Virus shots, I’m calling them this time. For you suburban folks, hearing gunshots is a very different thing than hearing them from other properties out in rural America. Context is everything. When you’re far outside of town and the suburban layout, you are your own first responder. The sounds I hear now and again around me right now are people sighting in their hunting rifles should the need arise, and making sure everything’s working properly for the other reasons. It’s also a sound that serves as friendly reminder to still, whatever the store shelves or news reports from the city look like, be on your best behavior out here concerning property that’s not yours. Personally, I don’t hunt – but gunshots don’t bother me unless they’re very close. A neighbor’s cousin years back decided the easement (paths cleared along property lines) made for a great shooting range. I went over and had a talk with him. My easement does not make for a great shooting range. Just part of living out away from most people. You accept your new roles as caretakers and defenders along with the woods and the peace, and you realize they go together like any other balance. A little more independence requires a little more preparation; a measure more of freedom, a measure more of vigilance.
It’s been a beautiful week here, it’s that magical time just before the mosquitoes, after the chilly days, and before the heat turns up to ramp us into the summer. If you live out somewhere where there are three or four ways to cook and at least two are outdoors, you probably have at least another one or two ways of doing whatever else would need to get done too. We’re doing OK out here, and the email I get means so much to me – really it’s me who worries about you out there. Out in the woods, or if you’re a desert rat somewhere or up in the hills, it’s every day to have bought extras, to have spares. You have a gas can that’s full. You have the easy answers at hand to be used when something doesn’t work or runs low. Water falls from the sky, free – catch some and put it aside. Maybe that’s something good that will come out of this. Everything’s not an extreme – I feel the need to keep reminding otherwise sensible people this. And to be a little more prepared doesn’t have to mean you put on the tin foil hat and armor plate the Suburban too. Way way WAY back from doomsday bunker-ville, you just have to understand that there will be situations beyond your control that might very quickly – quicker than you planned AS your “plan B” - interrupt what you can easily gather, your access to it, and availability of things it’s more enjoyable to have. Like butt wipe, food, and water. And music! What a great time to make music, to take the time to really listen to it. When was the last time you kicked back for a couple of hours and played those albums? Turn off the screens, close the door, and go get into the music. Be present in your presence. Tune up, turn off, and drop in. Give yourself an afternoon of that. You are alive. As great a worker and provider and all as you are, you are more than that. You are deeper than this. Go be deep, go be more. Go feed yourself with the music of your life.
The workshop has been humming (but don’t worry – it still knows the words) – follow along on Facebook, I’m posting a lot on there as stuff comes to form in here. Among other things, everything moved across the benches – from cutting & edging into routing, from routing into drillout & contours, neck final & sand and finishing, bodies through sanding into finishing, and more than expected being ceremoniously walked into assembly today. INCLUDING everything on the available inventory page! Now finished being routed, the three 15th Anniversary bass orders are now waiting for scroll carving – and Anniversary bass #3 was the 250th instrument routed by this Bosch Colt router! Also, as things are flowing in process, it’s time to lay out the next handful for cutting and gluing – a 5-string Birdsong, a Birdsong Custom, and some SD Curlee Yankees! Next week will bring some fun things to show you.
I don’t know what to say to make the more challenging parts of your “right now” better, but just keep in mind the words of a wise man I was confessing my unease to one time years back in Louisiana. I had been asked for a ride by a couple at a truck stop. They were young and crusty, this was more of a lifestyle for them than a temporary down turn of events. However, whatever – we all end up in-between and a little off track in our lives for times in our own ways. And I’m not judging them as off track because of their lifestyle – our paths through to who we become take many scenic routes - just their circumstance - because it was going to be cold and it was Alabama and the sun was going down. But it wasn’t going to happen, partly because there were two of them and the guy over on the sidewalk was a big boy. One person in the passenger seat I have good odds; this guy? No chance. Sorry brother. And sorry sister, you have to walk back over and tell him. Second reason was it was them, all of their duffel bags and backpacks, and two big dogs. That just didn’t make sense, to be relying on rides you can’t fit in. I wished her well. But I was telling my friend down the road how I wish I could have helped, how I don’t like to feel troubles are beyond my control to do anything about. He said very kindly “Buddy, they’re probably going to be alright. They got there from somewhere, they’ll get somewhere else from there.”
So I say to you about us all, a little uneasy, a little off track for the moment, feeling maybe a little less in control of things that we usually think we have answers for or a quick fix… you’re probably going to be OK. You made it this far, we’ll make it down the road. This too shall pass.
Have a great weekend, be kind, be useful, and tell folks you love them.
Listening to: National Geographic Mediterranean compilation; Steely Dan live in Memphis 1974; Robert Pete Williams I’m As Blue as a Man Can Be; Grateful Dead Reckoning and American Beauty; Buddy Morrow & His Orchestra Time After Time; Rasta Dub ’76; Blackbeard I Wah Dub.