The wind blows east, the wind blows west,
And the frost falls and the rain:
A weary heart went thankful to rest,
And must rise to toil again, ’gain,
And must rise to toil again.
The wind blows east, the wind blows west,
And there comes good luck and bad;
The thriftiest man is the cheerfulest;
’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad,
’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad.
The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
Ye shall know a tree by its fruit:
This world, they say, is worst to the best;—
But a dastard has evil to boot, boot,
But a dastard has evil to boot.
The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
What skills it to mourn or to talk?
A journey I have, and far ere I rest;
I must bundle my wallets and walk, walk,
I must bundle my wallets and walk.
The wind does blow as it lists alway;
Canst thou change this world to thy mind?
The world will wander its own wise way;
I also will wander mine, mine,
I also will wander mine.
Summer's is gone but the heat hasn't died down. At least the nights are cool and the quality of the light has changed. Darker blues, deeper shadows. Twilight creeps out from under the trees a little earlier with each passing day, spreading across the evening "like a patient etherized upon a table."
Fires rage just to the south. Weed California is burning tonight. We watch columns of smoke rise and spread like a contagion, wondering if, when, wild fire will crest the ridge and drop down into our valley.
I came out of Jimmy Giancarlo's memorial service tonight to find a mercifully, if briefly, blue sky. Appropriate. Dear Jimmy was a man with a blue sky disposition. He maintained the highest artistic standards without ever being negative or dismissive or harshly critical. He had a way of getting what he wanted by validating others. In all our interactions, from the artistic to the mundane, he never made me feel "less than." He lifted up everyone around him. I aspire to his example. I wish all of my collaborators were as inclusive, inspiring, affirming, committed, generous.
Another good man gone, while evil seems to live forever. And then there are those who inhabit that gray space between good and evil, the ones who cause me so much confusion and pain. People like me.
I grow old, I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
I had a dream about a woman I know, one of those people who leave me feeling "less than." She talks incessantly about her family, her job, her travels, her beliefs, her life, her friends; in short, about herself. Her sense of entitlement is profound, she denies herself nothing. She brings out the Little Red Hen in me: who is going to pick the wheat and grind the grain and bake the bread while Ducky Lucky is touring Europe? In my dream she was talking, talking, talking about herself until I couldn't take it any more and screamed "Will you SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" It shocked me awake.
Why don't I say something similar (if not quite so hostile) in the waking world? Because, I don't see how it would change anything for the better. The reality is, I'm jealous of her. She grew up wealthy and lives her life in the certainty that she deserves whatever she wants. I grew up poor and live my life in the fear that I deserve nothing.
If I had no fear, what would I do?
Maybe I would quit my job and hit the road, visit places just because they interest me, write about any damn thing that crosses my mind, play music on corners and at street fairs, talk to strangers, cross against the light; you know, break the rules. I have a little money, a credit card, a house I could sell. I have skills.
It ain't gonna happen, at least not yet. I've been homeless and broke. I'm not going back.
I traded freedom for security because I couldn't figure out how to have both. I went to school, got a job and never looked back. For decades now, I have walked the endless treadmill of day after working day, playing by the rules, paying my bills, avoiding extraordinary risk, forgoing extraordinary reward. I've been good, Lord. I've done my penance for my wicked, misspent youth.
Is it too late for me to dive back into the unknown?
I spent more than five hours in a recording studio yesterday with the Bathtub Gin Serenaders and now I'm scared to death.
It's ironic that our "lead singer" Ila quit the band less than two months before we finally made it back into the studio. I put "lead singer" in quotes because Eric and I sing lead on several songs and on others, Ila, Melissa and I sang 3-part harmony. However, Ila was the big personality with the big voice who stood out front, and she bailed out with very little warning. All credit to my collaborators, they refused to let her departure stand in the way of our project. We rearranged the 3-part harmonies for Eric, Melissa and me and I stepped up to the mic and took the lead.
Let me repeat that: I stepped up to the mic and took the lead. Holy shit.
We recorded some standards by Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Louis Armstrong, and added some originals: Eric wrote two songs, I wrote two songs and Melissa wrote one. What right do I have to record Gerswhin and Berlin? What right do I have to include my measly original tunes on the same record with those giants? Who the hell do I think I am?
It's too late for take backs now.
I'm singing songs that were sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Anita O'Day. I'm no Ella Fitzgerald; hell, I'm no Ila, but I have a voice. I'm sure as hell not a composer but, I wrote two songs and we recorded them. Scary.
My collaborators are so kind, so supportive. They seem to genuinely value my contributions. I can't quite wrap my head around that. I'm used to being devalued and disrespected in the musical community because, and this is the truth, I'm not a very good musician. I have a great ear, a great feel for time and tempo, but not much musicianship or technical skill. But, here's the weird thing: a lot of people now think of me as a good musician. Some of them are even other musicians.
My skeptical mind keeps looking for the catch, sure that the world is setting me up for a fall. What if I'm really terrible but no-one will tell me to my face? My fearful mind imagines the world laughing behind my back. The band is just starting to gig without Ila and I fret about perpetrating a bait and switch. I feel like apologizing before I begin to play, sure that I'll chase the audience away.
What if I suck?
So, what if I do? If that's the worst that happens, it's not so bad. I've survived worse.
I wish my mama was here tonight. She would set me straight. She never let me tear myself down or beat myself up. She believed I could do anything.
OK then mama, this is for you. What talent I have, what courage, what grace, it comes from you. When I sing, I sing in your voice.
Another Camp Out in the books and I didn't take a single photograph. This one was taken by my dear little friend Lauren Smith. What kind of a chronicler am I? Boswell would not approve. (Can you imagine a contemporary Boswell, smart phone in hand, snapping selfies with Dr. Johnson in some London haunt?)
On Friday, the valley was so smokey from the nearby fires, I feared this would go down as the Camp Out in Hell. It was dense. Ah, but we were granted a reprieve. By the time I walked up to the house on Friday night (actually, Saturday morning) I could see the Milky Way. The rest of the weekend was gloriously sunny, blue and beautiful; the weather gods were good.
Sequoia and I cooked soup and bread on Friday night for our arriving guests. Our guests cooked for us all day long on Saturday and Sunday. That does not seem like a fair trade. They fed a whole lot of meat to a whole lot of people, more people than they anticipated I'm sure. I feel guilty that they worked so hard for so many hours only to see the fruits of their labor devoured in minutes. In the future, I must do a better job of organizing menus and assigning tasks so the burden is more evenly distributed. Next year, we're going to fire up the pizza oven again and let the barbecue chefs take it easy.
James Dean staged a performance by his two bands on Saturday night, quite the extravaganza with electric music and black lights. He laid out heart and soul and I'm grateful to him for such a beautiful contribution.
If the Colestin Camp Out was my child, it would be be graduating high school and heading off to college this year. At the first camp out 19 years ago, Ruthe confided in me that she was pregnant. That little sprout became our Lauren, who is heading off to Oregon State University. Lewis McBennet (formerly Claire), couldn't be with us this weekend, but his mother was also pregnant at the first camp out and he's off to the University of Oregon in a couple of weeks. Cat and Dutch's beautiful Sierra also graduated high school this summer and has started her journey into the grown up world. What a privilege and a joy to watch these beautiful young women leave the nest.
It feels like the end of an era, campers. The years just flow by like a broken down dam. We watch our children grow into adults, disconcerted when they reflect our weakness back at us, gratified when they mirror our strengths, delighted when they develop their own, unique talents and traits. We are alarmed to learn that they also have their own unique destinies, which are outside of our control If we're lucky, we are allowed to watch them grow into their power as our own power wanes. They become stronger and smarter as I get slower and stupider. It's a long process of letting go, giving over, and it's not easy. If we are very lucky, we live long enough to learn that getting old is a stone cold bitch, but it beats the alternative.
...and other places Sequoia and I visited on Mt. Shasta. It sounds like the name of a Fiona Apple record, doesn't it?
Panther Meadows where we camped:
Panther Creek just below the campground
The holy spring. I can't describe the sense of purity, the feeling of sanctity.
Someone carefully placed a large flat rock under the spring, just big enough for one person to stand on comfortably. Big enough for a penitent pilgrim to breathe in the sacred spirit and do a few yoga poses.
Or you can stick your head under the trickle and cool off.
Thunderheads at sunset, day 1.
Smoke on the horizon.
Day 2: We hiked from Bunny Flat at about 7,300 feet to Horse Camp at 8,000.
Beyond Horse Camp, the Causeway of the Gods. A single man used a rock bar to maneuver these boulders into place. The smallest of them had to be 60 lbs, the largest - who knows. The path climbs the mountain for a little more than a half mile, but when you're jumping from boulder to boulder, it feels longer. It looked like something Bilbo might have walked on as he traveled to the Misty Mountains.
"My needs are what are giving you the power over me." Message received, thanks universe...
If somebody is a problem for you, it’s not that they should change, it’s that you need to change. If they’re a problem for themselves that’s their karma, if they’re causing you trouble that’s your problem on yourself. So, in other words when Christ is crucified, he says “forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”, they’re not a problem for him, he’s trying to get them out of being a problem for themselves, because he’s clear. Your job is to clear yourself. In ideal situations you would clear yourself within the situation, but very often it’s too thick and you can’t do that.
Now, what you do then is you pull back and you do the stuff you do in the morning or at night before you go to work, you do the stuff on weekends, you do the stuff that quiets you down and then each time you go into the situation to where you have to work, you lose it again. And then you go home and you see how you lost it, and you examine it, and then you go the next day and you lose it again, and you go home and you keep a little diary “how did I lose it today”, and you see that, and then you go and you do it again, and after a while as you’re starting to lose it you don’t buy in so much. You start to watch the mechanics of what it is that makes you lose it all the time.
If I’m not appreciated, that’s your problem that you don’t appreciate me. Unless I need your love, then it’s my problem. So my needs are what are giving you the power over me. Those people’s power over you to take you out of your equanimity and love and consciousness has to do with your own attachments and clingings of mind. That’s your work on yourself, that’s where you need to meditate more, it’s where you need to reflect more, it’s where you need a deeper philosophical framework, it’s where you need to cultivate the witness more, it’s where you need to work on practicing opening your heart more in circumstances that aren’t optimum. This is your work. You were given a heavy curriculum, that’s it. There’s no blame, it’s not even wrong, it’s just what you’re given. You hear what I’m saying? It’s interesting. Can you all hear that one?
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