Another Day In The Bonus Round

January Draws To A Close

Regarding a sundial in the waning days of winter

The day is nearly done. Lynn watches another episode of “The Rookie” in our living room as I sit in the study/guest room tapping away on the laptop while “Time Out Of Mind” by Bob Dylan plays behind me. Little (or widely) known fact, this 1997 album was, in part, inspired by the death of Jerry Garcia with whom Bob Dylan had become close. Jerry’s death at 53 and Bob’s own health challenges got him thinking in terms of our mortality. “Dirt Road Blues” is playing now.

So, “Harrowings” is what I call this effort and I am very grateful to the 8 of you who have chosen to support my work. I haven’t been showing it as well as I had planned when I set out this past fall but, today, I learned I was and am in good company. Others here have experienced a gap in their writing, in other words. It could be laid at the feet of winter itself - but this winter, in this country, adds layers of nuance to the ordinary doldrums that can impact the writer.

“Harrowings” toys with a number of subjects. It is harrowing to live life in the early 21st century but not really much more than at any other point in history. I think back in my mind over what I have experienced in the course of the past nearly 62 years.

I was conceived sometime in the spring of 1962, in fact. I was in utero during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since we weren’t vaporized during that fall, I came into the world at 3:21 AM on February 4, 1963. I missed being born on my father’s and his father’s birthday by 19 days. They shared January 16 as the date of their respective nativities.

Losing Dad on April 7, as I stood by his side with a hand on his shoulder, my mother on the other side, has me still nostalgic for that moment in time when he passed away.

Harrowings is a good bit about scratching the surface of his weighty scholarship as well. It is harrowing to lose our loved ones and then to do a kind of inventory about the relationship and everything that passed between us. I like to think that he felt that I had done right by him as a son. It’s hard to know what any of us feel or what any of us have felt. One thing that seems to me to be salient here and it is summed up with two words, “Love Remains.”

I could, and often do, go on, but for now, this is what I have wanted to say to all of you who read “Harrowings” - TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED. It can all be over in an instant for any of us. I’m grateful to be listening to Bob Dylan - “A Million Miles From You” is the track playing now. Here, I’ll close by sharing it with you here: