Who Will Call Me Patches?

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I met Nancy Wood from Rockford, Alabama through my good friend Josh Fielder. Nancy and I became Facebook friends in January of last year. I use “met” instead of “haven’t really met but feel like I know her thanks to Facebook” because it’s shorter.

She was born on February 23, 1974 and died last Saturday.

I realized when I sat down to write this that I don’t know as much about Nancy as I thought. I don’t know if she had health issues – her death seemed sudden and certainly unexpected – or if she was allergic to anything. I don’t know what her favorite color was or if she knew how to drive a stick shift. I don’t know if she could sing or what her laugh sounded like. I don’t even know what she did for a living other than to make other people smile.

Her Facebook profile says she earned a bachelor’s degree from City College of New York – she was originally from Harlem – and she was also an Auburn alumna. I know she loved football and boxing – she said she also watched basketball because “hell, after a while it’s all ya got” – and that she could talk about sports better than some of her husband Phil’s friends. (She boasted that she and Phil “can ESPN together.”) I know her faith was important to her and the recent death of her dear friend Paula was devastating. But there’s a lot that I don’t know and now won’t.

We shared dance videos with each other. She posted animal clips, news articles and essays, memes and status updates about sports, friends, Trump, race, politics, current events, marriage and cooking for the man she loved. She was an active Facebook user. I’m glad for this.

Two days before she died, I posted about not having a home team along with this meme:

Nancy was one of several who commented, gently scolding me (complete with “WTF?”), encouraging me to move to the South – she knew my aging parents live near Atlanta – and assuring me that she had my back.

I love the idea that a person I had never seen and knew relatively little about had my back. For some reason I felt like she meant it.

It’s funny how some deaths hit you harder than others. I would not have expected to feel such heartache at the loss of someone I knew only in the Land of Lord Zuckerberg. I feel for Phil and her family and closer friends. I’m so sad for them because if Nancy’s death hurts me this much, they must be in excruciating pain. I hope they take comfort in knowing what a mark she left and what a gift, a flower, a bright light, a treasure she was to people all over the place.

Nancy was smart and charming and confident and perceptive and funny as hell. She was the type of individual we need more of. You just knew she was special. You weren’t sure why you were lucky enough to cross paths with her but you were grateful for the happenstance and content to assume that there would be time. Time to hang out in real life and share and post and help and learn and laugh. We always think there’s more time. And then there isn’t.

Nancy gave me the nickname “Patches” – I don’t remember why – and it’s my favorite nickname ever. I remember how supportive she was when my personal life took a significant downward turn and I revealed my depression to her. At a time in my life when the going was tough, a witty woman with a big heart in Alabama reminded me that we’re all in this together. She was kind to me when I needed it. I will miss her.

One time Nancy told me she was starting to make me a grey scarf. (Again, I don’t remember why.) I think I’ll go shopping for a new grey scarf this winter so I can think of her every time I go outside.

Rest in peace and thank you, Nancy Wood.

Buskers at Eastern Market

#DETROIT

Courtesy Kerry C. Duggan

It Runs Through Me - Tom Misch (featuring De La Soul)

So Bernie Wrote an Essay

My Facebook friends include ardent Bernie Sanders supporters as well as those who think his time has come and gone and he needs to sit down and shut up. One in particular – a local politician who constantly pronounces and pontificates and will fight you if your opinion differs – recently slammed Sanders by bringing up the yucky essay that the U.S. Senator from Vermont wrote back in 1972.

I guess it doesn’t matter that Sanders, the 2016 and 2020 presidential candidate who some think was shafted by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Democratic National Committee if not Hillary Clinton herself the last time around, supports the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and a living wage.

Or that he wants to expand social security, legalize marijuana and end the resource-wasting “War on Drugs.” Or that he supports Roe v. Wade, wants to repeal the Patriot Act and supports same sex marriage.

Supports net neutrality? Who cares?

Believes climate change is real and we must address it? So what?

Wants to reform student debt and provide free or affordable college to all? Whatever.

What apparently matters is that the guy wrote a one-page essay almost 50 years ago – when a new house cost $28,000, a gallon of gas was 55 cents and five guys were arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. – for an alternative publication that’s disconcerting. Even nauseating. This and the fact that he’s not really a Democrat (even though he’s caucused with the Democrats for years) are seemingly enough to disqualify him from the office that’s currently being defiled by an orange oaf with zero intellect who’s on tape and on record degrading women and encouraging disrespect and molestation.

Given the anti-Sanders sentiment out there on the left as well as the right, I’m not sure he’s the Trump-annihilating candidate we need right now. What we don’t need, though, are lazy swipes and tabloid-level attacks at politicians who don’t strike our fancy. We don’t need more slime, more mud, more spurious accusations and prurient implications. If you’re going to oppose Bernie Sanders, let it be because you don’t care about campaign finance reform or disagree with the idea that we should only use the American military as a last resort.

Let it be because you think he’s wrong to want to break up the big banks or because you resent that he organized and protested against segregated housing or was at the March on Washington back in 1963. Let it be because you don’t want to tax the rich and close corporate tax loopholes or you don’t support unions or you’re against affordable housing or lowering drug prices.

Don’t base your case on 14 paragraphs of crap that he wrote the same year that Richard Nixon visited China and Mark Spitz won seven gold medals in swimming, for Pete’s sake. You can do better than that.

Sources: Kaiser Family Foundation, The People History, pro-Sanders Facebook groups.

Path

Take Me to the Alley - Gregory Porter

Here's a Blog Post

Depression is a motherfucker.

It saps your drive, energy and will to live. It takes away your future and makes you feel hopeless and unmoored. You don’t know where you’re headed so you don’t know how or what to prepare and you’re too tired to prepare for anything or make plans or accept invitations or explore opportunities anyway. It’s a funk indeed.

I’m depressed. I have it. Or I am it. Or I suffer from it or live with it or am learning to survive it. I’m not sure of the correct terminology. But as they say and sing, there’s a memory around every corner and with each memory comes heartache and pain. A lot of pain.

In my case, I’m reeling from the changes that come with an unexpected breakup that wasn’t my choosing and took away my family, home and identity. I played a role – I helped bring about the end, albeit unintentionally – but still, I had no control of the outcome or the process. Nothing’s perfect and that included my relationship with my partner but the sudden removal of her and the kids from my life has been worse than I could have imagined. No one has cancer or has been murdered, I keep telling myself as if that will ease the pain, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t get out of bed. I don’t care if I eat. I don’t make plans or do anything, even things I need to do like update my resume or figure out my next step. It hurts to look at pictures and hear songs and take certain shortcuts and drive on certain roads.

I’m clinging to the thought that this is temporary, that it’s a transitory phase just before something positive happens again. I’m distracting myself by playing Pool Practice and getting lost in the Land of Lord Zuckerberg (aka Facebook) on the new laptop that my parents and sister gave me for my birthday a few weeks ago. I hang out with friends occasionally but not often because that requires energy, teeth-brushing and smiling. I’m not young anymore as at other times in my life when sudden or major changes resulted in upheaval. This time it feels like there’s not a lot of time left for the next phase or incarnation or life event or however you describe what comes next to arrive and settle in.

Add to this anxiety, loneliness, fear (no home or health care), regret, frustration and financial instability and sprinkle some news about the Orange Asshole and the divided states of America on top and you’ve got where I’m at right now. I know there are others having a bad or worse time but that doesn’t heal my wounds. The fact that I could have prevented some of this doesn’t stop me from feeling betrayed and hurt by the results.

I’m not sure why I’m writing this. “What’s the Diehl?” needs fresh content, to be sure, and I haven’t been able to sit down and write about issues or politics or current events because when I come back from my crappy, low-wage job as a service worker, all I want to do is flop onto my bed and pull a blanket over my head. (Did I mention that I’m fortunate to have two fantastic friends who’ve enabled me to escape homelessness by living in their basement rent-free and indefinitely?) I resist doing anything that might lift me out of the place I’m in. No energy to walk upstairs and outside, let alone hit a gym. Yes, I desperately need a better, different job but I’ll get to that tomorrow. There are 20 things I need to do but I’ll get to them later. For now, here’s a blog post.

Life is full of highs and lows, I know. I’ve had some remarkable experiences and come in contact with some really special people. I’ve seen breathtaking beauty. I’ve made babies laugh. I’ve eaten jumbo shrimp while sitting on Dolley Madison’s sofa in the White House as the President of the United States stood nearby. (Don’t worry, I was invited.) I’ve ziplined and danced and hugged and won shit. I’ve stroked purring cats on my lap and hiked through the woods and held hands with the love of my life.

There have been bad times too, of course. I hope this is just one more of them and not the way things are going to be from now on because depression is a motherfucker.