To the Editor:
I awaken every morning to the lesser or greater downer of my dawn’s early dread of whatever new pollution my narcoleptocratic president and commander-in-chief of American armed forces has loosed upon nation and world during my comparatively blissful and dreamless sleep. Each added pollution—say the war crime of murdering helpless survivors of illegal American airstrikes in the Caribbean Sea and more recently Pacific Ocean—becomes old news as the next one rises to live in infamy for its morning news cycle. Which Black American has our chosen felon attempted to erase from official American history? Which Hispanic American mother has been snatched from her screaming infant by his and (demoralizingly, infuriatingly, my) warrant-less and masked rough ICEy beasts? By afternoon Trump will be hawking gold-plated sharpies, imitations of the one he used to sign his pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, convicted and sentenced in a U.S. court for the drug-dealing my prexy says is a threat to US national security. Pausing briefly to loosen marijuana restrictions. Or to invade Greenland.
I overcook our breakfast waffles.
Taking a 2-mile dose of Nick’s morning walk is the only reliable cure for such daily rising funk. The dog is unfailingly and intensely his doggy self: tail up, nose down, zigzagging in his black labradoodle snuff-trot for whatever’s been out overnight on Ukiah’s darkened walkways, by daylight called sidewalks. By dark they’re experienced as concrete, tossed-slab Class 3+ rapids navigated by an 85 year-old gent with finicky knees and ankles, uncertain balance and poor night vision.
Nicky’s and my morning stroll along our root-raised path asserts civility again each morning with my “Good morning! Neighbor!” launched at any other pedestrian, dogged or not, who happens to walk within about 15 feet. Not one, not even the ear-budded, self-absorbeds drawn to and into phone screens, escapes my greeting and its cheery, somewhat forced interruptiveness.
“How’s it going?” is often a smiling response.
“We’re just fine,” I may up-answer while Nick sniffs for his perfect spot, “’twould be a sin against this day not to feel fine.” My vaguely Christian diction broadcasts my own daily aspiration and offers communion on the public way. Likely as not my neighbor (he/they does look familiar) will give a friendly wave and not break stride.
Nick turns us west off Spring Street and onto Mill, he to sniff out that inviting little pile of rain-soaked Free! stuff at sidewalk edge, I to discourage him from marking it while I briefly remember J.A. Prufrock preparing his face to meet the faces he will meet. A lugubrious chap, J.A. Anyone know Alfred’s first name? No wonder the poor fellow imagines she turned him down.
“What a cute doggy!”
“All the pretty girls look at my dog, not at me,” I cheerily say, so she charmingly adds, “O, I like your jade bolo tie!”
“’Twas given me, now 3 years ago by a dear friend. Worn it every day since . . . except for 2 or 3 in the hospital when the MRI tech made me take it off.”
There’s quite a bit suggested in that exchange there at the intersection of McPeak and Mendocino Drive. The best of it may simply be the pleasure of sharing the public way with another decent human being. She smiles and walks on. A voice from above proclaims “Handsome dog!” The lineman has already returned to his high-tension routine work as I call up “I know you’re not talking to me.”
Nicky and I meander toward Observatory Park “to make sure the planets made it through another dark night” I may say to someone along our way. When we get there I notice that Mercury and Venus and Earth are not at their orbital posts. So what else is new?
On a bench between Saturn and Uranus there lolls a mass of matter done up in noncontrasting shades of black. As Nick and I draw closer the mass resolves itself into a familiar enough Ukiahan: a man in his 20s, his black electric bicycle matching his black hair and dagger-shaped beard and skull cap. His legs protrude from the bench part-way across the public way. Black trousers, socks, shoes. Well-kempt, vaguely ominous, excludingly focused on his cell phone. From several feet away I somewhat square my shoulders and say “Hello, neighbor!”
Taking a noticeable moment to do so he leans harder against the bench’s back, does not move his legs, says tonelessly “Hello” and looks at his phone. OK. At least no earbuds.
I start to walk, but Nick stops us, deeply to sniff a clump of something. Possibly he’ll pee on it. Awkward in this situation. Yet I hear the music of a harmonious sphere. “Is that Hawaiian?” I ask? My man’s demeanor—or my perception of it—shifts. “No . . . it’s native American,” he says, “celebrating the Sun and this present day.” A crow swoops low while others keep watch and Nick surges against his leash, perhaps wishing he could fly. I have just time to reply “such a beautiful morning celebration” as Nick yanks me back toward where Earth may well have been lost and may be found. Over my shoulder I see our music master give us a slight smile and measured wave.
-Jonathan Middlebrook, Ukiah
Hence then, the article about letters sunrise serenade was published today ( ) and is available on Ukiah Daily Journal ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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