A Crack in the Bones

 

… Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

 

-       Maggie Smith (not the Dame)

 

Any reader of this Blog may notice that I’m a bit like the realtor walking us through the world with attention to the “good bones” and stories of fixer-uppers that went on to be beautiful and loving homes. This is not slick selling so I can turn a profit. I actually believe down to my bones that the world is at least half beautiful and maybe even more so. But at the moment my meticulously crafted and hard-won optimism is wearing down. The solid bones of my own faith in ultimate goodness is cracking, bending under the osteoporosic weight of the news, both personal and collective.

 

My wise choice to micro-dose on the catastrophe surrounding so as not to be overwhelmed doesn’t mean I don’t feel the storm outside my windows bearing down on my cozy, but fragile house. I don’t want to know the details, but I still have to come to grips with the questions. What the hell ever happened to the Epstein files? Are we still at war with Iran? Is that guy still in the White House (of course he is) and why? Did I really read something about Congress passing bills so only some people (their people) can vote? What country am I living in again?

 

Then in the minutiae of daily life, every simplest thing is magnified to a dysfunctional way of doing business. An hour passed around to voice mails and five different people just to pay my UPS bill. The calamity of trying to keep my Pentatonic Press afloat and needing to join a group that didn’t recognize my password, let me make a new one and then said that didn’t work either and to check back in three business days. An unprecedented number of people not responding to my e-mails that asked for a simple response. Then yesterday my wife got her new passport without her old passport returned. I was a few days behind her in renewing mine but counted 100% on getting my not-yet-expired passport back because it had my needed Visa for my China trip in July. (And in the past, they always mailed back the previous passport.) Can I make a simple phone call to sort this out? Of course not. I need to set aside three hours minimum to wade through voice mails and probably still not talk to a live human being. There’s not enough Valium in the house to get me through this. 

 

Whining posts are the least satisfying to read— unless you get some schadenfreudian pleasure in the misfortune of others or can say to me with some satisfaction “Join the club, buddy! You’re not the only one wading through shit up to your neck.” They’re not the most satisfying to write either, but one hopes for some release of pressure simply from venting. And some challenge that if you’re going to complain, at least try to be mildly poetic about it. 

 

Meanwhile, it’s the 5^th day of a rare San Francisco heat wave. (Should I add global warming to the list of things to be depressed about?) Yesterday I rode my bike to the ocean and dipped my feet in the still artic temperatures. I also realized that when I tried to play along with some recordings, I’ve been playing many of the movements in Bach’s Suites and Partitas too slow. I fell down time and again trying to match the lightning speeds of András Schiff, Richard Goode and Glenn Gould, but actually came a little bit closer. My little ways of decorating the shithole house we’re all living in. 

 

May the bones prove sturdy and the demolition crew sent packing. Have a nice day!