Musings of a White Haired Teenager

May 24, 2021 Commentary from an empty place: Today I heard someone died. Someone I did not know. But someone who started me on this journey of trying to do something. It was early in April. There was a phone call from Texas. I was asked to provide support. I did what I could do, but that was not enough. This morning was the strange warm before a storm comes. Some are saying it will be a big storm. The Bay is churning. Will it hit where my home is? Weather is so mercurous. I experienced the morning but am escaping the storm. Running. Running away. Coward. Or not? Things have to be done, people need support, thus money. The initial fund raising was a fantastic success. But one cannot rest when the needs continue, and the storm will amplify the needs. Thus I must find more and bring forth the riches. They call these storms cyclones; in the US we call it a hurricane. Same story – same destruction. I wanted to launch the Angels today, but in anticipation of destruction the authorities have

May 23, 2021 Commentary from just a chair: Nothing happened today that was bad. That is a good thing and a time for reflection. There was some more movement on the distribution of medicines. The families that are being supported will hopefully benefit from the medicines that will be provided tomorrow. In the meantime, I have entered a new space for reflection in the solitude of a lockdown where I live on the screen. This COVID-19 experience has been a play on the idea of selfishness. Why do we choose to do things that do not benefit us directly, or do things that might appear to have greater value beyond the self? It all started with a bondhu in Texas. A simple phone call, an inquiry, and that got me into the process. For me, it was a selfish act – one that was very centered in providing answers for a bondhu – as I would have for myself. Then I realized that being selfish could extend to larger degrees of separation and some acts could be framed within the “selfish” framework but ends

May 22, 2021 Commentary from a dark room: This dark room has been good for me. I can go places from here. The whole idea of cinema was to whisk you away to a different place. This afternoon I was back in Chicago again. Spent a lot of time there, and watching Paul Newman and Robert Redford sting the guy from New York took me back to Halstead and Michigan Avenues. Good old Van Buren and the old Greek town and the Gyros that were heavenly. For two hours I was romping around State Street and was south of the river. Those days of driving up highway 57 and listening to PBS give the reports on the futures market on corn and soybean. Memories. Eventually emerging into a reality of COVID-19 and the heat of the afternoon. The chill of the Windy City was replaced by an afternoon shower, perhaps a precursor to the big storm on the way. What destruction awaits. The government is clamoring that COVID-19 work will not be interrupted by the impending storm. But the added anxiety is having an effect. A

May 21, 2021 Commentary from a cold room: No I am not in a morgue. I am in this space I have created for myself. A room. All the windows are blacked out. A womb. Here I can sit – pitch dark – even when the sun is blazing outside. A space where time and space both seem to get confused. One projector, creating the verisimilitude of different Worlds – from the crematoriums of India to the wanton violence of Capone in Chicago. This is the lockdown space. In lockdowns, in darkness sliced by the projector beam, place disappears from sight. It is the image on the large screen that matters. It is an attempt to deny the reality of place and create that post-COVID-19 place where one can be anywhere and everywhere. Relationships are not based on touch but being there together, on the screen, and connected. But reality tends to creep in, as it did today. In a good way. The efforts of support are becoming concrete. Met, in flesh and blood, with a kind soul, one who is helping out as well. We worked

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