Mary Beth Writes

10/12/2022

“You’re holding them to a past they were never stuck in.”

Credit this quote: On twitter I follow Thomas V. Bona (@tvbona). He’s the only person in my entire life, I think, who has recognized my name from when I wrote for The Other Side, a now kaput magazine of and for progressive Evangelicals. (A niche market, I’ll grant you, but a niche I fit in the 1980's.) Anyway, Thomas Bona’s self-bio includes he’s an “electric Mennonite” which hooked me at hello. I know people who are or were Mennonite and if you think they are about canned beans and prayer bonnets, you don’t really know Mennonites. Right, Hedy?

Bona comments a lot about music I barely recognize, but his remarks are so interesting I follow him anyway. Before he met me Len tutored a woman who said about him, “I never know what he’s talking about but I like the way he says it.” I feel this way about Thomas V. Bona.

This morning, talking about a U2 album apparently some people like and some don’t, Bona advised listeners to listen some more and to not “hold them to a past they were never stuck in.”

Bingo. There’s a novel in ten words.

Like when you go back to your family of origin and they are still expecting you to act the way you did decades ago. When you failed some hard math test an age ago and you are still sure you can’t figure out a tip on a check. When you voted Republican often in your life and can’t figure out what you are going to do now. Even Liz Cheney is talking how to vote American constitution. When we talk abut our childhood decades as being “better and more moral and upright” than this decade we are in now. All the ways we allow others and ourselves to regard success as happy circumstance and failure as the lane we live in.

I’m watching Ken Burn’s Jazz documentary series. It’s 20 hours long and I love it like crazy, so if you didn’t watch it when it was on TV and you are wondering what to do come winter, I highly recommend.

Briefly (because you can read Wikipedia as well as I can) Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, in 1901, into brutal poverty; his childhood neighborhood was so violent it was called The Battlefield. Louis ran the streets, was often hungry, listened to and knew who all the players were. Kind adults, dangerous adults. Adults who sold sex for income. Adults who cheated. Adults who ignored him and adults who saw him and shared a little of who they were and what they had. And there was music everywhere.

By age 6 Louis was working for the Karnoffskys, an immigrant family of Lithuanian Jews. He helped their sons collect "rags and bones" and deliver coal. Mrs. Karnoffsky fed little Louis a good dinner every night before he left to go home. Sometimes she sang Russian lullabies to her kids; Louis hung around to learn those tunes, too.

Louis got into trouble enough that by age 11 he was remanded to the “Home for Colored Waifs” where a music teacher taught him how to play the coronet.

Louis quit school early. As an adolescent Louis kept listening to and doing his best to participate in the non-stop music of New Orleans and the Mississippi River boats. He met people who would become minor and major influences and mentors in his life.

In August of 1922 his mom packed him a trout sandwich and made him wear long underwear because she’d heard it was cold in Chicago. Louis then boarded a train to Chicago where his adult life as one of the greatest musical artists of the 20th century would begin and thrive.

Armstrong and His Hot Five recorded ‘West End Blues’ in 1928. There are no words for the invitation and perfection of this music. Listen right here. 

'West End Blues' pops right up in my phone because I listen to it so much. I realized yesterday the music now brings to mind the trees that line the path I walk along when I’m coming home from the Y. I don’t use earbuds, I just set it loud, put the phone in my pocket, let the music take me home.

“You’re holding them to a past they were never stuck in.”

These two things: In West End Blues you can hear, if you are listening for it, the music wild little Louis heard and breathed into himself. You can hear the pace of a poverty-strapped life in a culturally saturated place. Don’t go frantically, but don’t stop. Life is difficult but it’s also beautiful so keep moving. There are echoes of musicians Armstrong knew that I will never recognize because I’m not that good at knowing music. There’s a world to know and unpack in his music; I know it’s there and I respect it and I keep reading and paying attention because the history and stories are remarkable and fascinating.

But I also hear, and feel, lack of judgement. Armstrong is not trying to be as good as, or better than others. He’s not competing. He’s not in this to win or lose. He’s closing his eyes, leaning back, blowing that horn. He’s listening for the music inside him and aiming without fear to get it out. He’s an artist inventing what his head and heart can invent. He comes from his own story, for sure. But his story is his language, not his tether.

It moves me. There is so much to modern life that is competition. We lose or win. We are scared that others are taking our peace and equanimity.

But at the end of a day, we get to shut off the words and fall into whatever tells us to breathe steady and keep moving.

...

Louis, playing to his wife. 

 

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Y is for Yellowstone

9/27/2023

Back in February I asked you to give me topics to write about that would correspond to the alphabet. Sometimes several of you sent ideas for one letter and sometimes I wrote about all of them (I’s and S’s) Here we are at letter Y for which your suggestions are Yummy Food and Yawns. The word yawn absolutely makes me yawn; no way I could write about that - I would yawn for hours. I worked on Yummy Food but could only find a scolding voice about Americans eating too much sugar. Bah. True but not interesting.

So, I gave Y a go again. Y is for?

"I was Scott Simon's teller."

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X is for Xeriscape

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Xeriscape is pronounced ‘zeer-eh-scape’ and it means landscaping with little to no irrigated water. Readers in the west already know about this. Those of us who don’t live in arid or desert places need to wake up to the incredible resource that water is - then begin to accommodate ourselves to “water all around and beneath us all the time” is no longer our reality. Nor is it our right. We’ve got to get smarter and do better.

W is for Wonder

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To whomever suggested Wonder - Thank You!  ‘Wonder’ has been bobbing in my mind like a frog in a pond.

However, I have FOUR suggestions from you guys for X - but I do not want to write four X essays. These are the suggestions:

1.) X signature substitution

2.) xylophone on a string pulled by a toddler

3.) xenophobia

4.) Xmas. 

If you have an opinion respond with the one you would like me to attempt. I will choose whichever X gets the most comments.

There will be no gerrymandering in this election.

GNTL - NAMI

9/7/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives

NAMI

Most of you know about my former weird and lovely job of coordinating an employability skills program for Huber-qualified inmates in the Racine County Jail (that’s a mouthful). Early on I realized that most of the people I would work with were people with 1.) huge addiction problems, and 2.) underlying and over-the-top and to-the-side just lying around mental health issues.

V is for Vocabulary

9/6/2023 

For those who are new here - This year I am writing about topics, in alphabetical order, that were suggested to me by readers. Sometimes this is hard! 

IRTNOG

My cousin-in-law Dave has some powerfully thorough avocations (for fun and profit he earned a PhD in biochemistry; you will notice this in his list). This year, among other pursuits, he has been collecting words which have appeared in our culture since 1945, which was the year he also appeared in our culture.

Tag Cloud

9/11 17 minutes 500 Words A-Z AARPtaxes AAUW abortion Acadia accident Accountable Advent aging Alaska anniversary antibiotics antlers apples appointments Arrows art Ashland August Augustine aunts baby Badlands balance Baldwin Barbara Barkskins Beauty Becky Becoming Esther Berry birthday bistro BLM Blue BookReport books boy scout Bread BrokenDays BuyAngry Cabeza de Vaca Cahokia calendars Canada canoe cat romance cats cello Chicago China Choosing Christmas cilantro Cinnabuns circus climate change clouds Clowns clutter Colonialism comet ComfortZone CommonSense community consumerism Cops Corvid-19 Courage Covid-19 Crazy creditreport creosote CrimeShows danger DarkRiver death Debate December DecisionFatigue decluttering democracy dentist depression Destination Today Detroit Didion disasterprep dogs dollhouse Dreams Duty Easter eBay Echoes Eclipse election EmilyDickinson eschatology Esquipulas exit polls eyes Fable FairTrade family farmer Fata Morgana ferns firealarm Fitness Five Flatbread Flexible flu Food Pantry Fort de Chartres frame Franc FrancGarcia friends frugal FrugalHacks Frugality frustration Ft.Ticonderoga fungi fusion Galena Gannets Garden GarfieldParkConservatory Gaspe genius geode GeorgeFloyd gerrymandering ghosts gifts girls GNTL gorgons goulash GovernorThompsonStatePark Graduation grandkids granola groceries Guatemala gum guns Hair happiness HaveYouEver? hawks healthcare Healthinsurance hearings heart heaven HelleKBerry heroes hike History home HomeRepair Honduras Hope HowCrowGotOutofJail humor hurricane Ice Cream idiosyncrasy igloos impeachment Innkeeper Instincts integrity InternetPrivacy Interview InviteMe2Speak James Baldwin Jan 6 Janus jewelry JoyceAndrews Judy JulianofNorwich Jump justice Karen kites ladder Lady Lamb LangstonHuges LaphamPeak laundry LeeLeeMcKnight lemming Len Light Lincoln Little Women LockedOut Loki loneliness LouisArmstrong Love Ludington Macaw macho Manitoulin MargaretFuller Maria Hamilton Marquette marriage Marsden Hartley masks Mayan MayaWorks meme Memories men Middlemarch MilesWallyDiego MindfulChickens Mistakes MLK moon Mother MothersDay mounds mouser movies museums must-haves Mustapha NAMI Nancy Drew Newfoundland New Mexico New York City Nomadland nope observation OBUUC Ocotillo OnaJudge ordinary OscarRomero osprey Outside oximeter Parade mayhem PastorBettyRendon Paul Hessert PDQ Penny persimmon photos Pi Pies pineapples poetry Preaching privacy procrastination Protest QE2 Quern quest Questions Rabbit holes racism reading recipe recipes recommendations Remember RepresentationMatters Reruns responsetoKapenga Retirement rhubarb Ricky rime RitesofPassage romance Rosemary Ruether Roses Roti Ruth SamaritanWoman Sanctuary Sandhillcranes Santuario de Chimayo SaraKurtz SaraRodriguez satellites ScottSimon sculpture Seasons Sermon ServantsoftheQuest sewing Shepherd Shontay ShortStory shoulder sick sickness Slower snow Social Security SofritoBandito solstice South Dakota SpaceShuttle spirituality spring square feet staining stars stele Stereotypes stories StoryStarts stream monitoring stress Survival swim Talent taxes teenager thankgsgiving Thanksgiving TheBridge TheMaid ThePerpetualYou therapy ThreeBillBoards Three Thing ThreeThings Three Things TidalBore TimeBeing toddler Tom tortillas Trains travel Traveler Tubing turtle Twilight Bark Tyrone Ukraine Ulysses Grant Umbrella UnrelatedObservations Up North urgency vacation vaccine Valentines vanilla Vietnam vision VivianWokeUpDrowning Vocabulary vole volunteer WalkingAndSeeing Wampanaog war WarsanShire weather weaving Webs wedding whines WhyAttendChurch Wiley Willa WillaCather Wisteria Won! Wonder words Xeriscape Yellowstone
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