Woke up singing Morning Dew by the Grateful Dead. First minute of it can be beautiful with an aura of tangible bittersweetness reflecting the subject matter of the lyrics, post-nuclear winter. For those not privy to this history, America’s nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union meant nuclear annihilation was on the table (google “mutually-assured destruction” for more heartwarming Americana; we were told to crouch under our classroom desk which —for sure—was an effort to trick us into not panicking during our last moments). I once watched a documentary that told of Jerry Garcia crying softly at a concert while performing Morning Dew; the subject of the song for him being the cliff that humanity always pushes itself to. War, power, greed, distraction, denial, ego: how does humanity not make different choices at some point? Like THAT is the true grief. The circular nature of the human condition, where we mindlessly end up back to some version of square one. I heard this research/quote one time on NPR: “The desire to avoid losses is wired more strongly into our brain than the desire to achieve gains” Which offers one potential explanation of why we keep repeating the same patterns.

And here I’m 52 and alive during the crashing of national-and-planetary ship onto jagged rocks. Where we’re all about to embrace (once again) the permanence of impermanence for our hardwiring and I guess my space right now is that whatever happens I want to be different now because of it. We pulled ourselves out of things before and we shall again but maybe if enough of us cry softly onstage we can forever change the former-inevitability of the cliff needing to come so close.

I’m currently trying to pull together a book I don’t intend to ever publish at another IG account The creative endeavor no one else will see is solely dedicated to stopping the machine and jump starting the rewire. I might get sick of it after a month in which case I’ve changed and that’s equally as good.

If you get in a shit way the next few months, message “SOS”‬ and I’ll send you the 10th pic/video I’ve got in my “favorites” folder along with a short caption/story about the selection. No questions asked. No response needed.

By way of example, the pic of Ginger and I here is my current 10th. The caption on that could read: “I look kind of old in this, and it makes me squeamish when dogs lick my face, plus no one would ever even know if this was my actual 10th photo so I could just send another one BUT to hardwire my brain for a different experience for all means I’ve got to walk the walk and be real, and anyways formerly-abused Ginger was brought from extreme trauma response to being an absolute diva two days into our first sit and if she can rewire her brain like that then so can the rest of us and that is a picture worth sharing.”

[cries softly onstage]