On a Caravan of Dreams and Fragmented views of a year gone by

 The last Sunday in 2018, Andy played Sandy Denny's

"Who Knows Where the Time 

Goes" on the acoustic guitar.

I had just dropped Dion, my mom's best friend at the

airport after the holiday 

weekend.  Mom was exhausted and disoriented after the

 week with her kids and

 grandkids in her house.  I'm not sure how many more

of those holidays we will 

all have with each other. But this one was wonderful,

with cooking and drinks and

 lots more cooking, with the little ones who are no

 longer quite so little. 

Playing the guitar, Andy sang: 

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving

But how can they know it's time for them to go?

Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming

I have no thought of time 

For who knows where the time goes?

Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving

Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go

But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving

I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?

Who knows where the time goes?

Listening to Andy'a familiar voice, I found myself

thinking of my kids who'd gone

 to Judson all these years

and all the other 48 Christmases I've had with mom.

I thought of the friends this year, of Anthony B who

 took us to places unknown 

reminding of unknown places in spaces we've long known,

 taking us around the

 world on winter nights when we were only traveling on TV

 in hyper-reality. 

And Roy Hargrove who played Ruby My Deal like Monk,

all those years ago in 

Texas, at the Jazz Gallery, the Village Vanguard, on Hudson

Street, reminding us 

about the shapes of jazz to come, even when we were kid

s in Dallas and he was

 jumping up on stage at the Caravan of Dreams. 

And Peter Shelly who reminded the world its ok to

 declare you've an orgasm addict 

when you're always at it. 

Don't be afraid.  Don't be ashamed. Don't be silent. 

And Hank's Saloon which closed. 

And Jean, who was deported. 

And Ravi who stayed in Sanctuary at our church, faced deportation, fought back, 

and came back. 

And a teenager who left us way to early, jumping off the

sixth story, her death leaving 

reverberations across a cohort of kids. 

And then the unknown strangers, Roxanne and Jakelin

 who died on the border, 

victims of official cruelty. 

So many more. 

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,”

 Dr Ford reminded us, as those 

silent screams roared from the past. 

They're always with me, walking, riding, making my way

 through this ever-changing city,

around this big blue marble,  to and from DC, fighting the right,

beating back the fascists, 

to Jushua Tree and Hong Kong for spring break, through the

 dessert, across continents, 

to Brussels and Berlin in June, Edisto Beach, Charleston,

and Dorchester South 

Carolina in July before heading out and Italy for the rest of 

July and August, back to NYC, 

where I rode to Fort Tildon, driving up Poughkeepsie, out to

New Orleans and the Monhonk 

Mountain range, around the neighborhoods, exploring art,

 watching the dialectical shapes

 of the city fall apart and come back together in new formations,

as the plate tectonics 

shift, the glaciers melt, and democracy crumbles, back to San Francisco,

 where the hills 

were burning.   There may not be a California to return to. 

 The new abnormal is everywhere. 

Taking it all in, its easy to see what Guy Debord saw:

In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an

 immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded 

into a representation. 

2 The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which

 the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup 

themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at.

I certainly saw these pieces walking through the East Village

 this December, where 

the Canibal Girls played before we made our way  back out to 

Brooklyn to Princeton

  to Margaretville to Monticello, where Ben E Smith ran a shop

all those years ago, 

back up to the Big Indian Wilderness, where the little one imagined,

back to Garrison, 

where Al told stories,  to Princeton to Newark back to Judson

 where Andy played the

 last Sunday in 2018, when we read from Debord.

I tried to write about everything i saw this year, publishing one book,

 finishing two others, 

in addition to 141 blog posts, many about the five acts of civil disobedience

 i was arrested

 for this year, voting with my body, pushing the world to hear our screams

 for decent judges

 and an independent judiciary in Washington, to believe women,

 for a fair contract for our 

union, for policies which support the climate here in New York,

so we can avert the looming

 disaster that the UN suggests we're bringing upon ourselves. 

Michael Kink, Eric Sawyer, this writer and friends in DC. 

"Failure is instructive," John Dewey reminds us. 

"The person who really thinks learns quite 

as much from his failures as successes."

So I tried to learn from a few of my many, many glitches and stumbles,

 bruised ribs, and

 arthritis-ridden knees, my fragile ego, and effort to learn from this

messy life, reading

 every week for book club, trying to write  a decent sentence.

If you are turning fifty in 2019, you are entering the third period

of this Hockey game. 

At least for this year, 

I tried to be a friend.

I tried to be support one big union.

I tried to be a dad.

I tried to be a partner.

I tried to be a brother.

I tried to believe women. 

I tried to let go and embrace some of what is important.

49 years into this life I tried to be  a few things.

Next year i hope i can read more, 

gossip less, 

laugh more and sit in the quiet empty places whenever i can.