The first time I went to the mountains during the COVID lockdown, I almost didn’t.
After spending months working the dim halls of the nursing home, an invisible anchor seemed to tug, weigh, second guess.
Breaking free, the road opened up before me, and something inside uncrumpled. Sitting on a log guardrail, I looked at the alpine meadow, goldenrod and thistle swaying in a cool breeze like an herbal cough drop advertisement.
But there were no medications, and no people, just granite a billion years old in the distance. No medications were needed in that bracing sunshine.
I brought the views back to the halls the next day, telling stories to the locked down friends. “Coach, Coach, guess what I saw.”
Now they’re gone, and only the mountains remain.
I drove out to the mountain town last week to tell the people there the stories of the days of Coach and Martha and Leon and all the others.
I wish I didn’t have these stories, that it didn’t happen in the first place. But since it did, they must be told. Oh, how I’d love to tell Coach that he’s in the story, to tell Martha I did write that book she suggested, to tell them all that “hey guys, your good deeds are rippling out, living on, inspiring us all.”
A big thanks to Rob Schilling for hosting the conversation on WINA 1070 AM.
https://wina.com/podcasts/the-schilling-show-october-5-2023-jim-bacon-josh-urban/
Interview starts around 17:30…and MAN, just realized the intro music was one of “Gertie’s” favorite songs (chapter 6 in Cities on a Hill).
And a big thanks to Merian and Mark for making it all possible.
With host Rob Schilling. Thanks to Alan the producer for the shot!
Leo
I woke up too soon
Crept outside to see if the stars would light a way
The cold concrete steps greeting bare feet
Venus blazed low in the east next to Regulus
The Lion’s Heart
Who Hercules met when arrows were rendered useless as unfollowed advice and knives as dull as the average wit
Faced directly, slew with his bare hands
Because that’s the only way
A problem solved to the sky
A starry reminder set with the gem of the waning moon
Who’s dark side was weakly lit from the light from Earth
Strangely pure with no flickering red
I turned to go back to bed
Stepped on a slug on the steps down
Slime on concrete
Cold
I lay awake for a while, nagged by
cynicism that masqueraded as reality
And the weight of being human.