Matthew Gallaway

When Central Park Is a Dream (Week Twenty-Eight)

As it turned out, this week -- the twenty-eighth of the pandemic and (some form of) lockdown -- I wasn't quite ready to return to life in daylight. The previous week, I had gone out at different points in the morning and afternoon and felt constrained by the need to constantly maneuver around people, cars, and construction sites. I couldn't find my 'space,' that mental state when you're running and the miles just kind of evaporate. The streets are so much more peaceful at five in the morning. I started getting up early again and found myself running longer distances for no reason except that it felt good to run through the sleeping city, to be aware of its massive scale and potential in a way far removed from the depressing news cycle. 

The city at this hour also allows for a kind of spontaneity that can be lost in the routine of lockdown days. This morning, I was planning to run down the west side to Houston Street before returning north, which has become my 'long-run' route, but when I reached 72nd Street, I decided to head east to Broadway and then south to Central Park. There was no automobile traffic, so I ran on the streets, which are always better than the sidewalks, with their treacherous curbs and cracks. 

I ran the loop in Central Park, where I passed no more than a handful of people. This part of the run wasn't easy: unlike the way it appears on two-dimensional maps, Central Park is secretly very hilly, and the road is always twisting, which makes it easy to lose track of exactly where you are, particularly when you're running in the dark. But the pavement is in perfect condition, which in combination with the trees and lamplights make it the most dreamlike landscape I've encountered in the city. (It's not nearly as dreamlike in the day, however, when the swarms of bikers and runners take you away from your thoughts.) A few times, while running along the edge of the forest -- and it seems like a forest at this hour -- I heard the trees: creaking branches, rustling leaves, possibly a falling acorn, and for a few seconds, I felt like everything was going to be okay.

By the time I made it around, I wouldn't have been surprised if the loop had been five miles long, but I also wouldn't have been surprised it it were ten miles long. In fact, it's slightly over six miles, which was a bit shorter than I was hoping, because when I left the park, I looked at my watch and realized that -- if I wanted to run twenty miles (my target) -- I still had eight to go.

I ran back back to the river, where I turned north just in time to see the first streaks of daylight. Some parts of this path are also magical, like when it takes you out over the water and the guardrails are lit by square yellow lights that remind me of the lumenaria that my family -- and many of our suburban neighbors -- used to put out on Christmas Eve when I was growing up, which as I think about it now was one of the best Christmas traditions.

And of course the George Washington Bridge sparkles beautifully over the mutating pastels of the dawn. It really *is* like a painting (except for the rats that constantly dart back and forth across the path at this hour). 

In the end, I ran 19.76 miles, which was a bit short of twenty, but got me to my other target, which was 92.24 miles over the course of seven days, or an average of a half-marathon each day. Recently, I read about a woman who's run something like 150 consecutive half marathons, which -- along with the nice weather -- inspired me to make a similar (but much shorter) effort.

Having made it seven days, I realized that I had no desire to continue such a streak. Still, with the mornings getting darker and darker, it's impossible to predict where the streets may lead. 

Goodbye Summer (Week Twenty-Seven)

Even though the shift has been gradual -- just a few minutes a day -- it wasn't until this week that I noticed how much later the sun has been rising in comparison to a few months ago. The prospect of getting up early and running for an hour in the dark was losing its appeal. The payoff -- to watch the sun rise over the park or the river -- was still great, and, in theory, I could just start my run a bit later, but something in me was shifting along with the seasons. I no longer craved these hours before dawn. 

I knew I would miss these early mornings at the park, when nobody else was there. 

I noticed the first hints of red in the leaves. 

I wondered what went on here during the days, but the flowers offered no information. 

Most years, the arrival of fall offers some relief and a sense of possibility, not in terms of starting new projects but in taking stock, tying up loose ends, preparing for the winter. This feeling -- grounding and motivational -- is different than what I ever feel in the summer, when I dream about escape, when I want to melt and evaporate. This September, however, any increased awareness I have about my place in the world (actual or desired) is accompanied by dread about how these next few weeks/months/years are going to unfold, and a corresponding futility to do anything about it. Is there a machine that can take us all back three or four thousand years so that, this time, we can do things differently, with more regard for each other and the planet? 

I recently read a tweet that said: "At every stage people have told me I was too pessimistic and mostly I’ve been too optimistic." 

Summer, it seems, is a season for denial, whereas fall is a time for reality. 

Birds Crossing Rivers (Week Twenty-Six)

I woke up early and ran downtown, hoping to see the 9/11 light memorial, which I read was going to be left on until dawn. By the time I got to 14th Street, though, I was lost in other thoughts and forgot to look south. (Duh.) When I *did* remember -- at some point in the twenties -- I turned around and saw what looked more like a bright moon behind the clouds than twin columns of light. It was a little disappointing, but I had other things to ponder and appreciate (or dread), like the cool breeze that had finally replaced the unbearable humidity and the many, many miles that remained in my run (but not as many as there had once been). 

Today was also the first time I ran with a new watch that I recently bought when a button on my old one began to stick. After doing some research on running watches circa 2020, I was quickly overwhelmed and bought the same (mildly upgraded) model I already had, which has GPS and pretty much nothing else, although it does track pace, strides, and elevation. I was tempted to get one that measured heart rate and [a million other things], but I feared losing myself in the 'data' of running, which -- like the data of everything else -- is so much more of A Thing these days than it used to be. I have a friend from my high school cross-country team who -- unless he's training for a race -- never wears a watch, and sometimes that thought appeals to me, but not enough to cut the cord, because I've become addicted to reliving my route on the app. I like knowing the precise number of miles I ran instead of the estimates I used to make in the past. That said, I'm often struck by how much more of our lives we record than we used to, and I increasingly ask myself whether there's any point in having this record, particularly when you consider the burden of organizing it. Anyway, I bought the watch and was happy when the button worked.  

This week I published a piece, written at the request of my publisher, on the topic of how I became a writer, along with some of the privileges I've enjoyed along the way. More specifically, it's about a Very Easy job I once had, which gave me the time to research and write my first novel. It's something I've (half) joked about in the past without considering the job -- and the time it provided -- in a larger social/political/economic context, which I now wanted to do in light of our failing government and the critical need for a new and better one. 

It felt good to write again (outside of this blog), which is something -- longer writing -- that has fallen by the wayside for me over the past six months. Like many others, I find it difficult to maintain a level of sustained concentration. There's more time to write, but I can't escape the feeling that we're on the precipice of something that, whatever it is, will make a new novel seem even more superfluous than usual. Do I really want to spend 7000 hours at this point laboring over a work of fiction? I'm not sure, but it's not a question I would have asked myself a year ago. 

As we begin the seventh month of the Covid era, I'm learning to appreciate what I think about as small, low-stakes respites from what so often seems like a death spiral of our society. One example is to stopping on my daily run to spend a few minutes watching the sunrise on the Hudson. 

Another example is writing and recording a song, which -- in contrast to a novel -- can be done in a few days. It feels good to finish something in the middle of so much uncertainty. I'm hoping that, when I return to writing, I can bring some of the improvisational spirit to the venture, which can lead to some interesting (or at least unexpected) results. Here's my latest :)  

Here's a link to the song and the isolation playlist.

After six months, I'm not sure how long it's going to take to reach the other side, or even what the other side looks like. 

Early Mornings in Late Summer (Week Twenty-Five)

To get to the park from my house means running almost two miles up a long hill, which in addition to being a two-mile hill requires navigating the usual perils of city streets, even at five in the morning: cars and buses and garbage trucks and pedestrians and heaps of trash on the sidewalk. But the hassle feels worth it when, after stepping around the swinging gate -- this road is now (mostly) closed to traffic -- I see nothing but smooth, empty pavement, a gently sloping downhill, and the brightening horizon. This is nice, I think: if only real life worked like this. 

On the other side of the park, the path is still dark: the sun hasn't reached the western edge. Even though the light and shadows are beautiful and mysterious, I'm always a little worried about who (or what!) lurks around the bend. It's exciting for a moment to think that I'm in a horror movie, until I remember that, well, actually, I *am* living in a horror movie that has nothing to do with a dark path in the park. In this movie, the true monsters don't live in the bushes but can be found running the government and the monopolies. And running fast is no guarantee of escape. 

In the heather gardens, the lamplight makes the landscape glow in muted but surreal colors. It looks artificial, like a stage or movie set, like the grotto that King Ludwig builds in his castle in Visconti's version of the monarch's life. 

The nature here is just an illusion. I'm not actually in the middle of nowhere, even though it feels that way. 

Meanwhile, above the artifice, the sky is getting bluer. 

I like this time of year. The city feels a little quieter. Even when it's impossibly hot and humid -- as bad as July -- there's something about the light, or maybe the air, that tells me in a whisper that the misery isn't going to last. 

Or at least this very specific form of misery, the one I associate with hot, summer days in the city, which -- unlike so many other forms of misery -- is relatively benign. It would be nice if all we had to complain about this summer were a few heat waves. 

Having completed my first loop, I'm back at the top. It's time, I tell myself, to forget about real misery and real monsters. The sun is coming up and I'm about to take off down a long hill. 

As long I'm flying down this road, I can convince myself that it's never going to end. 

All Rivers End (Week Twenty-Four)

This morning, I was running down Riverside Drive when I felt something moving around in my shoe. Something had managed to find its way into the little space next to my achilles heel. Oh great, I thought, picturing a spider. 'What?' it would say when I shook it out. 'I needed a ride downtown and didn't want to take an Uber.' As it turned out though, it was just a little twig, who didn't seem upset when I explained that it couldn't ride in my sock. 

Stephen and I watched a large number of gay-themed movies this past week as part of Outfest LA, a film festival featuring (as per the website) '160+ films, 35 world-premieres, 6-nights of drive-ins, concerts and live events featuring LGBTQIA+ storytellers.' As you would expect, we liked some of the films more than others, but regardless of the specific content, it felt good to be immersed in a gay universe, particularly when I juxtaposed this sense of relief/validation with the surreal nightmare of the Republican National Convention (not that I watched any of it, but it was impossible to avoid reading about it, which was bad enough).It's sometimes easy to forget how straight the world is, at least as depicted on mainstream television, movies, and books, and how this fundamental straightness, whether the intent is conscious or not, has a degrading, demoralizing impact on those of us who are not straight, individually and -- I believe -- collectively. 

My favorite films were the ones that avoided what I would describe as 'slice-of-life' narratives, which to me often feel like the filmmaker is trying to tell the (straight) world, 'see, we're just like everyone else.' In 'Dry Wind' -- from Brazil -- the film is infused with surreal S&M dream imagery and colors that recall 'Querelle,' Fassbinder's last movie; the sex is explicit and erotic, the framing of the shots always gay. The lead is middle-aged guy, bearish, who is sent to a remote part of Brazil to work on some kind of infrastructure project. He's part of group of workers trying to unionize with mixed results. The gay sex; the class awareness; the surreal filmmaking; the group shower scenes: it's hard to imagine such a movie being made in the United States, at least in 2020. 'Ask Any Buddy' -- which was made in the United States -- is a montage of pornography clips from the 1960's, '70s, and '80s. Sex aside -- and there's a lot of it -- many of the clips are campy and fun. It also captures a sense of seedy (erotic) possibility that defined New York City in the pre-Friends era. As I watched, I couldn't help but wish that more contemporary filmmakers drew their inspiration from vintage gay porn instead of sanitized Hollywood rom-coms and tearjerkers. One new film from the United States I did like was 'The Obituary of Tunde Johnson,' which is about a gay, Black teenager from an upper-class neighborhood in L.A who is terrorized by the police. Thanks to some innovative storytelling techniques that have the narrative jumping back and forth in time and in parallel universes, the film -- though bleak -- transcends reality in ways I associate with queer futurism. A final film I enjoyed -- 'Suk Suk' -- was made in Hong Kong. It's about two older men, both closeted -- one married to a woman, and one a widower -- who meet and fall in love. Though the film has moments of humor and redemption, it has an aura of tragic despair -- as each man confronts the unfulfilled potential of his life, now that he's glimpsed what it could have been like -- that I found very effective and sad. And relevant, particularly while pondering -- as the men in this movie do -- what the final years of their lives will look like, and whether they would have to be spent in nursing homes where they would be alone or forced back into the closet. (One of my big fears.) 

Some of the shorts were also great. My favorite -- 'Candis for President' -- stars Candis Cayne, who decides to run for president and hits the streets of L.A. with her campaign manager. It made me wish that Larry David would retire and hand his show over to Candis Cayne (and her manager). 

I wanted to make a correction to last week's post, in which I referred to the above plant as a 'native' begonia, when in fact -- as several readers pointed out -- it's a 'hardy begonia' (begonia grandis). Whatever it's called, I can't recommend this plant enough for a shady part of the garden :) 

This week I continued to run very early in the morning, which is when I feel most at peace with the outside world. The other twenty-two hours are more taxing and abrasive; it's not just doomscrolling through Twitter, but a sense of doomscrolling through our collective existence. 

I find myself increasingly despondent about the political landscape (and, really, what other landscape matters right now?). There appears to be no will in either of the ruling parties (or at least the ruling factions of these parties) to change the fundamental dynamic of how the government rules -- or cares for -- its citizens. I try to reason with myself. Maybe Biden will win and we'll at least put the brakes on this slow-moving car crash; but it's hard to imagine him overseeing the kind of seismic shifts that (I believe) society needs to avoid more of the chaos and punishment we've witnessed, except -- as recent history tells us -- it will be worse. 

In the effort to sublimate some of this anxiety into something more calming, I wrote and recorded a new song this week:

 

Link here. 

Song notes: I wrote this song on an acoustic guitar, using a new picking pattern that definitely stretched my envelope but I hope will be of some use going forward :) I also found a new setting for a delay effect on Cubasis that I used on the electric guitars. Otherwise, just guitars, drums, and bass. Is there a genre called 'bleak core'? If so, this is my current entry. 

Also, a few other readers have asked for a complete list of Death Culture @ Sea quarantine songs. You can find a complete playlist here, along with some pre-quarantine efforts. 

How does this chapter of our country's history end? At the moment, I have no idea, and I'm not sure I want to find out.   

Distance Running (Week Twenty-Three)

This week, the twenty-third since the lockdown began, was marked by a single day that reminded me that cool weather is more than just theoretically possible. I had forgotten what it was like to step outside, take a few deep breaths, and feel weightless relief. I remembered that I had sweaters and long pants in my closet: so often this summer I would see these clothes and ask myself why I had ever bought such useless things. But now I reconsidered: was it possible that I might actually want to wear them again? Maybe someday. When I went out on that one perfect morning, it was like running without a twenty-five pound jacket I hadn't even realized I was wearing. And even though I was disappointed when the heat returned one day later (just like the weather people said it would), it wasn't so bad, because I had some new evidence that this condition was temporary, or at least not infinite.  

I've never practiced meditation of any kind, but from what I've read about it, I like to think that running -- and especially distance running -- is not completely dissimilar. The focus on breathing, the absence of thought that somehow increases the intensity of concentration, the awareness of your body and the idea that whatever discomfort (short of intense pain, which is a different story) or pleasure you experience is temporary: all of this applies to running. Even the thing about holding your middle finger and thumb together applies to running, albeit when you run it's better to very loosely hold your index finger against your thumb. When I was running in college, a sprinter friend told me to imagine holding a potato chip in this manner without breaking it, which is a lesson I've never forgotten.

I suspect that running, in a way, is a diluted form of meditation, but I'm old enough to admit that not everything has to be pure to be effective. 

This week, thanks to the cooler weather day, I also spent more time in the garden.

One of the exciting developments this year has been the arrival of a praying mantis. A friend of ours spotted an egg case last winter and then I saw a very small praying mantis a few months ago. (Are they called babies? And can they be interchanged with human babies? Human couple: 'We were having trouble conceiving and so we adopted this baby instead.') Now there's an older and much bigger praying mantis, an adult (I think?), perfectly camouflaged in the leaves of the Japanese maple (and a columnar pin-oak sapling I started from an acorn a few years ago). 

I was also happy to see the native begonia bloom. It's a small flower, but at this time of year, expectations are low.

My expectations are also low for the world outside (and for myself). There's a lot happening and not happening. 

No matter how hard I look, everything seems a little blurry. I always feel like the outside world is moving at a different pace than I am, which is something I've learned to accept. 

Watching the world (and myself) change, in other words, is another kind of distance running. 

Tired of Rooms (Week Twenty-Two)

This week my mother called me from Pennsylvania, where she lives with my father in a long-term assisted living facility (meaning they have an apartment but full-time medical care is available if they need it). A first-wave feminist, she's spent a good portion of her life protesting, marching, and consciousness raising, and she -- along with a few of her left-leaning friends, who are definitely in the minority  -- have been meeting to discuss ways to help with the election. One of their ideas was to put a notice in the community newsletter, which goes out to all of the residents, saying that they would be happy to assist anyone interested in absentee/mail-in voting by either 1) helping to get a ballot, or 2) helping to fill it in. There was no mention of voting for a particular party. As with everything in that goes in the newsletter, the notice had to be vetted and approved by the management of the facility, which is subsidiary of a corporation located somewhere in the midwest. You might (or might not) think that a non-partisan message about voting would not be controversial in the United States, but my mother told me that several residents complained to the management of the facility and to the corporate headquarters, saying that it was 'too political.' She was worried: could she get 'kicked out' of her facility? It dawned on her that she was in many ways at the mercy of a corporation, and I couldn't disagree. I told her that I doubted that anything would come of it, but that I understood her impulse to 'tone down' her political convictions when interacting with her neighbors, which of course is how we are taught to operate in a corporate workspace. When your livelihood (or housing) is at stake -- or even if it feels that way to you -- you learn pretty quickly to filter what you say for fear of offending others, particularly those who are (or seem to be) connected to the power of the institution. I felt bad for my mother, and I felt bad for our country. 

In the twenty-second week of the lockdown, I often felt overwhelmed by alternating states of futility and complacency. I saw a tweet in which a member of Congress wrote about his disbelief and anger that the USPS was removing mailboxes, to which someone responded: you should write to your Congressman! (Or something to that effect). As I watch the dismantling of our democratic mechanisms, I'm not sure how to respond. It's like we need ongoing demonstrations across the entire country (world) for at least the next year, and who's going to organize that, much less participate? So many of us are living under excruciating pressure: to make money, to stay healthy, to take care of children (cats). We go about our lives with the expectations that our representatives will fight for our interests and that our political opponents will to some extent respect the law. But that's not happening, and nobody seems capable of stopping those who don't follow the law. There are pockets of hope and resistance, but the leaders of these pockets are themselves marginalized by their own institutions (e.g., AOC's sixty seconds). 

Much of the time, life feels incongruously normal. I wake up, I go for runs, I spend the day working (more or less: there are no bright lines in the lockdown), I watch television or play guitar or read a book. I sometimes talk to friends. And this normalcy, when I juxtapose it with the outside world/my Twitter feed, is jarring. It makes me feel a little guilty for what's happening, not because I support it in theory or in practice, but because my participation in (an increasingly bad) society somehow makes me a participant. But this realization brings with it nothing but a sense of futility, because I *have* to participate to live. In some ways, it's the fundamental flaw with a system that requires people to make a choice between working and starving. In my new fantasy government, nobody would be forced to work. (There would also be no billionaires.) 

On a less dire note, this week I did make a discovery about myself -- and specifically my interest in music and running -- which was the result of recording a new song. The song has two instrumental breaks, during which I played one of my all-time favorite drum beats, which (in my mind, anyway) has roots in 1) The Velvet Underground (and specifically the song 'What Goes On'), 2) The Modern Lovers (and specifically 'Roadrunner'), 3) Bedhead (and specifically 'Living Well'), and 3) so much of (early) Stereolab ('The Seeming and the Meaning' or 'Jenny Ondioline' among many others). Anyway, what I realized listening to this beat is that it captures a kind of mood or energy that I associate with distance running; it's not exactly soothing, but is tranquilizing; repetitive and energizing, like it pushes you into this almost mindless state of motion that you want to last forever. It's like a dream state in which you are moving through a landscape that is shimmering and electrified. Here's the song: 

And the link. 

Recording notes: Recorded and mixed with Cubasis 3 on an iPhone 8. I stretched my iPhone's memory to the outer limits with this song and -- to make it work -- had to delete a few tracks (I probably didn't need them). I was excited to use a Rickenbacker 12-string on the instrumental sections that I bought twenty+ years ago at the height of my obsession with the Byrds. 

I have a ringing in my ears, I'm swimming in the river of my years. 

In the end we lose our sight and drift into the river of the night.  

The Magic of Hills (Week Twenty-One)

This morning I went for a long run, something I try to do once a week. Recently I've started going on a new route, which entails going south, mostly on Riverside Drive and West End Avenue, to 34th Street, before I turn around and run back along the river. I like this route because it feels like I'm mostly running downhill from Washington Heights to midtown, and then flat along the river, which leaves only a half-mile hill at the end (very steep, but relatively short). I've done this route in reverse and find it deadly because it feels like you're running uphill the last seven miles. Logically, I know that the total ascent is the same regardless of the direction -- it's a loop -- but somehow I'm certain that the geography is mutating as I run across it, which makes one direction better than the other. Or at least that's how it seems when I'm running (the right direction), when the world somehow feels more fluid and beautiful. My favorite moment is when the path going north cuts back to the river and you can see the bridge six miles away, somehow beckoning and warning. Six miles at this juncture can seem like a long way but somehow it gradually disappears if you keep going, drifting past the piers and the park benches and the other people who are out looking tired or not tired, which I sometimes think after twenty-one weeks of lockdown are the only states of being we have left.   

This week it rained a lot, which in a way was a relief because it's been so hot. But I'm still tired of the humidity. I sometimes worry that August will be as bad as July. 

Yesterday on my run I took a picture of the United States as we head into the final stretch of the presidential campaign. 

For some reason, our hellibores didn't bloom this year but they have gigantic leaves. One of these days I want to go out and find (small) dinosaurs foraging in the hellibores. 

Clio, the youngest of our three cats, is the only one who wasn't deterred by the rain. She's also constantly hoping to find small dinosaurs. 

This morning, I passed someone swimming north along the banks of the Hudson. They also seemed tired -- each stroke a slow clawing motion (and they had a small buoy tied to their waist?) -- but they were determined. I couldn't imagine swimming, especially after all the rain we've had, which means any runoff from the sewage system flows directly in the river, untreated. But it would be nice to go into the water, especially in this heat. Someday, I thought, when the city stops wasting billions of dollars on policing and starts spending it on upgrading our sewer system (among a million other pressing needs), I might venture into the Hudson, but for now, I'll just imagine it when I run past the beach. 

Cardigan (Week Twenty)

I've been thinking about something the governor said last week in response to a question about taxing billionaires. I wasn't paying close attention, so some of these figures might be off, but the idea was that a relatively small number of billionaires could be taxed quite heavily in order to close a $20 billion deficit that New York State now faces. Cuomo thought it was hilarious: 'If we taxed billionaires like that,' he said, 'there wouldn't be any billionaires left!' Sometimes people are so used to looking at the world through their own lens -- while assuming that the world they have always known represents the right way to do things, usually by way of their having acquired power in it -- that it doesn't occur to them that an idea they find ridiculous would, if implemented, actually be an improvement. 

This week the park was an oasis on my morning runs, which because of the hot, humid weather continued to fall on the (self-inflicted) torture side of the spectrum. But even when I'm dying, I always feel better running through the park; something about being with the trees and the flowers makes the rest of the world and its billionaires seem far away. 

One of the nice things about living uptown is that (I'm pretty sure), unlike the rest of Manhattan, it's free of billionaires. It makes me wonder what Cuomo would say if he visited. 'What's wrong with this place? Where are all my billionaires?' 

This week Taylor Swift release a new album called 'Folklore,' which made me think of one of my favorite Husker Du songs of the same name. My knowledge of Taylor Swift comes mostly from watching Terrace House, which featured at least two of her songs as themes for different seasons of the show. A few years ago, I surprised one of my nieces (a big TS fan) by singing along with her to 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.' So far I've only listened to one song from her new record -- 'Cardigan' -- which more than anything made me wish I could crawl through our piano bench and end up in a cool river in the middle of a forest. Maybe one day I'll hear it on Terrace House.  

Somehow I've reached a stage of my life where I'm incapable of appreciating mass American culture except when filtered through mass Japanese culture (or maybe just through Terrace House). Terrace House is the invisible audience I think about when I work on one of my own songs: I ask myself if it (or, more likely, five-fifteen seconds of it) could ever be used on Terrace House, and while I'm sure the practical answer is 'not in a million years' it feels good to imagine. Life goes on and our dreams evolve. Anyway, I was inspired by Taylor Swift to also write a song called 'Cardigan,' but from the vantage point of saying goodbye to the cardigan instead of *being* the cardigan (as in her song). I think a lot (especially in lockdown) about saying goodbye to things I've grown attached to; something like an old sweater, or maybe the metaphorical version of an old sweater. The spirit of these reflections is not just melancholy: to be aware of a looming goodbye can also help to make the present, while we still possess this thing, seem more valuable. I think a big part of life as an adult is learning how to balance the dread of death (in its many forms) with the pleasures of life. (If that makes sense.) Here's the song: 

And here's a link. 

Production notes (***New Feature***): Recorded and mixed on Cubasis (for iOS). I was happy to use my acoustic guitar, which is a very old (circa 1930) Martin. It's not always easy to record in this context but I think the tone came through nicely (I doubled the finger picking part). The electric guitar is a Fender Telecaster Custom from 1972, which IMO always sounds great. So far I haven't found a guitar distortion setting/plug-in I like in any electronic context. (Send recommendations!) Will it ever not be too soon to use a synthesized flute on the long outro of a song? Probably, but I couldn't resist. I would love to be able a record a real tambourine but all my attempts sounded like garbage, so for now the electronic version will have to suffice :) 

Be wide awake. 

 

Will July Ever End (Week Nineteen)

Something about the heat, when combined with the (in)elastic sense of lockdown time, made me wonder if July would ever end. When I remembered the beginning of July, it seemed like it had been years ago, and yet here we were, years later but with so much time left before the month ended. I had also been thinking about time in a more functional way after reading a piece by Edith Zimmerman about running. Edith is relatively new to running and has a gift for it -- and for writing (and drawing comics) about it -- but recently found herself running slower than usual. Instead of worrying, she resolves to focus on the process of becoming an athlete, which doesn't have anything to do with speed or time. I found this message reassuring, given that I, too, have been running a lot slower than usual, something I like to attribute to the humidity or technology -- me, after every run last week: 'I wonder if my watch is broken?' -- but which (let's face it) is part of getting older. As someone who's been running for my entire life, there's no question that my speed is on the wane. It could be depressing to consider (and sometimes it is), but I always remind myself that I don't need to beat anyone, including my past self; I don't need to set a 'PR' to be 'a runner.' There's no reason I can't go out, the way I did this morning and most of the ones before that, and turn north onto the Hudson River and feel overwhelmed with insignificance and gratitude at the sight of the George Washington Bridge -- six miles to the north, miles that will slowly disappear as I approach -- floating across the water, its aura of industrial ambivalence bathed in the pink haze of the dawn. 

It's a lesson I've also tried to bring to the garden, which has entered a phase I call the 'doldrums,' this year made worse by the fact that we did not take our usual trip to the suburbs to buy annuals. But there are always new things to appreciate in the garden, such as these native begonias, which have finally established themselves in the shadiest corner. I even transplanted a few sprouts to another shady spot, and they seem to have taken, which makes me look forward to next year -- or maybe the one after that -- when they will presumably be as big as their parents. 

And, somehow, finding something new to appreciate makes it easier to also appreciate what we have, such as our toad lilies, which seem to be doing well and, going by the past few years, will bloom in the fall. 

I also like this little strand from a clump of coreopsis we planted a few years ago, when we were still pretending that the garden gets more light than it does; somehow it's managed to survive and has a few flowers.   

I spent some time watching ants rush up and down the trunk of the birch tree. Where were they going and why? It was the same question I asked watching cars on the West Side Highway, or -- sometimes -- when I looked at myself in the mirror. 

I never feel lost when I look at our ferns, which exude confidence and certainty about their place in the world. If only I could be a fern. 

Another nice thing about this time of year is that the birch tree starts to shed seeds and leaves, which gives me an excuse to sweep the path. That way, when I'm on a video call and someone asks what I did over the weekend, instead of saying 'I scrolled through Twitter and felt very stressed out about the imminent collapse of society at the hands of greedy Republicans and oblivious Democrats,' I can say, 'I swept the path -- it was very satisfying.' 

Our potted dwarf conifers don't have quite the same effect, but they're getting by in an imperfect world. A few years ago, they were really struggling and we moved them out of the ground and into pots to maximize their exposure to the sun. Now, they seem healthy and comfortable (if not as exuberant as the ferns, but really, what is?). 

The cats are always with me in the garden. Here's Clio asking for permission to climb to the top of the wall, which I never give to her. 'You just can't go everywhere,' I tell her. 'Especially in 2020. You'll get lost or beaten up by the police or catch something you don't want.' Lecturing the cats like this makes me relieved that I never had children. 

Recently, a new stray showed up and has been watching us from its spot on the wall. My heart always breaks a little when I see friendly ones, because I want to adopt them all and we're already maxed out. (But if anyone's interested, let me know: my gut tells me that this one would make a very good pet. Or let me go full-on Cat Lady and say it has 'an old soul'.)

There are actually four cats in this picture (our three and the little black stray, on top of the wall), everyone -- at least in my imagination -- trying in a very uncertain world to figure out where they belong and how best to get there.