I've lost track of how many calls come in that don't have caller ID—at least 75%. What to do, what to do; to answer or not to answer? Well since my fat thumb would most likely disconnect the call it really doesn't matter. Although truthfully, I have gotten better at sliding right or left or whatever it is. The real gratification of having the sound come through my hearing aids directly into my head with podcasts and such, honestly? Recently I kind of am tilting towards answering even if I don't know who the hell it is.

Here's the problem though, I have begun getting a series of automated messages from third parties who want to follow up on instructions from my doctor(s). This is just somebody somewhere pushing a button—no human interaction. In fact the last time I had a zoom call with my primary doctor, I swear to God, she was just looking at the screen, and I noticed that she had a lot of make up on for some reason. And when I say she was looking at the screen, I don't mean she was looking at the screen as in looking at me. I mean she was looking at her laptop and kind of scrolling through with her eyeballs and fingers to see my pertinent details my medical history, my various ailments or test results. That was nauseating. True, they do that when you're meeting face-to-face as well; that I have to acknowledge. But a zoom call is already, as everybody on the planet knows that had any access to the Internet, identified so strongly with fear and trepidation about Covid that it's almost blasphemous not to pay attention to someone when you're on a Zoom call, especially a medical one.

The gist of it all is that I am talking into an electronic device, telling it all my secrets in an intimate sort of way, trusting that I can edit it later and really it's cousin from centuries ago is a piece of parchment and a pen. Journals or diaries or ship’s logs, but this business with life changing shit like, for example, when I toppled over and busted my hip and I'm still dealing with the hobbledehoy? That's this privacy. The knowledge that I have of what's going on with me is not something that I can transmit over a screen or even in person. Somebody can go through as much soul shredding schooling 72 hour shifts and they're still not gonna be able to climb inside of me. They're only gonna be able to guess. Educated, but still a guess.

So why is this random unidentified phone number harassing me, leaving voicemails, hell I think they're even AI generated voicemails telling me to call them.

Screw you, you're not the boss of me.

*****

Working my way through my bottom up cardigan, at least halfway through, keeping an eye on the calendar for whatever updates happen in various rehearsal schedules and retreats and upcoming potlucks, but still stuck in August. And I know it's gonna get hot, not super hot, but even so. If I go to a Wednesday night run of Brahms Requiem…what’s with that. It could be pleasant, even moving, despite the soprano who just feels it her duty to show us how it’s done, but ironic that I fled one of my choirs, gotta be a couple years ago, specifically because that's what the featured piece was. Last week it was Mendelssohn's Elijah. Really didn't want to do that one so I used a Covid scare to get out of it. And I tried I swear I tried to get through just listening to the Verdi requiem. Nah.

With all this juvenile resistance, imagine my pleasure at stumbling back into the Brahms, which technically I've only done but once, long ago. I found this insanely idiosyncratic version of it on YouTube with a live performance from 1976 Herbert von Karajan believe it or not. Excellent camera work. At certain points, you get to see a panoramic Vision of the choir. Gotta be at least 100 of them up there on a raked stage and they're in strict diagonal rows. They are lined up, geometrically a distance of around arm span apart. I've never seen a choir like that the guys in tuxedos and the women in maroon robes, all standing motionless with their arms at their sides. The mouths are moving, obviously cause they're singing, but otherwise they're not holding any music, no.

And Herb, no baton, just waving his arms looking straight at them and they're looking straight at him. There's this potential set-up for such direct communication throughout the hour and a half, it’s stunning. And it’s rare.

So tonight at the Brahms, I can’t help myself. I carefully described this to three or four people, some I know, some I don't; then watched their eyes glaze over.

One woman said she liked my shoes.

*******

I asked my Knitting ladies why do we knit? I got a bunch of answers:

Beats me

So my sweaters actually fit

Because we are knitters

For me today, I notice my Knitting in my Hands, and I see the distance between us gone.