Another Folk Singer

Last fall, before the election, friends were discussing what ethical obligations we might have towards political action. I proposed that one should at least make one's views known.

This whole world is a conversation between humans, amongst humans and with plants and animals, mountains, sea and sky, with history and the momentum of social change, with potent unknowns, the sun, the galactic black hole, and the whole big whiz-bang of it. And now we're wired together by screens and keyboards, and there's a new dimension to our social discourse.

David Lowery of Cracker sings

What the world needs now is another folk singer
Like I need a hole in the head.

How many bloggers are joining the conversation daily? Is anything I have to say worth adding to the ocean of words?

When I was in high school and just after, I would ride around Boston on public transportation and gaze at the thousands of windows in all the apartment houses, wondering what magical lives of interest go on behind the shades. After many miles and years, I realized that very few were likely more interesting than my own.

A few months ago, I turned 60. Amongst Native Americans I know, my opinions would have long been respected just for my age. They have this idea that the older you get, the more and better you know. It should work that way.

One of my best jobs was driving a cab around Marin County, California. A real pretty place to drive around all day. There have been times when it was the richest county in the country, per capita. Lots of people retired there, so many of my customers were older. Elderly women frequently took cabs to beauty parlors. Since the company wasn't that big, chance would often fall that you would pick up the same lady on her way home. We had a routine, the old ladies and the cab drivers -- when one came out, she'd ask how she looked, and the driver would wonder aloud if she were the same person that he brought there. They hardly tipped well, the dears -- they still lived in a time when a quarter tip was substantial -- so the game was just for the tender-hearted fun of it. They really never looked any different than when they went in.

One busy Sunday, I took a woman in her seventies to a salon, and then I got a call out to Fairfax. After leaving the main street, I followed roads that curved hugging a high hill two miles up to near the top of it. A robust woman with a thick white braid hanging to her waist got in and asked to be taken to a store in San Rafael. I enjoyed her cheerful pleasantries. When she got out, the dispatcher sent me back for the woman at the salon. I played the usual game, and took her the short way to her elderly housing complex. She wasn't quite able to get out of the back seat by herself, so I offered her my arm. It took more effort than I expected, but she got on her feet and paid me. Then, referring to her difficulty getting out of the cab, she smiled and said, "Never get old, sonny!" I was about thirty then. I said nothing, but her words stayed with me. She didn't even know she was wishing me an early death. Well, again, I got my Fairfax fare and headed for her home. Don't remember what we talked about, but I remember feeling good with her in my cab. I was about to turn unto the curvy roads up the hill, but she made me stop so she could walk. She had two heavy bags. "Are you sure?" I asked. She gave me a look that conveyed that presence I've felt only from long-practiced religious people or old Indians. With a voice full of compassion for me, she said, "I'm sure. You don't get to be 92 by sitting on your ass."

I've thought about those two women ever since. The seventy-year-old was a nice person, but her life was not as rich as it could be. From the gift that day of driving these two ladies, and many more older folks, I began to see that there were two paths into old age. In one, you stay open to learning, welcoming the changes of circumstance as well as you can. In the other, you tend to freeze the way you see things out of fear that life is slipping out of your control. You tell a story to yourself that let's you believe everything will be alright. But you're just going to get older and sicker and some day you will surely die. Why shut out what's really going on for the sake of a self-told fairy tale.

What's really going on is a life of immeasurable beauty.

Presumably, I'm on the better path, but I've been wrong before. Hard to judge yourself accurately because, you know, you're biased. But it doesn't matter; the thing is to keep writing and join in the discourse and see what happens.

Another folk singer that sings her songs well is always welcome.