Rainy Days and Sundays

Reading David Harwell’s “community biography” of Walker Percy (Walker Percy Remembered), and the introduction begins:

Many people cried when they talked to me about Walker Percy. This was a bit surprising at first. When I set out to fill in some of the gaps in the Percy story, I was expecting stories and laughter, the primary elements I thought were missing…Invariably, however, the conversations turned to thoughts of Percy’s absence from the lives of the people who shared their stories with me, remembrances of his passing, and there was sadness to those memories. He was a much-loved man, and his loss is still felt by those who were close to him.

It reminded me of a story David Whyte tells, that I’ve shared on several occasions, of a funeral he attended and while the obligatory obituary was read and accomplishments and accolades listed, Whyte noticed the room cold, anti-septic even. But when family and friends stood up later and began telling stories about this man and the things he loved, the room warmed instantly, people relaxed, laughed, cried, communed.

At the end of the day, or the end of your life, it won’t be the wins people remember, but rather the things you loved, those specificities that made you you.

Me? What are some things I love? Sure, glad you asked.

I love listening to “The Sounds of Sinatra with Sid Mark” on the radio. Mark died in 2022, so the shows are re-broadcasts, re-runs. I first encountered the show on AM 1430 KEZW out of Denver during that beautiful season of our lives when we lived along Colorado’s Front Range. Sid Mark’s show would air on Saturday mornings and again late afternoon, and, well, I fell in love with it for it highlighted Sinatra’s music (which I love), but it more revealed the deep friendship between Sinatra and Mark, a friendship which endured for decades.

I also love autumn, which is just ‘round the corner. I’m not the biggest fan of college football or everything-pumpkin-spice, but I love that other people love them, in fact almost lose their minds over them. But crisp October mornings, leaves that turn breathtaking oranges and reds, and soups of all varieties on the stove simmering all afternoon, man I love that stuff. John Donne thought it always autumn in heaven, and I’m prone to agree.

I also love listening to people talk. I mean, I absolutely love eavesdropping on the human conversation. I’ve a new world to listen to as I’ve started working at UPS, working “the line.” The work is hard, fast-paced, frustrating almost infuriating at times, so the talk reflects those realities. Main talk topics include, but are not limited to—the weather, family and kids, Razorback football, and management:) Plus a conversation the other day over which was better, the Marvel universe or the DC universe. I did not see that coming, but you can bet your boots I tuned in. I love hearing it all, and yes, I contribute my own two cents at times. I’ve also noticed people say shit and fuck a lot, I mean a lot, especially when the volume of packages to handle gets, well, hard to handle. I also love that too, cussin’ that is. Words are symbols for meaning, and most folks (as studies have shown) are not on Twitter, and most of the things on Twitter have little if any bearing on what most people are doing, which is trying to get through the day, the shift, or at least to break-time and cussin’ a little, like a spoonful of sugar, helps that medicine go down. You can disagree with me if you want, if you’re uncomfortable with such words, but I’d say, “Come work the line for a while.” I haven’t said those words a lot yet, but I did say fuck the other day when I got slammed with packages coming down the conveyor belt, and a woman, not as old as I am but not as young as most of the others, looked at me and grinned. She’d been a little standoffish to me, the new guy, weird glasses, old preacher. But she asked me during our shift the next day how it was going and I said, “Better.” She grinned again.

And writing? Man, I love that too. There’ve been a handful of times (like three or four times) in the past when someone described me as a “wordsmith.” They were being kind, and I was grateful for such kind words. I was. But if I’m never ever referred to again as a wordsmith, I’ll be okay with it. I’m probably splitting semantical hairs here, but I now view wordsmiths with suspicion, as I hold it refers to someone who can arrange the right words and right phrases on the page in a provocative if not intoxicating way yet not achieve what I call “writing.” See? Splitting hairs, I told you. There’s the “word trade” as Edward Abbey called it, and then there’s the craft of writing, which is different in my opinion (and Abbey’s). Gosh, here, I’ll let him speak:

…That’s all I ask of the author. To be a hero, appoint himself a moral leader, wanted or not. I believe that words count, that writing matters, that poems, essays, and novels—in the long run—make a difference. If they do not, then in the words of my exemplar Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ‘…the writer’s work is of no more importance than the barking of village dogs at night.’ The hack writer, the temporizer, the toady, and the sycophant, the journalistic courtier…all those in the word trade who simply go with the flow, who never oppose the rich and powerful, are no better in my view than Solzhenitsyn’s village dogs. The dogs bark: the caravan moves on.

I love that quote, like I love that rascal Abbey. Like I love human talk, and cussin’, and autumn, and Frank Sinatra and Sid Mark’s friendship, and beautiful searchers like Walker Percy, and people who cry when they remember Percy-esque friends who’ve gone on to that next place…like I love this world, every damn stitch, even when things get a little hard to handle.