It is always a homecoming!

It is always a homecoming. For a number of years now, we have been visiting family in New York City for Thanksgiving. For me, as the movies suggest (see Home for the Holidays and/or Pieces of April. There are others, but these two have particular meaning for me.) For me (how many times can I repeat that phrase?) Thanksgiving is filled with tension as the families from which I have moved gather, and seem to expect me to assume the position I years ago hoped I had abandoned. That is a bit cruel, and not wholly accurate, but some of my neuroses insist I believe it. Nevertheless, some of that description, if not true for all the family with whom we visit, is certainly true for some of them, if, indeed, for them I have a presence to assume at all!

As part of the Thanksgiving ritual for the past number of years, my nuclear family and I have attended the Thanksgiving concert presented by Arlo Guthrie and friends—for the first several years we were in attendance Pete Seeger was the co-host, but he has continued to age and he only rarely appears on stage. Last night I saw him in audience, and I was able to tell him how much his work has meant to my life. This Carnegie concert is a Thanksgiving ritual which is quite longstanding—Arlo mentions decades, and I believe him. I am fortunate to have joined the gathering for much of the last decade.


Now, sometimes Arlo appears in concert in the mid-West, and I see him in these venues whenever I can do so. And I am certain that Arlo knows many songs—indeed, I’ve heard him sing many songs, but in fact, over the years and places the shows actually seem to change only slightly, and though Arlo is a master storyteller, I’ve heard almost all of the stories. So last night I briefly wondered to myself why I continue to attend this Thanksgiving concert.

The answer is simple. I am here every year because in that auditorium at this time we, who are in attendance, are engaged in a homecoming. We all leave our Thanksgiving dinners and living rooms, we depart from the warmth and comfort of our homes, and we venture out into the New York City streets and into a world that, as Arlo says, “sucks,” to gather for a few hours with others who we are convinced are our shelter from the storm. We are sure that no one in the auditorium voted for that person from the wrong political party, and we share our anguish and despair over the state of the world in the joy of our community. I carried with me last evening into the auditorium a personal sadness, but as I approached the entrance to Carnegie Hall and saw the others approaching too, I was comforted. And when Arlo began to sing Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” I felt, well, relieved, recognizing again that I was, among all of these strangers, home again for the holidays. Younger and older, male and female, gay and straight, richer and poorer, (albeit still too white, I think), we sat and knew the enemies were outside and not tonight in here. And for a few hours, the demons are kept away, and this land is my land again. You can, indeed, get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

Arlo’s final song was one of his father’s last songs for which only the lyrics existed, and so the song stretched through the generations. Arlo gave the tune to his father’s words. The song filled the auditorium as a prayer. “My peace, is all I have that I can give to you.” I took it, and now I give it to you.

What is the life in an airport? I know that Steven Spielberg has written an entire thoroughly lovely film about the life of an airport, The Terminal. As I understood that film, the life in the terminal was an idealistic image of the life outside the terminal. That is, the multiplicity of life in a diverse but unequal society is mirrored in the diverse but unequal society which fills the terminal. In the film, though, the ending is almost bittersweet, it is more sweet than bitter. Out there, outside the terminal, life is more consistently h
arsh and bitter.

But I am sitting here at the airport awaiting a flight to New York’s LaGuardia Airport that is now delayed because a) general traffic into and out of New York obstructs the smooth comings and going of airplanes from everywhere else; b) rain and high winds in New York are blowing an ill wind particularly here at the airport in Minnesota. Oh, I’ve been in this state before: at this airport or the other one. And I have certainly raised this particular question concerning the life in an airport at various times before to myself. But I’ve got the time and computer now, and the others with whom I am traveling are reading their magazines, and I am forbidden even to peek into them lest I discover some secret of female adolescence I did not suspect before.

What did people do before cell phones? (For some reason, I’m thinking of Dylan’s song, “Desolation Row,” where he sings “Everybody is making love, or else expecting rain.” To whom is everybody talking? More, I wonder: why is everybody talking? To occupy the time, I suppose. And so they talk to whoever is in their phonebook. Talking to fill time. Well, that is a common use of talk, but the airport now becomes a continuation of the street (remember phone booths?), the office, and the home. People do in airports what they do in the privacies of their own home—talk on the phone, play and work on the computer, email and Google and listen to web radio. Many read—books, business details, newspapers and other periodicals. Every one works hard to look quite busy.

I am myself typing on the computer. Many others are doing the same. (I just plugged in the headphones thinking to listen to music stored on my hard drive, and suddenly all of this music showed up for free in a category called shared music. Who is sharing this music with me? It must be someone in the airport—someone named Erik. Or at least, that is the name on the shared file. I wonder if I am sharing any of my music with anyone? ) On my computer, I’m working on this piece which I will post on the blog. It entertains me to think about this topic.

But I am getting hungry, and the variety of eating establishments rivals the streets of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I can get any cuisine I desire here. I could shop here and change my entire wardrobe. When I board the plane, I can have a completely different appearance than when I first arrived.

There are gift shops. Opening soon is a sunglass purveyor, a Nascar emporium (I’ve actually never seen one of those on the streets!!), and a store called Mall of America. Land’s End has an inlet outlet here, and Starbucks and Caribou Coffee establishments spout like dandelions.

Of course there are many sellers of comfort items for the plane: newspapers, magazines, gums, candies, and pillows for the neck. I think there is little that I could want that I cannot have here.

There is a great deal of movement in the airport; actually, I think that all of this activity quite exhausts me. I can’t wait to get on the plane so that I can sleep because I am afraid to sleep here for fear that someone will put something strange in my bags and I am constantly warned by this god-like voice to watch my bags and I cannot watch my bags while I am sleeping.

Indeed, the life in the airport is always moving. We may each be sitting, but we are already in motion. We’re just waiting to go.

Do you iTunes?

Do you iTunes? Since I have discovered this service, my life has been changed. For one, I never listen to commercial radio anymore. For a long while I listened religiously to National Public Radio, but all of those talking heads finally bored me to death. I appreciated the lack of advertising, but couldn’t stand the news. It was sufficient for me to read the papers and the news weeklies, and to catch the headlines at the head of the hour. Now, I like the uninterrupted music.

iTunes provides a web-based radio service which offeres commercial free (and often cost-free) music for eclectic tastes. I have been listening to folk music steadily for the past several years that derives (I think) from Boston, from Maryland, and from Ohio. I know there are other stations( is that what they are?) from which to choose, but I am satisfied with this choice; once I think I’ve found what satisfies, I can’t justify change for its own sake. I mean, what other nirvana could I discover out there for which I have now no interest. And so, whenever possible (when I am not required to concentrate on the reading and writing), I can be found headphoned and enwombed in the warmth of my roots. I grew up in the mid-Sixties in Greenwich Village. I sat at the Gaslight Café and the Café Wha? and The Bitter End, and was never unhappy or bitter. Right now Phil Ochs is singing from about 1964; I was seventeen years old and I was enamored of Ochs’ anger and indignation. Oh yes, Mississippi, find yourself another country to belong to! I’m out here at Walden and back there in Jericho. I feel connected in my life through iTunes.

Now, the other part of iTunes to which I am attached is the purchase of music. It’s like impulse buying for me now. I’m listening to web-based folk radio and hear a song/musician I adore and I click right to the Music Store and purchase an album. I have downloaded many albums over the past several years. (I can’t cease referring to them as ‘albums,’ even though they are cds). I think this purchase is how I move out into the world from the solitude of my Walden. These purchases are how I comfort myself in my low moments out here at Walden. And they are how I connect to my past out here, for I purchase albums that I still own on vinyl but do not listen to anymore. Or I purchase albums I never owned on vinyl but wished I had as part of my collection. My children, too, have learned how to use iTunes to explore the world, and for their journeys I am grateful.

Of course, iTunes has also saved me from the sins of commerce and illegal downloading.

It is snowing here in Wisconsin. For me it is too early for this weather. Bob Gibson and Hamilton Camp are singing “Well, Well, Well!” All is well. That ends well.