Too Wild for Your Time

Plus a July 4th playlist.

I’m nesting these days, out of necessity and distraction. If you’ve been reading along, you know I’m a bird person. Our six new pullets (young hens) are thriving in their upgraded indoor pen. Fresh shavings, higher ceiling, room to test their tiny wings. For now, there’s great comfort in the chicks’ noises, their peeps and shuffles, as background to daily work--proof that life is thriving in another room.

Soon they’ll move to the biggest house, the outdoor coop, where their elders have been nesting for the past five years. We don’t know what the shake down will be, who’ll leap to the top of the pecking order and who’ll be kept from the feeder. I like to think I can fix it, sneak dried mealworms to the botton hen, but once they move out, I’ll have little control.

The elders.

It’s July 4th. When not staring at birds, I’m thinking about checks and balances in other rooms. Perhaps you are too.

As some of you know, my beloved father, Stan Tupper (1921-2006), a three-term US Congressman from Maine (1961-1967), was cofounder of the Medicare Act of 1965, then called the Lindsay Tupper Medical Care Bill. He was one of six Republican members of Congress to vote for this measure.

Yes, Republican.

For more about him, please see the essay I wrote this past spring for Writers For Democratic Action.

Stan Tupper for Congress

On July 2, I attended a virtual Town Hall (“Reclaiming Patriotism”), hosted by the WDA. Our intention: Instead of cracking under the pressure of MAGA, tyranny, and oppression, WDA chooses to take up the question: What is true patriotism? How do we fight back?

I wanted to fight back but/and I was feeling despondent. I wore my PJs and kept my camera off. Then I scrolled through the names and faces, as you do. There was an encouraging mix of 100+ young and seasoned writers tuning in from kitchen tables and couches nationwide. I saw Robert Pinsky’s name in a Zoom square, camera off like mine. I spotted brilliant co-hosts Bella Rotker and Rachel DeWoskin (one of my favorite writers), with the Chicago skyline behind her. I listened to impassioned readings by Ilya Kaminsky and Jericho Brown, who gave the closing remarks:

I’ve come here to encourage you. In this moment we’ve got to move forward with some awe and admiration of one another if we’re going to achieve our goals and resist...You can’t cut federal funding from the music in my mind.

Yes. Lots of nods in the squares.

Brown continued, Our job is to imagine what our forebears did not even have the means to dream. And to do that, you’ve got to be radical…Everyone you ever looked up to was a little too wild for their time.

Yes, yes, yes.

At the end of the hour, I felt less alone. As I wrote in the above essay, I’m listening to my father’s voice today. His outrage is clear… I understand that his narrative isn’t just for me.

He was too wild for his time. And too wild for this time, apparently. He spoke out anyway.

After the meeting, I submitted an Op-Ed piece to the New York Times about my father and Medicare and 1965, a time when the aisle dividing red and blue was not as wide. No bite from the Times, but the act of writing it helped. I’ll keep writing. I hope to share more of his story soon.

And, thanks to Brown, I started a list of songs for today and every day:

1. “America,” Simon and Garfunkel

2. “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution,” Tracy Chapman

3. “The Joke,” Brandi Carlile

PROMPT: Please add your July 4th songs to the list.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Join me and Bobby Sweet outside at the lovely Devonfield Inn in Lee, MA for their free Summer Music Series. Next performance: Saturday, July 5, 3:00 pm. (BYO chair and picnic.) View our full summer/fall music schedule here.

Devonfield Inn, Lee, MA

My free writing workshops in Western MA will continue this summer and fall. Check out my full schedule here. (Next up: How to Face Writer’s Block in Otis, MA on July 31.)

I’m now taking clients for private manuscript development/book coaching. For details, reach out here.