Malena Smith – 27 in Maine (The Ride)

(Listen to this song while you read, listening inspired this post.)

Even before you are born your path begins to unfold and your story begins. As we write that story, we walk from moment to moment gathering scraps of magic and if we are lucky, we find joy. Joy that can teach us to pause and sit in a moment for the time we need to be there. If we are especially lucky, we find joy from the tiny pieces of a soul sent out in their song and we are blessed to breathe them in…

Please, allow me to introduce you to, Malena Smith. Her debut EP, 27 in Maine, comes out this fall, and I encourage you to give her music some of your moments, precious as they are, it’s worth it.

Malena is not new to singing but this will be her first solo release. She has a tremendously diverse range of experience, from sharing the stage with Michael Bublé, to singing with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. You will hear that rich experience in each of the tracks on her EP. Each song will breathe a different piece of the magic she has gathered along the way. Her voice is the boon that I needed just now.

It is alarming sometimes how well the universe knows what I need, and I needed to know who Malena Smith is. Even after ignoring an email from her public relations folks for a while. When I decided to listen, I was struck with incredible gratitude in having been given this opportunity to learn about Malena’s work. She is tapping into the magic, and if these are just the first bits… I’m all in. I can’t wait to buy a ticket to see her sing when she comes through the great Pacific Northwest.

Malena’s voice carries her power, and her message of living in the moment. Every track has a different piece of Malena’s spirit but the title track, 27 in Maine (The Ride) struck me at the center of what I needed… today, in this moment.

“Holding on to moments,

Leads to disappointments

Hourglass keeps goin’

And I can’t help but notice…”

Knowing when to let a beautiful moment go and move on is very hard for me. I have always struggled letting moments find their end. With great sorrow and fighting I have learned that if I do not fly when it is time, not only will I find disappointment, but I may cause others to find that as well.

“Time moves faster the older you get

I haven’t found how to slow it down yet

The best parts pass you by

So don’t close your eyes

Or you’ll miss the ride”

A life can be forty years or a hundred, it can also be just a day. We have innumerous ways to parcel up the tiny little pieces of our lives, probably just so we can count and see how far we have come regardless of how fast it goes, yet it just goes faster and faster. The only thing I have found that helps to slow the spin is to mash my face as hard as I can into the moment I need to be mashing my face into. It could be a two-minute conversation in my checkout line or a chat with an old friend. Being present is the only way to circle the chaos that screams around us. Do not let the screaming take your voice or your calm, put some Malena Smith in your ears, give yourself some joy.

I do not have a special line into what Malena thought about when she wrote this chorus, but for me this spoke of embracing every second, finding the thing you need to learn from, is it this person, this song, or is it that book your reading…

I can think of many times that I was faced with a decision that if I had blinked, I may have chosen right instead of left or blue instead of beige or whatever… There are so many times I could have said no to a big leap and just stayed where I was, holding onto a moment. But I took a lot of leaps, and some fell flat but some were the best ever.

I did ask that incredibly beautiful woman with the very long, very dark hair to dance….

What a ride.

Every moment you encounter could be one that presents you a choice that changes the rest of your life. You may be holding on to where you are just because at some point it was very sweet, or you may not know anything else. You may just be terrified of what lies ahead. But time won’t wait, so don’t close your eyes, it may be scary, but it also may be beautiful…

Don’t ignore that email from Karissa….

“Photographs are slowly fading

Souvenirs collecting dust

These are old records I keep playing

Take me back to where I was”

There is such power in this verse… some of my greatest joys are finding ways back to the places where I had stashed souvenirs and songs. It is in those places that I find pieces of Rusty that I need to learn from. My life is filled to overflowing with kind words or memories and each of them had a part in helping me finding the ride that has brought me to this moment, to this keyboard while Malena sings, a magical soul with so many more tiny pieces to send.

“Spent last summer in the harbor

With parts of me I’d never met

I wish it didn’t make me wonder

How many summers I have left”

This verse is exciting and frightening all at once… but beautiful. I can feel the excitement of meeting a new part of oneself, I have felt that. I have also felt the ripple of fear that I have only so many times left around this beautiful world. I am so grateful that I am about to complete my sixty-fifth trip, and I have had the best ride. I am by no means done yet, but I will not be silly and say I don’t think about how many trips I have left. I have found that it can always be exciting if you just mash your face into whatever moment, you are in the midst of. Yes, I am repeating myself, it bears repeating.

Enjoy it, savor it and maybe even devour it…. take it all in and then find your way to the next one.

I remember as a kid I would look so forward to a trip or outing and when they came I never wanted them to end. I carried that practice well into adulthood and only in the last decade or so have I learned to relish an adventure but also relish the coming home and being in that place with that one. Joy will teach us how to pause and sit in a moment, before it floats away to stir smiles in other places. Time moves so fast, but we get the choice of whether we are moved by it or we ride with it…

Malena, in my heart of hearts, I wish you so many moments that will bring you joy in the knowledge that this moment was made just for you. You have deep and ancient power, and your music is from that place. I’ll be one of the adoring fans waiting for the fluttering pieces of your music to breathe life into me.

Listening, learning and growing…

Reaching for Power

I encourage you to listen to this playlist while reading this post.

If you have read any of my posts then you know I write about joy and finding hope and I know that there are many of us who are struggling to find either one of those right now. Hope just keeps slipping through our fingers, and joy is something we’ve given away. If it matters to you how the world ends up, then you are tired, like me. My hope is that you are thriving in spite of the assault on anything even remotely resembling order and honesty. Oddly enough, I am good… yes I am anxious, used up in so many ways, but I am earnestly thriving, when I shouldn’t be.

I have spent my lifetime thinking about this post. I am putting this out here, in a way that I hope is relevant for you. These are my words, they are about finding the power of being you. It is as real for me as breathing. I have found that if I reach for and wield my power, I find joy and I find hope… and so much more.

My greatest hope is that a piece of what I write will give you a glimpse of the joy of you. I have a magic wand called music, and I know in my deepest depth that we all bear singular precious value, for we are hope, every single one of us.

Websters dictionary talks about power like this:

“ability to act or produce an effect”

I hope these words will help you find the power to produce an affect that will make yours and others existence better. But I will get to that…

On February 14, 2018, my career as a technology leader in higher education ended. It was abrupt and one the hardest things I have ever walked. For the entire time I worked in education, I believed that I was doing what I was born to do. I never looked past it or even fathomed an end. I loved my work, and I did some very good things, but it was just one chapter in my colorful life. Besides, I didn’t even go to college, I wasn’t supposed to be a vice president at the third largest public college in my state. But I was, and when it was over, for a little while I was very lost.

A very long year and three months later, I published my first blog post. I didn’t know I had found my power, but thankfully I have a partner who lets me understand who I am, even when I don’t. I published eight articles in 2019 and then ten in 2020 and I am a fan of them all. I dove into writing with all of my heart. I took all of my learned experience and poured them into the words I was finding as songs came and asked me to sit and listen to them for a while. They would compel me to write about what they told me. Finding my lullaby saved me, along with Susan, Robbi, Dianna, Janna and Corey. Each of them gave me anchors that kept me from drifting too far when I really wanted to. Understanding what brought me here is why I write.

I write today with the hope of giving you an anchor and giving you some joy.

Music found me

“I’m going home.

I still think that… which is, maybe people think your strange but it’s a funny feeling.

And I did…A place… you felt safe, comfortable, they knew everything about you,

You’re a… everything was familiar to you.

And it made it easy for you, to stay there.

There was nothing that would put you away from the trose.

That’s why there were lots of people that I knew when I was a boy… are still there,
you know that didn’t go away at all, that was my impression of it was…

Home”

On July 27, 2021, I published a post about the song, “In Praise of Home”, by Rura. Home is where you find your power, it is where you practice it, and it is where you begin to believe that you are capable of wielding this power. Home will nourish you.

“Home is the fire you feel alive in, it is a state of being that washes you with hope and then surrounds you with joy and peace. Home is the things remembered, the anticipation of what may come and the warmth of all the love you have gathered in your life. Home is where you thrive”

I have found joy in nesting in the contentment of home and then firing my heart into the universe. Giving whatever creative fire I have to mark that I am here. Part of finding home is finding the people and the environments that feed you and your power. For me this starts with my Susan, she grounds me and never ever takes me seriously. From there it is a very eclectic group of friends, some are family, but most are the beings who have crossed my path and inspired me. I have amazing friends…

Your job, your career, the way you spend the largest portion of your life should never define you, ever. It doesn’t matter if you are a rock star selling out stadiums around the world, your job does not define you.

I am a crew member at your neighborhood grocery store. I get to help you feed yourself and yours. I love the hard work even though I sometimes wonder how long I can keep up with the kids I work with. My favorite part is getting to see you, the random smile that comes through my line, the kismet lady who told me about the magic puzzles.. and you. I am so grateful for the joy I find every day, stocking and bagging your groceries. It is you who give me hope, your kids, your heart and the constant reminder that we are not lost. Working at your neighborhood grocery store is part of home for me.

“Everybody gets lonely
Feel like it’s all too much
Reaching out for some connection
Or maybe just their own reflection
Not everybody finds it
Not like the two of us
Sometimes all anybody needs
Is a human touch
Sometimes all anybody needs
Is a human touch”

Those words are from a collaboration between Jackson Browne and Leslie Mendelson that found its way onto the 2021 release from Jackson, Downhill From Everywhere. I found this song last winter, and it was the first song that began to unravel some ideas that led me on a search for the words I am writing for you now. I have seen the power of the human touch in the twenty plus years I spent inside the walls of education. I have countless stories of the faculty I supported and the mighty power that they wield. I have seen the moment when the match strikes the fire, and a student sees and feels their life’s passion come alive within them.

I know how powerful the human touch is. I know how powerful your power is. I am certain that the very fabric of our universe is counting on you picking it up and being you. I am certain that if you are honest, there is at least one person in your life who gave you a peice of themselves, just to help you see the next day.

Reaching for your power could be taking out your favorite knife and chopping up some vegetables to make your friend some soup. It could be handing someone their receipt with a smile full of joy just for them, as they dash on through their busy day. Maybe you just fixed someones car and made it safer for them… Reaching for your power gives you the strength to hope and to be hope.

I have seven grandchildren, and for their eighteenth birthday, I write them a letter. I dig into what the world around me is saying and I try my best to give them something that will give them a few kernels for today and some for the years to come. It is something I look forward to and slightly dread. I started in 2019 when Ty turned eighteen, and then Chris in ’21, Jon in ’23 and now Sophie.

I started working on Sophie’s letter in the midst of trying to gather my words around what it means to find your power, so I set out to articulate that in her letter. I had this idea of enlisting the help of a few my friends who might give me a few words that they would have wanted their eighteen-year-old self to know.

Alexis, Mattaya and Zoe gave me pieces of their joy. Each of them are somewhere within their twenties and each of them are on very different paths. The results I might say are genius…

Zoe came to work with a list, written in a way that only Zoe can deliver. I will cherish forever the look on her face when she handed me her list and spun away. Zoe is so powerful… I believe she is just catching a glimpse of her power… here is what she gave me, and Sophie… and you.

Trust your gut, sometimes your body knows before your mind knows.
The kindness and love you give will find its way back to you, your effort is worth it!
You are gonna meet people who change your life, gaining perspective and self-worth.
You are deserving of love, from others but most importantly yourself.
Believe in your ability to accomplish hard things. You are so capable even if your brain tries to convince you otherwise.
You are not responsible for others’ behavior, only your own.
You aren’t behind, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Ask questions, stay curious, learning is so important.
I hate the word “mindset”, but negative self-talk won’t get you anywhere. Good mindset = good day.

There is power in words, there is power in Zoe.

Words are one of the reasons I write, but this shook me… it gives me immeasurable hope.

There is no way I can fathom the walls Zoe will tear down. She is spending her summer as a camp counselor for some very special kids. Zoe is somebody I would like to be like when I grow up… Zoe has never met my granddaughter, but she put so much thought into each and every word, and that is power, real power, and it gives me the greatest hope of all. Each and every day I get to see so many beautiful souls that assure me that we will be ok…

Alexis described the mayhem we all lived through in 2020. Only she saw it from the lens of an eighteen-year-old who was just robbed of a commencement speech and graduation party. Nothing about 2020 was normal, nothing made sense.

Alexis wished she could have told her eighteen-year-old self to worry less about the craziness spinning through the world and focus on what she had control over… there are so many things you can’t change, but you are still the only you.

Alexis is heading south to learn how to dive… It is a passion for her, and I am so freaking jealous. There is a beautiful world under the surface of the water… I can’t wait to see the face of my friend after she has spent time communing with our cousins of the deep blue…

Alexis is so powerful, she is walking the path that only she can walk, and she taking a huge leap into what she can control. I can’t wait to see her story unfold.

“There’s a place in the world for a gambler
There’s a burden that only he can bear
There’s a place in the world for a gambler “

Mattaya is my gambler friend; she is unique and oh so powerful, the world is drawn to her. Everyone who meets Mattaya wants to be her best friend and I am one of the lucky ones whom she has given many pieces of her time to.

She gambled on teaching an after-school gardening program for grade school kids last year and I know without question that there are some kids who learned about how the earth works, and they will never be the same… because Miss Mattie.

When I asked her if she had any thoughts for my Sophie, she sent me this…

“Things I would tell little taya:

– you are allowed to do things by yourself and for yourself

– Don’t always be trying to figure the next part, enjoying being in the space you’re at

– Go to all the things you think you are too cool to go to

– Be passionate about the things you adore even if no one else is

– Learn how to dance or not but don’t not dance

– Be present with the people you surround yourself with (and surround yourself with people that make you want to be present)”

Last time we talked, my friend Taya was basking in the glory of the desert. She has found joy in floating, waiting for that next thing she is supposed to greet. She is a great example of one who has many powers and life is taking her through pieces of all of them, spinning in the eddy’s and circling all of the chaos around you. Just letting it shine.

I have amazing friends… You could take any one of these gifts, and you would be so much richer for it. I could write for days about the value in their words, but I will let you just soak in them, I think that works best.

Dan Fogelberg gave us “There’s a Place In the World for a Gambler” in1974. I was thirteen and I fondly remember the first track from Souvenirs, Part of the Plan. But this track never hit my radar until this year, right when I needed it. When I was struggling with the idea of everyone being able to create and wield power and Dan introduced me to the gambler. There is a burden and a power that only they can bear.

Each of you can create and every burden has their person. Every challenge has a place in the world for the person who can meet it. Seek out your light, then light it up and kick some ass, just like Alexis, Mattaya, and Zoe.

“There’s a light in the depths of your darkness
There’s a calm at the eye of every storm
There’s a light in the depths of your darkness

Let it shine
Oh, let it shine”

Your power is that light, it is the calm in the eye of the storm. Your power is you, and you are the only person who can explain that. I will give you my best encouragement, and I will share the path that brought me here, I will hold your hand and walk with you, but I cannot prescribe to you what your power is. Your power is you and if anyone, but you messes with it, it just won’t work… you have to let it shine.

Seek out your power like your survival depends on it, because it does. Leave aside the things you cannot control, they are simply distractions. Finding the source of your power means finding you, because within you, is joy and hope. It is your life’s work to get that out in the universe, and we will all be better for it. As Alexis would say, control what you can control and leave the other shit aside.. just let it shine.

“When I awoke today, suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams, I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path, up this cobbled lane
I’m walking in my old footsteps, once again”

“Waiting For My Real Life to Begin” is a song from Colin Hay. My sister Robbi, introduced this song to me and the rest of my siblings at one of our sibling retreats. My siblings and I, the RL’s (we all have the same initials) had five sibling retreats. After each of us organized one retreat, we all agreed we were good. You don’t get to pick your family, and it is a lot of work to love them, but we do. I am so blessed to be the brother of Roxana Lou, Roberta Lynn, Renee Lee and Randal Lance. They are all so unique and beautiful and I am a better person because of them, we are very different, but all so powerful. I am so proud to be an RL Beard.

I have listened to this so many times since my sister first played it for us, and it is one of those songs that will always be in my core. “Any minute now, my ship is coming in.” I was in the heart of my career in higher education when this song drilled its way into my soul and it has stayed there ever since, getting me ready for this day. I recently cleaned out my little storage area below the stairs and found a box of things that I had packed up from my office at the last college I worked at. There were so many memories and warm feelings from that career that coursed through those decades of my life. A card from two friends that saw I was having a bad day and offered to take out who had ever caused it, the trinkets that I collected along the travels of that career, and then I unearthed the plaques and awards. These are not Pulitzer or Grammy awards, but rather a half dozen or so little things that reminded me that I had poured my power into the world. It reminded me that I did really good things while I was there and I poured all of my creativity and passion into being the best I could possibly be. I let the pain of the way it ended foreshadow the passion I had for students and their teachers. I have so much power deeply embedded in me from the thousands and thousands of students whom I was privileged enough to get a glimpse of in their search for their own power. I have seen so many students find so many victories, as the light of ideas and possibility blossoms in their lives.

The ones who taught them… they are magnificent, they are the heroes and sorcerers. They are the mentors and those who pave the way. I will never ever forget the Julia’s, the Allison’s, the David’s, the Donna’s, the Rie’s and the Fran’s… and the Miss Mattie’s… Teachers are righteous, they wield power that can make a mountain tremble, and they love harder than anyone I have ever met. I am better because of the joy they taught me to see.

“And you say, just be here now
Forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin
Just let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I’m waiting for my real life to begin”

I have been an ice cream truck driver, a farmworker, a dishwasher, a ditch rider, a technology leader and now I am a crew member at your neighborhood grocery store. Not one of these defines me, none of these are my real life, but they all gave me pieces of power that I will carry with me forever.. In my real life, I am a husband, a father, a friend and grandfather, I am a writer, a bass player, and I have so much power. Let’s walk down a beaten path and see if we can find yours. Forget about the past and keep rolling that dice, even if the door closes… keep expecting your real life to begin… it probably already has.

“Just let your love flow like a mountain stream
And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams
And let your love show and you’ll know what I mean
It’s the season
Let your love fly like a bird on a wing
And let your love bind you to all living things
And let your love shine and you’ll know what I mean
That’s the reason”

The Bellamy Brothers gave us a key in their summer of ’76 hit “Let Your Love Flow”. This song has carried me for almost fifty years, it has been whispering for me to just let my love flow, let it bind me to all living things and just let it shine…

When a stream finds its way down a mountain it takes the path that gravity dictates and leans into it, kicking the rocks aside that were loosened by so many ancestors before and tumbling into the loving arms of the next pool of adventure and love… When you have a dream it rides through the ravines and rocks that were cleared for you. Ease into this path and see what dreams you find. Is writing down your most nonsensical thoughts one of your best dreams? Maybe you should check. Dreams are this weird conscious versus sub or unconscious reality. They are sounding boards where we get to draw up anything… we can spit ball into oblivion and try on so many outfits, but occasionally you find a cliff that you can only take wing and fly from. I didn’t dream of being a writer, but here I am… flying.

Letting your love flow is letting your power flow. Loving regardless of the return and shining in spite of the darkness that we face. Even the smallest of dreams can bring a spark of the faith you should place on yourself. There is a reason for you being here right at this moment. Grab on to the fleeting glimpses you get of the you that could be and just call it dreaming.

I know without a doubt that as you ponder what your power could be, the single most important “litmus” test you can give is to ask, is this letting my love flow? If you are pouring your heart into this thing is it love that flows from you. This has not one thing to do with paying the bills or finding that next great thing. This is just loving. It is the easiest and hardest thing you will ever let fly. Getting to the edge that you fly from can be very difficult, but the actual leap of love you take… that will just flow.

“For all the love you’ve left behind
You can have mine”

Sam Beam of Iron and Wine found his power. That lyric is from Call it Dreaming of the 2017 album, Beast Epic. It is a great example of letting your love flow. I do not know the story of why he wrote this, but I can extract a few things from the perfect eloquence of the rest of the lyrics…. Sam is just genius..

“Say it’s here where our pieces fall in place
We can fear ’cause the feeling’s fine to betray
Where our water isn’t hidden
We can burn and be forgiven
Where our hands hurt from healing
We can laugh without a reason”

Where are you right this minute? Do you have anything figured out? Maybe you’re just scared because your feelings might betray you.

Being you, the true and unvarnished you, is really fucking hard…

The first part of being authentic. as the cool kids call it, is being honest with you. The second part is loving that person is staring back at you in the mirror, you need them…

Over the last little while I have grown very fond of what I see in the mirror. I am a sixty-four-year-old man who’s earned every year and every wrinkle, and I have really good hair. It is incredibly liberating when you stop worrying about who is staring back at you…

“Cause the sun isn’t only sinking fast
Every moon and our bodies make shining glass
Where the time of our lives is all we have
And we get a chance to say, before we ease away
For all the love you’ve left behind
You can have mine”

I believe we all have the chance to spread love and leave it behind before we fade into the stars. I don’t want you to ease away… I want you to roar like a lion, grabbing your power and leaving all of your love behind. The more you rage and shine with your power, the more love you will leave behind. Find that voice that is only yours, and rage, this day is the time of your life.

Leave all of your love behind…

Each and every one of these songs, screams of love. They scream of joy, and they scream of finding your power. There is no one, in the seven billion or so of others wandering the earth right now, not one… who is you.

Are you a gambler? Are you just you?

I woke today and suddenly, nothing happened… but in my dreams I slew the dragon….

Let your love flow…

Did you find home… because that is where your song is.

I remember….

“Love is a language, time is a thief
Hope is a lantern, breath is relief
Memory is water pooled in your pond
Home is a song”

Mary Chapin Carpenter and Anïas Mitchell gave us their power and softly gave us all the path in “Home is a Song“.

A song of hope and joy, and finding your power…

“A heart is a traveler, a soul is a wing
Calling all passengers wanting to sing
One day, we’ll arrive where we belong
Where home is a song”

I have written so much about songs, they are my passion, and I believe they persist beyond this life. A song can be anything, it can be teaching a child to raise an onion, or how to set up a tent. It can be the understanding of the depths of the ocean and the story that you weave there. Singing your song is wielding your power. Do not put your power in a box and stuff it away, practice it and work to understand it. This is yours to give and ours to need.

Let your love flow…

This is all of it, every pinch of being you. Keep wondering where you are going and who you will be. Love yourself so tremendously that no ne can love you better.

Go listen to the trees and the memory of water.

~~~

It took me a long time to write this piece. I had to listen for the memory of the ghosts who walked before. I found a few and maybe more are still to come. I am not in charge…

Who will I be…

I am trying to figure that out, right next to you. You, my friend are a piece of home for me. You are beautiful and perfect, and my universe needs you.

just don’t not dance.

Listening, learning and growing…

Them Coulee Boys – I Am Not Sad

Our New Dystopia

(Listen to this song while you read this, listening to it, inspired this post.)

November brought us a lot of sad. Our nation confirmed to the world, exactly who we are. Regardless of the doctrine you currently choose as your own, we know exactly who we are. There are no more excuses or explanations, we are exactly who we have always been.

I have felt them all… the sadness, the anger and the pain.

I have never truly believed in God, but I have believed in my nation.

Then on the evening of November nineteenth, a bomb cyclone descended on my beautiful little city.

I remember shaking my head when I read the forecast. Why do they have to come up with new names? But they were right, it was a bomb that traveled like a cyclone through our forests, parks and yards.

We lost power early that evening, but we had our flashlights and power banks ready. We had all the other things my sweet Susan had bought and said, “just in case”, this was a just in case kind of night.

On that night we felt the unmitigated power of the wind and its roaring that ravaged everything in its path. Our home vibrated and shook for hours and all the while I heard and felt trees on the north side of us, smacking the side of the house, over and over again. I never thought about leaving, not from bravery or any such nonsense, I just didn’t think of it.

It was oddly quiet as I got ready for work at 4:30 that next morning. The storm had stopped shaking us about an hour ago and I wasn’t sure what I would find as I pulled out of the garage. The first tree I saw down was just across the drive. It was laying across the visitor parking spot my neighbor always parks in. He didn’t park there last night.

It was so dark… and there was debris everywhere. So many trees lying in their dying throes, lying as corpses yet to be gathered by the morgue…

My headlights were the only light that morning. They illuminated a parade of debris, limbs and utter darkness. I came out of a deserted roundabout and my headlights landed on a car sitting in the middle of the road, it was completely dark, and no one was anywhere to be seen. I drove around it and passed trees that were mangled, and trees with their root ball dangling in the air. Weeks later, there are still so many that were just pushed off the road, cut into logs or laying where they died. When I finally turned into the little shopping center where my neighborhood grocery store resides, I was struck with awe.

All of our lights were on… it was a beautiful site.

By brilliant foresight and a tiny bit of luck, our regional manager secured a generator big enough to power everything in the store and they worked during storm, to get it wired in. For four days, we were the only grocery store with everything running for miles around us. The second of those days I walked around the store giving away bouquets of flowers to random beleaguered customers. I told them I had a little power outage joy for them…

For just a moment, I didn’t think about elections or doom, I just thought about my coworkers, our neighbors and how we were going to walk through this. I am not sad anymore, at least not today.

I believe Them Coulee Boys have something to say to you. I believe this song has some magic for you. This song was for written for you and this song was written for our new dystopia.

“I am not sad anymore

At least not today

See the chemicals have all aligned

And the sun is out to stay

Gonna hold my hands out smilin’

Gonna kiss you on your face

I am not sad anymore

At least not today”

When my anger needed a place to hide, I found this song. When hope was starting to get slippery, I found this song. This song gave me some words to write. “I Am Not Sad” is a beacon of joy.

If you are sad, this song has something for you. If you are happy, this song has something for you and if you are like me… sad one moment and hopeful the next… This song has something for you.

I am not sad anymore, at least not right now.

No one really heard about the storm that roared through my little city, it didn’t make the nightly news or even make much of a clamor on the interwebs. Some would say it’s the result of so few deaths… but I can’t say.

I walked through the parking lot of Hammond Ashley today and it was just so sad. So many instruments lost, the violins, violas … the cellos. Giant stacks of instrument bags and their still singers inside of them. The giant tree that came crashing down on this home to so many creative voices, was still there, broken and twisted into the wreckage of a business that had toiled there since the sixties. Sometimes it is really hard not to be sad.

We are at the foot of so many mountains and I know that on occasion they want to remind of us of their wild. This storm descended upon us and changed things. If even for a moment. Every place I walked today still has trees down, massive trees, tiny trees and so many in-between. It really is like a bomb ran though us…

We had our power restored sixty-five hours and twenty-six minutes after it went out. It was getting really cold, but we are ok, and my sweet Susan kicked my ass in cribbage.

I am not sad.

“I am not sad anymore

At least not tonight

See I found all of my failures

and the ties I try to fight

So, when one hand forms a fist

Hope the other shines a light

I am not sad anymore

At least not tonight”

I am a pluviophile, and I live in the wondrous Pacific Northwest.

A co-worker and friend called me a pluviophile one day and I asked her what I had done wrong. She laughed and told me to look it up… Probably the most accurate thing I have ever been called.

A pluviophile thrives when it rains, and they thrive in the joy of it dancing across a stream.

Pluviophile’s marvel at the power of dark clouds that crack and roll and define what thunder means to us. Pluviophile’s spend long moments marveling at the cycle of rain.

I am gifted the endless days of grey, and they recharge me. I understand who I am, and I am hoping that the joy I gather in these days of darkest grey will bring you warmth and hope. From my musings, or we may get to meet at our neighborhood grocery store. Either way, I see you and this is what I have to give to you.

“I am not sad anymore

At least not right now

See the ones that go before us

They have truly lost somehow

One hands reaching for the light

Hope the other reaching out

I am not sad anymore

At least not right now”

My city is nestled amongst the beautiful pillars of nature. The trees that live all around us are one of the magnificent reasons we live here. I have a very good friend who teaches that the down branches make good medicine. I believe she is the bravest of them who would go throughout these downed branches and gather all their medicine… just so she can give it back to you.

I have very good friends.

I live on Snoqualmie land. They are the ones I thank for my great fortune that is this most beautiful place. My little city, east of Seattle, sometimes known as trailhead city, and the home to one of your favorite warehouses… it sits, nestled at the feet of its namesake… between a cougar and a tiger.

Those sixty-five hours felt like a week, but I really enjoyed my moments with my sweet Susan. I am not sad anymore… at least today.

here we are

our new dystopia

“And I know I’m gonna feel them all today

The sadness, the anger and the pain

But there’s a debt between us I can’t pay

I can’t pay”

Have you ever looked at the definition of dystopia? “an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives…”

It feels a bit like we have moved on from the imagined and into dystopia as reality. People leading wretched, dehumanized and fearful lives.

How do we not be sad?

I remember believing that this nation stood up to the oppressor. I remember thinking we were good. I remember when I was naive enough to believe that racism was a part of our past.

I remember the very moment when a colleague told of their lived experience that contradicted everything I knew to its core. It cracked me open, and once there was a crack in that shiny story I’d been taught, the rest began to unravel. I was born into privilege, even though my parents were barely able to feed us, I was born into privilege. I got to make a lot of mistakes that would have ended differently had my skin been darker.

I have made so many blundering mistakes in unpacking my whiteness, but I will persist, and occasionally I see a few tiny steps that bring me closer to understanding how all of this could end up happily ever after. I believe with all my heart that we can be better, but first, we have to be honest.

Colonialism, religion, and racism are all kindred spirits, and they are easily identified once you understand the blood and triumph of our history. The Trail of Tears, the enslavement of the African, the enslavement of the Chinese… the Japanese internment camps… boarding schools and the war on drugs, the list is very long.

Throughout every era and age of our history we have committed atrocities in the name of God and country. There have been so many good people who fought and died to change things, yet here we are.

So, what do we do, what is the course ahead?

“I’m not sad anymore

At least not today

See my friends are all around me

And the band is gonna play

Gonna dance with one hand waving free

And another on your waist

I am not sad anymore

At least today”

You… you are the course ahead. From my days as an ice cream truck driver, a ditch rider and especially my time as a technology wizard. In every ramble and bob my path took me, I have seen you. In my checkout line in our neighborhood grocery store, I see you. You are my neighbor, and you give me hope.

I see you and there’s a debt between us I can’t pay…

Each of us will have to make choices that do not include moving abroad or seeing the western states secede from the nation. We have to be prepared for some shit, this is our new dystopia. Our nation may unravel; the rule of law is all but gone and the hunger for unbridled wealth has reached a braying crescendo. The United States could fade into history.

We can choose, as sentient and relatively intelligent beings, to shine a light on the fact that we have two pathways, let this ship slide off into the inferno of forever and embrace the new dystopia… or we could choose to carve out a new path for humanity. One that acts with integrity and with the interest of every being, human or not. We have the collective knowledge to solve a great deal of the world’s problems, but we have to find out how we move forward without capitol. Capitalism is the driver for everything, musicians competing for streams, regardless of the folly of thinking music is a competition. Food, education and medicine are profit centers and even the care of your grandparents is for profit. We could choose to believe in a place where you are more important than profit. We really could…

We could acknowledge our debt to the indigenous peoples. They prospered for tens of thousands of years, and we have unraveled this thing in a few hundred. There is a collective wisdom that we have stifled and drowned out, just to make a profit. Maybe we should change that.

In all verses of the universe, there is only one you, there is no one more important than you. Begin to see the power of you, begin to see that everything and everyone around you is just as unique and just as powerful. I want desperately to find out how to bring our power together. I do not care how you voted or what you think of me, I just want to find out how to enable every soul in finding their own power. I believe we will find our hope there, if we are spending our time empowering those around us instead of building wealth, we could be so wealthy.

No one gets to explain to you, what you is… but you have to be that.

Step back and breathe. You are the most beautiful you.

In each of us there is a song of hope. You may sing it with your voice, you may sew it with your hands or you may solve it with your math. It is up to us to find our song and sing it, very, very, loud.

Listen to the bridge of this song… a beautiful stroll through quietness, strength and joy. Thank you Them Coulee Boys, I am not sad anymore, at least not today.

Listening, learning, and growing

The Dream Edged Cowboy

Inspired by Beta Radio‘s Waiting for the End to Come… start at the beginning.

I vaguely remember that evening when my dad came in from the cold and was frozen. He had been out on Rebel, his sorrel gelding, looking for a few head of steers that had found their way out into a storm that had become a blizzard. I was ten years old, and I don’t remember most of that night, but I remember the steam coming off my dad’s body as he sat by the wood stove trying to thaw out. The next morning, we heard on the radio that last night’s temperature was minus thirty-five with the windchill dipping to seventy below…. I do not know how either my dad or Rebel survived that night, but they did.

I cannot imagine the bond my dad had with Rebel. He had had him since Rebel was two, a gift from my mom’s brother. He always had him, until Rebel passed at an old age in eastern Oregon, far from the plains of Montana, but still very close to his cowboy.

I have several recollections of the dudes that tried to ride Rebel, and my dad would just laugh and climb on another horse and go get them. Rebel liked to run, and they could never stop him. My dad could if he wanted to, but he liked to run just as much as Rebel did.

This is a shot taken on that same ranch where my dad and Rebel rode out into the seventy below and found those cattle…. All because of a dream.

“All the ghosts of my past come in droves
Digging up the last of my bones
Hanging on like the moss on the graves
Then I saw in the air
Floating you, floating through“

On July 3rd, 1930, Don’s voice came into the world and would forever breathe cowboy. He dreams cowboy, he is a cowboy, and he is my dad.

My dad was one of seven boys and three girls, raised through the depression and two wars. All seven of the boys were shipped overseas to fight in two different wars… all of them made it home, some more damaged than others. Dad is the last of all his siblings now, and it makes him a little dimmer when he talks about that. They all gave him pieces of joy, much like my siblings have given me. After my dad and his closest brother Wayne got home from Korea, they rode the rodeo for a bit while looking for work in the northeastern corner of Montana. They both got married and found religion, all around the same time.

Sgirley smiling at Don in their early years

My dad and mom met at the drive-in she worked at in Conrad. I see so much joy and adoration in both of them when I look at early pictures of the couple that gave me breath.

In the early 60’s, Don and Shirley made their way to Portland Oregon, where they both attended Bible School and contrary to my sister Roxanna Lou’s plans, they made me. After Portland, dad did a stint with the Forest Service in the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest and after the arrival of Roberta Lynn in 1964 we headed back to Montana where my Dad worked in the oil fields for a few years before finding that ranch in the shadow of Birdtail, that is where he lived his dream of being the cowboy.

That blizzard… and the stories of Indian Jake. These were the days that I was the little boy who believed his dad had the answer to everything, because he did. He taught me to respect the world around me. and gave me reverence for what a firearm was for. He taught me to whisper to horses, and he taught me that my sister probably could do anything I could, which she did. My dad instilled so many incredible pieces of knowledge in me and my love for all that he taught me, will never grow stale.

My dad is a dreamer, just as deeply as he is a cowboy. He moved us from place to place as he took one job after another, looking for the dream he finally found on that ranch of the seventy below, but it was short lived. My dad made almost no money on that ranch, and in a few years, we moved to eastern Washington, where mom’s brother could help my dad find better paying work.

In many ways that was the end of my dad’s dream of being the cowboy, and in a few years, my parents split and I never lived with my dad again.

“You know me, I’m always halfway in a dream
You know me, I’m always halfway imbetween“

There have been so many peaks and valleys in my relationship with my dad… Anger at so many pieces of rejection and being left alone… but we walked through that.

It started with small steps, always being nudged along by my Susan…

It took years of driving across the state to Seahawk games and bonding over that silly sport…

It took moments of realizing that he is me.

My dad gave me the gift of dreaming, and he gave me the gift of writing… and he hears the magic in music.

“Our bodies wanted to go under
Before we knew that we could walk on water“

Dad is ninety-four and counting. A few weeks ago, I had the joy of bringing him over to stay with Susan and I for a few days. We watched some movies, and I saw the romantic I understood… we listened to some music, and I slammed headlong into myself. I saw my dad melt when I played Jim Reeves and Marty Robbins and so many other artists he asked about… Dad and I will never agree on religion or politics, but we have common ground in a very hard to describe yearning to hear that song… and that song and that song. Again and again and again…

Both of us have spent a great deal of time trying to find out who is talking to us, and we have both found great joy in singing hallelujah. Sitting with my dad for a few days was like looking in a mirror and basking in being home. I saw a man who is kind and who’s spirit is so much like mine. I suppose this should be of no great revelation for me, but it is. I have spent a great deal of time focused on the negative things about my dad, but the moment I let that slip away, I see myself. I see all the things I have considered the best of me, right there in that hopelessly romantic dreamer.

“Hari Krishna, hallelujah
Is there a voice that calls you forward
Out of the noise saying you should stay.”

My dad taught me to seek out that voice, I think we all want to chase something. If it isn’t one god, it is another. The need for people to find a deity in everything astounds me, but I am guilty. Music is arguably my deity, and I can live with that. Music carries the energy of the voices who sing it, and the instruments that play it, and that energy persists.

My dad still dreams, just as hard as ever has. He dreams about the upcoming visits and trips he will be taking, and I saw the wisp of wonder and awe when he talked about riding horses and wandering the plains of Montana.

He still has stories that I have not heard before, and yet, quite a few I have…

He believes he will see one hundred and I do to, I love this man dearly.

“Hari Krishna, hallelujah
Ayahuasca, wheel of wonder
At St. Peter’s, holy water
Veil of wonder, Holy Mother

Hari Krishna, hallelujah
Ayahuasca, wheel of wonder
At St. Peter’s, holy water
Veil of wonder, Holy Mother“

On July 19, 2024, Beta Radio released the absolutely stunning, Waiting for the End to Come. You need to listen to this album from the begining with The Grief Of, through to the end with Waiting for the End to Come, at least once in your life. I found joy and sadness and so much magic. I listened to this album on repeat when I drove the two-and-a-half hours to pick my dad up and again after I dropped him off a few days later… There is something deeply magical about this album. I have said countless times, music finds you, right when you need it and these last few weeks I needed this album. I am so grateful to these guys for letting us live in their energy for thousands of repeats.

This album crept into my dreams and painted the picture my dad and I were trying to describe with our lives. Can you go too far away from what you know? If you get too far away, I hope you have some nuggets of memories like I have with my dad, and they call you to stay.

We are all searching and we are all so badly flawed, yet we are all so perfect.

Float through this album and lay back into the idea of how we seek, and we seek, waiting for the end to come…

My dad loves the story of Will James, The Gilt Edged Cowboy, and in 2009 I wrote a song for him titled, “The Dream Edged Cowboy“. It was right around the time I started to understand how devastating it must have been to look at your only hope of a career drifting away like a weed in the wind. I wanted to show him my grattitude for giving me the gift of being a dreamer. I really don’t like my voice at all but appreciate my badnamtes at the time, Fran and Tim for giving me their support in recording it for my dad. I think he liked it.

I have never had the impression that he was blown away by my singing prowess, and he is not wrong… maybe I can get Beta Radio to cover it.

Learning, listening and growing…

Penny and Sparrow – Mattering Ram

Hope, again.

(Listen to this song while you read this, listening to it, inspired this post.)

This is a song about the stories that connect us to one another and to this day. Penny and Sparrow gave us a song about their stories and reminded me of mine…

I spent some time with my favorite person, wandering the hall of mosses and the beaches of Ruby. The Hoh Rain Forest and the beaches just south of there are sacred for me. They restore me and remind that I am a piece of a star, just like those beautiful spruce with their lichen friends entwined amongst them. This beautiful world will heal us because it is us. We all have a place that refills us, it may be a whole slew of places or just a few… but you have them.

Susan walking in the hall of mosses at the Hoh Rainforest National Park

These are pieces of the stories that brought me to this day…

Stories…

“If you ain’t got love tho, does it even matter….“

Stories are people

When Penny and Sparrow released this song, they dropped these paragraphs of explanation.

“Mattering Ram is at least 15 short stories that actually happened to us. Most of them happen to everybody (over time) and all of that non-fiction matters. Every tail of every snake is tied together in this song so your focus keeps getting pulled in all directions. Here you’ll find pro-tennis writhing alongside antidepressants, near death on huge mountains, naked motorcycle photo shoots & euphemisms for birth control. It hits so hard because it’s all real and recognizable. As honest as life and knee-jerk reactions.

Sometimes things are important for the exact reasons you expect them to be, and you keep eye contact with em’ while they molt and become something else. Other times, you’re wrong and the moon cracks in half while you’re staring at your shoes. Either way it matters.”

This hit me, right between the ears, it rolled me up against the wall and asked me… what are you doing?

I am not sure when a song has rocked me like this. I was almost eighteen the first time I heard John Lennon sing Imagine, sitting in an old boat of car with my friend Floyd. He had told me it would undo me, and he was right. Floyd matters…

This song digs deep like that, even more because I have so many stories now, so many stories. I am getting good at painting with charcoal…

“Guess I think that matters.“

Andy and Kyle are telling us what love is and that it matters. They are telling you about love by giving you stories that belong to them, showing you what love means to them. The stories of your life are the pieces of the love that has made you. The good, the bad and the glorious. Andy and Kyle are reminding us that today is the day our story is written. As long as we have breath, it is the time to write.

Who are the people in your story? Are they making you better or are they just taking the love out of you?

“All of it still matters”

How many homes will have a photo hanging in the front room of someone on a Suzuki, with no clothes? I have a friend named Jonny… I think he’d be up for the shot. It would look just fine on my front room wall.

This is a really simple, and gorgeous song… three chords… three beautiful chords that live to make space for the stories in the lyrics… this is such beautiful magic. It reminded me of the rounds we sang in grade school, its tempo and measure. But it never repeats itself and it just keeps slithering across your soul. Yes, I did play my bass along with it and it sounded beautiful.

You don’t know the future and I don’t know the future, but if we’re honest, we know the past. We have our stories and if your very lucky you have your ancestors stories. We have no excuse in making the same mistakes over and over. But we do…

So many tales to bite and connect to.

“Does it even matter?“

I raced into adult life thinking I knew it all… just like you. I found out slowly and sometimes suddenly, I knew nothing. I still know mostly nothing. But I know joy…

We all have a string of tales that brought us to today. The snakes tail, in the snakes mouth…

“Was it a placebo?
Was it a distractor?
Tell me how the wind blows
Tell me if it matters”

I was an ice cream truck driver who broke the 20 MPH rule…

I made some stuff out of fiberglass and I’m pretty sure there is still a Freightliner truck out there with some of my handiwork holding up its hood.

I hated that farm, and it didn’t really care for me. I found darkness there, darkness that nearly consumed all of my song.

it only mattered in how I drifted, and it mattered in who my children turned out to be.

I loved the ditches and canals of block 18 and 47. I got my first glimpse of what a man like me might look like there. I wish I had paid better attention, but does it really matter?

I searched the spirits, and they gave no sound…

I broke through the bondage of Christianity and I really thought it mattered…

“Does it even matter?“

I tumbled into a world that I believed was forbidden to me. I never got to be a college student, but I walked around the halls of education for twenty years.

but what did I change….

Now I write stories that explore the magic that music gave me when that piece of a star broke away and said I will be Rusty…

“All of it still matters”

I find hope in following Susan through the trails and shores that we are blessed to be surrounded by.

I find hope in my coworkers as they navigate this chapter of their story. I am a soul that matters in this chapter of their life, our permanence does not.

“Either way it matters“

You have this moment to create, give hope and find joy… that matters

I am not going to try and explain the stories that Penny and Sparrow sing about in this brilliant song because those stories belong to Penny and Sparrow. They are singing about the pathways that they snaked through to get to this day. You don’t know Nemo, you don’t know Esperanza…

You have a series of stories that have brought you to this day, no one understands them like you do. Some of them are terrifying and some of them make your heart swell. We all made choices that pushed us to today. I believe the universe would be happy if you listened to this song and found that you matter, because you do….

“I don’t know the future
Shout it from the rafters
You don’t know it either
I don’t think it matters”

I wish we were better at letting our understanding of the past guide our ability to steer us into the future. But then, that would require us to be honest about who we are and what brought us here…and we are not.

We control some of our story, but more often than not, we are just washed up on the shore to drip and sputter and try and figure out why.

Pause a moment… look back over your shoulder and look at your trail… look at your story. You rode a river of stories to get to this day. Look at them, they are medicine for you. They are medicine you can give.

I am surrounded by humanity finding their food, every day I am at work. How primal is that? It is medicine for my soul. People just running from one story to the next at breakneck speed. Most are good and honest people who could create so much joy if only they knew they mattered. I get to tell them they do… We are all hope, you, your friends and the one who bagged your groceries today. All of us create…and it matters. All of us create joy.

If we don’t create, how do we have hope? With everything we see around us, how do we find hope? If we all give up, then what, where do we go?

Listen to this song with your heart wide open and soak in it. There is magic here, really deep, crazy good magic.

Penny and Sparrow, thank you. Thank you for listening to what the music was telling you. Thank you for such good stories that made us smile and recall our own. There is beauty in knowing that the moon might crack open while you are staring at your shoes, and yet, you still got a chance to say pull the goalie…

Listening, learning and growing…

Iron & Wine, Fiona Apple – All In Good Time

Deliberately Random, Post number 35

(Listen to this song while you read this, I listened to it when I wrote it.)

I am sitting at the exact same keyboard I was staring at five years ago when I started this deliberately random effort to understand my weird. That weird, is the ability to become wired emotionally to a particular song. Some would call it obsessed; I am calling it one of my superpowers.

it’s my weird…

I have walked through life thinking that everyone gets it, and wondering, what is wrong with all these people? It wasn’t that long ago that I figured out that the “rest of the world” doesn’t hear music the same way I do.

My weird has brought me so much joy and I am so grateful for all the random things that brought me to this day. Embracing the idea that I can listen to a song on repeat, hundreds and hundreds of times and it ends up a thing I write about and then grow from. My weird makes me cool, and I am going to celebrate myself for a minute. I have been listening and I have been learning and I have grown, I have grown so much… so yeah, I am okay.

“All in good time, I gave it my best
I was alone ’til I found myself
Grew up to be a man more or less
All in good time”

That second line, “I was alone ’til I found myself”, burst into my soul and spun around and around until I noticed it, and then so many things came flooding back. I left Rusty in the back seat a long time ago. Rusty is the one who believes the world is a beautiful place, and without him it’s not. If you have ever set a part of yourself aside, for whatever reason, you’ve been walking alone. I am no expert in the complexity of personalities, but once I invited that part of myself back in, I believed again. I believe that I have value, I believe I have something to give, and I believe that the universe is a better place because I am in it. So yes, I grew up to be a man more or less, but it took a lot of time and a lot of words.

I have written at length about my battles with the entanglement of religion within my spirit, first as a child and then again as I raised my children. When I finally left the church… I exploded away, I couldn’t get away fast enough, nor hard enough. For a time, everything “Christian” evoked a vehement reaction from me, very much like I reacted to unchristian things as a church goer. But as I worked very hard at being honest about who I am, the pendulum has found rhythm. It doesn’t mean my opinion of “church” has changed. If anything, I am more certain than ever that there is nothing for me within the walls of organized religion, Christian or otherwise. But I don’t need to be an ass about it.

There is something wondrous in the universe. I am not sure what they look like, but they know who we are. They are singing and awaiting the energy we will burn into the universe.

The understanding of what is next is the greatest mystery. Some choose to see heaven, and yet, some choose to see nothing at all. In my sixty-three turns around the sun I have only found one thing that has the power to persist, and it is music.

Music is the constant in everyone.

The small and the proud, all have a song…

Music is pervasive, it is magic.

Music can take you to the ledge…. and then ask you to just sit and listen.

“All in good time, I trusted my eyes
Treated my losses like clouds in the sky
Finally picked on someone my size
All in good time
All in good time, I followed my nose
Learned where to bleed when a night comes to blows
Tried on your love, then I folded those clothes
All in good time”

When I started this blog, I was unraveling a career that was seeing its sun set. I struggled to say out loud what I knew in my soul… so I wrote. When a song embraces me, I spend time with it and I listen, I look for the wonder that a song is revealing to me, and I write about it. It might be about a friend that I knew a long time ago or something I see swirling about me today. Sometimes, it is what I see from my side of the cash register, but whatever it is, music helps me walk through it, layer by layer and find nothing to prove.

Where do you want to go and what is it you want to accomplish? Are you just focusing on tomorrow or has the past paralyzed your ability to walk? Did your plans go to shit; did you get hurt? Have you tried focusing on just today? It is the hardest thing you will ever do because staying in the now requires trust. Trust that the past is just that. and the future will unfold when it should. Trust in the now and find what is there for you to see, right inside this moment.

Everything else will come, all in good time.

“Throw your bread to falling birds
Buried friends and wasted words
Something wants to eat us all
Alive”

It is your responsibility to get to know who you are and then embrace that. Let whatever you have inside you burn, let it fly and do the thing that makes you smile. There are so many things in this life that want to eat us alive. They scream at you, in hopes that you’ll shrink from them. Don’t shrink away, you do not have to please anyone except you. Go, create…

You are a creative person! Every human with breath has the breath to create. All of us…

Creating is the act of burning a piece of you into the universe, no one can burn the same signature of energy that you can. You are the most precious of creations because you are you and there is nothing more beautiful than what you created. Go create and burn that piece of you into the stars and let it’s joy lift you up. It all comes in the good and right time.

Loving what you create is the most empowering feeling you will ever experience. I love what I write, I am so proud of where I have arrived. Writing and obsessing over music has set me free. I am giving into the wonder when I create.

Creating is yours to decide upon, trusting in the now and finding that thing inside you that makes your heart sing. It doesn’t matter how hard you have to work on it, and it doesn’t matter how much time it takes. It will make you feel like a star and the very best thing in the universe, because you are a star. You will see it, all in good time.

“All in good time, we fell like a star
We closed our eyes and we opened our arms
Ran off the road in our own stolen car
All in good time”

I believe there are many reasons to have hope. I see them every day, in each of you. Life means so much. Do not squander what each day means… Look everything in the eye and challenge it, make sure it is what you should be paying attention to. Look into your deepest self and see if you find joy. Are you listening, have you grown? We are not here to generate income, we are here to create, and you are here because no other person, can create what you can. I desperately want you to find your joy and create. This is why I have hope and why I will always have hope, if humanity is creating then there is reason to have hope.

“All in good time, I gave it my best
I was alone ’til I found myself
Grew up to be a man more or less
All in good time
All in good time, I drifted away
I ran my mouth ’til I’d nothing to say
You broke my heart, then I was okay
All in good time”

Iron and Wine i.e. Sam Bean, has been a favorite of mine for the last fifteen years, and Fiona Apple is, well, Fiona Apple… do yourself a favor and go listen to “When The Pawn…” right now. What Sam and Fiona have done together is doubly magic. A song that grabs the perfection in each of their voices, and winds around your heart like a scarf…. It makes me a smile every single time I hear them. This is what collaboration looks like.

I could huff and puff and make many proclamations, but I will simply ask all of you to listen, a lot. Thank you, Sam and Fiona, for taking us down this road with you. I will just stay in the now and keep soaking this in…

“All in good time, I trusted my eyes
Treated my losses like clouds in the sky
Finally picked on someone my size
All in good time”

I am trusting my eyes, and I am writing my fantastical biography, savoring every moment of the process. It reminds me of the joy I found when I was in the studio. I loved every moment I played my bass in the studio… It was magical. Writing this book feels something like that, but so much more. I finally picked on someone my own size and found the joy of creating. I have given in to the wonder and I’ll shine as bright as I can.

Should you come through my line at our neighborhood grocery store… or maybe, you just found yourself reading this. I hope you find some of my hope, but mostly, I hope you find joy. It is a beautiful balm for all the things that are otherwise, shit.

To the weirdo’s and freaks I work with, you give me joy every day and I am blessed get to laugh with you while we feed our community. Working alongside you is fuel for my creative fire.

You have no idea how powerful the people are that stock your shelves and bag your groceries. They are magical. So many of them called off their logical life and chased their creative fire and I love them very much.

“All in good time, we’ll remember when
Say our goodbyes and our hellos again
Huff and we’ll puff until they let us in

All in good time”

Find your weird. It is anything that leaves your beautiful mark on the universe. Don’t put conditions around it, just let it be you and listen especially close to that four-year-old you and that thirteen-year-old in you. Say hellos again and be the you that we all need you to be.

I don’t know when I will finish my book or how many more of these posts I will write. None of us can know when we get to fly into the next thing… But while I am here, I will huff, and I will puff all of my findings as I wander and shuffle through all of the music. I will keep the fires of my hope glowing and I will give you my joy.

Learning, listening and growing…

Sons of the East – Head Above the Water

Patty

(Listening to this song while you read, is strongly encouraged)

So you think that you might
Slide away in the night
Get away from it all for once
Take the back seat of the bus going south

This week someone I have known for over forty-five years slid away into the night.

I sat through the service for my stepmother, mostly present, in a surreal state of mind. There were people in that room whom I have known through all the stages of my life. There were people there I didn’t know at all. Mostly it was my dad’s family, which is my reference, not theirs. My youngest sister was there, my Susan, and both of my kids, everyone else was their family. Some of those in that room are some of the dearest people in my life, nieces and nephews, my other siblings… If it weren’t for Kissy, I would have left the bar that night, without my sweet Susan’s phone number… and Steph and Tony introduced me to Cat Stevens… those things matter. Things like that change your life and I know if not for Dad and Patty, I wouldn’t be quite like this.

Tiffany and Shatame, you are some of the most loving people I know… barreling down your road, trying to figure things out. Raising your beautiful children, absolutely no time for yourselves… “Yeah, I know there is a cost…”

Each of you are a part of the story of my life, and you carry something of me. I hope you know how much you are adored and how much I look forward to seeing what you do next.

Yeah I know there’s a cost
You said the same thing all along
And I don’t know if it’s friend or thief
Comes ’round to steal you away

I was almost fifteen when my dad introduced Robbi and I to Patty. I was really pissed off at how happy they seemed. My dad left my mom and us for this new family and I don’t think I have ever worked my way all the way through that. I have carried a grudge for decades after being told not to tell my mom where my dad worked. They couldn’t collect child support from him if they didn’t know where he worked. I am not proud of that grudge, but I will never forget the life my mom had thrust upon her. Just trying to keep her head above water.

Well you try to keep your head above the water
I know it ain’t easy now
So lay down in my arms and let me hold you
It gets better somehow

We are all just trying to keep our heads above water… and eventually, it does get better somehow.

When I knelt next to my dad as the service wrapped up, I saw the tears in his eyes, and I just listened. He was staring at a picture of Patty; he only sees out of the sides of his eyes now, and he had just found the perfect angle to see the picture of her. “She is so beautiful… Oh isn’t she beautiful.”

That is what true love looks like… it does get better somehow.

I am not sure how many of those people in that room I will ever see again. Circumstance and the one that tied us together will dictate whatever thread we glance against in the future. Patty is the one who brought us all to that room. She was a force to be reckoned with, her smile and laughter were something that I had tried to earn. When I was a teenager, I could see the way my dad loved her, and I wanted that too.

You don’t let much get you down
But now your luck’s running out
And the game isn’t easy to play
Let me come and steal you away

Patty showed me how to dance…

I still feel only slightly guilty that they bought me tickets to Tanya Tucker at the fair. I was so in love with Tanya that I would have let anyone sell their firstborn if it meant that I would get to see her. Tanya lived up to everything I had dreamed of, and I was mesmerized by her. They had bought me a seat that was in the front row of the grandstands on the rodeo grounds she was playing in. I invented an elaborate tale of running onto the grounds when she finished. I said I wanted to get her autograph before she got into her limo. I would have made it, but a massive security guard put his hand out and I found myself face up on the ground and she was gone… pretty decent story huh? I have lost count of the number of times I have told that tale, I figured it didn’t matter, Tanya didn’t know, and I just sat petrified in my seat, thinking the whole story up.

Well you try to keep your head above the water
I know it ain’t easy now
So lay down in my arms and let me hold you
It gets better somehow

Patty wanted me to call her mom, she even told me once that God wanted it that way… I never could call her mom, and it had nothing to do with love. She will always be Patty to me, I love her for everything that she was. She was a ferociously good mother; I saw how she took care of her own. She laughed with an abandon that I can only aspire to. She gave me glimpses of what it could mean to think for just me. What I call her does not change the fact that she left an indelible mark on my life.

Don-O is what she called my dad. I saw Patty’s love for my dad when he had a major heart attack twenty-three years ago. I hadn’t been talking to my dad much over the previous twenty years or so…

Kissy called and told me what had happened, and we all ended up in Spokane trying to figure out if this funny, gnarly old man was going to make it. Someone was trying to steal him away and it didn’t happen. I will never forget the love I saw in Patty’s eyes for my dad. She was so afraid of losing him, it was the first time I saw true love.

I met my Susan a few months after that happened and I am not sure I would have been open to finding the love of my life, if not for that night. Watching Patty gaze upon the man I called dad… she loved him so much.

Susan was right next to me this week as I sat there trying to understand what I was feeling. She was the one my dad recognized first; he loves my Susan so much. When he slips away, I am not sure what I will do. He is almost ninety-four and I know he is trying to have a positive look on tomorrow, but I know he loved his Patty with all his heart, and he had to say farewell. He is trying to keep his head above water, but he doesn’t have the one he’d lay in the arms of anymore…

You don’t let much get you down
But now your luck’s running out
And the game isn’t easy to play
Let me come and steal you away

I heard this song on the way to the service and then again on the way home. I have listened to this song a lot since the Sons of the East released it last October. So much magic… I waited, and the story found me like it usually does. It is weird how music finds me in a moment when I need it. Hope these guys don’t mind me working through some shit with their beautiful song.

The gift I have been given for appreciating what music can walk you through is due in part to Patty. She had incredibly good taste in music, and she encouraged me early on to listen to whatever I wanted. When I told her that I had been told that I would go to hell for listening to Queen, she just laughed. I figured out how laughable that was later…

Patty, the last few decades were especially hard for you. The chair they gave you made you feel like your luck was running out. I know you wanted to get away from it all a long time ago, but you stayed. I know it was dad that kept you here, but he will be ok. We are all going to make sure of that. When he decides he has had enough of us, I am sure he will reach out for your hand and follow where you take him.

It is a weird and fantastic process that happens for me when I write about a song. I pick up all these pieces that I have collected over the many years of my life, and I look at them while listening to the spirit of what a song is telling me. I don’t let things get me down, and some of that is not easy but I have a beautiful human next to me, just like my dad did.

So you think that you might
Slide away in the night
Get away from it all for once
Take the back seat of the bus going south

Something changed for me that day. Watching all those people say goodbye to Patty. I laid down that grudge and it just slid away. I didn’t know what to expect when I made the drive to her service, I just wanted to give my dad a hug and to see if he was ok. I wasn’t expecting all this stuff to come up, wanting to be resolved, but it did, and I am grateful. I am grateful for the music that worked into my spirit and washed away bits of pain and grief. I am grateful for Patty, who was perfectly imperfect. I am grateful for the last two decades that allowed me to heal the pain that existed between my dad and me. I am most grateful for my Susan, who quietly holds me and loves me.

Dad is ok but he will slide away into the night. There is a whole gang of folks waiting there for him. He is the last of his siblings and I know he misses them so much. I will do what I can to spend as much time with him as I can and not hold on too tight when the time comes for him to go. The game is not easy to play, and it can drag you down. But it does get better somehow…

Through grief we can find joy. When the magic of music touches you, let it soothe you and guide your steps back to joy. It gets better somehow.

Listening, learning, and growing

Penny and Sparrow – Need You

My Treasure Chest of Friendship

(Listening to this song while you read, is strongly encouraged)

For almost two years, I have been listening to Need You, by Penny and Sparrow. It is the third track on their January 2022 album, Olly Olly. The entire album has played over and over and over… Need You, has been repeated the most by far. It’s story dancing in my ears, wrapped in spells of musical beauty, and it has been so good for my soul.

I knew I would write about this song almost immediately, but I wasn’t sure what it was trying to help me see, so I decided to just wait and enjoy its beauty.

A song will let you know why you need it, when it is time for you to know why you need it.

Music is therapy, it soothes me, it is a place I find wisdom in.

A song is a piece of a songwriters soul floating through the webs of the universe, sowing its magic, hoping it soars…

When I was ready, Need You told me about friendship. It sang of my longing for something just like this…

“Somehow in the dream you knew that my heart would break

Semi-automatically

You said, “when you can’t find quite enough air there to take

Copy how I breathe”

We were doubled up and crying

You were right there by me

Midsummer empathy

See how I need you“

I moved around a lot when I was growing up, and outside of my family, I do not have a single friend from my childhood. I remember so many times thinking that this would be the one that I would talk to for the rest of my life, but it never happened. My dad would find his next dream and we would move, and their part in my story was over.

I didn’t move around as much as an adult, but my ideology did. It moved with each decade and with it, my friends. A friendship based on like ideology is a shallow well that dries up before you ever quench that thirst.

Friendship can follow your financial success, or your failure, the number of friends I had when I was making six figures compared to the number I had when I had to go to the food bank to eat is a stark example. Things like that can make you give up on friendship… I never did.

Listening to this song gave me a moment to open parts of my soul that I have kept closed for decades. It has been like finding an old wooden chest covered in dust. It took some work to get the lock open but what I found inside is astounding. I found so many pieces, from so many friendships and I wept at the richness of my life.

There are little pieces from that one room school house I went to first grade in… Miss Palodichuk in particular…

All of the pieces I have from the very first time Robbi came home, she was my first friend.

There are so many pieces from that little eastern Washington town… all of those friends that I thought would be there for ever… Every piece they gave me is still right where it should be…

I have this precious pile from all of the beautiful souls that I encountered working in education. I am forever changed from exchanging little bits with all of you.

Right where I needed them in my silly life… that is how bad I need all of you…

See us in red and black

Mirrored white ocher hues

I won’t give one thing back

That’s how bad I need you

Friendships can be just for a season, you may need that person for a time and when that time is past, your stories take you on different paths. I know that we could talk all day about the varied reasons that friendships move on. We could get very wrapped up in the mechanics of why that happened, and it could devolve into how shallow one was and so on. It might just be the end of that season. The seed they gave me and the one I gave them has sprouted and it might need to find a different angle of the sun so it can grow. But even after that season is past, I still need them, I need that piece they gave me, it is part of the color of my story, and I won’t give one thing back.

Here is the thing about friendship… you meet someone, a colleague or maybe just someone on the street. There is a connection, a moment.. an exchange… That is all a friendship needs and it doesn’t matter if it lasts for ten seconds or ten years… When someone gives you a piece of themselves, you get to keep that forever.

There is something truly beautiful about being around people that get you. You don’t have to explain your translucent skin or your really shitty eyesight. They read things for you and they let you give them your weird wisdom… I have so many beautiful people that I love so much. Each one is a voice in the harmony of my life, and I am better for knowing them.

My best friend Susan, she gets all of me. She lets me copy how she breaths… I won’t give one thing back. We will follow each other forever…

“Everyone gives up the ghost

Us too

Let it be known

All the proud hours I hold

Are around you

See us in red and black

Mirrored white ocher hues

I won’t give one thing back

That’s how bad I need you”

This song tells the story of a beautiful friendship. One of those I always romanticized and wished I had. I have spent an embarrassingly large amount of time in my life complaining that I never kept friends growing up. Listening to Penny and Sparrow sing of this friendship where you get help breathing and you’ll never give one thing back, I realized I do have that. I am rich with that…

I have taken some time writing this… to sit in this moment and let the magic of this music teach me all it has to offer. When I think about evaluating a friendship based on a measure of linear space spent together It seems rather silly. It doesn’t matter if I know you for a week or for twenty years, your contribution is just as important and all of those little pieces we exchanged are part of who I am today and I would not give one thing back.

I relish the joy of being adopted into my wife’s friendships, ones she has had since kindergarten. When we met it was a foreign concept to me, and I have marveled at their depth of relationship and love, it is exactly what she needed to be the beautiful human she is today. Just like my collection of friends is exactly the pieces I needed to be me.

Andy and Kyle are Penny and Sparrow and I really don’t know a lot more about them, except for their crazy good harmonies and their crazy good music and their crazy good lyrics… They are true wizards… I have listened to everything they have done, so we are friends. Olly Olly is worth listening to thousands of times and more. I am so grateful for Andy and Kyle putting this into the universe. It is the piece I needed just right now…

“I won’t give one thing back

That’s how bad I need you”

I am at a place in my life where I can really dig into the moments. I am not in a hurry to achieve, I have been there, and I did do that. I am content to look into my own soul and write about what I find.

I am finding an immeasurable amount of joy in the friends I have from my gig at your neighborhood grocery store. Some of them are generations away from me, but the richness of their contribution is awe inspiring. I never expected this, I have been fairly ignorant of my good fortune most of my life. But here I am, standing in this moment and knowing how badly I need all of you. The friends I have known, and the ones I have yet to make.

Humanity is so beautiful, it is kind and has enough love to quench any fire. We have to remember that. There is more than enough hate and cynicism to wash it all away, but I have hope, my hope is in my friends and that chest full of friendships……

Music is a superpower for me, this blog is my attempt to try and understand some of that, it is also an attempt to give you some hope. I have hope because there are other weirdo’s like me out there and I am grateful for every one of you.

Create… unleash your wildest idea… when we let our creative energy run wild, the world is better.

Thank you, Penny and Sparrow, for letting these bits out into the universe…

Cherish your moments, they will go past you unannounced. Be less worried about what you achieve and far more interested in who is out there to achieve it with, you need them. When you get those walks at the dog park, the lunch over ramen and the stroll through your own downtown, hold onto that windows rolled down and everything is alright feeling, it is real and it will help you fly. I am flying, no matter what the day throws at me, I am flying and it is in no small part due to the chest of friendships I found, thanks to this beautiful song.

Listening, learning, and growing

Aysanabee – Watin

A Journey

(Listening to this album while you read, is strongly encouraged)

This is a story about the power of music. This is a story about how music is connected to everything. This a story about letting the magic of music reach deep down inside of you and connect you to far deeper things than anything you could ever imagine. This is the story of my experience listening to Watin, by Aysanabee.

Aysanabee is an Oji-Cree singer/songwriter from Ontario, Canada. His album Watin is a creation of his soul, it was inspired by conversations with his grandfather, Watin Aysanabee. I encourage you to listen to this album from its beginning, and do not stop until you have finished it. Open yourself to hearing the truth and let this wrench your soul. I have never experienced anything like this.

Aysanabee opened his spirit and poured his authenticity into his art and then he gave it to us. Thank you, Aysanabee, thank you for being gracious enough to share your journey. I am not the same man I was before I heard your music.

Listening to the conversations of a man rediscovering where he came from has been a chance to take in something truly sacred. There is so much power, sadness, and beauty in this album. I am still sorting it out. This entire experience is an example of the deepest of magics in music. As you listen to Watin Aysanabee’s voice, let it reach within you, let it move you. I know of no other example that can demonstrate the power of music to move you better than this album.

I read with sadness that Watin Aysanabee completed his journey on May 9, 2023. His story will live on because his grandson decided to capture his beauty and weave it into his art. What they both have given us will take me some time to understand.

Music finds you when you are ready to face a truth. It could be a small thing or something that reaches through generations. That is how this is digging into my spirit; it is shining a bright light on the footsteps that brought me here.

I am the tenth generation of Beard’s that have lived in North America. John Richard Beard immigrated to Massachusetts from England in the 1600’s, he was a Quaker and given his father’s issues with the crown, he came looking for religious freedom. The Beards were here before there was a declaration or a constitution, but I know very little about who the Beards were. The little bit I do know is that Beards were hard workers and very dedicated to the service of this nation, but we have never really been that nice. The only stories of my grandfather Beard are those of his cruelty to his kids…and yet there is deep goodness in my father, his laughter, and his ability to dream are some of the precious gifts he has given me, but he has a place that can look away from the horrors of this world and even his own life, if he chooses. I can talk about this because it exists within me too. I know how to turn away if I choose to, but I will not turn away from this. Listening to the journey that these two men took together has grasped me by the shoulders and made me look into the face of colonization and try to understand my role in it.

I will not turn away.

Colonization, a term that will carry many different emotions depending on where your family came from. As a child, I never knew the term to be derogatory, on the contrary, I was taught the value of it, over and over. I was taught that the colonization of the America’s was Gods’ destiny for us, I was taught this in every church and every school I attended. Manifest Destiny is the constitution of colonization. We have to understand this ground that we are built on if we want to do anything worthwhile. Manifest Destiny, Eminent Domain and Documents of Discovery were the licenses by which countless civilizations were eradicated. We have to understand that this nation was founded on principles that will never align with our deeds.

Our foundation is built from the blood of the civilizations we destroyed by colonizing. We must understand this if we are to ever be truly free. We cannot turn away and push it on to another generation. Every day our civilization becomes less civil, children are gunned down at school, at church or at the mall… and we just walk on. I choose to not walk on, I choose to take responsibility for what my ancestors gave me, all of it. That is why I write.

I write so that my kids and my grandkids will never have a doubt about the direction I am trying to point them. This generation of Beard has no excuses because I am here, and I am writing so you can hear me. Do not look away. We all have something we create. Find yours, make it beautiful and pour your soul into it. I am writing because that is what I have to give you. I write to leave you a record…. You cannot say you didn’t know.

How would you survive having your children stripped from your home for the explicit purpose of eradicating your existence. How do you walk away from that?

We are blood thirsty people.

Being honest goes against all of our programming, it goes against all of the things that give me privilege, and privilege has nothing to do with my income status. Privilege is how I am treated by society and acknowledging my privilege requires nothing of me. That is the privilege of privilege. White Europeans know absolutely nothing about the trauma of having your ancestors driven to reservations and schools designed to hold them until they existed no more.

How many of you know the deep scars that move through generation after generation of a people?

Did your ancestors arrive in the cargo hold of a ship to be sold as livestock in this great “free” land?

How many of you know the horror of having all of your property confiscated because you look like the enemy across the sea, and now you live in a prison camp, in this great “free” land?

Remove these things from our history books and you take away any hope we have of surviving.

Indigenous people from thousands of nations lived on these continents for tens of thousands of years before Columbus or even the Vikings landed. They thrived in this land and survived every natural turn of the Earth. In the tiniest fraction of that time, we white Europeans have brought the wrath of this planet upon us all. She is giving us warnings, but she might decide she is done and just wash us away. We really are that insignificant in the grand scheme of everything. Your bank account will not get you or your descendants past this. Even if we get real and give all control of everything over to the stewards who were placed here first, I am not sure if this beautiful world will change her mind. She is angry…

This is not about god, or the end times, no one is going to whisk you away.

Every time I listen to this album, I peel back another layer of who I am and what my ancestors did.

Every time I listen to this album, I peel back another layer of grief for the things that were lost.

Every time I listen to this album, I peel back a layer and find hope.

I encourage you to read the lyrics of this album while you listen. Listen to Watin tell his grandson the words of his people and what they mean, honor that knowledge as you hear it, attempt to understand it. This is a gift, and we should treat it as such.

If you are reading this and hail from a white European family like me, I hope you feel some grief. With grief we might take a step forward, but without it we are doomed to repeat our atrocities and ultimately, we will evaporate. We will wash away like vapors on the horizon when the heat rolls up out of the desert.

We are not Nomads, we have not found the beauty of following the seasons. This is cemented in my understanding every time I have a customer come through my line complaining about the rain and the grey in the Pacific Northwest.

We are not Nomads… but can we strive to be wise? Can we just once understand that there is more to us than just our Bones.

“Slow it down and just feel it out
Take your time digging and reel it out
Slow it down and just feel it out
Believe your words before you shout them out”

“Believe your words before you shout them out.”

Does providing reparations mean we will heal? It will not restore the civilizations that have been lost but I know we have to do something. I do not believe that our nation can survive if we do not deal with the blood on our hands. Listening is our only chance to know the way forward.

I have been listening to this album for over two months now and there have been weeks that I listened to nothing else. I will continue to take this in. I wrote a letter to my grandson while listening to this, he turns eighteen this month and my hope was to give him some keys to walk through the challenges of life. I believe that is one of the steps towards healing. If our grandchildren don’t hear from us, then they are destined to spin their wheels just like we have.

My relationship with music is the thing that makes me weird, and it is that weird that lets me see my role in hope. In examining that relationship and writing about it, I am coming closer to the truth of me. I believe that finding that truth is one of the few things of value I can pursue. Pursuing my truth and supporting everyone’s pursuit for themselves is one step in creating a world we can all thrive in.

We need to find a path to coexistence, but I clearly do not have the answers. We need to stop acting like we know what to do and listen. Listen to what the world is trying to tell us and act on it. Listen to those who have tens of thousands of years of experience stewarding our home and act on it. I am part of the solution as long as I don’t look away and listen…

Listening, learning, and growing…

Changes – Joy Oladokun

Rusty from birth to grade school, then high school, on the beach as an adult. Working at the college and today — The Changes of Rusty

(Listening to this song while you read this, is strongly encouraged)

There is an exquisite design to our universe and every day that I pay attention, I find evidence of that. Some call that God, and that’s cool, but it might be more complicated than that. I have found anchors of hope in my wanderings, these anchors show me the signs of perfection in that design. They have come from many places and experiences. One of my most recent examples is Joy Oladokun. Artists like Joy are no accident, artists like Joy define a generation and I am better because I found their music.

There is no “secret” to life, no magic formula, you just live it. The blueprint we boomers gave you is not the answer… go to college, get married, get a job, have kids, retire, and die. There is little fulfillment in this blueprint, and it never accounts for changes. The changes we encounter make us who we are supposed to be.

Life has taken me where it wanted to take me, and I have adapted. It took me forever to understand what made me thrive, and even longer to do it. Joy Oladokun figured that out much earlier than I did, and I am so grateful to have their music in my life. I found it just when I needed it.

I hate change, but I’ve come of age
Think I’m finally finding my way
Danced with chaos at every occasion
looks me up every day
Even when I’m tired and low there is gold in this
River that is carrying me home

I hate change, yet my life has been nothing but change. It started with the chaotic swirl my dad followed in his quest to be a cowboy. We lived in twenty-nine places before I was sixteen and I never learned how to get comfortable. I learned that I am never going to have friends. I have always danced out on the edge… but I have always caught the wave. I learned to lean into the changes, it took me a while, but I learned. I have always survived changes, and I have never stayed the same.

I recently spent a weekend with some of my family, some whom I haven’t seen in three or four decades. They have known me for most of my life and they carry pieces of me, and I carry pieces of them. I love all my weird and intricate family so much.

We gathered to say farewell to my Aunt Donna…

Going home can be a beautiful thing, it can heal in a way I had forgotten. It was wonderous to see the cousins that held me when I was a lost single dad trying to figure out how to get from today to tomorrow. If not for them, my kids and I would not have survived. It was magical to talk about the days when we were young and scared. We had no idea where we were headed, we had no idea at all. We were just living… There was the deepest despair and agony, but there were also great joys, and it was always changing.

This song and my visit with people I love reminded me of how much I have learned from change. Life is dangerous but it is so worthwhile. I am watching closely now, to see what changes the universe will bring next. One of them is learning how to grow old, I won’t stay the same.

I know there will be new things that will make me cry and there will be new things to make me laugh. And it will make me different. I will find gold… I will find hope… I will find joy.

Newspaper says the world’s on fire
People yelling and the water’s rising
It’s easy to feel kinda anxious
Yeah, we’ve thought it was the end of time
We’re still holding on and we’re still trying
Life’s always been a little dangеrous
But I don’t wanna stay the same, so

I’m tryna keep up with the changеs
I’m tryna keep up with the changes

Everything is always in motion; everything is always changing.

I saw my two brilliant kids and marveled at how much they have changed. They have both become caring and powerful adults. It makes my heart glad to see my little girl grow up to be such a beautiful bad ass woman. She has followed no one’s path and she has been shaped by that. It is her time to thrive.

Seeing my son is like looking into a mirror. His pain and his pride are all so deeply ingrained in my memory. I lived the loneliness he feels, and I know the despair. Life can be very cruel; it can etch the heart right out of your soul. He is dancing through the chaos and trying so hard to hold on.

They have both fought their way to this day and they will fight their way to tomorrow. I try to teach them that success is not a title or a big bank account… Success is finding joy, and reaching for every piece of hope you can find.

We are all just trying to keep up with the changes.

was a baby during the L.A. riots
And I’ve seen cities burn again
Cried for the innocent a thousand times
And people still don’t understand
What it like to hope again and again knowing
That heartache’s gonna be there ’til the end

I was not a baby during the LA Riots, I was thirty-one and a ditch rider in eastern Washington. I listened to Rush Limbaugh, home schooled my kids and went to church three or four days a week. I didn’t just dabble in the things that shackled my parents; I did a back flip into them. I alienated everyone with my fiery proclamations of Christs return and how they would atone for their wicked ways.

I tried extremely hard to keep change from affecting my kids. I never let them think. I was strict and unyielding. Most of the voices around me were the ones I chose, they sounded just like me. There was one quiet voice that laughed at me and spoke the truth into my delusional soul. Jeff was a coworker, and he taught me how to back up a dump truck with a trailer attached. He also taught me how to see…

Jeff was somewhere around my age and rode a ditch south of mine. In the winter when the water was not running, we were part of the maintenance crew and we helped prepare the canal system to carry water next season. Jeff and I liked to work, so we got paired together a lot. We were not the ones who needed twenty minutes to get ready for our fifteen-minute break, nor did we leave the job site two hours early, driving four miles an hour to get back into the yard right at quitting time. No, Jeff and I liked to work, and we liked to talk. He disagreed with everything I held dear, and I disagreed with all his liberal ideas. But we liked each other. There are a few times in your life when another being gives you a little piece of themselves that you find later, and it changes you. As I began to unravel my privilege and see the world like it is, there are many times that I heard Jeff chuckle and say, “Russ, it is good to care.”

Jeff saw the world in a light that was leaning into change.

I haven’t talked to Jeff for thirty years, but his quiet grace helped me understand the world around me and know that it is so good to care.

I’m tryna keep up with the changes.

I’ve had a few careers since those conversations with Jeff and countless dances with chaos. I leaned into change, hard…

I rushed into it, and I found hope. I learned that chaos was my dance, and it showed me what life could be. I spent twenty years managing technology in education and I worked hard to kick down the barriers that kept me from my chance at college. I embraced change so desperately that I failed to see that I was leaving my family behind. I never gave my kids any idea of how life really works, I was too busy trying to change the world… That is my worst failing.

I wanted to be a better father than my dad, but my dad was fine. He knew what made him thrive, he was a cowboy, and a good one.

I have found joy and had a rich life by being swept into change, but I still don’t like change.

I feel like I am finally finding my way…. and I won’t stay the same…

Newspaper says the world’s on fire
People yelling and the water’s rising
easy to feel kinda anxious
Yeah, we’ve thought it was the end of time
We’re still holding on and we’re still trying
Life’s always been a little dangerous
But I don’t wanna stay the same, so

I’m tryna keep up with the changes
I’m tryna keep up with the changes

People are yelling about the end. And the world is certainly on fire, I worry for my grandkids.

Our home, planet Earth, is giving us every indication that we need to change, but I am not sure we will. I do not know what my grandkids will find when they are my age. I believe we could change, but I am dubious about our will. I worked for years to sway even the mildest ideas of thinking, like, everyone should be able to use technology, not just the abled.

I have no idea how writing about all of this could change anything but what could it hurt…

I do feel anxious, and I know it’s dangerous.

I don’t want to stay the same, so, I am leaning into the changes. I am looking for the next wave I can ride, hoping not to get washed ashore…. I will keep dancing with chaos. I want to see where it spits me out….

If you haven’t wandered through the catalog of Joy Oladokun, then you need to. Joy is a once in a generation songwriter, singer, and precious soul. In every song, there is magic, I mean every song. I wrote about Sweet Symphony last September, and here I am again. Joy’s voice reaches into you and makes you feel something. Their lyrics will wrap you up, right where you are, and fill you with love and hope. Joy is so amazingly good… I plan on being in their audience as soon as possible, I want to feel that magic in person and let it wash over me, getting me ready for whatever change is next…

On April 28th, “Proof of Life” will fly into the universe. “Changes”, is a single from that album and “Sweet Surrender” is another. You need to check it out, I have no doubt it will be full of magic and beauty.

I am forever grateful to you, Joy. Thank you for having the courage to be authentic and give the universe your music.

This old man is better because of you…

I found healing in these last little bits of time and I’m sure my Aunt Donna is smiling. She loved very well, and everyone she met felt like they had been seen. I am blessed to have known her. Her passing and the gathering of the family to say farewell ushered in a change, life without Donna.

Donna was a wife, a mom, a grandma, and a great grandmother… she was my aunt, and she was my friend. Everyone who knows her is faced with changing their life to be without her. That is the heart of this song for me. Know the danger of life and its changes but know the joy of riding its wave. Chaos will teach you to thrive and riding the waves of change will carry you somewhere, you just need to be ready…

Will you lean into the changes?

Don’t worry too much about where you are going. We are all headed to the same place, we’re all going to die. We don’t talk about dying much, but it is the only thing to always be true. We all die, and no matter how important we are or how much we feel we deserved better, we will die… Don’t worry so much about where you are going, stop wondering if you are worthy. You are alive and your life is as valid as anyone’s. Put your wet suit on and catch a wave…

Make sure you don’t leave the people that matter behind.

Don’t save anything for later…

Life is dangerous but it is rich, and your life is yours. No matter how many times you have tried to hope and failed, lean into the changes, and never stay the same.

Learning, listening, and growing…

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