HOW WOULD WE GET ANOTHER?

 1 of (hopefully) 100

Better Year to you all as we begin again or continue or stagnate as suits your person and situation. Hearing "happy" and "merry" are judgmental commands as far as I can tell. I always feel pressured to be other than I am.

I did not complete my writing goal of last year and barely completed my reading challenge. I am more myself, more centered, when I write. I just could not get that all down this year. Please bear with me as I try to find my groove and my voice. I am so overwhelmed that, thoughts coming so rapidly, organizing and focus or even choosing what to say first is daunting.

This is why a bit of the year in review is easier.

I had a great year of live music. I averaged almost one live show a. month which is a big leap over previous years, notwithstanding Covid. Highlights were Hot Tuna, Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Calexico, Billy Strings, and I finally saw Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters, by the skin of my teeth.

The delightful book finds were Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These, Diane di Prima's Recollections of My Life as A Woman, Helen R. Hull's Islanders, and Ann Petry's The Street..

I recently went to NYC and barely went to a museum so no art news there.

So this will get me started? I did have a remarkable, meaningful New Years' Day "come-to-life-Jesus" with my dear friend, FMB. I think we both lost a layer of skin and some tears. As usual, he was brilliant, insightful, and hilarious. Tracking where our conversations begin and end is impossible usually, but this one included some painful, revealing stories about our lives, childhoods, and the ridiculousness of history. Among my favorite comments he made was this "We're stuck in the world we have. I don't how we would get another."

Indeed.