Saturday jazz: I introduced myself to sax player Gerry Mulligan.
1. Ever since Debbie returned to Kellogg in March, we have known that at some point she would probably go back to New York again to help Adrienne and Josh with their children. Both parents are working and Jack's school starts soon and is not open five days a week. Ellie needs care during the day. Josh's sister and mother have been great about helping out and now the time has arrived for Debbie to live with Adrienne, Josh, Jack, and Ellie again for an undetermined amount of time.
Debbie and Gibbs will fly to New York in two weeks.
Just for the record, I am 100% in support of Debbie returning to New York.
We really don't have much to work out regarding Debbie leaving Kellogg. Debbie will be leaving her gardening projects behind, but she'll give me instructions regarding how I can complete those projects and harvest the herbs, tomatoes, and squash. I will most likely remain on the active kidney transplant list while she's away, but unless I experience a drastic change in my condition, if I am offered an organ, I'll turn it down, both because my condition is stable and because a transplant would leave me much more vulnerable to all infections, including the coronavirus. As with all things pandemic related, I'm making decisions based on rationality, not fear, and, to me, it would be a rational move, if I can, to delay such a surgery. My hope is that the I don't have to make this decision soon, especially while Debbie is gone.
2. Having listened to the Fresh Air Natasha Trethewey interview on Friday, today I went to the archives of The New Yorker poetry podcast and listened to the June 2019 episode featuring Natasha Trethewey.
The podcast opened with Natasha Trethewey reading a poem by Charles Wright, "Toadstools". In it, Wright draws a surprising and illuminating connection between forest toadstools and grief. Natasha Trethewey took us listeners deep into the poem, helping us see this startling connection and the poem's stirring insight into Charles Wright's revelations about the nature of grief and how his insights emerge from his meditation upon toadstools. The poem first appeared in The New Yorker on May 3, 2010. The poem so moved Natasha Trethewey that she cut it out of the magazine and pinned it to the wall above her desk. I loved listening to her bear witness to the power of this poem and to her sensitive ways of understanding the complicated experience of grief.
Natasha Trethewey then read her poem, "Repentance". When a poet writes a poem that is launched by exploring the details of a painting, it's called an ekphrastic poem. "Repentance" opens with a description of Vermeer's painting "Maid Asleep". It then moves to a scene from Natasha Trethewey's life involving a quarrel she had with her intoxicated father. As she talked about her poem, she and host Kevin Young discussed the wounds of racism in ways I cannot sufficiently summarize.
Suffice it to say that I have learned more about Natasha Trethewey's poetry and its many ways of working out the complexities of grief, violence, racism, and other dimensions of the American experience, both in history and in the present, both through characters of her creation and through her own painful experiences -- including the murder of her mother. After listening to the podcast, I went online and found two more poems of hers that she and Kevin Young discussed and I found them riveting, especially after listening to this podcast: "Imperatives for Carrying on in the Aftermath" and "Articulation". "Articulation" is another ekphrastic poem that opens with her description of Miguel Cabrera's portrait of St. Gertrude.
3. So much seriousness on my mind -- Debbie leaving soon, poetry, and reading the review in the latest issue of The New Yorker of Isabel Wilkerson's new book, Caste.
I seek out serious things, enjoy learning more, digging into it all; all the seriousness gets counterbalanced a bit by my daily experience following the fortunes of my fantasy baseball teams.
At the end of the day on Saturday, my head to head team, the Kellogg Johnniez trailed Gaylord's YellaDawgs by 13 points. I'm not hopeful about making up those 13 points on Sunday. One of the Johnniez's best hitters, DJ LeMahieu went on the injured list and another great hitter on the Johnniez, Javier Baez, is mired in a slump and won't play on Sunday. So, I got out the duct tape and bailing wire and patched together the best lineup I could and would consider it a stunning upset if the Kellogg Jonniez make up those 13 points and end up triumphant over the formidable YellaDawgs.
The Johnniez will have a new head to head opponent on Monday.
Here's a limerick by Stu:
It's fun to go out and catch "fishies"!
Anything to avoid doing "dishies"!
Might choose golfing or reading,
Or building cars to go speeding?
What would YOU do, if you got your "wishies"?
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