A Septuagenarian Sings #8

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one." (John Lennon/Imagine) Daring to hope despite DT.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I squatted and peered, squatted and peered, squatted and peered – my knees popping like a scale of sonic booms.

Leaning towers of stacked chairs…A table laden with schedules and scores and church bulletins…Random chairs swathed in jackets and scarves…The choir room closet, crammed with floor-length robes…The grand piano in the corner of the room, where a middle schooler played Mozart.

I looked under all of them. More than once. More like four, or perhaps even five, times.

When it was obvious I had become a poster child for the proverbial definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results - I invaded the sanctity of my fellow singers’ cubbies. Had someone shoved my music binder there?

Nope.

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More than likely, come Thursday night rehearsal, someone will drop the binder in my lap, sheepishly apologizing for carting it home. Or the music will magically reappear weeks later, long after I give up hope – like the rosary I lost Christmas Eve showed up last week.

I am rooting for magic. For “magical thinking,” many of you may add wryly once you read what’s coming.

May St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things, come to the rescue. May he wave his pearly wand and return my music.

And, while he’s at it, may he return humankind’s, too.

“Musick, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have below.” Joseph Addison/Ode in praise of Musick

I can’t speak for you, but this mortal could use a little heaven on earth. In LA, we’ve experienced literal hell – fires destroying thousands of homes, including that of my daughter/son-in law and 20-and-counting friends/acquaintances. Another pal is coping with her husband’s unexpected death while holidaying in Australia. Plus both the boob tube and YouTube harrow us 24/7 with updates from the hellscape called DC.

I love the ‘k’ on the end of musick. What a genius reminder that – without melody, harmony, a passionate quest to nurture inner and outer songbirds of beauty – the world sickens.

The man that hath no musick in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils. William Shakespeare/The Merchant of Venice

O, the irony. What are those in control today but mega merchants?

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Meanwhile my ever-dissonant friendship with MAGA Mary is a hot mess. Because I left the GOP the millisecond it embraced DT and nothing makes a Trumper crazier than a ‘traitor,’ tensions between us have escalated to toxic levels – especially now that the nightmare Trump and team have spun is increasingly, ceaselessly harrowing.

By midweek last week, MAGA Mary and I were shooting texts like cannons at Gettysburg. Neither of us was willing to compromise, much less be Lee and concede territory.

However, by Friday, I reluctantly saw it was time to beat a hasty retreat. To ‘shake the dust off my feet’ and give MM and me a break from each other for a while.

Hopefully, sooner rather than later, things will shake out. (It appears DT and the Muskrat - term courtesy of Robert Reich - are finally being challenged. Yay, courts!) May democracy emerge more lush, more vibrantly colored than ever. Perhaps then, my cold war with MAGA Mary will have a shot at thawing.

I mourn that it has come to this. That I allowed myself to be so triggered.

Lesson learned: ignore the elephant in the room when hanging with other Republican/MAGA friends. That, or live in a blue bubble.

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“Those who are hardest to love need it the most,” Socrates advises me. DT, Elon Musk, MAGA minions, and Lenin-esque useful idiots – this means you, doesn’t it?

Let’s start with the Muskrat’s wrecking squad of pups. (Term for baby rats.) My liberal bleeding heart-brain would love to believe the pups are not beyond redemption. That, if St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, would get in on the action, the baby rats could be deprogrammed and re-souled. Particularly Marko, who got fired, then reinstated (sigh) for comments that make most racist diatribes and slurs sound like something out of Little Black Sambo.

But the grown-ups in Hades?

Can St. Anthony help JD Vance locate his lost integrity – Jesus H, JD, are you sleeping in the guest bedroom? I can’t imagine your defense of Marko pleases your ASIAN wife.

Can Republican senators and representatives find their lost backbone?

Can the tech bros reclaim their lost humility, empathy, generosity? Or the corporate overlords of legacy media the grit to recall that democracy dies in darkness?

DT, I wash my hands of. I shake the dust off my feet.
And while, yes, Musk is ‘young’– “the smartest 15-year-old boy in the world,” says journalist Ezra Klein– he may well be beyond redemption, too.

Two Humpty Dumpties falling off that Wall they’re so enamored of. Only the Divine, the Universe, the Force, or a damned good therapist can put them together again. In the meantime, let’s beat them at their awful game of Shock and Awe before our democracy, too, is too broken to piece back together.

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To prepare myself for the battles to come, I am taking the advice of activist/Course in Miracles teacher extraordinaire Marianne Williamson. En route to my mailbox are books on the life of Gandhi as well as Testament of Hope, a compendium of MLK Jr.’s writings and speeches. Deep in my gut, I know we’ll be walking in their footsteps soon. If DT and team follow through on their threat to ignore the courts, what other option do Light-bringers and Freedom Fighters have?

This coming April 19 will mark the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolution and our war against monarchical power…Please don’t get me wrong. I do not advocate violence. I’m simply reminding you that this nation was founded on resistance to arbitrary authority. We built American democracy in the face of what seemed to be impossible odds…

My friend Harold Meyerson suggests that on April 19 we stage massive peaceful protests in every city and town — crowds of Americans celebrating the anti-monarchical uprising of 1775 and pledging their allegiance to that heritage by denouncing Trump’s increasingly autocratic rule: Thereby flooding Trump and Musk’s zone still further.
Robert Reich

Like Joan Baez, MLK Jr., Gandhi, our founding fathers, and you, I have a dream.

I have a dream, and I refuse to be afraid. Albeit, in the wee hours I wonder. Do I have what it takes? Am I fizzed-up, food-colored sugar water – or the real thing?

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, someday

Oh, deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

We shall be alright
We shall be alright
We shall be alright, someday

We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace, someday

We are not afraid (oh Lord)
We are not afraid (oh Lord)
We are not afraid, today

Oh, deep in my heart
I know that I do believe
We shall overcome, someday

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Last Saturday, I sang at a funeral. The church was packed, bidding farewell to Betsey – who shared my love, I learned, of red lipstick and volunteering. I volunteer at a hospital and cancer support group. Betsey’s pet causes included Los Angeles’s Doheny Eye Center, whose mission is to further the conservation, improvement, and restoration of human eyesight.

I love this. Because you know what? 90-something-year-old Betsey, a lifelong Republican, voted Democrat in 2020 for the first time.

Betsey’s my patron saint. She saw what was coming. She saw the Light. She saw with Divine eyes of Light.

Stay tuned.

Jenine