As we come up on the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to share some of the music that has helped me through the year, with post a quick bit about one song each day in March. So here goes …
#2, Hold On, Yola
I first heard Yola when she sang with the alt-country, all-female supergroup The Highwomen on the title song of their debut record, which came out in 2019. Last summer a friend passed along “Hold On” and it became my resilience anthem for COVID times. Coming full circle, Yola is backed on this song by several of the Highwomen (Brandi Carlisle and Natalie Hemby, with Sheryl Crow and Morgane Stapleton, who will show up with her husband later in this list, as well). My church does contemporary music, from the Beatles to Frank Turner to Jimmy Eat World, and if we’re not singing “Hold On” by next summer, in-person or especially if we’re still remote, I will be shocked.
As we come up on the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to share some of the music that has helped me through the year. I’m going to post a quick bit about one song each day in March. So here goes …
Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam is a favorite and this performance is a reminder that music can be communal — just hearing 40,000 fans singing along in Chicago in, I think, 2017. And the song, about a chance encounter that stirs up memories and feelings is so spot-on during this time when tragedy plays out in the most mundane and banal ways. It’s been not a thunderclap of loss or even a hundred deaths by a thousand cuts. Instead it is loss and disconnection played out over seemingly unending groundhog days.
You can find yourself asking, What happens when the only rituals of modern life are performed at home or on screen? Answer: We can get so tangled in the jumble that we strangle ourselves in frustration.
And against that backdrop, this song, about the recognition, compromises and realities of loss … it seems like as good a place to start as any. Tomorrow, #2.
Having trouble with the lyrics, here you go:
I seem to recognize your face
Haunting familiar, yet I can’t seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me
All these changes taking place
I wish I’d seen the place
But no one’s ever taken me
Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away
Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away
I swear I recognize your breath
Memories, like fingerprints, are slowly raising
Me you wouldn’t recall for I’m not my former
It’s hard when you’re stuck upon the shelf
I changed by not changing at all
Small town predicts my fate
Perhaps that’s what no one wants to see
I just want to scream, “Hello
My god, its been so long, never dreamed you’d return
Interesting is a word I notice in conversation because of how people use it—or misuse it. The two ways that amuse me most:
When asked for an opinion or evaluation, people will say “That’s interesting” or “Hmmmm, interesting.” Often they don’t follow that with insight. Instead, it’s a neutral being used to not offer a more candid (and negative?) assessment. When I hear interesting in this context, I either assume they meant “that’s a bad idea” and I say, “I need more. Give me the next words that are coming to mind.”
The other use of interesting is to say “Let’s talk about something, anything else.” Next time you hear that something is interesting, notice how often the conversation pivots immediately to either a completely new topic or bends to an absurd or hard-to-follow degree toward the speaker’s experience. Best of all, notice it you are doing it yourself.
My point is, if one found a topic or argument truly interesting, they would expand upon or ask about it. In my experience, and counter to its definition, once labeled interesting, you’ve hit a curiosity dead end.
We’ve had a mouse problem. It started with a text from Virginia on my Monday morning walk that said, “Mouse! Come home!”
I came home, seemingly trapped it in a bathroom and went to get some mouse traps. By the time I returned, it was gone. But we set our traps and the next morning, there it was — in the trap near the pantry.
Just to be safe, we left the traps out. The next morning: another mouse, smaller than the first, in the same trap.
And the next morning? Yup, the same thing.
Now, this had me mildly freaked out. I didn’t realize there were five mammals sharing this space. What made it even worse was that I didn’t know about these other three despite the fact we were all here ALL THE TIME. Shouldn’t I have seen some signs? (Though maybe the recent cold snap brought them in recently.) That, and the increasing number of COVID-19 infections in our community, had me feeling very much trapped and stuck in my house, in my life.
Until last evening.
I was participating in my congregation’s midweek mindfulness checkin, which occurs on Zoom. After we completed a 30-minute exercise, my minister asked us to hold a thought that had been occupying our attention more lightly. And for whatever reason, this provided a real sense of lightness and relief.
Instead of seeing my home as a punishment and a penalty, as a place where I was stuck, I saw it from the mice’s point of view: my house was warm and a respite from the oncoming cold. It had lots of places to cuddle up and relax. It had more than enough food for all the creatures living under its roof.
I realized what was true for mice was true for me, too. My home is enough. It can keep me safe and happy — if I choose to be safe and happy. All I have to do is embrace mouse mind—without quite embracing mouse—and stay away from the peanut butter smeared underneath those dangerous-looking plastic teeth. Seems doable, and a reminder that the world is equal parts what is and what I perceive it to be.
I was going through a photo album from 1968 made up of photos mostly taken by my father-in-law, and it was as if I was meeting him for the first time. Which, in some ways, I was. Charles Christopher Kirk died in 1974, when I was 9, Virginia was 12, and we were almost 15 years away from meeting. We’ve been married 28 years and counting.
The photos were the usual stuff, the kids around the house and on birthdays and family occasions, and a few travel photos. But for me, it was an introduction to his gaze. He caught the kids in moments of quiet, hanging on the front stoop while playing with friends or he got them to pose on a snow day or at the beach. There were photos of a Western trip he and Rosalie took, and Rosalie ends up posing at sign posts along the way — Pikes Peak, the Grand Canyon. In all of these he takes the time to compose an image that speaks to what he cares about. You can feel the love. At least I could, because it’s how I take photos too.
There’s one of this little girl, relaxing in a chair (see above, but better below). It’s quiet and intimate, and Virginia at rest, which I imagine was as unusual then as now, and all I could think as I looked at it was, we both loved this same person, over all these years, and how cruel it was that six years later he died and he didn’t see her at 15 and 25, on her wedding day and as she became a mom and a reporter and a social worker and a wife and a bike rider and a grandma and a care giver and all the things that were probably so apparent to him when he looked at her. I really ached for him.
The strangest, wonderful thing for me in this grief time, in saying goodbye to Rosalie, is finally, at long last, meeting Chris Kirk. And being drawn together by this simple fact: what you loved, I love, too. It’s one of the graces of this parting time.
I’ve never been much of a flower person. I’ve let Virginia do the work of encouraging things to grow and be beautiful, and I water, yank up weeds and prune when things get unruly. But last year, I decided to try my hand at it. I dug out a garden in our backyard and planted a bunch of sunflowers.
It was a disaster. The ground I chose was wet and the soil poor. We’ve been told that our yard was once a junkyard and I believe it; when it rains enough, you’ll see a sheen of oil pool on the standing water like something from The Beverly Hillbillies. This is not rich soil, though a business called Soil Rich sits behind the treeline in our yard. The few plants that grow even a few inches tall have been consumed quickly by various critters.
This year, I decided, would be different.
I bought a raised bed and filled it with high-quality dirt.
I planted only seeds for mammoth varieties, and paid great care to spacing.
I put up a fence to fend off herbivores large and small.
I devoted meticulous attention to the seeds’ progress.
And it paid off. The darn things grew. Within a week of planting, we had seedlings. They grew into shoots, then just kept growing. Two feet. Three feet. Four feet. Six feet.
Seven feet.
Eight feet! (The tallest reached nearly 11 feet.)
The seed heads began to develop and I anticipated all the fun of a late Summer of looking at them lording over our backyard. And when they bloomed, they were magnificent. I was loving it.
But there’s always a but.
And in this case, the but is this moment of Sunflower Maximus was short-lived. The first to bloom was a harbinger of doom. After two magnificent days, it began to droop. Then wilt. Then the head deteriorated quickly. The seeds never had time to develop, and it was over. The rest of the sunflowers, all two dozen of them, followed a similar arc. Spectacular bloom, sagging under their own fecundity, followed quickly by decline and deterioration.
In the end, a late summer tropical storm pumped too much water into their stalks and the overheavy heads snapped the stalks and the squirrels gleefully ran up and down their 12-foot lengths. I ended up asking my son Kelly to go and pull them out. I didn’t have the heart.
The lesson for me was one of balance. The sunflowers grew tall, bloomed big, and declined quickly. I’m 54. I fear a similar flowering. The good thing is, I’m a person, not a flower, and I have some say in the matter. If I grow, how I grow, includes some level of choice, and go big, and go home early is an end I am not willing to court. I’ve known this for a while: I’m willing to exchange size for sustainability.
It’s worth noting that we’re about five years to the day from the time I had an operation in which a surgeon placed a stent in my heart. I have been reading my journal entries from when I first noticed that something was happening in my body. When I realized I might need some help. When I realized how close I came to being beyond help. It was a good lesson in things don’t last forever, that the sustainable route is the one that doesn’t fight against physics. That lasting is a good thing. That a bunch of smaller, gorgeous flowers are more than enough in any garden.
So, next year: It will be different. More varieties. Plants with multiple heads, so none are so large as to endanger the stalk’s integrity. More locations around our yard.
Sunflower 3.0 will be an experiment in variety and resilience. Kevin 2.0 remains a work in progress.
It’s been a few weeks since Virginia’s mom, Rosalie Kirk, passed away. After a trip to Maine, during which Virginia grieved in motion, we’re back home in Pennsylvania and feeling Rosalie’s presence in the negative—the lack of the evening phone call, the absence of a need to plan a trip down to Maryland.
In this time without, I’m trying to remember her in the positive, to think about the things she held in regard—her love for music and theater, for coffee, for her family—and the ways she had an effect on those she knew.
As her son-in-law, I remember how she always was a strong advocate. Rosalie was proud of her family—from her two children to the families that grew around them—and she wasn’t shy about sharing that pride. Sometimes she poured it on a bit thick (I mean, I’m a pretty good husband and son-in-law, but I knew better than to believe Rosalie’s pronouncements about me), but I never took it as some kind of overblown pride. Rosalie had overcome a lot and was justifiably happy to see things working out for those she loved. And for herself, because somehow, despite being widowed at 39 and spending the next 5 years not working while she cared for her kids, she saved enough in her life that, when she decided at 80 she wanted to sell her house and move into a lovely community at Vantage House, she did it. And once there, she flourished for her final 5 years. I’m not sure how exactly she managed it (though I looked in the dictionary and next to the word scrimp, I saw her photo), and I don’t miss the months before moving as we cleaned up the house for its sale and her departure from it, but I remain impressed by her ability to discern the life she wanted and to make it happen.
In addition to be sneakily effective, she had an uncanny ability to remember darn near everything. One of the most touching moments in her final days was when her sister Doris called and told her, “Rosalie, you can’t go. You’re half of my memory.” As if to prove it, a little later Doris was referring to a time she and Rosalie had traveled together and saw a Broadway play, and Doris was trying to remember who the star was, I looked in Rosalie’s eyes and you could sense her desire to fill in the blank, to interject “Patty LuPone! It was Patty LuPone,” even as she was struggling mightily to breathe and stay alive. She was still there, and she still knew. It made me think how family memories are indeed shared treasures, how we all share a threaded memory, a collective story.
Deeper than her knowledge was her deep love for her children, for those they loved and those they brought into her life. Those last few days what stayed and buoyed me was knowing how we had known and loved each other through decades. It was realizing that in deep ways, we were each others’, and that time was short.
What follows is Rosalie’s death notice in The Baltimore Sun. After it, I’ve posted some photos. I encourage you to leave a memory of Rosalie in the comments below. We could do this on Facebook, but I wanted to create something that Virginia and others could come back to over time.
Rosalie Carroll “Roz” Kirk, 86, former longtime Hammond Village resident, passed away Sunday, Sept. 6th, surrounded by family at Gilchrist Center in Columbia, Md.
Mrs. Kirk, the daughter of Charles Carroll, a street car conductor, and Mary Catherine Kochanski, was raised on South East Avenue in Baltimore near the Patterson movie theater and graduated from Patterson Park High School. She studied for a year at Goucher College and worked a number of jobs-including at Pratt Library and the University of Maryland medical school library-and completed an English degree at University of Maryland, College Park. She met her husband, Charles “Chris” Kirk of Darlington, Md., there and soon settled in Howard County. While raising her two children, she was active in the Howard County League of Women Voters. She also was active with the Girl Scouts, as a Troop Service Director for the Hammond Village area, and served on the board of the Hammond Park Recreation Inc. After the early death of her husband and love of her life in 1974, Mrs. Kirk worked in market research and spent 12 years with IRI.
She loved to travel with her sister and they enjoyed Elderhostel tours and cruises throughout Europe and the United States, often focusing on opera and musical theater.
Mrs. Kirk moved to the Residences at Vantage Point in 2015 and quickly found an active life attending musical events, movies and lectures, playing bridge and making new friends while reconnecting with old ones.
She is survived by her son Chris Kirk and his wife, Susan, of Silver Spring, and her daughter Virginia Kirk and her husband, Kevin Donahue, of Eagleville, Pa., as well as her sister, Doris Plaine of Columbus, Ohio, her niece Mary Carroll Plaine and her life partner, Ellie Eines, of Baltimore, Md., four grandchildren (Peter Donahue, Kelly Donahue, Ryan Kirk and Emily Kirk) and a great-granddaughter, Mia Potoma. Arrangements will be made by the family. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Maryland Food Bank or Sundays at Three Chamber music series.
After watching the Celtics’ 92-87 Game 7 win over the Raptors ..
Paskal Siakum took a big step back this postseason. In a series where Toronto really needed Siakum to come up big, he was outplayed by Jaylen Brown consistently. In Game 7, he managed just 13 points (to Brown’s 21). After a great first half of the season, he didn’t play at the same level in the second half, before the March break.
The Raptors, and Kyle Lowry, really impressed me. Tough as nails, it would have been quite the achievement to reach the Conference Finals for a second straight year, especially without Kawhi Leonard. Frankly, I think they would have been a better fit for Miami than Boston. Which leads me to ….
I think the Heat are headed to the NBA Finals. They are rested, immaculately coached and have plenty of ways to score—and Jimmy Butler to bring it home. I think the Heat are a good antidote to the Celtics.
Game 7 was the first time I found the Bubble really lacking. You play all season to earn homecourt advantage and it’s supposed to be worth something. The atmosphere was so unlike a Game 7 crowd that it felt more like other sports where the lack of fans is so jarring.
I purchased an iPhone 11 earlier this summer to replace my Pixel 3a. I am not satisfied. Here’s why would I return to my Pixel 3a:
• The size. The Pixel 3a is smaller and, honestly, just the perfect size for a phone. The iPhone 11, which is the old XR, is just plain large.
• I got a Quadlock for the Pixel 3a case. Quadlock makes the best locking system for phone cases. It’s easy to use on a bike, in the car, etc. The Universal Fit accessory allows one to turn any case into a Quadlock case. The awkwardness of hooking my phone into my car and my bike was honestly my biggest gripe with the Pixel 3a. That’s now solved. I actually find the Pixel 3a and Android more intuitive and helpful than iOS/iPhone, I hate face unlock (especially in a mask-forward pandemic) and Google Assistant is so much better than Siri. Plus, the apps I used to find so useful when I last lived on an iPhone (Halide, Spectre, Darkroom), I just don’t find myself using them. The exception is Dark Sky, the what’s-happening-in-the-next-hour weather app that I love and which Apple recently purchased. Accuweather’s app does something similar, but it’s just not as refined. DS is just about perfect.
I think I’m going to give my iPhone 11 to a family member and return to my Pixel 3a. I don’t think it will have much effect on my life at all, except in a mildly positive way. It’ll force me to not split my attention between Apple and Google ecosystems. It’ll make me use a camera to shoot camera-worthy photos. It’ll cost me Dark Sky, and iMessage, but that’s about it.
The hardest part is figuring out how to backtrack to the Pixel. And how not to end up buying the Pixel 5 or even the 4a, when it’s released. I think I can handle it.
Virginia and I were in DC Monday at the White House. We joined a group of local Catholics, from lay people to bishops, Franciscan monks to priests, who peacefully affirmed that Black Lives Matter.
Behind the speakers was a security fence, erected to keep citizens off the White House grounds but turned into a shrine of sorts, adorned by people who left behind posters and cardboard signs and artwork that spoke to their experience of violence and oppression and despair and anger and hope. The protest had a liturgical feel to it, and an excellent closing sermon, and then we marched together to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Along the way, we sang several songs, including There Is a Balm in Gilead. The first verse and chorus goes like this:
Some times I feel discouraged, And think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit Revives my soul again.
There is a balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead To heal the sin-sick soul.
These are trying times. A week ago I feared this moment would be squandered, that we were at risk of being distracted from the opportunity available to us to reconstruct a more just future. But people did the most amazing thing: the opportunists were hustled off-stage; across the country, an overwhelming number of people solemnly and joyously took up the challenge to meet this very real opportunity with grace.
We’re not there, not by a long shot. But, and I can only speak for myself, I am encouraged that we can meet this challenge and see this opportunity through to meaningful change. That we can create a more just, safer society for all of us, especially those who have been schooled by dread experience that they are unsafe here. That there is a balm. That we can be healed.
I am a Universalist by inclination; I believe there is always another chance, for you, for us. If you are discouraged or wounded, know that you can be whole again. And you can help heal others — a whole country, perhaps.
I don’t know how that happens. I do know its continued existence is precarious. That powerful forces insist that some people suffer. That they will not relent easily.
But there is a balm in Gilead. It’s here too.
Some times I feel discouraged, And think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit Revives my soul again.
There is a balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead To heal the sin-sick soul.
50 days in. It’s only when you silence your own thoughts that you can hear the grief for what was and what, in my heart, I know isn’t coming back anytime soon: the casualness of friendship; the intimacy of the chance meeting; the mindlessness of getting lost in a crowd; the pleasure of a good meal in a crowded restaurant.
I’ve been fighting these thoughts for weeks now but it wasn’t until last night, when I Zoomed into a Wednesday mindfulness session led by minister, that I heard how hard I was working to strangle these thoughts and keep the grief at bay. I’m still holding it at arm’s length, but I can now see how alive this grief is, how it wants a piece of me, how sometime in this long, long summer to come, I’m going to hold it close.
The world has gone and turned itself inside out and I act like I can just adjust my glasses and proceed as usual. I need to rearrange my heart. Reorient my soul. Reground my faith. Reset my intentions. I’m afraid—terrified, to be honest—of what I might find. But the only path is through. Are we brave enough to enter the Upside Down? Who will come out the other end?
This is my prayer on a rainy night: that, frightened, we might encounter each other and embrace in the Upside Down, then come out the other side, arm in arm.
OK, so it’s been a while (4 months), but I changed jobs, got busy and looked up to realize the year was nearly over. So I hope your holidays have been joyful and maybe even occasionally restful.
Here’s where we are in the story of us:
I am four months into my job at Universal Health Services (UHS), based in King of Prussia, Pa., which manages hospitals and healthcare services. I direct story-telling, which is daunting, because we’re a Fortune 500 company with 87,000 employees, 2 million patients a year, and more than 300 facilities across the United States, Puerto Rico and England. We’re BIG — and hospitals are inherently home to human stories. There’s drama built into a hospital in a way that isn’t true when I go to the dollar store, or the gym, or even church. Turn on the TV — anytime since there have been TVs — for proof, in the form of hourlong hospital dramas. So there’s a lot to say. And yet, people are busy and reluctant to hand their stories to a huge company and sharing their stories can be problematic from a privacy standpoint. It’s a complicated gig, with nice people and the possibility to do some good. I’m enjoying it.
Speaking of health, I had a health hiccup this fall, when a routine stress test pointed to a potential return of my heart issues. To cut to the chase, a surgeon did a cardiac catheterization in early November and, after taking a good look around, decided nothing needed to be done. The result didn’t surprise me; I hadn’t been feeling as I had the previous three times I’ve been “cathed,” so I was skeptical that anything was dramatically bad. But I’m not the doctor and the stress test result was concerning. Even so, I was heartened when the surgeon took my side and pronounced my arteries OK, though he suggested I clean up some of my eating/lifestyle habits, which I agree is needed.
As I said, the episode reminded me a bit of the events of 4 years ago, which makes me think about mortality, and that almost always takes me back to my dad, who died nearly a decade ago. That seems a long time and not so much, which reminds me of something the Rev. Ken Beldon, the founding minister at my church, said recently, “People die, love doesn’t.” I found it helpful in understanding this persistence of human presence long after the physical person is no longer among us, and drives home for me that we are far more than our physical being.
While I don’t enjoy having cardiovascular disease, its existence within me does unlock a vulnerability that I would have difficulty accessing if I was without it. And dealing with that discomfort provides a focus that helps me to cultivate a more mindful ease than I could imagine otherwise. As the late Rev. Forrest Church said, “Want what you have” (the opener of his three prescriptives, followed by “do what you can; be who you are”). It’s not easy, and I keep trying.
In more family news:
Pete, Marissa and now-20-month-old Mia have set up a household in Cherry Hill, N.J. Pete is working for Draft Kings, the online fantasy sports behemoth that recently moved into online sports gambling. Pete works in player development. Marissa continues to work as an IT recruiter in Philadelphia. Mia remains our favorite (and only) granddaughter and, at 20 months, she is a wonder to behold (above, from Christmas, in Gigi’s arms).
Kelly is at a goat farm in Northern California, the third farm he has worked on since heading west at the end of the summer as a WOOF-er (WOOFing is Working On Organic Farms, details at wwoof.org). He’ll be traveling to Greece and hiking the Appalachian Trail before heading to Camp Unirondack again this summer. Kelly enjoys being outdoors and working with his hands, and has time to read and hike. He is healthy and happy.
Virginia was recently promoted at her job to supervisor of a group of service coordinators at her company, AmeriHealth Caritas. She now has to report to an office, just south of the Philadelphia International Airport and, for the first time maybe ever, she has a longer commute than me. I, at least, am enjoying it.
Recommendations
A couple recent things worth sharing.
Virginia and I saw the movie Parasite, and both recommend it. It reminded me a bit of Get Out, a movie that starts like a humorous critique of America and race its first half, then veered in a much scarier, violent direction in its second half. Parasite, which was made in Korea and is about class instead of race, isn’t THAT extreme, but it is very well done. Definitely worth a watch. And suddenly, there’s a lot we want to catch at the movies.
Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Brandon Brooks struggles with anxiety and he was unusually candid about his mental health issues last month after missing a game when he suffered a debilitating panic attack. His courage in talking about it was so very good and I’m sure led to a lot of talk and maybe even some understanding about a health condition still smothered in stigma.. And speaking of persistence and resilience, the Birds have painstakingly hung in there through a difficult season and increasingly look as if they could make, and be dangerous in, the NFL playoffs. It hasn’t been fun, but it might make for some exciting moments in January.
The headline pretty much gives away the bottom line – “I Worked for Alex Jones. I Regret It” — and it doesn’t do justice to what a great job the former employee does of putting in context just how frightening and dangerous Jones is.
I’ll get it, She’s not here right now and It’s for you are all phrases on their way out of the American dictionary, in lockstep with the disappearance of the landline from American homes. And that, argues this article in The Atlantic, is a loss. If you gave up your landline in recent years (like we did), this set off some waves of remembering and nostalgia, and I agree with the writer that it does mark a loss in the Family Commons. That said, I’m not going back and I doubt many others are, either.
This long article about a group of historians who wrote a letter taking to task the editors of the 1619 Project, a look at America through the lens of its relationship to slavery that was published in The New York Time Magazine earlier this year, was, I thought, a comprehensive and even-handed examination of the issue. I have read some, not all, of 1619P, and I was struck by its pessimism about the possibility of change — and I also get that such a conclusion is justified by a reading of the historical record. I am an American optimist, even in these difficult times; I believe this: we’ve come so far; we have so far to go. My hope is, despite those who wish us to hearken back, we step forward to the country the founders wrote into being, rather than the one they excluded from the document and thus allowed to persist.
Finally, I just finished listening (via Audible) to A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles’ novel about a Russian aristocrat who becomes an unperson and is confined to a cosmopolitan hotel in the capital, ostensibly for the rest of his life. The book is simply a triumph, and the audiobook even moreso, as the reader embodies it perfectly. I’ll say no more.
kevdonahue.com 