Post Pete

On the way to picking Pete Seeger up thursday night I was told a story about Pete getting beaten up pretty badly, as in a stone to the head years back by some horrible people. While driving to the Stadium (in Garrison) Pete suggested we stay well below the speed limit because of the traffic speed traps he's observed over the years. I asked him if he ever actually got a ticket. He said that Toshi, his wife, got a ticket for going 35mph in a 30mph zone.  Im pretty certain that Pete Seeger doesn't just give an impression of having the patience of a saint, and I can't imagine him exaggerating, so I have no reason not to believe that extraordinary detail, fact.....THAT is harassment.

The truth is my sensibilities have been shaken to the core, when I imagined Pete reading any of my usual bitchy spew on my blogs. Im pretty sure he wouldnt like it at all. After posting previous post, I imagined someone like Jane Kartsch (or Beller) calling someone who knows someone who knows someone, who knows Pete and warning him that Im "bad news" and to keep his distance from the likes of me etc. But it's this chronic irony that is the very source of the spew. The catch 22 that just makes me spew more....Honestly if I were to hang out with Pete on a daily basis, maybe any feeling of dislike would end up being mutual. Although I would always love him Im sure. Its not possible to not like Pete Seeger. After all he's been put through how did he not become full of contempt for our fellow man? It's so certainly not an act...he seems like he has a photographic memory on top of 1000 lifetimes full of regular ones that bring him endless joy...even with a bad back he's chopping wood at the age of 93 looking 20 yrs younger than he is really. It seemed like he had an easier time getting around than me 45 years his junior...this made me realize I really have some serious medical condition eating away at me....and on top of that, not a person on the planet would even notice if I died...it would take the smell of my rotting body for anyone to notice...the realization of this alone takes the depression to a whole new level of course....but the feeling of being full of uric acid, like the bottom of my feet even are swollen so I loose balance every morning I wake up...for almsot 2 yrs now my back/hip still feels broken and I walk like Im over 100 years old sometimes. When I start to get better I over do it and end up on my back for weeks agan...pulling my body deeper into the stagnant pond of death.....like now...sitting still this long leaves me stiff as concrete...it's not easy getting old without a dime to my name Jane...

I wouldn't even know where to begin, or how Id explain my Jane Yoga story to Pete, so we sang instead..and actually I was so happy for a while it made me hopeful...maybe its totally true what it says on his banjo, that that machine really does surround hate and force it to surrender....Im ok believing he's just as amazing and saintlike as he seems, and my life has been as meaningless to everyone else as it was fantastic for me more than once in a while anyway..