Mike Power

Photos and sketches

And the sea, cobwebbing all its wistful green and umber,

Winds about her gossamers of evenings remembered,

Light-skirted evenings, tip-toed or tilted against the sounds

Of adult night and disillusions without number

She might stay there until all the sands are counted

And each wave has been reduced to well-remembered laughter

This may be the perfect dream

- David Cornel De Jong

A defining characteristic of aging is the way things stop making sense. My mother was excited when a Dunkin’ Donuts opened in her neighborhood. In her mind, she pictured herself walking there in the morning, ordering a coffee and a donut from a person behind the counter, maybe even sharing a conversation with them. Instead there was only a screen to interact with and the people behind the counter would not even make eye contact to help her out. She never got her donut.

The other day I drove to a spot for a hike and had to pay to park on the street. There were no parking meters to feed the quarters I keep in my car. Instead, I had to download an app, create an account, and link it to my credit card and license plate. It was easy enough for me, if more time-consuming than dropping coins in a slot, but I can see the day coming when something as simple as that will be difficult and, eventually, impossible.

The funny thing is, what older people think of as simple (because we’ve been doing it since we were children) can seem ridiculously and needlessly complicated to younger people who are always on the lookout for newer and better ways to do things. Learning new ways to do things is what can seem ridiculously and needlessly complicated to people who have already found a way that works for them. And nothing is better than that. Is it?

I, who took the money?
Who took the money away?
I, I, I, I, it’s always showtime
Here at the edge of the stage
And I, I, I, wake up and wonder
What was the place, what was the name?
We wanna wait, but here we go again
I, takes over slowly
But doesn’t last very long
I, I, I, I, no need to worry
Everything’s under control
O-U-T, but no hard feelings
What do you know? Take you away
We’re being taken for a ride again
I got a girlfriend that’s better than that
She has the smoke in her eyes
She’s coming up, going right through my heart
She’s gonna give me surprise
I think it’s right, better than this
I think you can if you like
I got a girlfriend with bows in her hair
And nothing is better than that (Is it?)
Down, down in the basement
We hear the sound of machines
I, I, I’m driving in circles
Come to my senses sometimes
Why, why, why, why start it over?
Nothing was lost, everything’s free
I don’t care how impossible it seems
Somebody calls you but you cannot hear
Get closer to be far away
And only one look and that’s all that it takes
Maybe that’s all that we need
All that it takes, I’ll bet it’s right
All it takes, if it’s right
I got a girlfriend that’s better than that
And she goes wherever she likes (There she goes)
I got a girlfriend that’s better than that
Now everyone’s getting involved
She’s moving up going right through my heart
We might not ever get caught
Going right through, try to stay cool
Going through, staying cool
I got a girlfriend she’s better than that
And nothing is better than you (Wait a minute)
I got a girlfriend that’s better than this
But you don’t remember at all
As we get older and stop making sense
You won’t find her waiting long
Stop making sense, stop making sense
Stop making sense, making sense
I got a girlfriend shes’s better than that
And nothing is better than this (Is it?)

Pistachios and Licorice

Food is not the first thing that comes to mind when contemplating the Grateful Dead but there are two foods in particular that make me think of them. Pistachios and licorice. Pistachios because of Bob Weir and licorice because of Jerry Garcia.

The incident with the pistachios came in answer to the question, “Has success spoiled the Dead?” Jerry immediately answered, “Yeah.” Bob’s answer went a little deeper.

Then there’s licorice. I like it myself but not everybody does. I mean real licorice, the black stuff (don’t even get me started on red licorice) with the overpowering flavor. It is not like other sweets, or anything savory for that matter. It is sui generis, like the Grateful Dead. Jerry explains it like this:

The Patron Saint of Beekeepers

The story goes that a priest (or bishop) in Rome (or Terni) was under house arrest and was speaking with a judge about Jesus when the judge's blind daughter came in. The judge said he would do anything for the priest if he could restore her sight. The priest laid his hand on the girl's eyes, prayed, and when she opened her eyes she could see. The judge immediately freed all the Christian prisoners under his control and was baptized, along with all his family and servants.

The priest was later arrested again and sent to the Roman emporer, Claudius II. The emporer told the priest to either renounce his religion or lose his head. You can probably guess which path the priest chose. His head is now on display in the Church of Santa Maria in Rome.

On this day, in the year 269, the priest who would go on to become the patron saint of beekeepers and epilepsy, was beaten to death and beheaded. In addition to his skull in Rome, pieces of his body are claimed as relics in churches in Madrid, Dublin, Vienna, Malta, Glasgow, Poland, and Prague.

Before losing his head, the priest wrote a note to the judge's daughter whose sight he restored and signed it, "from your Valentine." Since the Middle Ages that message has resounded as a symbol of courtly love, like the ones I found in my father’s drawer after he died.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Old Age

This is going to be a special Christmas for all the wrong reasons. It will be my first without some people I love who have died. Just like last year. I have reached an age where most years ahead will include the death of someone I love. Right up to that Christmas when I am the loved one who is mourned.

Every year brings other milestones too: obvious things like births, marriages, and graduations, as well as those little things that pop up in the middle of even the most ordinary years, like finding a new job or hobby or friend or love. Maybe every Christmas is special because every Christmas lights a fire in the heart of each person who celebrates it and, for a short season, the idea of peace on earth doesn’t sound like a punchline.

The inevitable question is a simple one: Why can’t we keep this feeling through the year? I never heard a satisfactory answer. The only thing I see standing in our way is a primitive fear that if we let down our guard and open ourselves up to that kind of love, bad people will take advantage of us.

Christmas in old age has almost too many memories. It becomes overwhelming to try to understand the world you were born into. How could things have been so different back then? When did the tinsel that hung on every tree disappear from drug store shelves? What happened to sending and receiving piles of cards? Every year some beloved Christmas tradition dies with the passing of its last adherent. It is good to remember them kindly as we will each eventually become a Ghost of Christmas Past to those we leave behind.

Until we become the Ghosts of Christmas Past, we would do well to take a page from the bard of the season, Charles Dickens:

There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what is used to be; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope, or happy prospect, of the year before, dimmed or passed away; that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straitened incomes – of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call up such thoughts any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire – fill the glass and send round the song – and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch, instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it off-hand and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Parenthood

Just when the magic of Christmas starts to fade as we get older, a new generation comes along to bring it back. All the wonder and joy of the season is reflected in fresh eyes. Memories flood from the time when our own eyes were clear and bright. Only now, we are Santa Claus. We are the ones who get to carry a sack of Christmas magic on our backs. We listen and watch and ask, “what do you want Santa to bring you?”

Magically, things that were relegated to the past become present again: school holiday concerts, making snowmen and snow angels, and sledding down a hill covered with snow so fresh that it is still falling. You can hear the excitement of the season whooshing downhill with you.

Home is now your own invention. You have traditions to fall back on but you also invent some new ones to match the times you live in, the new holiday music and movies you absorb, and the new creatures – human and otherwise - who share your home.

One of the oldest traditions to fall back on is the Tannenbaum. People have been putting trees in the middle of their living rooms for 500 years and there is still a strange mix of the absurd and the familiar whenever the tree goes up and the outside comes in. I never met a child or a cat who didn’t love a Christmas tree.

In fact, the only time a cat doesn't like a Christmas tree is when they are being herded in front of it for a holiday photo.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Adulthood

It was over Christmas break in my freshman year of college that I wrote a letter confessing my love. I was better at confession back then because it had only been a few years since I did so regularly. Religiously, even.

The Christmases that followed over the next couple of decades with the recipient of that letter saw love exploding all over the place. The magic of Christmas migrated from my parents’ house to our off-campus housing, then to our studio apartment on Bleecker Street. Friendships and traditions that live to this day were born in those early yuletide seasons where I learned that Christmas, like all good things (and it is one of the best things), is all about love.

There is a reason, you might even call it a trick, that Christmas is celebrated at this time of year. The trick always worked on me: Late December is not the worst time of the year, it’s the best. The darkness and cold outside are overwhelmed by the light and warmth inside.

The love that blossomed from the seed of that letter became even more exciting than Christmas, and it lasted all year. Over the years, as the excitement fades, it is replaced with something more profound, something that transcends time in a way that is impossible for something as transitory as excitement. It is something that is beyond words, something that you have to feel to understand. Kind of like the Christmas spirit.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Childhood

My first memories of Christmas are its smells. I’m getting a whiff of peppermint. And why is there a pine tree in the middle of the living room? Not that I mind. Quite the opposite. The cat likes to curl up under the blinking lights that excite all of us, even if they do make the black-and-white TV screen go fuzzy at irritatingly predictable intervals. It’s worth it.

And the music is strangely familiar. I recognize that melody. They play it when it gets cold outside.

It’s not just the tree in the living room and the inspired music. There are stories and movies that disappeared eleven months ago that show up like they never left. The mood of everyone around is building to a crescendo. Then the night comes.

Santa Claus can’t come until you’re in bed. It’s as simple as that. For one night each year, Mom and Dad can cuddle up on the couch, have a cocktail, and watch the tree and Johnny Carson while faint memories of their childhoods on a farm in Massachusetts or the streets of New York waft through their subconscious.

Who can sleep? You might drift off for an hour or two before coming to your senses. Then, around 4:00, you give up hope of sleep. It’s your first experience of insomnia. Your brother can’t sleep either so you talk about what presents you might get and how long it will be before Mom and Dad wake up.

Your attempts to wake them are met with “Go back to bed.” But you can’t go back to bed. That would be admitting defeat. So you sit on the top stair, looking down into your living room, peering at the corners of the magic of Christmas morning.

Now That It's Christmastime

A lot of people don’t like Christmas music. For one thing, they start playing them too early in the year. They remind us of the darkest and coldest time of year, and of our childhood, which was a dark and cold time in some of our lives. I get it, but I’m not one of those who have a problem with Christmas songs. In fact, I have written a few myself, including this one that I wrote last week.

Christmas songs often deal with A) snow, B) presents, or C) Jesus. A lot of them also deal with love, of both the romantic and universal varieties. This song is about that last thing. You might have noticed that there is a lot of anger and hate roaming our society these days. There is a lot to be angry about and a lot of things that deserve to be hated. Christmas is the time of year to push those things to the back burner and to fill the pots closest to us with compassion, forgiveness, and for offering a hand in friendship to any who will take it in theirs. It is the time, as the saying goes, for peace on Earth and goodwill toward everyone.

Let’s give it a try Now That It’s Christmastime.