Here are some poems and journal entries I wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s been a while since I’ve written in my journal. In my 20s, I journaled constantly, filling dozens of Mead composition books. It was always a form of therapy—an outlet for a shy young man prone to depression and anxiety.
But, over time, I kind of got better, and my writing branched into blogging and local journalism, and this remains the bulk of my daily writing today.
The journals I gathered into dusty boxes, remnants of a troubled journey.
But tonight, six months into a global pandemic that has kept me semi-quarantined alone in an apartment, cut off from regular human contact, I’ve felt the urge to start journaling—perhaps needing again this kind of therapy. I am lonely, anxious, and depressed.
And yet, ironically, I realize I am not alone in my loneliness, anxiety, and depression. I know huge swaths of Americans share in these quiet sufferings.
And so I thought by journaling again, and sharing some of these writings, it might be a small way to say both to myself and others—you are not alone.
This morning began as most mornings do these days. I awoke in a bedroom and an apartment that I’ve allowed to get far to messy. Dirty clothes scattered across the floor. The wind blowing through my window is already warm. Today promises to be the hottest of the year—over 110 degrees. Wonderful.
I roll out of bed, pull on some clothes, shoes, and a face mask and walk to a local coffee shop to get my morning coffee—to go, of course.
The local downtown Starbucks closed at the beginning of the pandemic and now, I believe, the closure is permanent. I don’t weep for the closing of a Starbucks (well, maybe for the workers) but I am disturbed, while walking down Harbor, to see some small businesses permanently closed.
I walk back toward home and in the alley behind the pet store I remove my face mask and enjoy the morning ritual of a cigarette with my coffee. Sorry, mom.
Speaking of which, my parents recently moved away. They were my “bubble” during the pandemic. Actually, for the first couple of months, I refused to hug them, afraid to infect them.
But at a certain point we broke down and started hugging. Our daily walks, talks, and a hug were my emotional solace in this great loneliness.
Now they live in Washington state (by my brother and his family) and I miss them terribly. I love them a lot and sincerely enjoy their company—my dad’s upbeat thoughtful demeanor, the concern I always see in my mom’s eyes. Today we spoke on the phone and my mom prayed for me (as she always does) and I could hear that she was on the edge of tears.
It’s tough right now.
Back in my increasingly hot apartment, I take care of my morning work from home—answering student e-mails, posting the daily article on the Fullerton Observer web site.
I finish an article I’d started about a week ago—a comparison of the voting records of the two candidates running for the local State Senate seat.
I post a few comments on the online discussion boards for the two writing classes I’m teaching (remotely) at Fullerton College. I don’t really like online teaching. I feel disconnected from my students. It’s weird and alien after 14 years of teaching in-person.
I’m out of my antidepressant medication and (not having a car) I know I must make the long, hot walk to Ralphs. I also need some groceries. I pop on my headphones and listen to Neil Young’s “Greendale” album as I make the hot trek. I linger a while in Ralphs, cooling off, before the hot trek home.
“Greendale” is a cool concept/story album released at the height of the Iraq War. It has a sort of rural/environmentalist/anti-war vibe soaked in the drone-y guitars of later Neil Young’s post-grunge aesthetic.
Back at home, I cool off by sticking my head in the freezer.
I watch a couple episodes of “Schitt’s Creek” while eating sushi I got from Ralphs (Don’t judge—I like their Philly rolls).
In the afternoon, I perform my grim daily ritual of posting the Orange County COVID-19 numbers on the Fullerton Observer Facebook page. Only 2 new deaths today. Yesterday it was 19. When will this end?
I spend the rest of the afternoon reading a few issues of a magazine called Orange County Review, which was published in the early 1920s. I want to write an article about what was happening locally and nationally 100 years ago. There are striking similarities between then and now. The world had recently emerged from a global pandemic (the 1918 flu) and a World War.
Hyper nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-immigrant sentiment were on the rise. The more things change…
Oh, I forgot to mention, on my walk back home from my morning coffee, I saw a sticker on the crosswalk signal of Commonwealth and Malden. It had a picture of an American eagle and stated “Reclaim America” and had a web site www.patriotfront.us. A quick Google search informed me that this is a Neo-Nazi, white supremacist, Neo-Fascist, and American nationalist group. I tear the sticker off.
When will this end?
What else did I do today? I guess that’s about it. Will I continue this? We’ll see. I must say, after writing this, as is often the case, I feel a little better.
But seriously, when will this end?
Shadow Universe
“The cosmos has lost its brilliance
And everywhere I turn is fear.
Can you bury your heart?
Can you hide your decency?”
—Lisa Randolph
In the Star Trek universe,
There is a parallel universe,
A shadow universe
In which there is no
United Federation of Planets,
No Starfleet, no treaties,
Only the Terran Empire,
A human-only, racist,
xenophobic, fascistic empire
That seeks supremacy over
All other races—Vulcans, Klingons,
Andorians, Kelpiens.
Instead of explorers, they are soldiers.
Instead of understanding,
They seek loyalty.
They rule through fear
And force and power.
Compassion is weakness.
Sometimes, a Starfleet ship—
The Enterprise, the Discovery
Finds itself in this shadow universe.
And must navigate through
the dark wastes of this
perilous, treacherous place.
The challenge for those
Explorers—Captain Kirk,
Mr. Spock, Michael Burnam,
Is to hold onto their humanity,
The better angels of their nature,
Until they find their way home.
A Dream of Community
I fell asleep this afternoon
listening to a City Council meeting
being broadcast online.
I was at home, alone,
as I am most of the time
during this pandemic.
But while I slept, the audio
of the City Council meeting
blended with the content
of a dream, a dream of community.
While someone spoke about
preserving the trees and landscape
of an old creek, I was transported
to the distant past, before my city
was developed—when it was
just hills and valleys and waterways
and Native Americans.
And then someone in the meeting
Mentioned the words “Union Pacific”
And I was standing beside
The railroad tracks watching
An old train lumber through town.
As the Mayor spoke
I was laying in a hammock in a big field,
as my uncle and his friends
built a big house, a house he had
drawn the plans for himself,
like his father did before him,
my grandpa.
While I listened to the meeting,
I was making a drawing of
an old church that was surprisingly
accurate considering the fact that
I was doing it without looking
at any frame of reference,
except what was in my head,
how I imagined a church was
supposed to look.
And occasionally, I would momentarily
wake from the dream and I could hear
people arguing, mad at each other.
and then back in the dream
they were discussing
and eagerly listening,
like they all really believed
that everyone had something
important to contribute.
It was like something
I imagine people did in
town squares in Ancient Greece
or little farming towns
where people gathered and talked about
their shared problems and hopes
and believed that together
they could work things out.
As I finished my drawing of
the church, the child of the Mayor
ran over to whisper something
in her ear, and I knew the meeting
was about to come to an end.
But not before the elderly
council member, who had
previously voted “no” on an item,
as he was wont to do,
announced that, upon further research,
he had changed his mind
and instead was voting “yes.”
Time Soup
I slept in late today, not that it matters much. Recently John Oliver described the experience of living during the pandemic as “time soup.” The days blend together and I often find myself asking myself, “What day is it?”
Wildfires continue to rage across California—two of them close enough to give a pallid ashiness to the air.
It seems like each year the wildfires get worse. Last year there was a wildfire in Fullerton that got big enough to get an official name on the news.
I’m pretty sure this is related to climate change, an existential crisis that my country seems woefully ill-equipped to deal with.
Toward the beginning of the pandemic I listened to a book called Spillover, which explains how zoonotic viruses (like COVID-19) are a result of human encroachment (through agriculture or settlement) into natural habitats. Orange County Vector Control has recently been spraying pesticides to kill mosquitoes—some of which carry West Nile virus. This is also, I’m afraid, another result of climate change which is a result of humans, like me, using resources. I type these words on a computer that runs on electricity, and I know that electricity in my particular area of the world comes largely from burning things like natural gas.
What to do? Maybe solar panels.
I got a new audiobook today called Assembling California by John McPhee. Listening to audiobooks is a good way to still learn things while relieving the strain on my eyes from reading. I have an insatiable hunger for knowledge about California history. I’m slowly plodding away at writing a local history, but I need the bigger context. California history, like all history, is vaster and deeper and weirder than we can imagine.
Assembling California is about geology, and I learn that for the vast majority of Earth’s history, California did not even exist. I don’t mean the political entity. I mean, like, physically. For much of Earth’s history, the land that would become California was part of the ocean floor. Even the mountains aren’t that old, geologically speaking—just a few million years, a drop in the bucket of deep time.
For some reason, I find this comforting.
A Fire Underground
Beneath the once-prosperous
coal mining town of Centralia, Pennsylvania
a literal fire has been burning
underground since 1962.
It is believed the fire began
when town leaders set a local
garbage dump ablaze to tidy things up
for a Memorial Day celebration.
But the garbage burned and burned
and somehow ignited the coal
in the local coal mine and it has
never stopped burning,
emitting a steady stream of
smoky carbon monoxide
that eventually drove away
most of the town’s inhabitants,
some of whose families
had lived in Centralia for generations.
Of the town’s 800 or so buildings,
only a dozen or so remain,
and a few stubborn souls
live in houses condemned
by the government.
A man named John lives alone
in a house built by his grandfather
and has taken it upon himself to
set up yearly Christmas decorations
on the few electric poles
that still stand where once
stood a downtown.
It is believed that
the Centralia coal fire
will burn for another 250 years,
the approximate lifespan of
The United States of America.
A few years back,
on a road trip with my dad
along historic Route 66,
We stopped in the tiny town
of Commerce, Oklahoma
Where Mickey Mantle,
“The Commerce Comet”
grew up and played baseball.
Commerce was not exactly
booming in Commerce, OK.
We stopped at the little
gas station and it was there
I learned about Superfund sites.
Mickey Mantle’s father worked
in the local lead mine.
This section of Oklahoma/Missouri
is known historically as
“The Lead Belt.”
Over the years,
the lead waste
extracted from the mine
grew into an enormous
“chat pile.”
The friendly woman in
the gas station explained to
me that, a few years back,
a tornado came through
the area and spread the
lead waste from the “chat pile”
over a huge area.
A neighboring town was evacuated.
It was declared by the EPA
a Superfund site, which
is what happens when a local
community cannot afford
to clean up the mess it has
spent decades making,
so the federal government
helps with the cleanup,
or tries to.
I asked the woman in the gas station
if she was concerned
about the lead
and she said, “Yes.”
But, like John of Centralia,
she remains.
The Commerce Chamber of Commerce
had recently erected a large
statue of Mickey Mantle near
the baseball field.
Tonight in Fullerton, California,
a town graced with two Superfund sites,
I sit alone in the heat of a summer night
as fires rage across my state,
700,000 acres so far,
the worst in years.
That’s what they said last year.
An electric light burns
above my little patio
as I write, and I am cursed
to know that a certain percentage
of the electricity from that light
is produced by burning
the undergound remains
of ancient forests
and that this burning
is not without consequence.
Dune
Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet.
Today I was excited to see the trailer for the upcoming Dune film adaptation.
Dune is a classic sci-fi novel set in the distant future, but its themes resonate in our own times.
It’s about a desert planet that contains the most valuable commodity in the universe. Powerful forces vie for control of this resource. Meanwhile, the indigenous people of the planet suffer the consequence of this colonialism and extraction.
Is it about capitalism? Colonialism? When I first read the novel, which was published in 1965, I thought it was about the struggle for oil in the Middle East.
But it’s also about spirituality, philosophy, and other cool stuff.
I’m reminded of a video I made a while back with my friend Mike Magoski called Book Talk: Dune. The idea was to both read the novel and then film our conversation about it. So I read the novel and Mike said he did too. We started filming and it soon became clear that Mike had not read the book. But this actually made the video better.
Ultimately, Mike went on to read Dune. He loved it so much that, over the course of the next year, he read all six books in the Dune Chronicles—an impressive feat. Mike’s Dune obsession really influenced his art and poetry that year.
Inspired by the new Dune trailer “drop” I started reading book two in the Dune Chronicles, Dune Messiah.
It’s fascinating in a totally different way. The hero in Dune is young Paul Atreides, who becomes a kind of spiritual and military leader to the oppressed indigenous people on Dune.
Dune Messiah is about what happens after a formerly oppressed people gains power and uses that power to become the same kind of oppressor that they lived under for centuries. Sort of like how, after the conversion of Constantine, the Roman Empire went from oppressing Christians to oppressing others in the name of Christianity.
It makes me think about America. After winning a revolutionary war and throwing off the power of our colonial oppressors (the British), American proceeded to inflict genocidal oppression on Native Americans.
Is the saying true about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely? If America’s current president is correct about us being the greatest country in the world, I suppose this statement should give us pause.
What is the antidote to corrupt power? I think it is humility and the giving up of power.
To round out my Dune-centric day, I finally watched a documentary I’ve been meaning to watch for the past few years—Jodorowsky’s Dune.
It’s about a film adaptation of Dune that (tragically) never got made by visionary director Alejandro Jodorowsky.
You may know Jodorowsky from his mind-bending 1970s films like El Topo and especially The Holy Mountain—a true cinematic masterpiece.
Jodorowsky gathered a veritable dream team of artists for his proposed adaptation in the mid-70s—Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, H.R. Giger, etc. Every Hollywood studio said “no.”
Imagine if, instead of Star Wars, it was Jodorowsky’s Dune that was the blockbuster of 1977—a film made by and for artists. I’m not throwing shade on Star Wars, but it was no Jodorowsky’s Dune. Maybe “blockbuster” cinema would have taken a different direction.
Jodorowsky saw cinema not as a business but as pure art—like painting and poetry. What if Hollywood’s most lavish films today were not made for maximum business returns, but for pure artistic expression? What a world that would be.
Which brings me to David Lynch’s Dune, the film adaptation that was actually made in 1984. It was a commercial and a critical flop.
This is a tragedy on many levels. Prior to Dune, David Lynch had made a genuine masterpiece (Eraserhead) and a pretty decent film (The Elephant Man). He was somehow hired to direct Dune. Based on interviews with Lynch, I learned that the main problem was that he did not have “final cut” privileges. The business folks and producers apparently took what could have been a decent film and turned it into a mess.
If I’m being honest, I actually like Lynch’s Dune. I could extrapolate more on how certain themes and imagery from this film are actually signature Lynch (and can even be seen in his more recent high concept sci-fi Twin Peaks: The Return), but the main point I want to make is that the commercial failure of Lynch’s Dune inspired him to return to his indie roots, to smaller productions. His next film was Blue Velvet—an absolute American masterpiece.
Screen Time
This morning I recorded my first online lecture. It was a demonstration of how to find out who your local representatives are (congress, state senate, state assembly, city council), as preparation for an essay my students will write about local politics.
In the past, before giving this presentation to classes, I would ask my students if they knew who their congressperson was. Normally, I would get 1 or 2 or 0 students who knew who represented them in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The theme of my courses is “Writing About Your Community.” My students research and write essays about local culture, politics, social issues, and history. It’s a writing class, but it’s also a bit of a civics lesson as well.
With the pandemic going on, this community-focused theme takes on a new dimension. Communities have been disrupted, and I find myself wondering how people have managed to hold onto a sense of community when so many things are closed down or severely limited.
As someone who tries to be involved in my community, I have struggled with this. Editing a local newspaper has kept me sort of connected with what’s happening locally, but much of my participation is virtual.
So much of my life these days is mediated by computer screens. This was a problem before COVID-19, but it has become a much bigger problem now.
While I’m grateful for how the Internet allows me to communicate with others, I also find that, by the afternoon, I must take my eyes away from the screen and do something else—read a book, take a walk, write in my notebook, clean.
I’ve been thinking about the novel about Dune. In the Dune-iverse, there was a war against “thinking machines” which led to a ban on advanced computers. Maybe such a thing is in our future—humanity enslaved by computers. I guess that’s a familiar plot-line in a lot of sci-fi—Terminator, The Matrix, etc.
What a weird time to be alive.
It’s all online
I'm taking an online course about teaching an online course. It's all online.
I oppose football on ethical grouds
I've never been a football fan, mostly because I think it's boring (which is how I feel about most sports). But now that we know it has been shown to cause brain damage in many of those who play (in college and professionally), I have gone from being not a fan to actually opposing the sport on ethical grounds. I object to the destructive activity that is American football--especially the NFL which makes millions off of an activity that it knows permanently damages players brains with a horrible disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
Too much data
I've been watching my way through Star Trek: Voyager. I found this episode, "The Voyager Conspiracy" to be particularly relevant to today, with so many folks latching onto conspiracy theories. In this episode, Seven of Nine modifies her regeneration chamber to input vast amounts of data into her Borg brain. Overwhelmed with the chaos, her human brain begins to construct elaborate conspiracies to try to make sense of too much data. In the end, what brings her back from the brink is trust and human connection to Captain Janeway. It's about how we navigate cognitive dissonance.
The Storming of Statuary Hall
On January 6, 2021, watching insurrectionists storm the United States Capitol as they walked bewildered through Statuary Hall, I fell asleep and had a dream.
The statues came to life and began to speak.
“I fought in the Union Army,” said William Henry Harrison Beadle (1838-1915). “You’re welcome.”
“I fought in the War of 1812 and died of cancer,” said Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858). “I saw the Capitol burn.”
“I worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression,” said Norman Ernest Borlaug (1914-2009). “I worked for FDR and had a cell phone.”
“I drove out corruption in North Dakota,” said John Burke (1859-1937). “They called me ‘Honest John.’”
“I was the central figure of an 1879 court case that established that Native Americans are ‘persons’ under the law,” said Chief Standing Bear (1829-1908). “You’re welcome.”
“I was author of the Compromise of 1850, and died two year later,” said Henry Clay (1777-1852). “I’m sorry.”
“I was elected president of the Confederate States, indicted for treason (but never brought to trial), and finally released on bond in 1867,” said Jefferson Davis (1808-1889). “MAGA.”
“I invented a light bulb that burned for a thousand hours,” said Thomas Edison (1847-1931). “F*@# you, Tesla.”
“I invented steamboats and submarines,” said Robert Fulton (1765-1815).
“I invented a machine that made ice and I died in financial ruin,” said John Gorrie (1802-1855). “Life is cold.”
“I voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and in that year won the Republican nomination for the presidency,” said Barry Goldwater (1909-1998). “I am widely recognized as the founder of the modern conservative movement.”
“I was Lincoln's first vice president,” said Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891).
“I joined the anti-slavery forces and worked to make Kansas a free state,” said John James Ingalls (1833-1900).
“I championed the conservation movement,” said Robert M. La Follette (1855-1925).
“I helped found the state of Oregon,” said Jason Lee (1803-1845).
“My proposed ‘Share the Wealth’ program promised every family $5,000 and the confiscation of large estates and made me a presidential prospect for 1936,” said Huey Long (1893-1935). “I was assassinated in 1935.”
“I facilitated Minnesota's statehood,” said Henry Mower Rice (1816-1894).
“I was an American cowboy artist,” said Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926).
“I invented the Cherokee alphabet,” said Sequoyah (died 1843).
“I established the California Missions,” said Father Junipero Serra (1713-1784). “In the name of God I contributed to the deaths of thousands of California Indians.”
“I served as the Confederacy's vice president,” said Alexander Hamilton Stephens (1812-1883). “MAGA.”
“I was a general during the Civil War,” said Lew Wallace (1827-1905). “I slowed the Confederate advance toward Washington, D.C., giving city time to ready its defenses and served on the court-martial tribunal that tried the accomplices of John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin. I wrote the book Ben-Hur.”
“I joined the Confederate forces in 1861,” said Joseph Wheeler (1836-1906). “MAGA.”
“I was a pioneer in the temperance movement,” said Frances Willard (1839-1898), the only woman in Statuary Hall. “I also contributed to women's higher education and suffrage."
“Upon the death of my leader, Joseph Smith, I became president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” said Brigham Young (1801-1877). “I organized the emigration of 70,000 ‘pioneers’ to Utah.”
“My military leadership secured Texas’ independence,” said Sam Houston (1793-1863). “MAGA.”
Te Quiero
Tonight, after a brief conversation with a man living in his RV who speaks primarily Spanish, I said "Take care." He paused, taken aback a little, then replied "Te quiero" because he thought I said "Te quiero" (Which means "I love you.") This made me smile.
Human Interaction
COVID-19 Human Interaction. Living and working alone during the pandemic, I don't get a lot of in-person contact, so the interactions I get (usually on walks) become a bit more memorable (and sometimes strange). This evening, I was taking a walk along a sidewalk next to a baseball field. I could hear that the Star-Spangled Banner was playing, alerting the beginning of the game. But since I was not attending the game, and was actually a ways away from the field on the sidewalk, I kept walking. But then I saw a couple in front of me standing on the sidewalk with their hands over their hearts. I was faced with a dilemma. I couldn't bring myself to just nonchalantly walk past people with their hands over their hearts for the national anthem, like it doesn't mean anything. So I stopped in the middle of a sidewalk, put my hand over my heart and joined them until the song finished. We weren't even facing the baseball field, but rather the flag across the street at City Hall. I wondered what the people in cars driving by thought. "Didn't want to be disrespectful," I said to the couple, and the lady said, "Yeah" and the man said, "Play ball!"
Exterminate all the brutes
Yesterday and today, I watched Raoul Peck's latest film "Exterminate All the Brutes" which is a poetic meditation on colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, history, and how the crimes and ideologies of the past resonate into our present and future. It's a hard watch, but I was reminded of my own impetus for researching and writing about unpleasant aspects of history--the past is still with us and it is incumbent on us to understand it and bravely face it. I'm also reminded of one of my favorite scenes in my favorite TV show "The Wire." During a prison book club discussion of the novel "The Great Gatsby" a former drug dealer presents a succinct analysis of this great American novel: "Gatsby, he was who he was, and he did what he did. And cuz he wasn't ready to get real with the story, that shit caught up to him." It's never too late to get real with the story. The title of the film "Exterminate All the Brutes" is a quote from Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness." The film is a unique combination of documentary, dramatization, art, and personal journey.
The Agnostic Evangelical Mega-Church Pastor
I had a dream in which I was
appointed head pastor of the
mega-church I grew up in.
In the dream, I found myself
Replacing my punk t-shirts and jeans
With a conservative suit.
I was worried about my tattoos.
At a certain point in the dream,
I realized the gravity of the assignment.
“But,” I said. “I’m an agnostic.”
And then I woke up.
If, in the dream,
I was to give my first (and last)
Sermon as the agnostic pastor
Of an evangelical mega-church,
It would go something like this:
“For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me.
I was ill and you comforted me,
in prison and you came to visit me…
I assure you, as often as you did it
for one of my least brothers,
you did it for me.”
Emerging
My computer informed me today
That my “screen time” is down
20% from last week.
I spent only 6 hours and 22 minutes
Per day on the computer.
But that doesn’t include my laptop,
Which I stare at for hours each night
Watching movies and TV
Before falling asleep.
This is my life.
Tonight, I lay in bed re-watching
“The Mandalorian” and sometimes
Googling things like,
“What is Moff Gideon’s plan?”
And somehow I end up watching
The 1980 gay slasher film “Cruising”
Starring Al Pacino
And secretly thinking…
The 1980 New York leather scene
Seemed pretty cool.
I am lonely.
I live alone during a pandemic.
Only recently, I have begun emerging
Back to the local nightlife
Social scene that was my lifeline to…
Life.
I sit alone on the patio of a bar
Reading research notes
From an article I’ve been
Working on for the past three months
About school desegregation.
I sip my beer and wave at folks I know—
Those casual social acquaintances
I have missed so dearly.
I am 41 years old.
I edit a local newspaper.
I rent a little apartment.
I live next to the railroad tracks.
I am lonely and alive,
And I am emerging back into life.
Has the world changed or have I changed?
A tired feeling, traveling in the world after a year of isolation. Age 41, a year not lost, not squandered, but one that left a mark.
A lethargy, we all seem tired, a weariness about the eyes.
A year of solitude. Alone--days spent staring at screens, eating, sleeping, drinking.
A feeling like the world is either on the brink of collapse or renewal, or both, one after the other. This weird America.
We are all still reeling, weary about the eyes, a weakness in the chest, a messiness in the head.
I’m not supposed to lay in bed and just, like, think.
Sitting alone at a table at Bootleggers writing and next to me is a dog leashed to a table. He looks restless as all the humans sit and drink and listen to American rock music.
He’s a white husky and doesn’t look too different from the wild wolves from which he (or she) descends. How different, though, is the life of this husky than the wolf.
I find now when I go out, after a few drinks, I end up in kind of crazy political arguments. I’m shocked/not shocked at how many young Trump supporters I meet.
A year of isolation and a steady diet of your preferred propaganda will do that.
“I haven’t met one Biden supporter,” says a 30-year old Marine veteran/Trump supporter, and (this being my hometown) my heart sinks a little, not so much because I love Joe Biden, but because the implication is that I live around many Trump supporters, even after January 6.
There is a crusty layer of artificiality around all of us as we navigate this brave new world of screen time and intense division.
I miss the days of going out and talking to Kevin Malone about obscure comic book characters. These days I end up feeling compelled to defend the fact that systemic racism exists, or some such thing. And that’s no fun, not really.
I feel I’m emerging from this year knives out when I’d rather wear my heart on my sleeve because I’m so fucking lonely.
So this is me wearing my heart on my sleeve, and you’re probably reading it on a screen because I put it there for you. I’m sorry. I don’t know a way out of this.
Except maybe with my brother, sitting at the Brass Kraken in Poulsbo, discussing the various ways in which this past year has hurt us, I slide my journal over to him to read a draft of this poem and go out for a smoke.
He reads the messy writing on paper pages and we talk some more.
How do we emerge from this year, as wildfires rage in the north and Seattle has a record heat wave and no rain and the rest of the world, particularly the poorer nations, are desperate for vaccines while many Americans refuse to get them, and some go to waste--and a new variant emerges?
I am emerging, but will this ever really end? It’s hard to be hopeful anymore. I sit sipping beer and writing.
I look down at my fat belly--my COVID pounds. I feel a bit fat and lonely and not particularly attractive.
I remember the last thing my mom said to me as I gave her a big hug and left Seattle. I didn’t expect it, something like, “You are valuable, you are worthy.” How did she know to say such a thing? To cut through everything and speak to my broken heart? She’s my mom. She knows.
I wonder sometimes what my life would be like had I become a father. Would I be a good dad? I honestly don’t know. My life would be different, but would it be better? I don’t know.
I’m afraid my child would carry the same pain I carry. So maybe things turned out okay.
Maybe. Maybe this weird life I’ve carved out for myself is okay, surrounded by old records and books and art and the detritus of a life lived, thus far, on my own terms.
I’ll take it. I can carry it.
I play a droning sound with my guitar
I play a droning sound with my guitar,
This old sticker-covered Fender Squier II,
Plugged into my little red amp.
I turn up the gain and reverb
And fiddle with the knobs and pickup switcher thing.
I drone on and on, playing noise,
Droning noise, alone on my couch.
I lean back so the the guitar lies across my chest,
And drones on and on,
A mournful sound, discordant
And I can feel the vibrations in my heart.
One of the stickers says,
“This machine kills fascists,”
And I think, “If only, if only.”
And through the amp come the pops
And scratches and hums of my fingers
As if I’m trying to channel something,
To exorcize something,
To externalize, to sublimate
The sounds my mouth can’t make.
I press the guitar against my heart
And play these droning sounds.
Sing, poor heart, sing.
Sing for the introverts of the world
Who love solitude
Until it starts to hurt them.
Sing for those lying lethargic in their beds,
Watching show after show,
Bound as if by cords.
Sing a song of sickness, sorrow, and death.
Drone on, dear heart, drone on.
Sing of cold pizza,
Night sweats, screen addiction,
Loneliness, fatigue, and existential pain.
Sing a song of guilt,
Of text messages sent or not sent,
Of the curse of smart phones,
Our constant companions, surveillers, inquisitors.
Sing a song of paranoia,
Conspiracies, lies, and propaganda,
Of YouTube rabbit holes
That turn reason to madness,
Of algorithms designed to turn
Sister against sister,
Family against family,
Of the lies that tear us apart.
Drone on.
I make these droning sounds.
Into the void I send this noise.
Sing a song of fear
And economic insecurity,
Anxiety about basic things
Like housing, food, health care.
Sing a song of loneliness,
For those living alone
For two years during a
Global pandemic–
Of social isolation and depression.
Sing from this little apartment
In America in the year 2022,
From a world turning more
Mad Max than Star Trek,
Of dreams dashed.
Sing about big ideas,
Theories of how we got here,
Neoliberalism and social safety nets
Straining at the seams.
Sing all those emotions
You never quite learned to express–
Anger, fear, disgust, sadness,
Sexual desire.
If you can’t express them with your mouth,
Maybe you can express them with
This guitar, or this pen, or this computer.
And then I press a little button
On the amp and the sound changes
From a droning to a ringing,
A chorus sound,
Clean and clear as a bell.
I strum major chords
And the sound changes
From devils screaming to angels singing.
I strum and pluck and turn the knobs
To increase the sound,
Still laid upon my heart.
Keep singing, dear heart.
Sing of family and the hands
That catch you when you
Were falling.
Sing of unconditional love,
Of no judgment, no condemnation,
Only deepest compassion and empathy.
Sing of cocktails with your brother,
One broken heart speaking to another.
Sing a song of healing,
Of hugs and walks in the forest.
Strum and sing of purpose,
Of things made by human hands–
Houses, poems, newspapers,
Paintings, quilts.
Sing and remember.
Remember Yosemite
When you and your dad
Were in that meadow
Looking up at a sky
Blazing with stars.
Remember that sky
Full of stars.
