Took a long drive on Sunday morning, going up and over the Uncompahgre Plateau and down on the far side, ending up in Naturita. The ride goes roughly like this: Ten miles of asphalt, ten miles of good gravel road, ten miles of single-track rutted cowpath, ten miles of good gravel, and finally ten miles of asphalt.
On the cowpath part the scenery was outstanding. Broad valleys, cliffs you could just drive right off of, little rivers winding here and there … made driving the narrow road and all the rut-straddling worth the trouble. I circled back home on comfortable and undemanding asphalt.
******
MORE REASONS NOT TO COMPLETELY DESPAIR ABOUT THE DEPLORABLE STATE OF COUNTRY MUSIC
Maren Morris has never been a comfortable fit in Nashville. Part of the problem is that she has a mind and uses it. That hasn’t always worked well for women in this genre in the last couple of decades, where sitting on a tailgate in a pair of cutoffs was more the model. You may recall the time that the Dixie Chicks were immediately consigned to the country-western sub-cellar when they had the audacity to criticize George W. and his war in Iraq during one of their concerts.
The example I’ve chosen for this morning is from her latest EP, which some regard as her swan song as she drives off with corporate Nashville in the rearview mirror. I hope not, but like I said, she has her own mind.
(You could ask Where is Willie Nelson in all this? Isn’t he one of the good guys? And my answer would be that of course he is. But at 90 years old, he’s from two generations of artists ago, when things weren’t deplorable yet.)
******
Robin has been off visiting her sister in Sioux Falls SD for the past several days. From her telephone reports they have left a trail through some of the most rugged shopping destinations, knocked off at least one decadent pastry shop, and in general behaved about as well as one could expect from a pair of country girls on a rampage.
Barring any complications involving the local constabulary, she should be returning to Paradise on Thursday, by which time I will have made the bed, vacuumed the larger snack fragments from the floors and furniture, and tidied wherever I can see tidying is needed.
My problem has always been that my idea of tidiness and Robin’s are not precisely the same. So I never quite pull off that con job of being the well-behaved husband that I strive for.
******
Ran across this very thoughtful piece on the NYTimes opinion page entitled “Being There.” It hit a nerve, a raw one in me, touching on an area where I have so often felt myself to be sadly lacking. Of feeling sort of paralyzed by someone’s need when they are going through a particularly rough patch. Recurrently having the idea that I should have done more, should have said this or that, should have been a better friend. Ultimately wondering if I really am that good friend that I thought I was.
The author describes what he regards as one of his own worst failures, not “being there” for a friend whose mother had passed away. I’m not going to list them, but I have my own tawdry compilation of inactions to regret.
When I was still a working stiff in the halls of medicine, I had opportunities galore to “be there.” And sometimes I was. Sometimes a phrase would pop out of my mouth that obviously gave comfort, and I tried to learn from that. But often I was mute, could not think for a moment of what I might say that would be just right, and so said nothing.
But, and here comes my point, there were times when I did step up. How? By literally being there, physically in the room with that person, saying nothing out loud but using the act of putting my body quietly in a chair to offer myself in whatever way was needed. Looking back, I realize that I was saying … tell me what I can do.
******
Good article in the NYTimes about aging, strongly suggesting that having a positive attitude is a good thing, and may add a couple of years to your existence schedule. I spend quite a bit of time in this blog dissing getting old, primarily because my basic posture has been to whine about my life situation at every stage. Another aspect is that I am amused by the ridiculous in life, and aging certainly provides material for that conversation.
Yesterday I had lunch with friend Rod, chomping down on a couple of chile rellenos at a local restaurant. Our chat ranged widely, but it was inevitable that age was on the table, if only briefly, several times. That somewhat hoary adage, “getting old is not for sissies” came up, and both the truth of it and the humor in it were noted. He mentioned that a drawback of having his cataract surgery was that once his vision had been surgically improved, he was unprepared for the face he now saw clearly in the mirror. My response was to describe my typical morning visit to the same mirror in the mornings. I rub my eyes, put on my glasses, throw out my arms to the side and declare to my image “Well, what fresh hell have you got for me today?”
(I’m sorry, I so love that phrase of Dorothy Parker’s, What fresh hell is this?, that I keep using it in almost any kind of situation. If repeating myself is a sin, I am doubly doomed.)
One of my children, bless her heart, has been making fun of my addiction to Metamucil for decades, ever since on a long-ago visit to her home I had to make a late night trip to a grocery store to refresh my supply. I assured her that she didn’t want to be around me if I was forced to go into withdrawal, so would she please get out of my way and tell me the shortest route to the store.
I was curious this morning, never having seen a psyllium plant, so I did my Googling and here’s a photo of a patch of it. Attractive in a way, looking much like timothy hay, don’t you think?
The husks of the seeds of this plant have magical properties, some proven and others claimed but which fall more into the area of faith than of science. I am satisfied with science once again and will leave the rest of the discussion to others. And that’s all I am going to say about that.
******
******
Little Home In The Valley 