Turning Over New Leaves

two Beatles get by

“With a Little Help from Friends”

 and love at first sight

What and who are we?  Hard questions as 2025 ends.  Imbalanced bodies and minds.  Creators of both suffering and beauty.  Humming—grieving.  Playing piano—feeding strays.  Poet Jane Hirschfield decides that “To Be a Person may be possible then, after all / Or the question may be considered at least open—.”  Putting on our boots.  Mishmash with me.   

Flamethrowing Right-handers—Sean Charles Dunn and Mo’ne Davis

An instantly-famous pitch was tossed this August on U Street in the nation’s capital.  Though violent crime in DC hit a 30-year low last year, US Customs and Border Protection officers patrolled the streets this summer, cracking down on violent criminals like Sean Charles Dunn.  Protesting against the illegal terror and abuse that these officers inflict on suspected immigrants and any of their perceived supporters, Dunn hurled his tightly-wrapped hoagie for a strike on the outside corner of a patroller’s bulletproof vest.  The “Sandwich Guy” was arrested for felony assault on a federal officer, immediately fired from his justice department job, and accused of “Deep State” allegiance.  During his November trial, giggling jury members learned in depth about Dunn’s self-contained, splatter-proof hoagie.  He speaks up after his acquittal: “No matter how you got here, no matter how you identify, you have a right to live a life that is free.”    

Also this August in DC, a mix of 600 teenagers and 50-year-olds from around the US and ten countries laced their cleats for professional tryouts at Major League Baseball’s Nationals Park.  Among them was a 2014 Little League World Series pitching star from Philly—now an aspiring centerfielder at age 24.  Hooray!  Mo’ne Davis was selected 10th in the inaugural Women’s Professional Baseball League draft in November.  “I felt right at home,” she grinned.  What drives these athletes?  Competing against boys or men was never their goal.  They want to play the game of baseball.  Baseball.  Not softball—hardball.  No more pitching a huge ball underhanded, no more catching those balls with a frying pan glove, no more sliding barelegged into third base.  Slip into Mo’ne’s draft party and feel the excitement about the WPBL’s debut season coming next summer in Springfield, Illinois.  Over 70 years later, ballplayers will take the field on opening day in “A League of Their Own.”  Watch for an update on this play at the plate.         

Turned away yet again from a whites-only motel, this one in Shreveport, Louisiana, Sam Cooke wrote and recorded “A Change Is Gonna Come” in 1964.  “It’s been a long / a long time coming, but I know.”  Jennifer Hudson also knows.  She opens Cooke’s ballad in 2019 at the American Film Institute: “There’s an old friend that / I once heard say / something that touched my heart.”   Her phrasing—her voice.  Honoree Denzel Washington responds: “Damn!”  “Wow!”  Elation.     

Powerlifting House Raisers—Representatives Ro Khanna and Adelita Grijalva

Immigrant parents from India, a chemical engineer and a special needs teacher, instilled in their children the obligations of first-generation American-born citizens.  Congressman Ro Khanna lives up to and far beyond these early lessons.  Endorsed by President Jimmy Carter and elected to the House of Representatives from California in 2016, Khanna posted a reminder of his daily agenda this Thanksgiving.  Among the causes on his list are Medicare for all, free public college, $10 a day childcare, billionaire’s wealth tax, banning of PACs and SuperPACs, and release of the Epstein Files.  The Epstein Files.  Khanna’s unblinking attention focuses on unraveling the secret society whose moneyed members raped and trafficked teenage girls.  “The dam is breaking,” he tells Lawrence O’Donnell in an interview that will live forever in this country’s story.  Khanna’s repulsion matches ours at all those who remained silent when “you know someone raping junior high girls—who does that?”  He credits ever-relentless, truth-spilling O’Donnell and his staff with Khanna’s decision to subpoena the Epstein Estate for the release of “the emails with Jeffrey Epstein saying that Donald Trump was involved, that Donald Trump likely knew about this abuse….  And that’s why we have those emails today, and that’s why more emails are going to come out.”  Out with them.  Out them all. 

Chants of  “Adelita, Adelita” welcomed Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva on November 12th as she stood at the podium for the first time.  She speaks in bilingual beauty—Arizona’s first Latina and first Chicana elected to the House of Representatives.  “I rise today the proud granddaughter of a bracero, a hard-working immigrant who came to this country for a better life.  And I stand as the proud daughter of a US congressman, a man who spent his entire life fighting for justice, equity, and dignity for the most vulnerable.  Yeah.”  Looking out lovingly at her children, she encourages them to “stand up, Babies.”  Grijalva’s seat in Congress sat empty for fifty days after her victory, the just-following-orders refusal to swear her in intentionally depriving her constituents of rightful representation.  “From working as a vaquero to serving in Congress in a single generation, that is the promise of this country and our American promise is under serious threat.  I will sign the discharge petition right now to release the Epstein files.  Justice cannot wait another day.”  Grijalva acknowledges two of her guests, both survivors of Epstein’s cult of child rapists, Liz Stein and Jessica Michaels.  Stein speaks the next day.  “How historic a moment it was for us as a country, but also her fierceness, her courage, is just so contagious to all of us.  To have her validate us in front of the entire House…was absolutely transformative for me.”  Sí.  Yeah.    

twenty twenty-six

promises thirteen full moons

we’ll get one extra  

Year-ending Leaf Blowers—Neil Diamond, Herbie Hancock, Mary Oliver

“They’re coming to America.”  Grateful Neil Diamond celebrates the 12-year-old girl who traveled by train 1200 miles from Russia to Holland, then boarded a ship setting sail for “Home, to a new and shiny place.”  His immigrant grandmother, hanging on to a dream, warmed to freedom’s glow. 

A guitarist begs in 1964: “Come senators, congressmen / Please heed the call.”  Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock brings together Ireland’s Lisa Hannigan and The Chieftains along with Mali’s Toumani Diabate for a classic version of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’.”  Hoagie and hardball no-hitters.  “For the wheel’s still in spin / And there’s no tellin’ who / that it’s namin’.”  Khanna and Grijalva no-quitters.      

Hungry?  “Joy is not made to be a crumb.”  Scarf down its plenty.  Poet Mary Oliver questions our wisdom and kindness.  We make messes.  Still, possibility—and, sometimes.  In an instant, love begins.  “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy / Don’t Hesitate.  Give into it.”  Given.   

times are a-changin’

turning the page on this year

more love and more joy