Tom Sawyer in the Rafters

1.

Pray tell you’ve been the picture of good health

Tom Sawyer in the rafters …

2.  Boy turns seventeen quietly, although the gift of a live Nirvana CD with a stand-in paper guitar tucked inside it sends him upstairs for the rest of the evening to work out a guitar line for the bass track that he has been thumping out for weeks. It’s high time.  I want to hear the rest of it.  We’ll go look for a Tele this weekend.

3.  Girl texts a picture (or something like that) of an engineering landmark – a road, a works, a waterway; “Guess where I went today?”  I know the place, and why she’s down there.  It’s an unexpectedly hard job market this year.  I’ve been saying, “Millennials ruin everything”, but in truth they face an uphill climb.  This job would be in a backwater, and as soon as she starts it she will want out.  We’d suggest a Master’s degree, but it’s already been firmly established that she’d rather work and start her life.  I understand being tired of waiting.

4.  T jumps from the frying pan to the fire, and discovers that the folks in the fire get really, really good bonuses every year. There’s something to be said for being on the check-writing side of the equation.  On the other hand, it’s still all just people – and people are as insane as ever.  She marshals her thoughts every morning, looking at the mirror but mostly seeing a window to the day’s battle ahead.

5.  Me? I don’t know.  Plus ca change.  (Yes, the “c” should be some other character.  No, I will not be attempting to insert it.)  As expected, the figurative wound takes three years to heal.  Three years beyond that, I still feel only steps ahead of things that will bring me down.   The hours are still long, and every week there are still tasks that have been neglected.

There’s this song with a couple of tempo changes and a melody in the middle that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.  I don’t know why.

I’m the one with the white door and the car in the side-yard,

It’s the one with lights up

on the poles on the front porch

it’s enough so we won’t talk

on the space where you held up,

and the way that you told us the day you went dark

and you know it’s hard to show back up at all

when you’re gone long,

and I could still assume

the worst if you want, or worse if you want me to.

Can you make do?

Can you make do…

– Tom Sawyer / You Know Where You Can Find Me, from the album Cocksure by Laura Stevenson, 2016