Tuned in a minor key so high it is audible only to the canine, I am partial to doubled numbers, especially on the calendar: five-five, my birthday; twelve-twelve, my mom’s birthday. And though she died out of the blue nearly three decades ago, we can all remember cake. A 1948-borne, she would have been seventy-seven yesterday. 🧁
Oh, would-have-beens, would-have-beens, pointed and darting and privately felt felt! The day, otherwise, was plenty full. The end of the last last week of classes for me at VT. A.’s dad visiting from Minnesota and so a morning of conversation on political idiocracy, AI, higher ed’s shambling, and more. Later in the afternoon and evening, two department holiday parties parties in Blacksburg, first a SOPA and SOVA joint gathering at Maroon Door for A.’s people, then an English Department event at Hahn Horticulture Garden, mountains of spinach artichoke dip and drinks, good cheer, spirited littles darting about, the mood of soft goodbyes, heartfelt and moving. Summa this group so generous to me; damn sure going to miss their everyday good humor, sincerity, and smarts. A few delivered toasts unforgettably nuanced, such that I, verklempt and feeling deep-down known and appreciated, could only witness in wonder the Hokiechromatic spectrum of feeling that reaches past tearfulness to esophageal flex, upper chest warming, and not to blame the poets, we do not in the English language even after all this time have nearly enough words for love love.
I carried in a humble gift, wrapped in non-symbolic garbage bags, the best I could do, I apologize, I could have added a bow at least: this wind gong. Strike it well, I said; it is meant to be big enough to alter through waveform resonance pockets of afflicted energy, to create clearings, to elicit a smile; it is meant to be small enough to carry along to meetings, to share, to circulate.
When you are in Shanks Hall, Blacksburg, Virginia, listen. Strike it. Listen again. Does the gong song end, or does it go on, despite infinitely, inevitably fading?
Out of time, today is plenty full, too, just one more jot on Feta, who without thinking about it I sometimes call Feta-feta. Feta came home from the shelter in late May 2024, vet-estimated to be a year and a half old, though guesswork is guesswork and close enough is good enough. The inexact agespan opens to calendrical invention such that we decided recently, double numbers being astronomically favored as they are, twelve-twelve capacitating valences of already observable meaning, to call it Feta’s birthday, too. She is three. Extra extra pets, a kong packed with peanut butter-laced carrots, a twinkle in her eye expressing that what she really wants most of all, as do we all, maybe next year?, is a VT-English-mirrored wind gong for here at home, as gong songs surround, call call back back to one another one another.
