This is Where I’ve Been

  Week Forty-five: Lean on Me Sometimes in our lives We all have pain We all have sorrow But if we are wise We know that there's always tomorrow Lean on me When you're not strong And I'll be your friend I'll help you carry on... --Bill Withers, Lean on Me, from the album Still Bill Years ago I started carrying a murse, a man-purse, you know, a man-bag, a messenger bag, a satchel. By any name it is the perfect vehicle to carry utterly useless things because you never know when you might need some of that stuff. Some things that I do carry in there and often need are band-aids because years ago I thoroughly embarrassed myself (unintentionally of course) when I discovered a cut on my lower leg. Thanks to the blood thinners that help me avoid a stroke, my wound bled freely. It wasn’t until I sensed the trickle/tickle that I reached down to scratch my itch. What I got in return was a bloody hand. After considerable effort to clean myself and the restaurant floor, I swore I w...

  Week Forty-four: Make You Feel My Love I’ve known it from the moment that we met No doubt in my mind where you belong I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue I’d go crawling down the avenue Know there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do To make you feel my love —Adele, Make You Feel My Love from the album 19  (written by Bob Dylan from Time Out of Mind) Ever since I began this project, I have written essays based on songs that I hear. Songs from the radio usually, but every once in a while I’ll get one from unlikely sources like television commercials or background music supporting a reel on Facebook. Such was the case for this song. I recognized Adele’s voice, that’s easy, but had no clue about the song, so I played it over several times in an effort to get even a partial lyric. Once that was done, a Google search led me to Make You Feel My Love . For fans of Adele it might have been much easier, but at least I had found the name of the song and could read the lyrics for myself. An...

  Week Forty-three: A Song for You I love you in a place where there's no space and time I love you for my life, you are a friend of mine And when my life is over Remember when we were together  We were alone and I was singing this song to you —Leon Russell, A Song for You , from Leon Russell Although I really don’t know why, recently when I heard A Song for You , which I have heard many, many times before, I thought of my friend Dyann Peters. Dyann and I weren’t ordinary friends. In fact, we never met. Years ago I discovered a time-consuming app in which one player would draw something using a simple palette of colors. The second player was required to watch long enough to guess what was being drawn. That’s probably not enough description, but somehow, some way I found Dyann. Or she found me. One thing we had in common was we always waited for the person drawing to finish before we guessed. Other random players would fill in the blanks as soon as they had a good idea of what ...

  Week Forty-two: As We all know sometimes life hates and troubles Can make you wish you were born in another time and space But you can bet your lifetimes that and twice it's double That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed So make sure when you say you’re in it, but not of it You’re not helping to make this earth A place sometimes called Hell Change your words into truths And then change that truth into love And maybe our children’s grandchildren And their great grandchildren will tell I’ll be loving you —Stevie Wonder, As, from the album Songs In the Key of Life Things are so fucked up that I can’t make sense of them. We all know sometimes life hates and troubles Can make you wish you were born in another time and space An immoral, corrupt, vile, immature, name-calling, narcissistic, egotistical, racist asshole is the Republican candidate for the most powerful position on Earth, and  I struggle to understand why. I don’t even want to understand how, but I thin...