I am keeping a record of when time stops or maybe I should say when it slows down. Really slows down.
I went to the grocery store today and there was a homeless man standing outside with a cardboard sign asking for money and that he was a veteran. He had a backpack and a garbage bag of his belongings. He looked rough, dirty and weathered. It has been unusually cold this past few months and I can’t imagine what it must be like to live rough. It felt like everyone walked by head down, ignoring him. I have done the same thing, I don’t like to see the pain, the reality of life today.
My brother Tommy taught me to see differently, Tommy was bi polar and had a rough life mostly without family support. The last few years of his life he lived on the streets because he could no longer afford the rat infested room he had in the city. He would get beat up, have his stuff stolen but the guy had turned to Buddhism and took it all with a laugh. I worried about him all the time. I worried about him getting hurt, I worried about him going crazy and maybe hurting somebody else. So there is part of me that was mad at him, blaming him for my worry. But I realize he has also left me with something precious, the awareness of how hard it is living out on the street. How our society doesn’t know how to handle people that are damaged and can’t contribute the ways we are expected too. Popping a pill doesn’t make everything better.
So Tommy taught me to have compassion for the man who blessed me when I gave him a few dollars. He taught me not to judge what I don’t understand. I didn’t walk away feeling better because I donated but I did feel grateful for knowing Tommy would approve.
The pain wakes me up. I try to bend my middle finger, it is throbbing and stiff. I shake my arm to get the blood circulating. My middle finger, this used to be my favorite finger the one I used to flip off the world. I close my eyes and try to forget the pain and then I remember.
I am fifteen when my mother discovers my father is having an affair. She takes to her bed, with her astrology magazines, chocolate Turtles and bottles of cheap red wine.
I am in charge being the eldest. There are four kids and 30 dogs in the back yard that need taking care of. Doing laundry I go into my younger brothers room looking for
dirty clothes. I open his closet and there on the floor are open tubes of airplane
glue.I look around the room, windows are closed, curtains are closed and no car
or airplane models. My 10-year-old brother is hiding in his closet sniffing glue
while my mother hides in her room reading her horoscope.
I go to my parents’ room where my mother hides under the covers with the curtains drawn and tell her about what I have found, she doesn’t respond. I go back to my brothers’ room to get the tubes out of his closet and he is there, when I ask him about the glue he gets angry and I see hate and fear in his young eyes. He slams the door close and I try to stop him, the door crushes my finger.I’m screaming “open the door” he doesn’t for a long time. This is the only time I ever see him being cruel.
My finger stops throbbing. I close my eyes and think of my brother one of my best friends, eighteen years dead. Gone but still with me.
I went to our local Women’s March today. It was pink and wrapped in funny signs and Native Americans watched us march and thanked us for the good day.
And I still looked up to the roof to see if there were any snipers. Because you never forget once you have felt the threat from your own country.
Fifty years ago I walked in a march in Berkeley California protesting Provo Park and the Vietnam War. I think it was on a Saturday, I remember it being a nice day. I walked downtown from where I lived on the corner of Grove and Ashby to the park. I was 19 years old. Hundreds of young people discovered we were being watched by snipers from rooftops as helicopters buzzed above us and the streets were blocked off. Trapped. Even my naive mind realized that if just one person freaked out we were all in danger from our government. As people placed flowers in the Guards rifles I prayed that peace was as powerful as I believed.
Fifty years later and here I am walking down the street with police on either end of the walk and I can’t help but look up to the roofs of this beautiful Victorian town and I don’t see one sniper and I don’t hear one helicopter circling above and I think to myself, that’s a good sign.
I spend my time finding and listening to music. Having been stuck in the 60’s I challenge myself to hear what is going on; Now. Music is poetry of our time, but you knew that. And I am beginning to notice a beat; a heart beat in the music. And it gives me HOPE.
Rats in Washington playing hardball while children wait in detention camps surrounded by strangers. Talk about PTSD. Toxic shock lays on top of our beautiful land. Our oceans poisoned empty. I love the earth more then I love you, no wonder we can’t all get along. Regrets are as common as pot holes. Listening to Garrison Keillors read the Writers Almanac calms my morning jitters like Perry Mason once did. Loneliness is my best friend so I take it with me everywhere.
My word for 2019 is JOY.
I’m gonna spread it on you like peanut butter.
Yes I do have a radio voice, I mean a voice that I use for the radio. I think I inherited it. Without even thinking about it I slow down as I speak, lower my range. I articulate, try not to breathe too heavy. I now have a constant allergy condition so I work on not sounding wheeze or raspy breathe. . I try to pay attention as it is easy for me to talk in cliche, or do an accent and of course the the Biggest Fear. SWEAR.
I have the mouth of a sailor. ( It was a thing in the 60’s that I didn’t out grow.) So I have to pay attention. So far so good. Today seven months into my show a young man in his late 20’s told me he liked my “radio voice’ and then he said he liked my taste in music almost as an afterthought. Yes a huge compliment coming from a person not in my age zone but it made me think about the voice vs the taste in music. Yes I would like to have a pleasant sound as I am very audio and I love a good voice but I think having someone appreciate your taste in music is like butter.
The name of my radio show and now my blog. The radio show is the best thing that has happened to me in a while. After all I am now 68 years old and all that ensues. It wasn’t into I received more then one gentle nudge by a radio angel that I started playing music on the air and realized you can’t fight it when it’s in your blood. I do believe it is never too late to realize your passion. You can hear me on KPTZ.org.
The Buzzy Donahue Show 