There is gray mist in the air this morning.  Traffic is heavy, as usual.  A Metra train pulls into the station and gaggles of commuters will come into view hustling across the road toward the the gleaming open doors.  Another day in the outskirts of a big city, Chicago of course.  I hear the CPS teachers strike continues, never mind that the city is broke.  More concessions would cost a lot more money.  The bond houses will never take less than their due, — no one even bothers to bring that possibility up.

Out of our sight here in the Midwest, California continues to burn.  The dry season, Santa Ana winds, with far too many of us living in the woods guarantees the conflagration will be large and wide dispersed.  Cutting the power to PG&E transmission lines just adds to the misery without sufficient material interruption of the cause.

So here I am once again searching for a sane understanding of my place in an economy that is manifestly unsustainable, in a society that is progressively turning upon itself, — like a spreading fever.  Why don’t we cut the power, live in the 19th century for a while, and maybe there will be fewer fires……

It’s not working.  Climate change is coming at us in various forms, like a hammer of the gods.

I ask myself how it is possible for a people with so many advantages, especially with so much great music to become so irremediably fucked up.  A warming atmosphere and oceans is a clear indication that our customary way of doing business will hurt all of us in the long run.  So some of us scurry around in a fevered attempt to deny what is happening world wide.  Then, surprise of surprises, we elect a president who is a poster child for ignorance.

Humankind is a strange conflicted, paradoxical, animal.  Great beauty and great horror reside as potential within each of us.  How good can things get?  How bad?  Greater than you and I can imagine.

Always in retrospect we get a sense of the meaning of our life, and of our lives collectively.  I offer a great ballad, as an opportunity for reflection on the path that you have taken, that I have taken.  Each of us is an Odysseus, making our way back to Ithaca, our homeland.  Odysseus made it at great cost. Lest we forget, many of his travel mates did not.  There is no guarantee of any kind, that any of us, including mankind collectively will make it home.

I guess it is good news that while the story is being told, while events unfold, the end of the game is still open, undetermined.  There is still time to do something about my life, something about our lives together right here right now, on the cusp of serious climate change.

Think about it.

Here is a great 1976 epic anthem by Boston.  The song is a bittersweet reminder of things that we love which have been lost.

More Than A Feeling

by Boston

I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away

It’s more than a feeling
(more than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(more than a feeling)
And I begin dreaming
(more than a feeling)
‘Til I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin’ away

So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by
Yet I still recall as I wander on
As clear as the sun in the summer sky

It’s more than a feeling
(more than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(more than a feeling)
And I begin dreaming
(more than a feeling)
‘Til I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin’ away

When I’m tired and thinking cold
I hide in my music, forget the day
And dream of a girl I used to know
I closed my eyes and she slipped away
She slipped away

It’s more than a feeling
(more than a feeling)
When I hear that old song they used to play
(more than a feeling)
And I begin dreaming
(more than a feeling)
‘Til I see Marianne walk away