Tumultuous Days in America

I’m on a run of missing important historical moments.  On the second Monday of September 2001 the Bob Dylan CD I had pre-ordered, Love and Theft, came in the mail.  I waited till the next morning after Dean and I had breakfast and he was out the door in time for school before I put it in the stereo.  I cranked it up and played it twice. The third time I started singing along.  Then I took it to my car and played it as I drove down the hill to the office. 

As I walked to the office down the alley from where I parked, I could smell the cooks getting lunch ready at the little Mexican restaurant near the office.  I love the smell of tortillas heating up.  Reminds me of Oaxaca.  I was whistling a just learned song from the new album (“Floater”) as I walked in YSB’s back door. 

I knew something was going on as soon as I walked in the door.  My staff were huddled around one of the office doors down the hall from mine, stacked up, leaning in, listening intently to the sound of a radio.  It was the news.

“What’s going on?”

My tech person looked at me with big eyes.

“You mean you haven’t heard?”

“No. What?”

“A plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.  It’s on fire.”

The day, the year, the world it seemed, fell apart after that.  Our country was attacked by outside forces.  Our reaction to that attack changed the world.

 

On the first Wednesday of 2021, a year that could not arrive soon enough, I was settled into the shack.  I had a fire going since morning and it was cozy.  The world outside the glass wall facing east was wondrous.  Soon after New Year’s Day, we settled into a weather pattern of low gray clouds, moisture, precipitation, but no wind.  For days fine snow, ice, hoar frost, and frozen fog piled up in turn on the branches of trees surrounding the shack, creating patterns of soft white lines.  Winter wrapped around us, soaked up the sound, and made us feel safe. 

Since the winter solstice, I’d been binging on Beethoven.  I heard somewhere that Ludwig Von would have been 250 years old on December 16.  And still popular.  It’s amazing.  I played the symphonies I have; 3,4,5, and 6, some string quartets, and threw in a little Wagner for good measure.

On that morning of January 6, while making coffee, I called my brother Darwin.  We like to talk about politics, and the previous night was a good one for Democrats.  The outcome of a special election in Georgia saw two Democrats headed to Washington, which will give the new Biden administration control of not only the White House and House of Representatives, but the newly formed Senate too.  A new day is going to dawn.

The outgoing Senate was that day scheduled to confirm the vote of the Electoral College and provide a “final answer” to the absurd question of who won the presidential election.  American elections are free, fair, and predictable, unlike the game show Jeopardy, which forces you to guess and place bets.  Elections are based on simple arithmetic, and the presidential race had been added up and tallied for nearly two months.  Approval of the electoral college vote is a formality, and the outcome was clear.  Biden and Harris won.  After saying goodbye to my brother, I headed to the shack and another day in the white woods.  Good days lay ahead. 

After reading the last entry in an advent devotional I began to write while listening to the Ride of the Valkyries.  When it ended, I decided it was time to change the audio.  We were six days into a new year.  I put away the classical and went for jazz.  It had been a long time since I’d heard Chet Baker and Art Pepper.  I put on an album they recorded in 1956 called Playboys.  I forgot how good it was.  As the afternoon began the sky seemed to lighten.  It was Epiphany after all.

When I play music, I keep the CD jacket or album cover on my desk and follow the tracks.  I always smile at the names of the jazz numbers.  Only the musicians know the significance of the titles.  At times, they improvise on a melody I recognize but mostly the tunes and their titles are random and mysterious.

Chet Baker’s trumpet and Art Pepper’s alto sax stand out on numbers like Resonant Emotions, Little Girl, Sonny Boy, and C.T.A..  They are the headliners but their band members, Carl Perkins on piano, Curtis Counce on standup bass, and Lawrence Marable on drums are just as talented.  The shack was energized.  Good jazz can make your heart sing.  My heart sang all afternoon on January 6.

While at my desk in the shack my view is east looking into a wooded ravine.  That day I had seen scattered patches of sunlight break through the trees.  When I leave to go back to my house, I face west toward Caton Road.  On January 6 when leaving the shack at about 4:15 that west-facing view provided my first look at an open sky in days.  I could see blue between clouds glowing orange from the setting sun.  It was beautiful.

In the house, I stopped in the kitchen.  While getting a beer from the fridge, I thought I heard my wife sniffling in the living room.  I could hear the TV.  I went to check on her.

“What’s wrong?”

She pointed to the TV.

“They overwhelmed security and took over the Capitol.  It's awful.  The senators were evacuated to a safe place.  A woman was shot and killed.”

I knelt beside her chair and put my hand on her shoulder.  Both of us stared at the images of rioters breaking windows and jumping into the building which represents the physical heart of America’s representative government.

“Who are they?”

“It’s the people who went to Washington for the Trump rally.  He told them to go to the Capitol.  Sent them there. Told them he was going with them.“

Once again, the day, the year, the world it seemed, fell apart.  Our country was attacked, but this time from the inside.  This attack, now some 20 years later, came from inside the country.  The threat is us. Our reaction to this new attack will change the future of America’s democracy.  If we follow the light, we’ll find our way.