Do you know that high lonesome sound?

They are tearing a building down on Paliashvili piece by piece and then all at once. The men wear sweatpants, coughing up dust as the bricks slather into piles that are carted away, truckload by truckload. A fence is built, covered in swaths of fake green grass. What should remain hidden here? They leave no tools behind, nothing of value that could be stolen after they have gone home.

A gate is left open, and I see a lone metal cabinet that stands in the rubble. It leans like the Tower of Pisa in the afternoon sun, and I come back the next day with a camera, thinking to take a picture before it evaporates like everything else. How many times have I planned to take an image, to find the place gone the next day? This time it remains, and I wander the rubble as a stray cat with one eye jumps from the last standing wall to a dumpster and then to the messy earth that smells of mold and stale rainwater.

Click. Advance.

Kneel here. Yes, more sun in the corner now.

Click. Advance.

At home, the guitar is pulled from the corner.

I wish I could write a protest song, crafting my own version of bella ciao, but that is not in the cards. You follow the muse, wherever she takes you, your hand in hers travelling blind alleys, always trusting you will arrive somewhere. Today, it is a double drop D tuning and a traditional bluegrass song of all things. Do you know that high lonesome sound? It is from old Appalachia, filtered through Irish immigrants, and so many others. These songs are for funerals, for wakes, for church, not some front porch Delta blues, no jukejoint Saturday night, but my fingers find the way, and damn if the song does not appear from the ether, reincarnated. The words come alive at the dining room table, as I sit barefoot and recite them to the walls.

For six long years I’ve been in trouble
No pleasure here on earth I find
For in this world I’m bound to ramble
I have no friends to help me now

I press record on the phone, and run all of the way through it. Here is my voice staring back at me, more unrecognizable than ever. Who is this man with this curious falsetto? I do not brush his teeth in the morning. I do not know his shoes.

The year is ending with a whimper. We are all stray dogs now, beaten into corners, nursing our wounds, but not rolling over just yet. Our bellies vulnerable, our eyes tired of witnessing the same betrayals, we are hungry for fresh bones to gnaw on in some Saturday sun. The wounds are the wounds, the scars are the scars. They will heal and fade, and we will walk a little stiffer. The road remains, yawning on New Year’s Eve and every night after that, leading to places we could not imagine until we get there.

I am a man of constant sorrow
I’ve seen trouble all my days
I bid farewell to old Kentucky
The place where I was borned and raised

Nothing is clear in these last days of 2024, except that we are holding hands here in the middle of the storm-swollen river, standing against the currents. What will happen, and how we will shape this world is both a Godzilla tall tidal wave, and a miniature wrestling match with our private devils, as we wander the aisles of supermarkets buying eggs and milk.

Here’s to New Year’s kisses, clumsy and hard on the lips as the clock strikes, as glasses are found and refilled, as children dance wild past their bedtime, as the dinner plates stare up at us, messy and cold, as the tv warbles, as we see our reflections and go to sleep late, unready to face tomorrow, but somehow we do.

Thank you for spending time here, Monday after Monday.

Here’s to holding hands.