull them together.

A Magical Moment

My friend Lou told me a story today. He said it was a magical tale, and when he finished talking, I had to agree that it was indeed odd... and quite probably "magical", magic being that which we do not understand. (Yet. I have faith we'll get there.)

To appreciate this story, one needs to know just a little about Lou. He is a musician. Trumpet is his instrument. Before he slowed down, he did gigs all over the place..... Atlanta, Venezuala, Washington DC, .... He always gave me and my kids free tickets to the NutCracker performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet, since he was in the orchestra. That gig was too good to turn down... worth the BS. He had to put his daughter through school. When he lived around the corner from me on Allen Street, people would anxiously await his daily practice..... he put in 4 - 8 hours each day, and expected no less from students, when he graciously agreed to accept them --- and IF a student could put up with his eccentric ways, they were truly able to appreciate artistic genius.

The place was the Washington Monument in DC. The event was The Moratorium on the Viet Nam War. The time was 1969. Lou and his mates were doing a gig. They ran into a fellow musician.... in an overcoat, hiding a trumpet. They struck up a conversation, and the cat was from Boston, and said he had come to DC to play at the Moratorium. But he had no way to get in to the venue, so Lou told him to duck in with him and the boys. So in they went..... and the cat just vanished.

So Lou and his fellow musicians are on stage, at the Moratorium, playing, and Lou sees the guy in the overcoat in the audience.... their eyes meet, and Lou motions to him to come up on stage. And he does, and plays with the band, and then the number ends. The guy walks up to the main microphone, lifts his horn and begins playing..... the national anthem. "Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light......" and everyone stood - at attention. Timothy Leary stood at attention. And so did Benjamin Spock. The armed forces on the rooftops laid down their arms, and at attention, saluted. The only sound was the horn. Playing the Star Spangled Banner. Perfectly. Flawlessly. (This was in Lou's judgment, mind you - and I think Lou is artistic genius. In our 25 year acquaintance, I've heard Lou complement musicians only infrequently.) Time stood still. The piece ended, and time resumed.

Was anyone there? Does anyone remember this happening? What do you think this man set into motion that day - 10.15.1969?