December 31.20: Coping

A wink, perhaps,

lightly nefarious:

above the noble

“Stradivarius”

the truth is stamped,

hidden slyly —

“Copy” — by luthier

deft and wily.

 

I think it was no coincidence that 2020 was the year I attended to my father’s violin, which I had allowed to fall into disreputable condition. I’d needed some sense of grounding, of continuity, in a year of such cataclysmic instability. I had it repaired and renewed for my grandson this Christmas, and there was indeed grounding. This was the instrument my father played in his grade school orchestra, circa 1925.

 

The one he played in our family Christmas concerts (a merry barnyard kind of sound) and introduced to his grandson circa 1977.

 

The one I rescued from my own shameful neglect and presented — in its well-worn KantKrack case, beribboned and (it seemed to me) proud — to his great-grandson this Christmas.

A violin doesn’t have to be a Stradivarius to be priceless. And 2020 has made us acutely more mindful of the priceless things that ground us.

Thank you, dear reader, for all your encouragement and insights this year. May the new year bring us all the repair, renewal, and tuning we need, may we be grounded in the priceless things of life, may we be mindful of those who grieve and who care for our sick, and may there one day again be real hugs!

 

 

Connections: March 10.17

The pursuit of excellence

is always laudatory

until we tumble over

 in wilted perspiratory.

It would be my undoing

but is nothing for him

he’ll eat a rhinoceros

and dash off with new vim.

Thanks to photographer Kelley Wilson Mesterharm.

Connections

Connections: January 24.17

My grandson, conspicuous by absence,

eventually made me curious

I’d seen him depart to the basement

where he couldn’t hear or see us.

Neither angry nor antisocial

he just wanted, I think, some space

and this is what I found

with contentment on his face.

A guy can love his family

and their hypertonicity

but also love a bit

of peace and simplicity.

Connections

Vagaries in Gestation: December 6.16

Thus does the middle-aged dad (aka, my firstborn) demonstrate to his eleven-year-old apprentice (who is not easily impressed) how the core of the fake Christmas tree can be fake-played as a guitar.

Christmas is obviously underway. This tree was bought by my parents long ago and has seen over thirty Christmases. It always leans, but it wears its generations of ornaments proudly.

Amid a torrent of abusively dumb eleven-year-old-boy jokes, the tree went up, twisted limb by twisted limb. My grandson sipped apple cider from a plastic Christmas cup dating to his dad’s boyhood. Grit from the garage made its annual path through the kitchen. Tradition reigned.

Then came the phone call. My daughter-in-law and granddaughter had been in an accident. Everyone reading this blog knows that life can change in a blink, so I’m not here to tell you what you already know. My daughter-in-law and granddaughter are shaken but all right, and that is what matters.

But so suddenly did family goofiness change to intense family anxiety that the suddenness got to me. It was whiplash of a sort. There are certainly times in life when we feel as though we are on the end of the crack-the-whip line, and right now I’m that kid that goes caroming off in zig-zag trajectory, trying not to end up flattened on the blacktop. I think it was easier back when the Christmas tree was new.

 

 

 

Vagaries in Gestation

 

 

Connections: November 21.16

De rigueur, I’m told, is the bottle flip

ah, the wastrel wayward ways of youth

they should be productive as we were

and pack themselves in a telephone booth.

Connections

Connections: September 30.16

Is there a place

more grueling to be

than here at the window

of imminency?

Connections

Connections: September 13.16

Once upon an autumn day

when the world was turning gold

shadows mocked in counterplay:

tomorrow you’ll be too old.

Connections

Connections: May 21

A deep-sea dive

for briny treasure

does not dissuade

the cat from leisure.

Connections

Connections: April 30

Eyeing the distance

in breath-held levity

taut expectation

of vigorous gravity.

Connections

Connections: February 27

In the Land of The Way Things Should Be

my grandson would rule by decree

it seems incredible

but cars would be edible

aerodynamically.

Thanks to the Mesterharm Photo Archives, especially designer/builder Toby.

Connections