This the final day of the year 2020.

What does the future hold for us?  And there is only us.  The worst delusion is to imagine that my fate is not entwined with that of others.  Each of us is individual, a paradox of sentiment and thought, one-of-a-kind in all of the world, indeed, in all of human history.  There is no one just like you, and there never will be.  But wait, there’s always the other side of the coin.  Without others, you’d never survive, or learn language, or acquire the ability to reason…

There is only us.  “I” am the effect of relationship with those who nurtured me, taught me, and who have been fellow-travelers on life’s journey.  I also carry within my psyche the consequences of the actions of all those who have lived before me:  Pythagoras and his theorem, Plato and his Republic,  Julius Caesar and his journal of the Gallic wars (which I translated in high school Latin class), Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and John F. Kennedy.

“No man/woman is an island,” wrote John Donne.

My final post of the year is a meditation upon a the coincidence of human connection, the conjugation of love or Eros as the ancient Greeks knew the condition.  We use the euphemism, to “fall in love.”  Truthfully it is a condition of free fall.  To be-in-love is sublime and violent.  The erotic attraction between humans entails the greatest of risk, as one must go “all in,” all of the chips are placed in the middle of the table…  It is a game — and much is unknown, unknowable.  The future which waits can only be jointly made.  But not without the smile of Fortune, of good luck.

This song does justice to the topic, of the high adventure of making a future with another human being.  I’ve heard this tune hundreds of times as the years have passed.   I continue to learn from the lyric, and the rapturous movement of the melody.

Angel Of The Morning

By Juice Newton

There’ll be no strings to bind your hands
Not if my love can’t bind your heart.
And there’s no need to take a stand
For it was I who chose to start.
I see no need to take me home,
I’m old enough to face the dawn.

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Then slowly turn away from me.

Maybe the sun’s light will be dim
And it won’t matter anyhow.
If morning’s echo says we’ve sinned,
Well, it was what I wanted now.
And if we’re victims of the night,
I won’t be blinded by the light.

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Then slowly turn away,
I won’t beg you to stay with me
Through the tears of the day,
Of the years, baby baby baby.

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, darling
Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, darling

Lyrics written by Chip Taylor

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The song was composed in 1967 by Chip Taylor, who said of it: “I wrote Angel of the Morning after hearing The Rolling Stones song Ruby Tuesday on the car radio when I was driving into New York City. I wanted to capture that kind of passion.”

“Angel of the Morning” was originally offered to Connie Francis, but she turned it down because she thought that the love affair lyrical message was too risqué for her image.

…The highest-charting and best-selling version in the United States was recorded and released in 1981 by country-rock singer Juice Newton for her album Juice.

The recording also earned Newton a Grammy nomination, in the same category as Rush’s 1968 hit. More than 1 million units of Newton’s single were sold in the United States, and it reached the Top 10 in a number of other countries, including Canada and Australia. Notably, Newton’s video for “Angel of the Morning” was the first country music video aired on MTV, debuting the day the network launched, in 1981.  — Wikipedia