It has been a week of pulling back, resting, and experimenting. I walked out with the dog to explore the smaller peninsulas and found a box. The box warned not to remove it. Grrr. We took it home and opened it under the light.
A small composition book, a pen, and a rubber stamp were on top of some folded photocopies of a map: a satellite view of the Michigan I’m in with “you are here” and “go here” clearly marked in a child’s serious hand. Hello, Orienteers! We signed our names and the next day buried the box back.
A letter from a friend arrived, too, stuffed with music from other lands: “I’m From Barcelona,” “Land of Talk,” “Me and Armini.” I will open them slow as not to totally unmap myself.
And in another drifting hour I found the recently departed Studs Terkel’s “Born To Live” streaming for free on Transom.org. If you have some time, the very recently departed Miriam Makeba; a Hiroshima survivor and her translator; Pete Seeger; Gwendolyn Brooks; John Ciardi; James Baldwin; Studs and so many others will locate you.
“Sounds need not have a narrator. I got that from [Dennis] Mitchell. Just let the ideas flow from one to the other.”
–Studs Terkel, introducing “Born To Live”