Offbeat

Midway along the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path.

So wrote the exiled Dante, banished for sentiments contrary to the politics of his day.

I’m spending the night at a Quality Inn, midway on my journey from Maine to home.

The first hours of the drive I listened to Morning Edition and learned of the stopgap spending bill, the rising death toll in Gaza, Biden’s meeting with Xi Jinping, and Trump’s lead in the Florida polls over DeSantis.

As much as I appreciate all that NPR offers, after a while it’s best to turn away from the world. So for most of Massachusetts I listened to piano sonatas. But even Bach can grow tiresome, particularly on the road where something with a beat is needed to keep pace with the caffeine.

Crossing the Hudson, I turned to Spotify and the classics, the rock and roll greats of forty and fifty years ago.

First up was Fleetwood Mac.

Who over the age of sixty doesn’t have Rumours on their Top Ten?

After three times through, Stevie Nicks and Company gave way to the Stones, America, Buffalo Springfield, Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, America, the Eagles, Kansas, David Bowie, Van Morrison, CSN&Y, Hendrix, Clapton and others, culminating in vintage Jefferson Airplane and Grace Slick.

Somebody to Love, Embryonic Journey, Come Back Baby . . . and White Rabbit:

“One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small

And the ones that mother gives you

Don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice

When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall . . .

Earlier this week I happened to watch Alice In Wonderland, the Johnny Depp version.

I wonder, now, if humankind is divided between those who follow rabbits and those who don’t.

Many of my waking hours in Portland were spent on District Attorney matters: meetings, trainings, difficult conversations. But this past weekend I got away and drove northwest toward the New Hampshire border, celebrating the wilderness.

You know what it’s like - wind in the hair, nature’s unadulterated colors, a horizon vast and unobstructed.

On the way back I stopped at the book shop in Yarmouth to purchase something for the Cranes, Tom and Liz, who had been so kind as to let me housesit in their absence. “Housesit” is perhaps a stretch as they really didn’t need me and expected little of my time.

Tom has an adventurous spirit so I’m hopeful that the modest gift touches a cord.

Late yesterday, I met with a Maine couple and the teenager who fled from police, traveling at up to 100 mph before striking a police cruiser and then the couple’s vehicle. But for the cruiser, it’s unlikely the couple would have survived.

Midway through the evening, the couple shared photos of family and friends; loved ones who would not have had an opportunity to say good bye had some “force”, as they called it, not intervened. They spoke of the loss of innocence and their new reality - that life can be taken in a moment, without notice or warning.

It’s been a long day. Fourteen hours from start to finish thanks to my undersized bladder. As I often do, I’ve turned to poetry to help me wind down. There’s nothing better just before bedtime.

I opened up David Whyte who writes of the two lives that compete for his allegiance.

The first:

. . . doesn't want

to leave the door,

doesn't want

to take any path

that works its own

sweet way

through mountains,

doesn't want

to follow

the beckoning flow

of a distant river

nor meet

the chance weather

where a pass

takes us

from one discovered

world to another. This life

just wants to lie down;

close its eyes

and tell God

it has a headache.

And the second, courageous life, that:

. . . has nowhere to go

except out the door

into the clear air

of morning

taking me with it,

nothing to do

except to breathe

while it can,

no way to travel

but with that familiar

pilgrim movement in the body,

nothing to teach except

to show me

on the long road

how we sometimes

like to walk alone,

open to the silent revelation,

and then stop and gather

and share everything

as dark comes in,

telling the story

of a day's accidental

beauty.

Jen starts gardening in April. We’ve spoken about my getting away for the month, perhaps returning to Nepal to visit friends. But now I’m not so sure. Is it offbeat enough?

Maybe I could fly to Istanbul and take the Orient Express to London. Or fly to Warsaw and get to know an out of the way village in the east. Or fly to Shannon and hike the Dingle Peninsula, ending each day with Guinness and live music.

. . . remember what the dormouse said, feed your head, feed your head.”

I wonder how Lewis Carroll fed his head. For me, the sights and sounds of the world are sufficient.

By the way, Grace Slick, in retirement, paints rabbits.