We walk and move things carefully this time of year because everyone is getting their things going – all the little spiders and caterpillars, all the little beings doing their springtime things. Every day is not casualty-free, but we try our best. Here’s a caterpillar that was hanging out on the side of 15th Anniversary bass #1. He was relocated onto a big oak in the shade and we got on with our work. The moths gather by the security light on the roll up door and I have to gently wake them up to fly off or be relocated onto a porch post or nearby tree. The red wasps grow more aggressive every year though, and I’ve already had to take some out, which is sad. They don’t mean to be dicks about things – they just can’t be any different, but I can’t allow that near where I work or people I care about. Even ahimsa has its limits when you become a target. I don’t desire to hurt them, but I desire to not be hurt by them more.
Had some thoughts this week – as I told a client the other day, “…not coming out of the woods and having extra toilet paper is every day for me,” but this is life - joys and sorrows; things we must do and things we want to do; precautions to not hurt nor be hurt by others, and times that frame these balances differently in the moments as we go through them. Do your work as you are able but also work on your inside too - there is no better time to sort out one's priorities for life and what loose ends could be taken care of for more peace in it. And for those “stuck home” with their kids, this could be the short time looked back on in decades to come where they got to see you as a person, more than just this mythical providing machine. Go deep with them. However awkward the circumstance, our western lives don’t grant us this kind of potential quality time very often. It could change their lives… and yours.
Times like this are healthy because they jolt a bunch of folks into reality. I can’t speak for you, but I don’t live in reality. In most times, I can go get in any one of three vehicles, drive to a building where I give them pieces of paper and get to walk out with anything I want to eat. Then I come back to the homestead and turn dials and push buttons and the air is cool and the food gets cooked and my poop goes away. I mean – get this – all I have to do is move one lever and water comes out! Amazing. That’s not reality. Reality for most beings – of however many legs - is to wake up in uncertainty, hungry with few provisions, and vulnerable to attack - from a rogue germ all the way to their own kind and beyond. That is the natural world and reality. This is a taste some have never had. It is possible to be in this world, doing just fine – contributing, supporting, cashing checks – and still not be of it; to be prepared without being a bunker head; to be more at peace without being uncaring. It’s a balance. Times like this should stretch us, expand our understanding, our practical knowledge base, re-set various lines and signs we judge all else and their positions and rankings in our views of the lives we walk. To find that balance.
Within this reality, ugly as it can be at times, we have – given our position in the order of things – amazing opportunities. And some of them keep us so isolated as we DO navigate around each other completely busied and polarized that the rest cannot be noticed by us. Young people, home from school – do you realize if you come up with some service you can do, some business you can start and apply yourself to every day, you might not ever have to go back? And to all my friends out there – yes that means you – being prepared is very different from the “Doomsday Prepper” caricature. Our basic needs are simple, and there are simple answers for a “Plan B” for each. I’ll share some with you as we get through this together. Whatever I can share as someone who started this chapter in a van 25 years ago, went back to the land with totally inadequate preparation and settled it one system and step at a time, started businesses that have sustained me, and found the words to convey all of this, I am humbled to share with you. PM me through Facebook (follow on Scott Beckwith AND Birdsong Guitars pages) or email me (scott@birdsongguitars.com), or call me (no texts) at 512-395-5126. No purchase necessary, OK? I’m your neighbor – you need a shovel? Here, I have one to help with. And please remember that others – as ugly as they can be at times – are your brothers and sisters. Some will be toxic and needlessly destructive and they unfortunately must be let go of to find their own path through rather than shit all over yours. But with empathy. Most all inside under the names and categories we apply are beautiful and if the highest in you can serve the best in them in some way, all is not lost and good will seed from all of this in time.
To that, this week I filled your feed and wrote more on here than I normally do, just because it’s what I can offer in that way, and I’ll continue that as I work in the shop this coming week. It’s my way of singing from the balcony. It was a great week in the workshop, here are some pictures! We have moved up to where the finishing rack is full, there are bass bodies in sanding, there is a stack being routed, and the next group’s build orders are being shuffled on the clipboard and eyed in the long planks of maple, mahogany, and walnut leaning against the wall. Stay with us, listen to music, love those around you, take this time you’ve been given to feed yourself (more than just the appetite) and make moments happen that will be memories in the better times to come.
Be good to each other.
Listening to: Bob Marley Live From the Record Plant; Charles Mingus The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady; 16 Huapangos de Oro Vol. 11; White Stripes Icky Thump; The Essence of Maynard Ferguson.
Today? Rain on tin roofs. A beautiful soundtrack.