Inspiration travels faster than any germ. Within the changes we cannot control are so many we can – one of which, if you think about it this way, is which we’d rather be a carrier of given the choice, and which we’d rather spread given the chance. I know some of you are not feeling all that inspired… here’s a thought. It’s a time, while mourning what was, to be actively shaping what will be. What we will emerge to either find planted in the gardens to bloom over time or what WE PLANTED in those gardens. Take one step toward health. Just one. Then, once you claim that ground, refuse to concede it to whatever wants you less than what you can be. That could be temptation, or some dickhead in your life, or chasing what something used to be… just one step. Take it, claim it, hold it. It might take a few – sometimes there’s the dig out before the good climb – but you might just find that all the other problems and fears stood down a step too. That things got one step easier to take having taken that step. That you somehow feel one step more empowered… not to fix everything or hit the rewind button, but to be in control of what you CAN control, to be changing what you CAN change about yourself and your life and your situation NOW. Try that, please. Because every step you take, every bit of ground you gain, you bring that to everything – like feeding a tree from its roots – and your everything then brings that “better” to everything. And so on, on outward, it goes. Springtime cannot be stopped and good seeds will bloom where they are; we can too.
This week I got to find & tell an old friend he made a difference. I had been looking for him for a long time and the phone call happened. The relentless drive to keep doing what I loved even in times where I had to sell myself to other things to keep going, the concepts of witty retort and analogy, and the older man guidance that even though we’re east coast and hard sometimes another guy slipping on a banana peel isn’t entertainment… they came from this guy. He’s 70 now and I’m much older than he was when I knew him. We jammed for a year or two, rented rooms in the same house. I worked for him briefly – mudding & taping for his painting, which was more like a controlled explosion. I’ve never seen a guy cover more surface with paint in less time. But when 5:00 came he was DONE, going home, pouring a little Captain Morgan’s, singing some Dylan or Steely Dan and turning on the tape machine to jam to. He wasn’t going to make a living in music and he was actually OK with that, because that kept its magic pure and he could do it however he wanted. He wasn’t great but it wasn’t a contest – he was the best at being him and the man found joy in the sounds that happened.
Still a loner, still painting houses, still a hoot. He now knows that anything I’ve done with words and/or music, he’s been a part of. Not in quantity but in quality, like the drop of magic juju from elsewhere in us – it’s not the ocean, it’s not the cosmos, it’s not the earth or Hands Greater… those are infinite and huge; and yet, in quality, it IS that and it somehow is INSIDE and that changes who we are, our paths, our blooms. The gardens we leave behind us. All are as they are by the inclusion of this drop of inspiration, of soul, of light, of magic dust. There is no such thing as a self-made man. Self-developed maybe. But self-made? No. We are drops of others’ information and inspiration. Our perspiration and determination might be magic ingredients too, but that’s only part of what makes things happen.
Last time I saw him was in a music store on the Cape in Massachusetts, selling all his gear to go to the Cayman Islands for steady work rebuilding the area after a hurricane in ’88. I was picking up a few things to pack in the van and head off to Texas to chase a life of music. I was 19. Neither had any contact info. We were just going, leaving to head in the direction of opportunity. So we shook hands and wished each other best of luck; “…track me down someday, Josh - I’m hoping I won’t be too hard to find!” That was the last time I had talked to him. Never doubt your influence on others, and watch carefully what you’re seeding in them as they pass briefly through your movie. It all turns to gardens later on.
And, speaking of friends, though we’re pretty much “Drawbridge up” at this point, a good friend jumped the moat to chat from a distance while taking a sanity cruise around the Hill Country on his fine two wheeled machine - I know at least a couple of you are motorcycle enthusiasts, so I’ll post a pic for you.
It was so beautiful in the workshop this week, cooler days we’ll be looking back fondly on here in south Texas before too long. The ordered planer blades are lost at the moment, so next week will be some thickness prepping and gluing up of the next batch – a few Birdsongs, a couple of surprises, and a handful of SD Curlee basses – or ordering more planer blades. This time like I usually do when ordering ANYTHING needed… one set from one source, and another from another. The most important thing is to be able to keep going! Maybe next week when that happens I’ll talk a little about that whole SD Curlee side of things. But this week a bass flew the nest, two more have been going together and further prepped for departure next week, 4 scrolls have been worked on (I think it’s time to put a scrolled horn model back on the menu from the looks of things – maybe the return of the Bliss?), and lists of other “nexts” in various areas of in-process mid-stream manifestation have been checked off one by one. Steps. One step on this, one step on that. It’s how things change, it’s how we help and help guide that change, it’s how WE change for the better within it all and through it all.
One step at a time, my friends.
Listening to: Maitreya Kali Apache; Hunting El Chapo audiobook; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live at Glastonbury 2013; lots of blues and a Howlin’ Wolf documentary.