My Traveling Companion

 

Will Thigpen,

Tybee Island

Will and I have shared a personal friendship for 15 years. Our friendship took root two years after his graduation in the spring of 2010 and after his experience at LaGrange College. He was the best philosophy student I taught on the High School level. Darryl and I attended his many musical performances in Atlanta: see some of the photos of these posted here. We have traveled together several times: Lookout Mountain and Cloudland Canyon, New Orleans, New York and Brooklyn, Miami Beach, Southwest Florida's Gulf Coast, Charlotte, Savannah repeatedly, as well as Asheville. Will has hiked with me in the Blue Ridge Mountains, including the Graveyard Fields and Waterfall where My Mom's and Darryl's ashes remain. 

Will observes Allen Ginsberg

High Museum of Art

Our friendship began when Will asked me if I thought he should read =On the Road= by Jack Kerouac. Telling him a little about the main characters and their story, seeing his reaction, the answer was clearly yes. It was not long before he was quoting the famous:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

Will even called himself Neal after Neal Cassady. There are many connections. 

Will comes often to Darryl's and my Townhouse. Here he is at Christmas, giving us a performance. He always struck me as a natural for the stage and for singing. He's a natural entertainer, writing his own songs and music. 

We three shared a love for Leonard Cohen, Radiohead, Kate Bush, Rufus Wainwright, Dead Can Dance, and many others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7VYIVboWNA

One of our first trips together was to New Orleans. Not everything went as planned, but there were some fine moments. Will met and liked Katie that trip. She was always a great hostess. 

 

Katie and Will 

with Tiramisu 

Irene's

A Beignet at

Cafe Du Monde

Fabulous dinner

Galatoires

 The Nook Across from Piedmont Park 

At A La Folie

Miami Beach

with Wolfgang and Sebastian

After a swim at Tybee

Will and I took the train to NYC and Brooklyn to see dear friend Joseph Mydell perform Julius Caesar at BAM. We all had a great time together and Will loved the performance. 

On the train to NYC

Will entertained fellow travelers.

Joe and Will

Coco's Sunset Grill, Tybee

 

The West Brow,

Lookout Mountain

Will at Graveyard Fields,

Blue Ridge Parkway

Merry Pranksters at Crystal Beer Parlor

 Supper in Asheville. 

Jasper House

Will and Amber Taylor, Sexual Side Effects

Sold out performance, Charlotte, NC

Starr's Porch, Lookout Mt. 

Will at Stonewall Bar

Greenwich Village 

Will at the Summit

Blackrock Mountain

 State Park

Toast of Atlanta

Will performs in our room.

  Highlands, NC

Malaprops Bookstore, Asheville

Savannah Tongue

On the Train from New Orleans

December, 2025

Winter Solstice 2025

 

The day with the darkest night, the day winter begins with its cold grip, is still a day sublime, like a dream, or a vision of snow, a winter wonderland. This Solstice Will and I shall take the train to New Orleans for a balmier holiday of music, Creole cuisine, walks in Audubon Park next to our lovely, historic hotel, The Park View.  

https://parkviewguesthouse.com/

We shall nonetheless, recall the beauty of Winter in previous times, returning to Asheville for New Years. 

Winter scenes: 

Rabun Lake Hotel

 

On the Avenue, 5th Avenue

Our first stay together in NYC

The Dillard Pasture

Darryl enjoys the snow. 

Beethoven's Ninth

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is Joy itself, a testament to belief in a God beyond the stars, transcendence through Joy, her embrace of the brotherhood of man. Make that the love among all people.

Last night's performance was not the best I've heard. At times muddled, lacking the joy one ought to feel on hearing the 4th movement, it managed nonetheless to rouse the audience to an ecstasy of adoration. The chorus was wonderful.

This morning I watched, heard, a few of the magnificent performances of the 4th movement by European orchestras that confirmed my impression from the Atlanta rendition.

The concept of God as Joy, as the love among friends and lovers on a universal scale, has always come close to helping me comprehend what God is to great artists.

--Jack

Day of the Dead, 2025

Darryl's death has left me feeling half a ghost myself. The idea of death as a release from a grim world of suffering is certainly appealing.  Nonetheless, the Day of the Dead is a time to celebrate the joys, the adventures, the achievements, the beauty of those we have loved who are no longer alive. 

Darryl, the Love of my Life, a kind, generous, thoughtful humanitarian, will always be remembered for his wit, his intelligence, his knowledge of history, culture, the arts, music, and the articles he published on medicine. President of the American Medical Writers Atlanta chapter, Darryl attended international conferences, gave lectures and papers on medicine, attended a Harvard Neurology session in New England, and won awards for articles such as the one he wrote on Alzheimer's. 

Darryl made our travels around the world all the more exciting because of his knowledge of the places, events, cultural achievements, and life of the cities and countries we visited.  Whether in Patagonia seeing the blue Moreno Glacier, or Prague with its history and literary heritage, where we saw Don Giovanni in the theater where Mozart himself directed, or the many plays on Broadway, including Angels in America, Darryl's familiarity always enhanced our experience. I shall always see him being carried through the streets of Amsterdam like the god he was to perform on stage. He waved at the people enjoying their outdoor cafes as his entourage attended to him and lifted his palanquin. His performance as Poseidon's lover was attended by over a thousand people and was great fun. 

Darryl's presence fills our house, his taste and artistic choices fill every room, from the Whirling Dervish he brought back from Egypt, to the jade dragon he found in San Francisco, to bark paintings from Mexico, to the Day of the Dead figure he bought in Guanajuato.    

 

This year two other friends of mine died: Lee Killian whom I have known my entire life, and Katie Nachod, whom I have known since Graduate School at Tulane in the 1970s

Add to them the Spirits of Jake, Jim, and Julian:

 Let us also celebrate the Spirits of my parents and grandparents. Here is a link to a celebration of the wonderful, now dead,  people in my life:

https://www.facebook.com/jack.miller/posts/pfbid02ajichb8M4vH2G81zDX6MT3rbdWnz3sjGWXJRPeS5sdgpQXcsi53GLmKccsigisHCl

Lake Rabun Hotel, Blue Ridge Parkway, The Pisgah Inn, Asheville-- October 2025

 Nine days of introspection and precious time with friends have been nourishing. There were days alone and days of deep friendship. Brother John and I hiked the sacred grounds of Graveyard Fields again, revisiting the bridge, streams, and waterfall where last summer we took Darryl's ashes. Our mother's ashes and John's beloved Carlann's ashes are also there. It is a splendid setting aglow with cool, bright, sunny weather and the full color of the autumn trees. 

John and I stayed at the Pisgah Inn where Darryl and I stayed countless times. The fall colors and the autumn days were spectacular:

John on the Pisgah Trail

Will drove up from Asheville and spent the day with us. We hiked trails each day.

Dinner with John and Will

View from our balcony

Before driving the Parkway to the Pisgah Inn, I spent two nights at the Lake Rabun Hotel in the room Darryl and I shared on our last trip there. It is a spacious, lovely room. On my second day, reading on the front porch, I met Carl and Lauren. We talked about travel and our lives, of their relationship as they celebrated their 10th anniversary, and of my 35 years with Darryl. We talked of music, of Carl's performances around the world of classical and folk music, including his playing violin, fiddle, and harmonica. I talked of Will, of his musical background, of his recent recordings and performances. We shared a bottle of wine on the porch, and another over dinner. The fish was superb. Perhaps we shall meet again.

Witham Point Room

 Carl and Lauren

https://www.lakerabunhotel.com/lodging/

After the trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains, after dinner with Will and John at the Pisgah Inn, John and I took the Parkway down to Asheville. Steve Killian joined John, and Will joined me. I did laundry at Will's apartment. 

It was an intimate time for Will and me in my hotel, with its balcony and panoramic view of the mountains. We were glad to have time and space with each other. There is little we did not discuss, from Will's lyrics and recordings to my continued grief over the absence of Darryl. Will's love and care for me have been essential to my dealing with what is to me cruelty, absurdity, violence, the inhumanity of today's world. 

We met John and Steve at Malaprops in the afternoon. I bought the new Ian McEwan novel Maggie recommended. For dinner we dined at Will's favorite Indian Restaurant, Chai Pani,  and had a delightful  taste of food from India. 

The next day John departed for Savannah. Will and I spent much of the day together, then joined Steve for dinner at Tupelo Honey. 

On Friday, Will played a few songs he is working on for me. He even impressed the woman who works at the complex where he lives. A large photograph of Stevie Nicks graced the room where he performed.

 I drove a good 80 miles or more along the Blue ridge Parkway again, stopping at many of the gorgeous overlooks. 

By 4 or so I was back at the Dillard House for two nights, another of Darryl's and my regular places. Saturday was BBQ Ribs (another Darryl favorite) day and I ate heartily. Still I was sad I could not join Will at the "No Kings" rally and protest in Asheville. Will told me later that thousands of people were there celebrating democracy and the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. Will even purchased what turned out to be an excellent poem. 

Here are a few photographs from the Dillard Farm, soon to be the Dillard Resort:

A Yellow Rose for Darryl

Jack Jameson

History of Sound: The Film

 

Last night I saw the film  History of Sound. The Unquiet Grave is a key song in the film. It also strikes home a bit for me.

 
The film opened tonight and I saw the first showing. I was the only person in the theater; so it was like a personal showing on multiple levels. It was at 4 PM; so hopefully more will attend.

This is not an action film. There are neither car chases nor flying heroes. There are no guns or bombs. Though a main character goes to WWI, there are no war scenes or deaths to witness. There is no happy ending... or rather an ending that makes sense and is neither happy nor unhappy.

 
This is not particularly a movie about songs, though we hear a few lovely, traditional songs and two songs are key to the film. The songs are metaphors for the primary story, a sad romance that begins, as the movie begins, with an unusual, musical love at first sight.

 
The film begins in 1917 and goes all the way to 1980. But the romance ends earlier. The film takes its time. And I like a director who takes his time, to paraphrase Mae West. How pleasing to watch a film that is quiet, that languishes on landscapes and surrounding nature, as well as music, rather than noise. No one is in a hurry, and neither should the viewer be. This is not a film about sex, and truly, sex in this film is but one manifestation of a deep, abiding love that the times and the circumstances alone cannot destroy. The circumstances are considerable, which makes the love and bond the men have all that much more powerful.

 
The acting is revelatory, moving, convincing, and the actors are so fascinating in the characters they create: genuine, complex, touching human beings. If anything, the film is too short; another hour of the characters' presence in the first half of the film would have been rewarding. Perhaps, the short story on which the film was based should have been a more substantial novel.

Seated Boxer

 

We shall be examining the Seated Boxer this week in Art History. I recommend the excellent video on this great work of Greek sculpture, which I shall post below.

The boxer expresses how I feel at the ripe age of 78, my husband dead, my life baffling, a kaleidoscope of the most intense feelings, thoughts, dreams, memories I have ever experienced. I feel beaten down, defeated, prepared to vanish. I feel already that I am a ghost of sorts, not fully alive, watching the events around me with a sense of detachment and incomprehension. Do I want to die? Yes, but I don't know where or when. Do I want to survive this bleak time? I don't know. My feelings are contradictory and ever changing, except of course the never ending feeling of loss and absence.

My values remain the same, nonetheless, my love of the mountains, my love of the sea, my love of a few others who have shown me so much love and compassion. I have the same moral values. The same sense of beauty. The same joy in listening to music.

I am also Darryl; no longer in time or space, no longer bodily Darryl with all his beauty, but a spirit, a mystery, an ineffable being. Without Darryl's spirit, I have no enduring and consistent identity or spirit, myself. That is also true, I realize now, more than ever, of Jim, of Jake, of the other dead friends, lovers I have embraced. In other words, I too am beginning not to exist in time or space, the world of causality, the empirical world any longer, regardless of what I do.

This boxer, beaten and old, is no less beautiful, inspiring, an image as true to human life as a work of art can be, a being from the depths and heart of our existence, our pain, our joy.

-- Jack

https://smarthistory.org/apollonius-boxer-at-rest/