Another Week: Number 108

Single-digit temperatures arrived here this week. On Wednesday morning, my phone reported 4º F. and I saw construction workers in canvas jackets and hoodies working, as usual, on Mitchell School across the street. They’re out there every day from 6 until 2:30, moving concrete blocks, driving equipment, and using porta-potties. Whatever they’re getting paid is not enough.

The weather is taking a toll on me too. My hands are dry, and although I always have callouses on my four left fingers from playing guitar, the one on my pinky split open this week, putting that nerve ending in direct contact with my E string. Now I’m forced to stare longingly at the corner where my spruce companion sits while I give my fingertip a few days to heal.

On Wednesday, there was a viral video in the news about a coyote being pulled out of the produce section of a Chicago Aldi store, which made me think about the surprises you can encounter at Aldi — and about Joni Mitchell’s song “Coyote.” I about read how she wrote it during Bob Dylan’s “Rolling Thunder Revue” tour, and sang it at The Last Waltz.

I read that her coyote was the late Sam Shepard.

In the past, deep dives like this were often shared with my wife Amy, shortly after waking, while still in bed. Now, I just educate myself.

On Thursday, lung cancer killed Bob Uecker, prompting days of tributes on Milwaukee news stations. Also Thursday, David Lynch‘s death was announced. His tributes were mostly written. I read about his taste in music, his romance with Isabella Rossellini, and how he may have been fatally overwhelmed by evacuating his home during the L.A. wildfires with advanced emphysema.

Thursday was the first anniversary of Amy’s death. People say such anniversaries are very difficult — but, for me, the first few months were much harder.

This was the week I discovered that Amy was a hoarder of paper bags — not ordinary brown paper grocery bags, but the nicer, colored, glossier ones with handles and perhaps a department store logo. I found maybe a hundred of them neatly folded and stashed at the bottom of our broom closet. Discovering these hidden earthly treasures tore me up — and yet carrying them out to the recycling bin felt like one more yard of progress.

Maybe dealing with such loose ends is the purpose of my remaining life. I can be some sort of twilight custodian. The hardest thing about a full year passing is how hazy I remain about what I’m supposed to do now.

Friday was a spring afternoon in January — 48 degrees and sunny. I drove over to Petrifying Springs and several people there smiled back at me as I practiced being a human.

I walked 13.01 miles this week — the last week of America as we knew it.

Australian Open

The Australian Open has been going on in Melbourne. Amy was a huge Roger Federer fan, but I mostly watch the women. I have seen Emma Raducanu, Madison Keys, Emma Navarro, Coco Gauff, Olga Danilović, and Elina Svitolina all advance in this year’s tournament.

One thing ESPN is doing that I have never experienced before is the way they split-screen two concurrent matches. Visually, fine, there are two pictures side-by-side. What’s new to me is the audio: commentators for both matches are mixed into one output that they all share, to avoid talking over each other. But as a viewer, you’ve been concentrating on one match the whole time, and now the announcers are exclaiming about the other match, so you glance over there and lose your focus. It’s overload.

Speaking of focus, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Danielle Collins has not retired as previously planned, but instead was playing well against Australia’s Destanee Aiava despite torrents of jeers and heckling from the partisan crowd. I’ve always been a fan of personality-driven athletes — Chicago Bears QB Jim MacMahon, for example — so it was very gratifying to see Collins blowing kisses to the stands and even slapping one on her ass after she ultimately won.