1. After struggling on I-5 Sunday night with visibility in a snowstorm as I drove from Creswell to Portland -- I had to pull over at a rest stop south of Salem and take a short nap to rest my mind and my concentration --, I made an important decision this morning. I would spend today driving from Portland to Kellogg and I knew that North Idaho and parts of Eastern Washington were under a winter advisory. I knew from looking on Facebook that the 4th of July Pass had been snowy, icy, and slushy in the morning.
I had one goal: drive in the daylight. I figured that whatever conditions I drove into once I reached, say, Spokane, everything would go better if it wasn't dark.
So I left Portland around 7:30. I made several stops along the way for coffee and sparkling water and rest stops. To my great relief, the roads were never icy. From Spokane to Kellogg, including over the 4th of July Pass, the roads were wet, but not slick.
I arrived home safely, in daylight, after an uneventful drive.
2. While driving earlier in my trip, I had loaded the audio book, The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan on my phone and listened to it through the Camry's sound system. Today, I listened to the rest of the book.
I mean this is in a positive way: it's an unusual book. Dylan riffs in 66 short essays about 66 different songs and the singers (and sometimes the writers) of these songs. These are not what we would have called in school close readings. Rather, they are richly associative essays in which Dylan writes whatever the song makes him think of, sometimes expanding into commentary on culture and politics, sometimes writing things he knows not to be true. His essays are improvisational, wild, unpredictable. Dylan plays the role of chronicler, interpreter, provocateur, and trickster. Parts of some essays outraged me, others made me laugh out loud, others moved me nearly to tears. Sometimes Dylan's essays traveled so far afield from the actual song itself, I had forgotten what the song was that the essay started with.
Bob Dylan seems to have absorbed and remembered every one of the countless songs he has listened to over the years while also having detailed memories of books, operas, musicals, movies, classical compositions, news events, the biographies of countless performers, and much else.
Because I was listening to this book, I couldn't absorb it all. Had I been reading it, I would have often stopped, gone back, reread passages, regained my bearings, and then moved forward.
Listening to it in the car led me to want to do two things: 1) try to find ways to listen to recordings of the 66 songs Dylan discusses. I had never heard of or had never listened to a majority of the songs and 2) revisit this book again, whether on paper, on Kindle, or by way of the audio version and absorb again all that I kept up with in my first listen and to try to absorb all that I missed as my mind wandered or as Bob Dylan simply left me in the dust.
Soon after the Bob Dylan book ended, I stopped at Country Mercantile to buy some coffee and sparkling water and I downloaded a book I read last summer and wanted to revisit today.
The book is Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller. I loved this book the first time I read it and today, for the three hours or so I listened to it from just outside Pasco all the way to Kellogg, I was once again mesmerized by Lulu Miller's deft storytelling gifts, her ability to combine biography, memoir, and scientific theory together into a single riveting story.
You might know Lulu Miller as one of the hosts of the radio show/podcast, RadioLab or maybe you have listened to her other podcast Invisibilia.
I love how her mind works and cherished her companionship on the last leg of my drive home today.
3. Back home, I got right back into the swing of family life in Kellogg!
Tonight was family dinner. Paul's mother, Pat, is visiting and we all gathered at Carol and Paul's for a delicious dinner.
Christy got us started with a cracker, salami, cheese plate to enjoy as appetizers. Carol made mulled cider, a most welcome hot drink on this chilly autumn/winter day.
Carol called us to the dining table. She had prepared a delicious batch of spaghetti and meatballs accompanied by a spinach salad with vinaigrette that Debbie made and the baguettes that Molly contributed. We topped of our dinner with Pat's Oreo Chocolate Cream Pie for dessert.
As always, we talked about thousands of things before, during, and after dinner. Debbie, Carol, Christy, and Paul are all working with children, educating them and encouraging their creativity and they had a thoughtful and energetic discussion of the challenges they face and the successes their students experience.
We spent some time remembering George White and I mentioned that while his memorial service was under way last Friday at St. Rita's Church, Terry, Roger, Dale, and I, the moment our beers came to the table, raised a toast to his memory and shared our admiration and respect for him.
Our family will be busy with dinners for the remainder of the month: this Sunday we'll have visitors in town and will eat after Paul performs in the afternoon; the following Sunday we'll celebrate Paul's birthday; and then, the grandaddy of them all, Thanksgiving Day, will be upon us.
No comments:
Post a Comment