Get Some Gone: Tiptoeing In and Out of Nashville

I heard and loved the phrase, “Get some gone” when I listened to a podcast about the history of inequality in Nashville. I learned that the James Cayce Homes, in East Nashville, is the oldest public housing project in Nashville. According to the podcast, the residents came up with the phrase “get some gone” to describe the yearning to move out of the projects someday. Any day. I’m borrowing the phrase to describe how I have felt this past year-and-a-half. Some days, I just wanted to “get some gone”. Needless to say, this is a First World Problem, and not at all on the same scale as what the Cayce residents dream about. I’m going to borrow the phrase anyway.

The murals aren’t just decorative. They give me important advice just when I need it. And even when I don’t ask. Kind of like Jewish mothers.

Where have you been, a few of my faithful readers have asked recently. O.K., two of you asked. The problem is I don’t know how to answer that question. It’s not that I have been too busy to write. Obviously. It’s that I have both too much and nothing to say. But when has that ever stopped me before from weighing in on the world through this blog? So after a sabbatical from my regular sabbatical life, I’m back to fill you in on life in Nashville and beyond.

The last time I posted a blog, we had just finished up an election and survived an insurrection. We were waiting patiently for news about our vaccines. Then we got those vaccines, and looked forward to seeing each other. A window opened up, we crawled out, and now we’re back inside, waiting. I’ll admit to getting my hopes up about a return to life as we knew it. Silly me. I should never have hoped for a Rose Garden. These song lyrics seem a little laughable these days:

“I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There's gotta be a little rain some time.”

A little rain? Good lord, it’s been a lot more than a little rain, of both the metaphoric and figurative variety this year. Once again, we got “Are you guys O.K.?” texts after the news hit about horrendous flooding just a hour west of us. Luckily, we were spared this time around, unlike many of our friends in N.J. and New York.

You’ve got to love a song with the words, “I beg your pardon” in the lyrics. The words harken back to a time when we talked with a little more civility towards one another. Or maybe it’s just that Southern way of starting with a puff of politeness before you swoop in with your sass.

Have I complained too much about the crazy weather here? Too bad. Here is some more evidence of the craziness. Photo credit to our next door neighbor Anthony for capturing this fresh hell in our neighborhood one night in July.

And speaking of phrases like, “I beg your pardon”…. Now is probably a good time to confess that I am currently grappling with a new-found need to speak up, but politely. I know, I know. The whole world is speaking up on topics they don’t know anything about, like immunology and the First Amendment. I’m talking about what my mother calls “opening up a mouth”. According to my mom, when something big happens, sometimes you can’t remain quiet. You have to speak up. Or, as she phrases it, you have to Open Up a Mouth.

Like many of you, I’ve ventured out of my bubble a few times this spring and summer. In May, we went to Boston to visit Rachel and also met up with some friends. In July, we went to New Jersey to celebrate my mom’s 90th birthday. That meant I had to get on a plane. Twice. Plenty of opportunities to Open Up a Mouth. What I saw in the airports and on the planes was a lot of toxic masc- and mask-ulinity. And yes, fellas, I mean you. Men, you were in the majority of folks who couldn’t grasp the simple oft-repeated rules on signs and over loudspeakers about keeping the mask over your nose and mouth. Women may have an easier time because we are more accustomed to accessorizing. We lug along purses and scarves, so a little mask hardly seems like a thing to us. Or maybe we just have more sense. Am I generalizing? Of course. Am I right? That’s for you to decide.

I see a lot of what I call Suburban Cowboys in Tennessee. Guys driving big trucks instead of cars, wearing their baseball caps backwards, pretending they are still in their 20’s and not in their sagging 40’s, 50’s or 60’s. Just a simple observation. Back to the airport. Did I open up a mouth? Well, sort of. I did tell one woman at the airport whose Suburban Cowboy husband was pontificating into his phone, maskless, that I overheard someone say they are giving out $1,000 fines to people without masks. Did I really overhear that? What do you think? Peter wondered why a stranger - this grateful woman - was coming over to thank me later. You’re welcome, lady.

Felt like a badass Nancy Sinatra that day in the Nashville airport.

This forever young lady, my mom, celebrated her 90th birthday at the end of July. It was a monumental achievement: both her getting to 90 years young, and all of us getting in and out of N.J. unscathed (i.e. with our health intact). You couldn’t ask for a better gift this year.

“I've been playing out a lot of hypotheticals in my mind
I've been writing your name down next to mine
Been imagining all the things you and I could do
I've seen all the possibilities in my dreams
You're alone when you should be livin' next to me
Baby, let's not wait and see.”

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. You can teach her new songs, however. Thanks, Rachel, for introducing me to the band Lake Street Dive.

In addition to tiptoeing out, we also welcomed some featured guests into Nashville. Our new city may not have as many highlights as Amsterdam, but I promise we will show you a good time here.

In the quiet times after visitors and visiting, I’m somehow managing to keep busy. I’m plugging along with my guitar lessons, which really help keep my mind and fingers occupied when news in the outside world gets especially grim. I’m continuing to study Dutch, a language that isn’t particularly useful here in Tennessee - or anywhere outside the Netherlands, for that matter - but which keeps my brain happy. I’ve added in a similarly “useful” language: Yiddish. It’s full of words that do a better job than English of saying how I feel. For example, the word “shpilkes”. Loosely translated it describes the kind of nervous energy/restlessness/anxiousness I’m often feeling. Without the ability to travel, learning foreign languages will have to do for now. I have so much admiration for people like my friend Vera, who can weave in and out of German, Dutch, English, and French like a Nashville driver changing lines on I-65. What is it with Americans who refuse to learn any language other than English? We’re so darn self-centered. There, I opened up a mouth, and I feel better already.

And with more time on my hands, I’m paying more attention to all the birds that live in our backyard and in those Tennessee hills I can see right outside our windows. We took a few hikes this summer and met a few Tennessee natives (birds, that is, since it’s a lot easier to meet them than to meet humans these days). At the Owl’s Hill Sanctuary, I got the chance to meet Shakespeare, who lives at the sanctuary full-time after he was injured. As I peeked at him behind these bars, I think I knew exactly how he was feeling. A little sad to not be able to travel, but grateful to be healthy.

The rolling hills of Tennessee really are pretty. The anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers: not so pretty.

We also visited the Radnor Lake Bird Sanctuary where birds of prey are nursed back to health and then housed in their own bird condos in a gorgeous park. The rangers who worked there, including this man, gave me back some faith in people. Such kind souls. You can tell by the way he is looking at this owl how he feels about her. Photo credit to Peter.

We don’t have to venture far afield to see birds. Peter put up two hummingbird feeders on our back patio, and then waited patiently and not so patiently for the hummingbirds to arrive. It took awhile, but now, we have friends visiting every morning and night. It’s almost like when we lived in Amsterdam and had so many houseguests. Photo credit to Peter.

The anthem for bird lovers. I’m squawking along to this song on my guitar.

When it’s not meltingly-hot and humid, I’m still out casing the neighborhoods. The house on the left is in our favorite neighborhood in Nashville, the Richland-West End neighborhood. One day I noticed the mannequin in the upstairs room on the left, and had to sneak in a photo. In every nosy person’s worst nightmare, the home owner was getting out of her car and asked - super-Southern-politely - what I was taking a photo of. I explained in a nervous stream of words that I was intrigued by the mannequin, and there was one in the window on our street in Amsterdam (that was true). And that I write a blog and like to take photos of interesting things to put in my blog. Blah, blah, blah. Turns out she used to be a writer for the Tennessean, a local newspaper, and she was thrilled I might be writing about the house. Or so she said. I still haven’t learned to interpret how Southern manners work.

Thankfully, no one was home at the house on the right to see me snapping away. The top of the house reminded me of the gables at the top of the Amsterdam canal houses. This house is considered old in Nashville, but in Amsterdam, it would be just a toddler.

Scenes frequently seen in Nashville: gigantic modern homes going up right next to tiny older homes. Along with the freedom to carry a gun, and not wear a mask, they hold dear the freedom to put up huge houses no matter where, down here. Luckily, there are also pretty scenes, like these birds looking like musical notes on a staff.

Currently working on my own version of this song. I call it Slow, Old Car.

And speaking of slow, I’ve been very slow to catch up on the T.V. shows that people for years and years have been telling me I need to watch. So yes, I just started watching The Sopranos. What could be so great about a show about the mafia in Northern N.J.?, I thought. I thought wrong. It’s really the perfect show for nowadays. The kind of dread Tony Soprano must have walked around with all the time, not knowing if someone would careen around the corner and shoot him is kind of like the dread we all feel these days. And yet, somehow, he puts it all to the side of his mind, mostly, while he goes about the business of running his business, eating, and seeing his shrink.

When I watch the many Sopranos scenes set in restaurants, I can’t help but think back to going out to dinner with my parents at Pete Lorenzo’s Cafe, where steaks and Italian food were served up to local politicians and other Trenton power brokers. In one of those childhood memory moments that doesn’t quite add up - and I have a lot of those - my dad whispered something one night at Lorenzo’s about how members of the Mafia were also eating there. I spent the rest of the night trying not to stare. You might think if members of organized crime really were eating there, my dad wouldn’t have taken us. Or certainly not told his kids that organized crime members were seated at the neighboring table. But that’s my memory, so that’s my story.

Here we are at Lorenzo’s Was this before or after I stared at the Mafia guys? My dad loved eating good food at restaurants with his family. I share that love with him.

Another pandemic cliche: a rabid focus on gardening. Peter has produced some championship tomatoes and basil this summer. Tony Soprano would enjoy them. I sure do.

Anyway, the way that Tony and his crew deal with the existential dread of not knowing what’s around the next corner is oddly comforting. And yes, there is a lot of blood spilling out of body parts in each episode - this is a show about an organized crime family, after all - but you can turn away when those moments come, like I do. We have all gotten very good at turning our heads when bad things happen, so that should be no problem for any of you.

One of the things I love about the show is the soundtrack. This song showed up in Season 3, and sent me googling to find out the name of the singer. She’s Kasey Chambers, an Australian “country music” singer. Didn’t know they did country music Down Under. There’s something so mesmerizing about her voice and the lyrics. I like that she looks like she has been around and has some stories to tell. How much time in my life has been given over to trying to figure out the meaning of song lyrics? Don’t ask.

And now, moving on from T.V. to some wisdom from some books I’ve liked:
A Fine Balance, by Robinson Mistry. This is one of those sweeping big books (600 pages, but please don’t let that scare you off, as it almost did me) that make you sad when you finish the last page and have to say goodbye. It’s set in India, and it pulls you into that world and the characters after a kind of slow build up. It’s beautifully written, and although there is happiness sprinkled in, there’s also crushing sadness, too. About halfway through the novel, one of the minor characters tells us, “Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.” Very fine advice indeed for us, during these times.

American War, by Omar El Akkad. As many of you know, I don’t usually “do” time travel. I decided to push myself way out of my comfort zone to read this one. I can’t say I enjoyed it, and yet... It’s set in a time in the future, 2075, after the second Civil War. Climate change and a deadly virus are in the mix, too. The book was published in 2017, so it has an eerie feeling of veering out of the dystopian and into the reality lane. It was bone chillingly frightening. If you like your books to take you away from anxiety, this is not the book for you. If you want to read about the world we may be heading towards, grab it. “What was safety, anyway, but the sound of a bomb falling on someone else's home?”

Becoming Dutchess Goldblatt, by Anonymous. I guess I was late to this party, too. Dutchess Goldblatt is a fictional character who became a Twitter sensation by dispensing advice to her followers. Words of wisdom like, “Some of you have been coddled too long. I’m not cutting the crusts off these sentences for you anymore.” This memoir gives you a peek into the real person who created the Dutchess, and why. It’s about the power of writing to restart your life, among other things. I love the fact that she chose a real Dutch Master painting, Portrait of an Elderly Lady, by Frans Hals, to be the face of her persona. I’m currently searching for a persona to call my own. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

I think if I could wear this get-up on my next plane trip, I could breathe a little easier.

Amidst the ongoing simmer of anxiety caused by the pandemic, I sometimes long for the days when it was only regular illnesses that made us worry, and usual sorrows that made us grieve. We had a few of those this summer, too. A fall that led to surgery. The death of an elderly parent of a dear friend. 

And a few months ago, I found out that a friend of mine died. She was the former kindergarten teacher for both my kids, and one of my most dedicated blog readers. Carol spent her career teaching children to love school and books. She was gentle, smart, kind, the kind of kindergarten teacher you dream your kids will have. She finally treated herself to a well-deserved retirement just when my teaching career began. I’m sure she was looking ahead, relishing that first day of school when she could sleep in. But instead, she agreed to serve as my mentor my first year. So instead of getting to roll over and go back to sleep that first September of retirement, she dragged herself into my classroom to watch as I stumbled through my first weeks. As every teacher knows, those first few weeks, months, that whole first year, is just about as difficult and embarrassing a performance as one could ever conjure up. She sat there patiently, and gently gave me suggestions during the weeks she was required to monitor my incompetence. We became friends after that.  She sent me a message after each blog post. She told me she loved the mix of sadness and humor, the reminiscences about my childhood, the music and book recommendations, and the glimpses into my life in Nashville. I mixed it all in there for you, Carol. With hugs. This post is dedicated to her.

No one kept up with her large brood of former students and parents and teacher colleagues like Carol did. She was a master. at that, as she was at everything she touched.

Easier said than done, Stevie, but I’ll try. I’ll really try.

As August creeps into September, I’m thinking of all my teacher friends Up North out there. The Nashville schools were back in business on August 10, so at least you have had a few more weeks to sleep in. I’m wishing all of you a safe and smooth return to the classroom. I can’t help but think about my last class before I moved to Amsterdam. There they are, below: 5th graders full of energy and excitement about middle school. Many of them are heading off to college now. How is that possible? I hope they have that same energy and excitement about this next stage of life. They give me hope for the future.

When I was out for a walk one humid morning, a little girl, maybe kindergarten-ish age, called out something to me. Her mom translated the little-kid-speak, since I couldn’t quite make out what she had said. “My teacher is kind,” is what she wanted me to know. Did she somehow know I was a teacher? Do we walk a certain way? Or did she just yell this out to anyone who passed by? Whatever it was, I was grateful for the reminder. I’m wishing all of you more kindness in the days ahead, and a healthy and happy New Year, if you celebrate. And even if you don’t.

No Country for Old Women: Finding My Place In My New World

I’m still finding my way in Nashville. Still figuring out how or if I belong. After my blog post last month about walking around town, many of you noted my world “down South” may be as foreign as the world across the ocean I discovered in Amsterdam. Living in the South for the first time, during a pandemic, a never-ending election, and an attempted coup, has taken some getting used to. I often feel like an outside looking in, peeking at the houses and wondering about all the people hiding inside. So come along as we continue the walk we started in the last post and get to know Nashville a little more, together. Lord knows, we could all use the distraction.

In case you didn’t catch the reference in the title, it’s from this Coen Brothers movie. I don’t remember much about it, other than that I peeked out at all the violence through almost-squeezed-shut eyes. In addition to the violence, the frightening image of psycho Javier Bardem’s page-boy haircut will haunt your dreams. It definitely wins the Oscar for scariest haircut in a movie.

This is the Union Station Hotel. It used to be a train station. I’d love for trains to run again to and from Nashville, once we can travel again. I used to joke, when we lived in Amsterdam, that I had so many great ideas for the city. I collected them so I’d be ready for the invitation to sit down with the mayor and advise her. For some reason, that invitation never came. After only a year, I’m already prepared to offer up my services to the mayor of Nashville. In such a short time, I’m brimming with ideas for how to fix this place up. Too bad no one is listening, other than a few of you.

It’s a little bit of a demographic and architectural grab bag here in our part of Nashville. There are the stately old homes (often right next door to an old jalopy of a place) and a smattering of what I like to call either high-end hippie (older occupants) or high-end hipster (younger folks) homes. The hippie/hipster homes are the ones with Christmas lights throughout the year, and often an hammock or swing in the front yard. Even the mailboxes line up on the hip or prim side of the fence.

I’m no stranger to feeling like an outsider at this time of year. This Jewish gal always feels a little like an extra in a Hollywood blockbuster crowd scene at Christmas time. When I was a kid, that meant seeing all the sparkly Christmas trees at my friends’ houses, and answering questions about why we didn’t have a tree, or stockings, or lights. It wasn’t until I was older and wiser that I started to appreciate what we did have: lots of time to be with family, no worries about gift-bingeing, and our own sacred traditions. Those of you in the tribe know those beloved traditions include Chinese food and a great movie. We were especially well-positioned this year to survive Covid-Christmas, since we are used to feeling just a little left out at this time of year. We managed just fine this year, once again. I hope all of you did, too.

I love this sign at a used bookstore near our house. Thank you, James Baldwin. I couldn’t agree more.

Despite my ample experience at being a Christmas-outsider, the acres of blow-up Christmas decorations on Nashville lawns didn’t help with my sense of not-belonging. Do we really need giant plastic figures splayed across the lawn to celebrate Christmas? I’m giving y’all a pass this year, because of the virus. I know this year was no time to hold back, since your front lawn became your only way to communicate with your neighbors. But when we are done tackling Covid, can we maybe start to think about how running huge electrical toys 24/7 is a colossal waste of energy?

My Christmas-time walks raised so many similar deep questions. Back in my October post, I noticed a lot of dog skeletons commemorating Halloween, and wondered when dogs became a Halloween thing. This curious trend seems to have continued into Christmas. When did dogs get in on the Christmas celebrations? And what about a llama says “Christmas”? If you have any answers, please send them my way. I saw my first Charlie Brown nativity scene this year. All is right with the world when Linus and his blankie are around. Notice those Christmas icons were 2-D figures that didn’t require electricity.

Now that Christmas is over and gone, I can tackle the essential question: what would help me begin to fit in here? If you guessed become a country music star, or at least start to listen to some country music, you were right. I’ve been taking weekly guitar lessons for a few months. Being a beginner at something when you are over 60 is not easy. It’s not easy to be just north of terrible at something. Turns out quite a few folks have written recently about trying to learn something new at an old age. In my case, my dad was an inspiration. He learned to play the cello at age 40, after growing up playing jazz piano. When I was a kid, learning anything at age 40 seemed so impossible. So old! Ha! My dad got so much joy out of playing the cello, both on his own, and with chamber music groups and orchestras. In addition to the cello, he also bought himself and learned to play the vibraphone - which I used with my friends as the operating table when we played doctor - an instrument called the melodica (looks like a mini keyboard but you hold it up and blow notes on it), and the accordion, which he picked up on one of their trip, this time to Estonia. The key to success, which I think my Dad would agree with, is to lower the bar in terms of how good I’ll ever sound. So I won’t be Dolly Parton (in more ways than one, you may be thinking)? I’ll just be O.K. and that’s just fine.

I think my dad would be so happy to see the cello making an appearance in this country music song. And the violin! That’s my next goal: to learn to play the fiddle. That will give me yet another chance to fit in down here.

“Though your feet may take you far from me, I know/Wherever is your heart I call home.” This is the song I’m currently tackling on the guitar. I love every thing about it… until I hear how far from Brandi Carlile I sound when I play. But I’m sounding O.K., Dad.

Thankfully, it’s not all about the decorations here in Nashville. I also occasionally stumbled upon signs of real holiday spirit, too. At this church, the service was blasted from the loudspeakers, as congregants celebrated from inside their cars. They honked along, I guess, when the spirit moved them.

I don’t know who they are, or where they were going, but maybe it was a good omen at holiday time? On the other hand, this being Nashville, there’s a good chance these weren’t nuns at all, but just a bachelorette party out on the town. One never knows here.

So many churches here. Some have been repurposed, like this former church that is now the Darkhorse Theatre Company.

I sometimes ignore the signs saying “Private Property” and run up the hill on the campus of this religious school. They may have wanted to rethink their White House association over the past few months. Then again, probably not.

As you’ve probably gathered from previous posts, murals are everywhere in Nashville. The tourists worship at their altar. Now that their are fewer tourists in town, the murals seem happier. They can just exist in all their glory without people pressing up against them all day. I like discovering new ones on my travels.

We rambled along enough together. Now it’s time to get to the point. Is it possible to live in Nashville without listening to and liking country music? That is the question. I had to take a hard look at the feelings I’ve developed about it, which date back to my childhood. I grew up watching the T.V. show Hee Haw with our babysitter Julia. What a woman in her 60’s from Hungary saw in this mash-up of country music and Southern stereotypes is beyond me. My favorite character was Minnie Pearl, famous for the price-tag always hanging from her hat. Imagine my surprise when I found out Minnie Pearl’s real name was Sarah Cannon. One of the many hospitals I sometimes run past near our house was renamed the Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, in her memory. Like Dolly Parton, she put her money where her mouth is, as they say.

My country journey continued after college, when Mary Chapin Carpenter - a N.J. girl who was a few years ahead of me in high school - made it big in the country music world. It seemed to strange to me at the time that a girl from Princeton, N.J. whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower would be embraced by folks who actually grew up in this neck of the woods. She brought along the people like me to her rodeo.

Well, looky here. Who would have predicted back in the Hew Haw days that black musicians like Mickey Guyton would be welcomed under the country music tent? I wonder if this foreshadows a change in the U.S. outside of the world of music? I’m getting my hopes up, but who knows after the past few weeks.

Just like in my childhood, I’m learning about country music through the miracles of television. My research tool is not the more highbrow Ken Burns series, Country Music - although I have watched most of that, too - but the more soap opera-style show Nashville. I’m learning all about the music business, even though I do realize the Hollywood version is a country mile from reality. At least I get to smile when I recognize a familiar landmark, and pretend I’m an insider. The Rissi Palmer video, below, was shot at The Bluebird Cafe, which figures in lots of scenes in Nashville. Sounds like she is feeling me I can be a country girl, too.

“You don't have to be a Georgia peach from Savannah Beach to say
From Arkansas to appreciate a Southern drawl
Don't need no kin from West Virginia to have it in ya
Show the world you're a country girl”

At this point, you may be wondering if I’m planning on forgetting all about the insanity going on in the world for the past few weeks. I just needed to work my way into it. As I’m sure you know, we woke up on Christmas morning to the news that a bomb exploded in downtown Nashville. Thank you to all of you who checked in on us. And I’m sorry that you have needed to do that so many times since we moved to this epicenter of disasters. When the police and FBI spoke up about the bombing, it was to tell us this was just a suicide (on a street downtown?) by an old white man, and the man was not previously known to law enforcement. That proved to be false. A local newspaper reported that the bomber’s girlfriend called the police last year and reported him last year for working from home in his nondescript brick house on several multiple bombs.

There was an outpouring of comments on social media about how if he had been black or named Mohammed, they would have stormed into his home right then and there. Instead, they claimed not to have evidence for a warrant, and he continued on his merry way to work on his plans. This tepid response sadly foreshadowed the initial reaction to the terrorists who invaded the Capital on January 6. Some of them claim to be regular people who just went along for the ride. It’s hard not to walk around now and worry about who’s lurking behind the doors of any house in town. Frightening, really.

Just like in my childhood, I’m learning about country music through the miracles of television. My research tool is not the more highbrow Ken Burns series, Country Music - although I have watched most of that, too - but the more soap opera-style show Nashville. I’m learning all about the music business, even though I do realize the Hollywood version is a country mile from reality. At least I get to smile when I recognize a familiar landmark, and pretend I’m an insider.

In the Vine-Drucker family, we celebrate our own holiday called Waiting Day. The kids came up with the idea years and years ago. Your Waiting Day is the day before your birthday. It’s the day when you eagerly anticipate everything that your actual birthday will be. It’s a day of excitement because in your imagination, everything that happens the next day will be perfect. The older you get, the more you realize that in fact, the waiting part is often - or almost always - so much better than the reality. We’ve had so many Waiting Days over the past year. We’re waiting for vaccines, and elections, and inaugurations. We’re waiting for a return to “normal” and decency and kindness. It’s exciting to think about possibilities, and difficult to realize that they don’t all come true. It’s like the moment before I pick up my guitar and think about how I’ll sound. And then the little puff of disappointment that comes when I hear the actual notes that emerge. Nevertheless, I’m waiting - with fingers crossed - for a new country for this old woman.

“Well, I would like to make another trip,” he said, jumping to his feet; “but I really don’t know when I’ll have the time. There’s just so much to do right here.”

Let’s begin the walk and forget that scary movie.

Happy Nashvilleversary: And to Think That I Saw It on Nashville’s Streets

I’ve officially become a pandemic cliche: most days, I can’t remember what day of the week we are currently trudging through. Instead, I’m clinging to time by celebrating bigger chunks of it, like years. On October 1, we celebrated our one-year anniversary in Nashville. Needless to say, for the past seven months, most of our explorations of the city have been muted. In this little bubble in-between the humid days of summer, and the approaching winter (yup, we do have winters here) I’m spending as much time as I can walking around the streets of Nashville. I’m going to share with you some of what I have noticed. When I’m out walking, I can’t help but think about this children’s book I loved as a kid. For those of you who don’t know the story, a little boy named Marco takes a walk and fantasizes about all the strange vehicles and creatures he sees so he will have a good story to tell his Dad when he gets home. You get the impression Marco is a habitual teller of tall-tales. A boy after my own heart. Brace yourself for a few of my minnows becoming whales.

A year ago, we were treated to a warm welcome here. A very warm welcome. It was 97 degrees for the first few days of our new lives in Nashville. After a summer-long drought, everything was very brown, and the fall was dull, at least as far as tree colors were concerned. So it came as a surprise when this fella on our front lawn started blushing in early October this year. That’s one good thing 2020 has brought us. I’m making sure to celebrate even the small victories this year.

A song for those of us who are muddling up our days and months. “There ain’t any use in pretending. It could happen to us any day.” How long has this been going on?

I started off thinking I wouldn’t mention either Covid or the election as we walk together through Nashville. But then I realized if those topics were off-limits, I would have next to nothing to say. So mention them I must. Now, off we go.

This week, I marched myself downtown (in my car, of course - I’m trying to be a real Nashvillian) to hand-deliver our mail-in ballots to the Main Post Office. Nope we don’t have any of those mail-in ballot boxes that most other states are providing to make voting by mail more reliable and more accessible. However, while Tennessee is deepest, darkest Red-Republican, Nashville - along with Memphis - is a bubble of blue inside that red. I realize that living in a bubble keeps me from confronting the harsh reality of what broad swaths of our country believe, but let me enjoy it, please. I’ve been through enough recently. A bubble is all I can handle.

Here’s a shot of a largely-deserted downtown Nashville. The streets were gussied up with lots of signs announcing the presidential debate. Although tourists were sparse, there were some. Most wore their masks like necklaces around their necks. I felt a little sorry for Nashville. It had been looking forward to this prom (the debate) for almost a year. The actual event was a dud. No crowds of staffers and reporters eating hot chicken and listening to country music. Just a few hearty folks cheering on the candidates as they rushed from their cars into Belmont University.

Here are some of the signs I’ve spotted during my walks in our heavily Biden-leaning bubble.

It doesn’t get more All-American than this display beside the white picket fence.

I’d like to tell you there are no Trump signs here at all. There are certainly not many, but they do exist. I have my own very mature (albeit passive-aggressive) way of addressing those voters who disagree with me.

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When I pass by the house pictured on the right, this song comes to mind.

I wish we could predict the outcome of the election based on the lawn signs in my little bubble. But I don’t want to get my hopes up. Four years ago, I set my alarm for 3 a.m. (that was 9 p.m. for those of you on the East Coast in the U.S.) and walked over in the pitch-dark to celebrate Hillary’s victory with some American friends. Champagne and a special Italian dessert wine, Vin Santo, were at the ready. Well, you know how that all turned out. I should have known. I grew up during the 70’s when we celebrated Jewish holidays and superstitions with equal fervor. That included saying “Rabbit, Rabbit” on the first of every month, first thing in the morning before you uttered another word; carrying a rabbit foot on your keychain - I’m just now realizing how wrong that fad was. Sorry! - and “knocking on wood” before you said something you didn’t want to jinx. The Jewish equivalent is to say, “Kinehora” after you say something you don’t want to ruin by celebrating too soon. “You look really healthy. Kinehora.” If you don’t say it, the person might be instantly struck down by some dreadful disease. You just never know. “I don’t want to give you a canary,” is the de-Yiddished version of that phrase. Stevie understands this superstition business.

I guess we didn’t add enough “Kinehoras” to the end of our sentences that began, “When Hillary wins…” four years ago. So many family members and friends texted us when the Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania results came in. We consoled each other, but let’s face it: when you are living abroad, it’s like expressing sympathy for someone who lost power during a blizzard. Sorry you are going through that, but I’m glad I’m over here in Amsterdam with lights and heat and a safe distance from the U.S. Now that we are here in the U.S., we are the ones who are preparing for the blizzard.

This is me in August when we had a tornado warning. The alert told us to grab bicycle helmets and go to an interior room without windows. In our house, this bathroom is that safe spot. You may find me here on Election Night as well. In case you were wondering, no tornado actually touched down that day. I hope we get that lucky on Election Day.

Tornadoes, smoke, Covid. Lots has been written about the plagues we have endured down here in Tennessee and in other parts of the U.S. One plague I wasn’t prepared for was the Southern bugs. They are huge. They literally knock against the window trying to get into the house. And sometimes they succeed. If you have watched horror films to help you forget your troubles these days, you may enjoy seeing the photo, below. It shows you a kind of bug which visited us more than a few times this summer. Try finding one of these crawling back behind your bed one night, and you will know what true horror is.

For those of you who need to know, he was about as long as my pinky finger.

I’ll make a quick transition here from the horror of that bug to the election. Anyone tune into the last debate? I didn’t last long. Aren’t debates for people who are undecided? And who, on God’s Green Earth, as my 6th grade math teacher Mrs. Conroy liked to say, could possibly still be undecided in this election? David Sedaris has been a real salve to my soul for the past few weeks. I love how he uses humor to tackle even the darkest subjects. I couldn’t help but think back to what he wrote in this essay Undecided, which appeared in the New Yorker in 2008.

“To put them [undecided voters] in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?” To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked. I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?” You hit the nail on the head, Mr. Sedaris. Just order the chicken, folks!

I can feel my (and your) election anxiety setting in. Time for some music. You may have noticed I’ve been enjoying the duets of the past. In recent posts, I gave you Sonny and Cher and The Captain and Tennille. Here are some words of wisdom from two of my faves, Carly and James:

“And if that piece of mind won't stay
I'm gonna get myself a better way
I might rise above, I might go below
Ride with the tide and go with the flow.”

That’s easier said than done these days, my friends.

I finally found a political use for my nice teacher’s handwriting: writing postcards to voters in battleground states. Here is the voice I want my postcard receivers to hear in their heads when they see this tidy “teacher’s handwriting”: “This is your 4th grade teacher Suzanne. You need to vote. For Democrats. Do it today.” (Said with my “teacher’s voice”, and that “teacher’s look” only teachers can conjure up). Are you getting all that from this simple postcard?

Our system for picking a president is certainly ripe for change. This whole Electoral College business is not working for us. We’d be better off with a bright-line test like having dogs decide the election. Just put a bunch of dogs and the candidates in a room and see which one the dogs run to. Using that method, Joe Biden would win by a landslide. Dogs know a good boy or girl when they see one.

I ran into these signs after I had already shared with you my brilliant idea about having dogs decide the election. I’m not ready to elect one, like these folks. Now that’s just crazy talk. But dogs voting? Definitely.

I know Casey would have supported Joe and Kamala. I wonder what he really thought about Hillary. It’s hard to tell from this photo.

That photo of Casey makes me miss him even more. He would have known just the right thing to say to help me feel less worried about the world. And missing Casey makes me miss Amsterdam. I’m still seeing reminders all around town.

Most bikes here belong to kids. Do you think they would ride with me?

Delft tile in Nashville.

What about garden-variety yard work says Vermeer is needed for the job?

My thoughts also flew back to Amsterdam when I recently read guitarist Eddie Van Halen died. He was born in Amsterdam and lived in the Netherlands until he was seven. Even if this era of rock and roll isn’t your thing, you have to appreciate the guitar genius on display when he plays. Eddie was no youngster in this video clip (note the aging rock star’s get-up) but his fingers still move the way they did in his prime. In another sign I am turning into a pandemic cliche, I recently bought a used guitar and have started taking lessons. Watching Van Halen’s fingers move across the guitar is like watching a Kenyan marathoner run. I’ll never be able to get anywhere close, but I can at least appreciate the beauty. My fingers are currently running the equivalent of a twelve-minute mile on those guitar strings. As essayist Samantha Irby - like David Sedaris, she’s a master of humor that cuts close to the bone - wrote, “Why has age made me better at so few things?”

Back to our walk. Were there always so many political signs growing on our front lawns? Did this all change over the five years we lived abroad? Or is the lawn decoration surge something unique to this year? As I walk around, I also can’t help but notice the Halloween game has been significantly upped this year. Skeletons are very big in Nashville. Is this a comment on the possible demise of the Affordable Care Act? Or a protest against the lack of a national plan to combat Covid?

I’m also noticing a lot of those blow-up plastic decorations. There is often a very loose connection to the Halloween theme. For example, what does a shark have to do with Halloween? A pirate ship? I think I’m missing something here.

I see a connection between the election signs, all the Black Lives Matter signs, and the Halloween decorations. I think because of Covid, our front windows and front lawns have become the way we communicate with each other. How else to explain the neighbor with the two large Organic Baby Spinach signs in her windows? Last year, she would have just told us she enjoys her spinach. This year, she’s had to resort to signage to inform us about her vegetable preferences.

I wasn’t going to include a photo, but I didn’t think you’d believe me without proof.

This neighbor is telling me all about her garden. I wonder if the Passion Vines are my relatives?

You can’t walk far here without noticing the various opinions about mask wearing. The photo on the bottom right is my mom and my sister Jennifer. Love that photo of them. I didn’t see see them on any of my walks in Nashville, but I really wish I had. Someday.

I don’t want to work myself into a frenzy about the folks who won’t wear a damn mask. I hear from friends still in Amsterdam that many of the Dutch are as mask-resistant as some Americans. This makes me think maybe this mask-stubbornness (hidden behind nonsense-talk about freedom) is part of our Dutch DNA. We also share with the Dutch the ability to have contradictions pour out of both sides of our mouths. Some Dutch people, for example, can tell you they believe in being healthy and working out. Then the end punctuation to the sentence is a puff of cigarette smoke. And some Americans can pontificate about the right to life while simultaneously endorsing the death penalty. We like to tell the tale about our English heritage, but I think Dutch blood runs more strongly through our stubborn veins.

O.K. Back on our walk we go. I ran into RBG the other day and was happy to see she had a fancy crown on. I thought back to how important she has been to our family. When Rachel had lung surgery in March 2018 to remove a nodule, RBG - who had had similar surgery - kept our spirits up. Thank you for that, RBG. We miss her so.

This is the song that brought Steven Colbert to tears when Dolly sang it on his show recently. Dolly has Supreme Court-level authority down here in Tennessee. She has donated 150 million books to children, and recently gave a huge sum of money to fund plasma donation for Covid patients.

We have some new murals in town. Thanks to these talented artists, I can get my art fix without stepping inside a museum.

“One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.” One of the all-time great songs. I grew up dancing to this in my friend’s basement. That explains a lot about me, right?

And, bless their hearts (I’m getting more proficient at speaking Southern, as you can see), some new restaurants and bars have opened in our neighborhood even during the Pandemic. I’m looking forward to trying the Bearded Iris (a brewery), Otto’s (a bar that opened in a former auto repair shop), and Otaku Ramen. Riddim and Spice (a Caribbean food truck that graduated into a restaurant) isn’t brand new, but it’s on my to-visit list whenever it’s safe. Please don’t burst my bubble by telling me exactly when that will be. Can’t a girl dream? So many great restaurants to try in Nashville. Someday.

“Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars”.

I had a nice early walk at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens one morning and saw the Chiluly exhibit. Is it just me or are some of these sculptures Covid-esque?

I think we have collected enough steps to call it a day. I’d love to keep walking until after the election, just to keep my mind from racing into the negative lane. Like many of you, I’m trying to stay hopeful while keeping some room in my brain for the possibility of disaster. I’d like to say we will drink that bottle of Vin Santo this year, but - knock on wood - I don’t want to hope. And even if the election turns out the way I want it to, there’s still the matter of the 40% of Americans who support T____.

To help solve that little problem of the 40%, I have an idea. It came to me a few days ago while reading Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. I’m up to the chapter about studies in the 1950’s which used LSD to treat alcoholics. When I saw some of the quotes from alcoholic patients about the effects of LSD (“a transcendental feeling of being united with the world”, a new ability to “see oneself objectively”, “increased sensitivity to the feelings of others”) I began to think about a new use for the psychedelic. Maybe the folks in our country who are addicted to a leader who promised to Make American Great Again would benefit from some LSD. Years from now, when we study these projectile voters - who don’t think for themselves and just blindly drink and spew the Kool-Aid Trump poured - we may find LSD was a very promising cure. It’s at least worth a try, isn’t it? As soon as all the scientists get the vaccine stuff figured out, they can get right to work on my LSD-cure idea.

In the end, there was no need in this post for me to “turn minnows into whales”. When pressed by his dad about what he saw when out walking, Marco, the little boy in And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, leaves out all the wonderful fantasies that entertained him. He ends up telling his dad what he actually saw: a plain horse and wagon. I didn’t have to resort to telling you the imagined sights on my walks. 2020 has been unbelievable enough without having to invent a thing.

If you haven’t already, go vote. And if you need some inspiration and joy in the upcoming days, watch these folks dancing in the streets in Philadelphia while they wait to vote. Let’s hope the tales I tell next year about our 2nd anniversary in Nashville will have a happy ending. I hope I will be dancing in the streets of Nashville soon.

A Little Bit of Luck: What a Difference a Year Makes

My father wasn’t one to open up about his feelings. He preferred to let his jokes and stories reveal to us who he was and what he was thinking. But during important times in life, he did like to dispense advice and words of wisdom. Before I got married, he asked if I wanted to know what the most important ingredient in a good marriage was. That was his way. He would always ask you first if you wanted to know something. And usually before you even got the chance to say yes, or even nod, he would launch into his answer. It turns out that although being compatible, and listening to one another, and putting up with each other’s differences knowing you couldn’t change them were all important, the most important ingredient was…luck. My father talked a lot about how luck - in either the good or the bad direction - could change your life.

As luck would have it, my parents met at a weekend for singles at The Concord, a resort in the Catskills. They were lucky enough to find each other, and then to have the money and time to travel all over the world. I love this photo of them. So young and glamorous.

I have thought a lot about the role of luck in our lives over the past year. We just passed the one-year anniversary of Peter’s sudden heart failure. Was it just rotten luck that caused it all? After so so many doctors huddling together and test after test, there was no clear answer about what exactly happened and why. It might just have been a very unlucky series of circumstances that came together in a perfect storm to cause a problem. What caused our luck - five years of adventures in and around Amsterdam filled with more beauty, good food, and great friends than two kids from N.J. had the right to ever expect in life- to suddenly run out? But if bad luck was to blame for the cause, was it just good luck that led to his recovery? Either that or a miracle, which I think is like luck, but just in huge portions.

None of us were quite sure how - or even if - to acknowledge the anniversary of such a troubling time. My instinct was to try to forget it, to flee from it and focus on the future. In a recent article about how and why so many people left NYC for second homes when Covid numbers there were soaring, the professor/writer Andy Horowitz noted this fleeing behavior isn’t a new phenomenon. It has happened throughout history, not just during pandemics, but also during “run-of-the-mill” disasters like hurricanes and armed invasions. “This is a tried-and-true human strategy — that when you encounter trouble, run away,” he said.

Running away is certainly my go-to strategy when it comes to trouble. On the anniversary day of our trouble, July 20, we decided not to celebrate. It didn’t seem like something to celebrate. How does one appropriately acknowledge the anniversary of something traumatic? And what would we even call the “event”? I haven’t found the right word. The only one I can settle on is “heartbreak”. That’s what I’ll call it in the absence of an official diagnosis from a doctor. It’s what happened to Peter, of course, when his heart stopped. But it’s also what happened to me, to his children, parents, sister, the rest of our family, and his many friends when they heard the news. Heartbreak. Peter decided we should save the toasts for a different milestone day: the day he finally left the hospital. Stay tuned for that.

Last summer, we sent updates about Peter’s battle and his progress under the name Team Drucker. Rachel had this necklace made when Peter recovered. Here it is on top of the beautiful jewelry box he bought for my birthday when we were in Modena, Italy, before all our luck evaporated.

I started this blog both to help myself keep track of my life in Amsterdam and to somehow stay in touch with people I know and love. The writing of it grew into a part of my experience, causing me to have a secret running dialogue with myself about what words and photos might be blog-worthy. I worried about being accused of blog-bragging and leading you into blog-boredom. Did anyone else really care about my first glimpse of a fjord or those oysters in Brittany? I’m not sure if all of you did, but you put up with me. I kept writing because it helped me and I enjoyed it and then I just kept doing it. Can I just say - to those who do care - those oysters were amazing.

O.K., it’s not Italy, but this early a.m. trip to Cheekwood Gardens in Nashville had some darn pretty views. We talk a lot about our past trips and try to imagine a time when we will be exploring the world again.

Now I’m not writing about our travels, but about a much smaller world, and a sadder one as well. I don’t have as much to tell you. So I’m going to try something different. I’ll write about some books I’ve read over the past year because some of my best adventures lately have come through the books I have read. I remember my dad once told me he didn’t need to leave his own house. He could do all the traveling he needed in the books he read. He only travelled to make my mom happy, or so he said. I love my books, but they are no substitute for the real thing, Dad. I’m sorry that we’re not going to Brittany together, or Umbria, or Paris. We’re staying inside the four walls of this house. So join me as we travel through the pages of some books I’ve read over the past year, and how they have each helped me in some way, the way books so often do. The writing about books might just be a way into talking about the rest of my year, the parts I’m usually trying to flee from.

“I get up in the evening
And I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired
Man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help”

While the world of this blog has indeed shrunk, there is a lot to see from our own backyard. I wasn’t sure if this fluffy mass that arose over my neighbor’s house was a cloud, a nuclear explosion, or an invading alien spaceship. In 2020, no disastrous possibility is off the table.

Lots more time to enjoy New Yorker cartoons these days. This one was on the money.

It is true that we all get some rain. Some of us get more than others. I’ve had enough of my share for awhile, I think. Too bad we don’t get to decide how much rainfall we will have to endure.

Orange is The New Black, by Piper Kerman.

This is the first book I was able to read when Peter was in the hospital. I searched the bookshelves at my friend Sue’s house, looking for something I could easily read, something that would distract me. When things in your life go South, it helps to think about others whose lives are even worse, or at least equally terrible. It’s like an extreme example of the advice/warning my parents gave me when I left food on my plate: “Think of the starving children in Armenia.” The women in this memoir have troubled lives and are locked away behind bars. I drove in an ambulance with my husband to the hospital. I called our children, not knowing what to say, but somehow keeping it together to tell them what happened. I called Peter’s parents. And then sat in the hospital not knowing what the outcome would be for what seemed like forever. Somehow, knowing these women were in prison, some for the rest of their lives, was oddly comforting to me in the early days of Peter’s heartbreak. If they could have hope for the future, so could I.

“Day after day I'm more confused
But I look for the light through the pourin' rain
You know, that's a game, that I hate to loose…”

In the Woods, by Tana French

I have never really liked mysteries, and certainly not murder mysteries. When our dear friends Darlene and Rob showed up at the hospital and brought me this book, I immediately thought I would leave it in the bag unread. A murder mystery doesn’t seem like a comforting read in the midst of heartbreak, does it? But this book changed my mind about mysteries. The writing was so good, and the plot so intricate, that I forgot (sometimes) what was happening in my own life. In mystery books, the mystery is often solved. It doesn’t always work that way in life, as we well know. If you want to escape your world with books set in Ireland with some beautiful writing in between the detective work, Tana French is your gal. She has a new one coming out this fall, and I’ll be waiting for it. What else do I have to do?

Centennial Park, Nashville. There are few mask wearers at the park, but if I go early enough, I can practically have the place to myself.

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, by Terry Tempest Williams

This is like no other book I’ve ever read. It’s part memoir, part natural history journal, part call-to-action to save our environment. Tempest Williams starts by including the poem Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver with this line, “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” She goes on to describe her mother’s and grandmother’s deaths from cancer. This is far from light reading for sure. It’s not something I picked up by accident. I read this book as part of the Living Writers course that Colgate University also offers to alumni and parents of alumni. The reading list every year features an all-star cast of contemporary writers who come to campus to speak at the end of “their” week. I started taking the course when we first moved to Amsterdam and Rachel was a junior. I loved reading the books alongside students and commenting online, just as if we were wedged together into a classroom. There were a few other old people like me in class, and the reading helped me keep busy, with my mind functioning, feeling less far away from “home”. I watched the authors speak via Livestream, and pretended I was there in person, not in our apartment in Amsterdam.

Last summer, the professor who teaches the course reached out to me via email the day after Peter’s heartbreak. She asked If I would be willing to serve as a mentor for this book, which meant making sure I read the student comments and kept the online discussion rolling along. I didn’t think I would be able to. Then as Peter started to slowly recover, I took a peek at the book description. I saw the invitation to share my despair in the opening epigram. I decided to participate. The reading schedule gave a structure to my mostly formless days. I will always be grateful to Living Writers for that. Who knew it would also be great practice for learning in the Time of Covid? I’m now starting my 6th year taking the course. Let me know if you want to join. You don’t need to have a Colgate connection. I think you’ll love being back in college, reading great books alongside other readers. David Sedaris is on the reading list this year. Interested?

Coincidence is a cousin of luck and miracles, I think. What else can I call it when I’m out walking and thinking about our life in Amsterdam, and then stumble on random reminders. Coincidence?

The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez

I read this one recently, along with my beloved former book group in N.J. That’s at least one happy side effect of the pandemic: the ability to reacquaint yourself with people who live miles and states away. This book group has been a tough act to follow. They were my first, so that’s always going to mean they are special. And the members are all so darn smart. I’ve been accused by subsequent book groups - or maybe I just accuse myself? - of being like the character Muffy from the cartoon Arthur. She was always going on and on about how much better things were “in her old school”. So boring to her new schoolmates. And yet, still I muffy on about my former book group.

“In my old school…”

Anyway, back to The Friend. This is a slim book (just a shade over 200 pages) with so much inside. Thoughts about grief, the writing process and being a writer, friendship, and at the center, the relationship between a woman and the dog - named Apollo - she cares for when her friend dies. So poignant on the subject of dogs and their feelings. I thought of Casey, of course. The author describes the bargaining that goes on when you have a older dog, wishing for one more year together. “And not just another summer, or two or three or four. I want Apollo to live as long as I do. Anything less is unfair.” In between the sadness in the book, there is humor. “Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I’ll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again.” Bravo.

I also loved the section when the narrator notes that so many of our favorite books from childhood include animals who die or suffer. Old Yeller. The Red Pony. Black Beauty. Flicka. It’s as if she could look inside my head and see the books I knew and loved. I think those childhood books gave many of us our first glimpses into grief. Who knew back then there would be so much of it in real life?

We miss you, friend.

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby

When you are writing about difficult subjects, it can help to sandwich the sadness in between some humor. That was the advice I was given in a recent course I took on memoir writing. As part of the course, we studied Samantha Irby’s essay Nashville Hot Chicken, which appears in this collection of essays. Needless to say, I was drawn to the title. In the essay, she travels to Nashville with her girlfriend for a little vacation, and also to finally disperse the ashes of her dead father. She texts her girlfriend, “Hey, instead of flying first-class to Jamaica to drink rum out of coconuts and risk skin cancer roasting under the sun, how would you feel about instead spending nine hours wedged into a rented car with my dead dad’s ashes to to to Nashville and eat biscuits and gravy and listen to terrible country music for a week?” There are lots of “curse words” in this set of essays, but you will veer between laughing and feeling unbearably sad or just anxious because of her anxiety, sometimes all on the same page. It’s a good reminder that this is just what life is, so get used to it.

The jazz singer Annie Ross died recently. I think Samantha Irby would be happy to know I included Twisted after the description of Irby’s book. Joni Mitchell does a fantastic cover of this song.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson

This book somehow manages to tell the stories of people who are in prison - many on death row, and others for life - and yet give you hope. Bryan Stevenson, the author and lead attorney for the Equal Justice Initiative describes his unflagging work to challenge the mass incarceration and unequal and excessive punishment in our criminal justice system. I’m listening to this book on Audible, and Stevenson himself narrates. I feel like he’s talking just to me. Like an old dog trying to learn new tricks, I’m trying to develop my listening skills late in life. As a teacher, I expected my students to sit with rapt attention while I read aloud. Who wouldn’t love being read to? It turns out, I didn’t, at least at first. Listening to books is a skill, and if we don’t work at it, I guess we get flabby. I used to listen a lot when I walked Casey, and would find I returned from a long walk with no blessed idea of what I had just listened to. Now, a few years into it, I am better able to concentrate.

In Just Mercy, Stevenson pulls you in with stories about some of his clients. By putting faces onto the grim statistics about unequal justice we have all heard, he shows us how broken our system of incarceration truly is. When you read these stories, you can’t help but feel lucky for the life you are living. If these folks can have hope, then so can I. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I need to.

Father’s Day 2020. L’chaim!

The folks in Fiddler on the Roof were religious, and yet still they sang: “We'll raise a glass and sip a drop of schnapps/In honor of the great good luck/That favored you”!

I’ve gone on some tiny travels in the past few weeks. Every Saturday, there’s a local Farmer’s Market in our neighborhood where we pick up peaches, pies, produce, and other goodies. This is the only place in town where everyone wears a mask.

I almost leapt across the lawn when I first saw this bagel stand, only to see the “Sold Out” sign as I grew close. The following week, we arrived when the market opened so I didn’t have to face that crushing disappointment again. Mission accomplished. The bagels are pretty darn good, as were the baby cinnamon babka rolls.

Every Saturday in June and July, I headed to Green Door Farm in Nashville to pick up the flower share Ben and Rachel gave me for Mother’s Day. That was the best Mother’s Day gift ever. I got beautiful flowers every week, and the excuse to visit this farm in the city, but a world away. It was a tiny travel I always looked forward to.

Here’s another tiny travel discovery: Baked on 8th, a sweet little bakery in town. I miss the pop-up conversations I would have back-in-the-day with store and cafe owners. Now, I pull up in my car, and out comes a masked avenger with baked goods. She places them in the trunk of the car and I pull out without her story. At least I have the scones and cookies to talk to.

I discovered this treehouse on a recent walk. It made me think back on the treehouse I wanted when I was a kid. After reading The Swiss Family Robinson, I was ready to build one in Trenton, N.J. I was really disappointed when my parents said no. For some reason, they also shot down my proposal to clean out the garage so we could fit a pony in there.

There is so much more I could tell you about our summer of heartbreak. The most important thing I want to say is that it is over. We got lucky. For now, the rest of the story will stay inside.

“If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell”

There’s a recent documentary out about Gordon Lightfoot. At the age of 81, he’s still singing away.

Many moons ago.

Bill Evans is Peter’s very favorite. Coincidence that he has a song about luck? Anyway, I’m grateful for the big servings of luck and miracles we had on our plates this year. Wishing the same for all of you, if you ever need them. I know my father would agree.

Home Sweet Home: Derechos, Yesterdreams, and Counterlives, Oh My!

When you spend a lot of time lost in your thoughts - as many of us do, these days - you might find yourself going back in time to your past. Traveling back in time to our yesterdays might be our brain’s way to self-preserve. If we concentrate on the past, we have less time to worry about the future. And Lord knows, the uncertain future is not a place where we want to dwell nowadays. You may be asking yourself, “What happened to the world we knew? When we would dream and scheme and while the time away?” Sing it, Stevie.

Those memories crop up at unlikely times, and about things I didn’t think - at the time - were all that important. For example, I have been thinking about a phrase a friend from my first-job-out-of-law-school taught me. She once asked if I was a “police person” or a “non-police person”. She went on to explain the meaning of the categories and the descriptions of the people who line up under the two columns. I think a friend of hers wrote about this in an article in some hip NYC-indy magazine. The concept obviously struck a chord, because I remember it more than thirty years later. Anyway, a police person is a person who is always bothering about what other people are doing. “Get in the right lane”, you might yell out - from the safety of your closed windows - as you drive by someone. “Why can’t he pick up after his dog?” “What’s the deal with my neighbor letting his kids stand out in the yard and have tantrums? Take those tantrums inside!” You are always, but always, on duty as a police person. It’s an endless chorus in your head, although sometimes, you say these police things out loud. A non-police person, on the other hand, doesn’t even notice what the rest of the world is doing. He just goes about his day, blithely ignoring the imperfections around him. It must be a really nice way to live. I wouldn’t know. I think those of you who know me know I line up squarely in the police person column.

Why think of this now, you ask? Actually, I think you know. The Covid-19 pandemic is making police people out of many of us. I have to try really hard not to belittle people in my head for their Covid-crimes like refusing to wear a mask or creeping too close to me when I’m out for a run. I see one of my neighbors agrees with me.

I hope those aren’t bullet holes in the sign. You just never know.

Sting was ahead of his time.

Recently, our mayor’s “Safer at Home” directive turned into a “Oh, Just Get Out There and Cross Your Fingers” phase. Restaurants are opening up (at 75% capacity), bars that serve food are welcoming folks in (and yes, a fried bologna sandwich qualifies as food), and stores can open up with some limitations. This decision is on shaky grounds, from a public health perspective. It also gives the police people in our family much too much work to do.

Many of you have asked me whether folks in Nashville are respecting the rules when it comes to staying safe. Like most places, in Nashville there is a big divide between the rule-followers and flaunters. We have some mask-wearers. We also have a whole lot of freedom fighters who want to put up signs applauding health workers/heroes while simultaneously shopping without distance or masks. Am I being too cautious? Is it time to open up some restaurants? And if I question myself on the safety score, am I just a victim of gaslighting? If you don’t know the term “gaslighting”, it’s a form of psychological manipulation; a person torments you by making you question your perceptions. Poor Ingrid Bergman, in the movie Gaslight, thought she was going mad when those lights were dimming. It turns out her husband set it all up to make her think she was going crazy. Here’s The Dixie Chicks bringing it up-to-date and giving it a Southern twang.

Remember when people boycotted The Dixie Chicks because they criticized President Bush and the war in Iraq? Those were different times. Nowadays, celebrities are expected to keep us posted on a regular basis on which side of the political tracks they stand on. Unlike much of the entertainment world, Merle Haggard came to the defense of The Dixie Chicks. I love this mural, on a warehouse near the train tracks.

So what else can we talk about today besides the virus? Usually, the weather is a safe choice. But lately, the weather news has also been grim: A cyclone in India. Flooding and a burst dam in Michigan. And let me tell you what we have encountered here in Nashville. It turns out you are far from safe at home, in the springtime, in the South. After experiencing our first tornado in early March, I thought we were good to go, at least weather-wise. But it turns out Mother Nature had more in store for us. Much more. If we don’t feel out-of-control enough, the weather has to turn the anxiety temperature up just a few more degrees. Roz Chast knows what I mean.

“These are the days it never rains but it pours.” Exactly right, Queen and David Bowie.

In early May, we met our first derecho. I didn’t even know that was a weather “thing” until now. But during a family Zoom call, we saw a storm blow in with crazy-high wind and rain cascading down the windows as if we were stuck inside a carwash. We promptly picked ourselves up and continued the call from our “safe steps” in the middle of the house, our only window-less retreat. It’s probably for the best I had those familiar family faces on my iPad to distract me from what we later learned were 70 m.p.h. winds. Enough is enough, I thought when I also read about the many folks who had lost power. Haven’t we lost enough power over our lives without literally having to lose electrical power, too? Seriously. We are stuck inside and now we won’t be able to email and Zoom and keep the nighttime anxiety at bay with Netflix? This is not helping me feel “safe at home”, Mr. Mayor.

The morning after the derecho - and you are not alone if you think it sounds like something you would order as a side with your fish tacos - there was a lot of this going on in our neck of the woods.

With that derecho behind us, I thought it was safe to go outside. And then the very next night, we were hit by another “highly unusual” weather system, a “wake low”. It seems that in the wake of a storm that brings your anxiety to the tingling stage, a low can come in to level you. I’ll just tell you the near-constant lightning was enough to convince me our move here was a big mistake. But that clap of thunder at about 9:30 p.m. that shook the house was the icing on the cake. I would have thought I was having a bad dream, were it not for the people on Twitter who also heard what I heard. The weather guy I follow on Twitter, NashSevereWx, tells us what is heading our way weather-wise. He has become my new best friend here. O.K. my only new friend here.

My weather guru has that rare combination of scientific knowledge and a sarcastic way with words that make me admire him even during the worst of weather.

“'Til forever, on it goes
Through the circle, fast and slow
I know, it can't stop, I wonder

I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?”

I think the guys in the Creedence Clearwater Revival band may have been weather-obsessed, too. They also wrote the hit, Who’ll Stop the Rain? I wonder that, too.

I think my fear of severe weather began back when I went to summer camp. When summer storms popped up, there was always a mad dash to get out of the open fields and back into the bunk. Seeing my grown-up counselors - who I now realize were only teenagers themselves - running with fear on their faces made a lasting impression. It was every person for herself as we sprinted back to safety. If even “adults” were afraid of thunder and lightning, it must be scary.

Sometimes I think I’m not really that old. Then I look at old-timey photos from my childhood and I realize, wow, you are ancient. I’m sad for all the kids who won’t get to go to camp this summer. It was so much a part of my childhood. Note that my mom cut my bangs. I could use her help with them now.

I’ll have to learn to ignore the crazy weather here, or just pretend it away. There are times when burying your head in the sand is a useful survival strategy. I know I overuse it, but my skill in denial has come in quite handy during this pandemic. When I find myself looking towards the future, off I go for a run or a walk. When I start to dwell on all the things that are uncertain, I bury myself in the details of what we will have for dinner. Come on along on one of my runs and into the sand.

These photos were taken in the neighborhood known as The Nations. It’s an odd name for an area in which the streets - Michigan, Illinois, Georgia etc - are states, not nations. Nowadays, it does seem like our states are operating like separate nations, but these streets were named pre-pandemic, so I’m left without a good explanation for you.

Answer key for those not sure about the faces on the walls: Dolly, Kobe Bryant and his daughter, and a young Patrick Swayze.

Learning Dutch and tutoring in English has made me think a lot about idioms. “Burying your head in the sand?” We say these things without thinking, but when someone new to the language is confronted with one of these phrases, no wonder they are confused. I think this one comes from ostriches hiding their heads when faced with attack from predators.

But who came up with that phrase in the first place? These are the kind of things I wonder about in order to take my mind off of you-know-what. The Dutch have a lot of great idioms. One of my favorites is, “Nu komt de aap uit de mouw!” which literally translates into, “Now the monkey is coming out of your sleeve.” It’s similar to “Let the cat out of the bag”. You use the phrase when you suddenly understand the real truth about someone or about a situation. Apparently, magicians used to perform tricks which worked because they had monkeys up their sleeves who were helping out. And at the end of the performance, they would let the monkey climb out. Does that explanation even make any sense? No wonder I had such a tough time learning Dutch.

Quick timeout to get your mind off of difficulties like Dutch idioms. I used to love baking, but took a five year sabbatical from it when we were in Amsterdam and my oven was actually the size of my Easy Bake Oven I loved as a child. Here are some of the treats Rachel and I have made in the past few months: challah, Blackberry Crumble, and some chocolate chip cookies. Oh, and there’s a photo of my old Easy Bake Oven.

Would you like to spend more time with me burying your head in the sand? Humor is a huge help. It’s the go-to survival strategy for our family. And music is another. You liked the Sonny and Cher number in my last post, so I think you will like this gem. I was obsessed with this song when I was a kid. And with her haircut!

A lot of people are finding joy in gardening. When you garden, you can bury your hands in the soil and your head in the sand. I’m finding joy in looking at the gardens around town.

I thought it was unusual to find a cactus in Nashville, but a neighbor found me staring and explained (from a big, safe distance) this variety is native to Middle Tennessee. He told me it will be covered in yellow flowers in a few weeks, so now I have something to look forward to besides what to have for dinner.

He also told me this bottle tree - made by his father, a welder - was used in “parts of Africa” to ward off evil spirits. Not that I didn’t believe him, but I did Google it as soon as I got home. The idea is thought to have originated in the Congo. They are very popular in the South. I’m hoping those bottles can also branch out from their evil spirit job to help ward off the virus.

Here’s our own private gardener.

Reading is another way to bury yourself in the sand. I just finished a book, The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel, in which several characters, including one loosely based on Bernie Madoff, imagine alternate versions of their lives. They call those versions the “counterlife”. In the imagined counterlife - an alternate, more rosy reality - things turn out fine, or at least not disastrous. At one point in the novel, the Bernie Madoff-ish character is wandering around in his counterlife from inside the walls of the prison he is spending the rest of his real life in. He thinks, “It isn’t his fault that his days are so similar that he keeps sliding into memories, or into the counterlife, although it is troubling that his memories and the counterlife have started blurring together.” Amen to that! I have an active counterlife these days. There is no virus. We are healthy. We go out to restaurants. We travel. What’s doing in your counterlife?

I love this little bit of San Francisco color I found in Nashville. How can I be expected to find out what’s doing in the houses around town when everyone keeps their shades down? I miss spying into people’s living rooms, like I did so often in Amsterdam. Open up those pearly gates and your shades so I can see what kind of reading, baking, and Netflixing is going on in there.

As I wrap up, I’m going to poke my head out of the sand for just a moment. It’s time for me to think for just the briefest second about the future. Maybe the future will be like a good cover of a favorite song: we’ll take what we had, revise it, and make it special, even if it’s different. I know that patience will be a part of that future. On my best days, I’m not known for my patience. But I’m trying. We just got word the James Taylor concert we were so looking forward to has moved to June 2021. Talk about having to wait patiently. You might long for a future that looks just like the one we used to imagine. And you might wish I had given you the Fleetwood Mac version of Landslide. But Stacey Kent took this much-beloved song from my high school days, and made it sound really good. Can we handle the next stage of our lives? I hope so.

I waste a lot of time looking at screens, but in between all the nonsense that pops up, there is also some joy. I’m grateful for the hard work by so many talented artists and comedians that keeps us all from losing our minds.

Well, here is something to talk about besides the weather. Peter finished taking certain medications and is now allowed to enjoy a glass of wine. That is cause for celebration. L’chaim! Add sports to the list of things we look forward to, someday. I took this photo at a Vanderbilt game way back in February (a million months ago).

Let’s end with this song about…well, I’ve never quite been sure what it’s about, but I love it just the same. I think it’s about time moving on, and being able to change, and wanting to see the world. This song makes me think back to all our wonderful trips over the years. I’m looking forward to the times when those trips are part of our real lives, and not just our counterlives. “There’s such a lot of world to see.” I’m also looking forward to hugging family members and friends, catching up over delicious food, and living with less worry. And doing all those things with quiet weather outside all our windows.

One of our best trips ever: to the Dolomites in Italy. Someday, we’ll be back. Until then, we have our yesterdreams.