Well it’s been a busy week at the nest, as they all seem to be, especially with the end of the year looming large on a horizon that is never as far away as it seems to be. They put that warning on rear view mirrors, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear,” and that may be true if you’re doddling. That has never been the case for me – I’ve rolled with a pretty good head of steam and all too often I look back for the past and it’s gone. Like, waaaay gone. One of the guys I ran with briefly in my early 20s I was looking for? Jorge, the guy my age I met and we only knew six words of each others’ language but one was “Santana” and we jammed for an hour? I found his sister and… Jorge died in 2005. Two thousand and FIVE! 1990 really didn’t seem all that long ago.
So it’s not always true, brethren, that little warning on the mirrors. Far more true and ominous is how quickly that horizon is coming at you. Not only are you moving toward it, at whatever speed… it’s also moving toward you at its own. “No it’s not, it’s a fixed point and…” Yep, whatever. Get involved in something, lose track of your mile marker signs for a bit, then look up and six months or six years has evaporated. Go look in the mirror and tell me it ain’t comin’ at you, pal. THAT is the mirror they should put a warning on about what seems so distant. Heck, just last week it was February and I was hobbling into the shop for a few minutes to do SOMETHING. And here it is the end of October! I’m careful not to beat on the knee like I used to, but I’m back to force of nature status (although perhaps a category two instead of 3 or 4) and back around quoted build times for the most part. Took all year – it was really fun getting better, working longer, and chasing something again. But the year is gone! Where did it go? I’m sorry Jorge, I’m going to pay more attention to that.
It’s in sawdust and woodchips and receipts and paperwork and happy emails and a bazillion update & Facebook post words and moments and memories. But it’s still bizarre. Even for someone who lost their tether to what day it is somewhere on the road between Dallas and Columbus in 1988 and hasn’t completely found it since, chunks of time evaporating is a little unnerving.
The weather broke, we’ve finally seen 90 and 100 for the last times this year most likely. Which is wonderful. I don’t complain much but summertime in the deep south is brutal. I’ll trade the winter anywhere for it – that’s exactly what I did – but that doesn’t make August any more pleasant. It’s Richard Petty degrees (43) as I’m preparing to post this, and no matter how much I like to sweat, no matter how great the trade-off is, no matter how much I love where I am doing what I do and in general this whole chapter of life, summer SUCKS. I should be grateful it went by in the blink of an eye then, right? Oy, the dualities of material existence.
Well I’m taking it off next year, and that’s that. Summer – not material existence. I’m not done here yet! Of course that’s not entirely up to me either. Ask Jorge. 2005! He was in his 30s. I’m older now than both of us combined when I knew him. All that’s up to me is right now, what I do, where I aim toward that horizon, and what I leave where I was. If it’s just a pile of poop and sorrow and spent air, that’s bad. If it’s a trail of gardens and moments and bass guitars? Well, that’s better. So that’s what I aim for. The last batch of 2019 builds are in progress, and what a fun batch – look at the pictures on the builds page, most of them are heading out this coming month. In fact I’m going to take next week off from writing the news page blog to get in some extra time and headspace on the builds at hand.
By the end of next week most of what we’ve got working will be in assembly – with pickups coming in from one place, the rest of the hardware coming in from another, it’s going to be “Part holes and elbows” around here. So, for the next couple of weeks, I want to leave you with this. It’s what I’m posting on the Birdsong Guitars Facebook page and it feels strong enough to be shared anywhere I have the privilege of having my words read. So here goes, here I go, and I’ll catch you all in a couple. Meanwhile if you need me you know where I’ll be…
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You all don’t mind if Brother Scott preaches a little do you? I don’t think so. This bass is going to sing. It is going to go out and make people happy and contribute to shared groovy moments. The world will be a better place because it is here. It has been crafted from a piece of wood most others would have passed over - thrown away – tossed in the burn pile. You mentors out there – you teachers, you preachers – you FIND that passed over piece of wood in your circle and you let them know, you instill in them however it takes, that it’s just a matter of time and place before they will have their day. That this might not BE that time and may not BE the place, but those do come – and even in a world full of perfectly matched flame maple and highest bid walnut burl, there is beauty in them and their song will be heard. To hang on because the world is a better place with them here. And that to craft something truly special is neither quick nor painless, whether one is doing the crafting or BEING the crafted. Your quirks are fine. Your challenges will hone you but do not define you – you are a work in progress – you are yet to BE defined.
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Listening to: Explosions In the Sky How Strange Innocence; Aerosmith Rocks; Keith Richards Life (Autobiography audiobook); Black Crowes Shake Your Money Maker; Zen Guerrilla Trance States In Tongues.