1. It makes me happy that Debbie has taken charge of mapping out our route back to Kellogg. Right now, if we follow the plan currently on the table, we'll leave Long Beach, IN on Monday and head in a north and easterly direction to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We'll be there for a couple of days, make our way to Duluth, and then in about four hour stretches of driving make our way across North Dakota and Montana, staying in towns like Fargo, Minot, Glasgow, and Great Falls, places we've never stayed before.
Thanks to Christy, Paul, and Carol's willingness to continue to spend time with, feed, and care for Copper and Luna, we've extended our trip a bit and plan to be in Kellogg on Oct. 4.
2. I dove back into the world of animals today and returned to Sy Montgomery reading her loving book, The Soul of an Octopus. Up to the point where I left off today, Sy Montgomery blends writing about her research into octopuses and animal consciousness in general with stories about her own experiences with octopuses at the New England Aquarium and about staff and volunteers she meets and develops friendships with. I enjoy Montgomery's digressions away from the octopuses as we learn more about these staff and volunteers; I also enjoy how Montgomery often ties these digressions back to the octopuses, whether by substantiating insights or describing more fully the relationships between the humans and the octopuses.
In other words, through its first four chapters, I am experiencing The Soul of an Octopus as a warm book, its warmth enhanced by Sy Montgomery's warmth as its reader on the audible edition I'm listening to.
I have a few hours to go to finish this book. I think I'll be at the lake house by myself for much of the day on Wednesday and that should give me a chance to reach the book's end.
3. I was one of a handful of people this evening who listened to Bill Davie's 60th Tree House Concert from outside the Pacific Standard Time zone. Even though I've been online now for nearly twenty-five years, it can still feel miraculous to be about 2100 miles away from Bill Davie's studio/study/Tree House and experience him performing his songs live.
I know, both from listening to Bill on Zoom and from our private correspondence, that he's been struggling mightily with chronic and debilitating pain, sleep deprivation, and the anxiety of not knowing exactly what's going on in his body.
But, as he puts it, the best analgesic for his maladies is to perform music and read poetry for an hour every Tuesday on Facebook Live.
Tonight Bill opened with a great song, "The Man with the Two-Headed Heart" and played other soulful songs, like "Candlelight" and "The Only Magic I Know". Right smack in the middle of his seven song set, Bill entered into the manic, surreal, high energy realm of his music, reached back to the Phobia Robes album, and played "Go" -- a song that reminds us that "insanity's a weapon for the modern urbanite" and features Bill soaring into a wondrous riff of scatting. This is a demanding song and Bill had the look of a runner having just finished running the 400 meter hurdles when he finished, but he nailed it, recovered and moved on to play quieter and more introspective songs to close.
Bill turned to what he called "comfort food", to poems by Donald Hall from his volume, The Happy Man, what Bill called "poems that taste good" for tonight's poetry break. I wish I had the table of contents of his book in front of me. Bill read a section of the book and I don't recall the section's title, but the poems were ruminations upon driving cars, baseball, and a long-ish poem about the life of an inherited rifle. It was a powerful break and set up Bill's closing songs beautifully.
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