It was the day before the big election. I felt suddenly at peace, the good kind, the kind that precedes motion, like poised in the blocks waiting for the gun to go off to start the dash around Iron Mountain High School's quarter mile cinder track.

I went upstairs to Culley Jane’s office, where she creates her novels, to tell her that I was at peace; that I had just had a bean vision, you know, those moments of curious clarity that come unexpectedly when the entire poem is seen from beginning to end all at once in an instant. I call those instants my bean visions.

I told her that in that instant, I “felt” like I “saw” a harmonic interplay between two seemingly unrelated things, like solving an earthly paradox from higher ground.

The first thing was a question I’ve long wrestled with — How do we know one another?

The second thing was an event — We bought a television.

The question I had was an old one. I’ve wrestled with it since I was a kid in a Catholic school. The Dominicans told us about Aquinas, who said we know God by knowing God’s creations. That we should want to know was taken as a given.

The extrapolation was obvious, even to a fourth grader. Of course, people know one another by their creations, by the fruits of their labor. But, then, I’ve known beautiful people who make ugly things, like the half-ass plumbing job the theoretical physicist did under his kitchen sink, or the car’s exhaust system after the philosopher decided to do it himself. And the young writer who thought a sentence was anything between two periods.

However, the event — the television — was a new thing. I haven’t had a television in my living space since the kids took off a quarter century ago. Culley Jane hadn’t had a television for a long time, either. We bought it because the kids wanted us to watch a movie — “Will and Harper.”

The television didn’t cost much — $150 at Target. The kids explained what it was and set it up for us while I sat back watching and retelling stories about the 14-inch fuzzy black-and-white thing we had back in the old days when I was a kid. We had the biggest rooftop antenna in the neighborhood. Green Bay was a hundred miles away, but we could pick up the tv signal of the station that broadcast the Packers games. It was the Lombardi years. Kids from up and down the block came over to watch. Mom made popcorn. After the game, dad threw passes to us out in the backyard.

Culley Jane and I watched “Will and Harper.” It’ll probably win awards, but I didn’t care for it much.

After that I wanted to watch an old Jack Nicholson movie — “The Last Detail” — about a tough crusted tattooed Navy lifer who’s transformed by a glimpsed experience of compassion. But to get it I’d have to subscribe to something I didn’t understand, handing over to unknown figures (maybe Russian hackers) sensitive information about myself and access to my bank accounts. No thank you. We paid $150. That was enough.

So then the television just sat there, on a table in our living room, for days, and then a week. A 34-square-inch rectangular black hole in our midst, like the house guest who overstays a visit and can’t take a hint.

At night in our living room in our cat-quiet home discussing a French novel or the Chinese fusion program or what’s for dinner tomorrow, I couldn’t shake an awareness of the black hole’s presence, inhaling without breathing back out. It was unnatural.

Last Thursday I was shopping for winter clothes on Amazon when I noticed that Amazon had a television channel that was free to Amazon Prime members, which we are. And it said the channel carried all the Thursday Night football games. That night’s game was the New York Jets at home against the Houston Texans.

I’m no fan of any team from Texas and, except in the fifties when I was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, I’ve never had any emotional attachment to any sports team from New York. I would even root for ‘da Bears in the unlikely event that they were playing against a New York team in the Super Bowl.

Culley Jane knows virtually nothing about sports and has no interest in it at all. She consults me whenever there’s a sports question in her New Yorker crossword puzzle.

I don’t follow sports much anymore, either, but I’ll always be a Packers fan; like I’m not much interested in religion anymore, but I’ll always be a Catholic with French-Canadian and Swedish roots.

I decided to watch the game (for free) because Aaron Rogers was the Jets quarterback. Like Bart Starr and Favre, he’d once led the Packers to a Super Bowl victory. He’s been around for a long time now, getting close to the end, but I wanted to see the future Hall of Famer do good in his twilight years just because his roots go back to Lambeau Field.

Until near the very end, the game was ugly. Rogers looked old. I started feeling sorry for him. But worse than that were the commercials, messing with my mind with every stoppage of play.

In the old days, the black-and-white commercials were about big cars, labor-saving home appliances, mom’s dishwater hands, toothpaste and GE’s philosophical message — Progress through Science.

The Thursday Night Football ads were mostly about juicy fat fast food and pharmaceutical drugs.

In the closing seconds of the game, Rogers' winning pass to Davante Adams was a thing of beauty.

It was Halloween night. As the game was playing itself out in the black hole, children came to our front door, pirates and fairies. Jordy, our more curious cat, watched between our legs as Culley Jane and I handed out candy. A little Cinderella said to her mother: "Look, mommy, a kitty!" I told her it was actually a dog dressed up as a cat. Her eyes got big as saucers. "Look, mommy, they have a dog dressed up like a kitty!"

A couple days later, the day before the election, I'm sitting out on the patio on a perfect early fall day in Colorado when I had the bean vision and rushed upstairs to tell Culley Jane right away because they can vanish as quickly as they come.

“We know one another by what we create,” I told her.

“What makes you say that?”

“I can’t remember… maybe I was thinking about the election."

"Are you going to write about the election?"

"I I think I already did."

"Before you know who wins?"

"Ask me again in twenty years and by then we should know who won. We know one another by what we create, not our costumes."

--30--

Action Plan

If I knew what to do

that I’m not doing yet —

I’d have a plan of action.

I’m not lost — I know exactly where I’m stuck.

I’ve coped & survived somehow so far —

asymptotically extricating self

from inexorable events & consequence —

approaching the failure we’re taught to expect —

or transcendence.

I don’t appreciate

what the stars or supporting cast

believe or say — or how they behave —

in crisis, or from day to day —

tho some are more effective than I —

the benefits of what they achieve

are far less than the cost.

I rarely have an easy night —

I can hardly bear not fooling myself —

if I’m not fooling myself.

I’m trying to help you —

but I need you to cooperate —

to do what’s good not just for you.

If you can, help me do

what’s good for everyone doing likewise —

which includes you.

I maintain, organize, & strive —

as best I can — I’m often at my edges —

& prepare to change what I must

of my recurrent frequencies & amplitudes —

when we begin to trust — & coordinate.