February is often tough. In addition to the regular stuff – work, home, Friends of the Albany Library, church choir, et al, there’s Black History Month at church. I had everything arranged, or so I thought, but it never seems to work out as it is planned.
For instance, I had arranged for someone to talk about Black Lives Matter during the adult education hour on February 21. But a week and a half earlier, the speaker had an accident, which I found out because of Facebook. (See, it CAN be useful.)
A few days later, I asked if she could still do the gig, and the Friday before the Sunday class, she wrote that she could not. But she offered me a substitute and told me I’d get that person’s contact information.
By Sunday morning, when I had no info, I started throwing together some articles that I thought could start a discussion, such as Black Struggle Is Not a Sound Bite: Why I Refused to Meet With President Obama and I Don’t Discuss Racism With White People. But I barely touched on the former and didn’t even get to the latter as we discussed the history of what got us to the point in the American culture where Black Lives Matter is even necessary.
Two days later, I had no voice. My throat was sore, and I realized I was exhausted. I missed three days of work.
A certain Paul Simon song from his first, eponymous 1972 album came to mind:
Went to my doctor yesterday
She said I seem to be okay
She said “Paul, you better look around
How long you think that you can run that body down?
How many nights you think that you can do what you been doin?
Who, now who you foolin?”
LISTEN to Run That Body Down here or here.
Roger, it recently occurred to me that many of Paul Simon’s songs from the Simon and Garfunkel era were very religious and strongly flavored with his Catholicism, but after he went solo that overt religious bent seems to have mostly disappeared. Usually we see religion creep in to his or her work as an artist grows older, not the other way around. What do you think?