Smitty

I dreamed that dad, mom, brother Greg, nephew Noah and a couple of strangers were all squeezed in my car driving across the country. Dad and mom were only coming part of the way, I was supposed to drop them at different airports so they could go back to where they came from. Noah had been driving all night, the rest of us had fallen asleep. When I woke up, I realized he'd missed a turn off. We were supposed to head east but we were still heading north. I had him pull over at a ramshackle diner where we found a cool, shady parking lot out back. Mom was sitting in the back seat and I was really glad we found shade for her. I took out my paper map and went inside to ask for directions. I tried to ask the folks in the kitchen but they were closed off behind a wall with a tiny service window and they wouldn’t come to the counter. I tried to ask a guy whose extended family was sitting across several tables but I couldn't make him understand the map. I went back outside and tried to unfold the map on the hood of the car but it wouldn't open to the right section. It was a jumble. Dad was standing by me trying to help, trying to tell me which way to go, but I kept fumbling with the msp. It didn't show the whole route, just part of it, and I couldn't unfold it to the section I needed. Smitty kept trying to take the map and show me something but I insisted that I knew the way. I had planned the route and we were going to go the way I had planned. He wasn't fighting me, but he kept debating my decision. This was something he did a lot I my life. he would take an oppositional point of view, play devil's advocate. It infuriated me and we'd end up fighting. in the dream, I refused to listen to him. I told everyone to get back in the car, I would drive. We were heading back out onto the freeway when I woke up. What's that you say? Lingering control issues left over from childhood? Whatever are you talking about? i refused to listen to him for my entire adult life, from my early teens to his death. There was a lot more I could have learned from him but we wete both so defensive, so fucked up. He swung wildly between being deeply proud of me and profoundly disappointed in me. One day he would be fighting like a wildcat to control me, the next he would be oblivious, absent, He shut me out because I wasn't what he wanted me to be. I was too fat, too loud, tpo opinionated, too much like him. The swings were too much for me. i got out of there and didn't look.back. but oh, I wish he could have gotten some help. I wish he could have found some peace and shared it with me I woke up with a sore neck from clenching my jaw so hard.

Funeral Songs

The ever-expanding list of songs to be played at my funeral Coyote, Joni Mitchell Clouds. Joni Mitchell Sisters of Mercy, Leonard Cohen To Lay Me Down, Jerry Garcia The Wheel, Jerry Garcia Mood Indigo, Duke Ellington Many Rivers to Cross, Jimmy Cliff What'll I Do, Harry Nilson St James Infirmary Blues, Jelly Roll.Morton Nuages, Djamgo Reinhardt Minor Swung - Django Reinhardt Gymnopedia, Eric Satie Im Coming Home, Staple Singers By the Rivers of Babylon, Bob Marley Redemption Song, Bob Marley Peace Like a River, Paul Simon Slip Slidin Away. Paul Simon Candles in the Rain, Melanie She, Graham Parsons Tapestry, Carol King Elvis Presley Blues. Gillian Welch Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, Willie Nelson Angel From Monthomery - Bonnie Raitt version All Things Must Pass - George Harrison Hide Your Love Away - Beatles

Life in the Wilderness

"There's the idea of the wilderness, and then there's the unglamorous labor of it, the never-ending grind of securing firewood; bringing in groceries over absurd distances; tending the vegetable garden and maintaining the fences that keep the deer from eating all the vegetables; repairing the generator; remembering to get gas for the generator; composting; running out of water in the summertime; never having enough money because job opportunities in the wilderness are limited; managing the seething resentment of your child, who doesn't understand your love of the wilderness and asks every week why you can't live in a normal place that is not wilderness; etc." Emily St John Mandel Check, check, check

Harmonic

I was blessed to grow up immersed in musical harmony. My mother and all nine of her siblings sang beautifully. No family gathering was complete without a couple of hymns sung round the piano in 4 part harmony. My cousin, the family proto-hippie, had an impressive record collection. I use to sneak into his room and wear out his copy of Buffalo Springfield Retrospective. He introduced me to The Byrds, which led me to Crosby, Stills & Nash (and eventually Young.) Those tight, twisting California harmonies felt like family to me. They felt like home. David Crosby talked about how hard it is to sing the middle part, to hold your note and resist the pull from two different directions. I's the place where the magic happens. When harmonybis just right, the infinite overtones open, an experience I've had exactly once and will never forget. It sounds like two mirrors facing each other infinitely reflecting back onto each other. There is no end. Everything is energy. Energy is vibration. When vibration is aligned, it creates harmony. It is the closest I've come to God.