[ I find that REMOVING my expectations for just about anything, has the effect of generating more inner peace about the world around me. - Toadman ] [ current ]
Well, we made it to Boyd, TX. I'm sitting in an air-conditioned porch at my sister's house, which is just through the woods from my parents house, looking out at brown grass with a few green accents...and plenty of oak trees. It's about 100 degrees outside, and 80% humidity. Stifling, actually.
Still, this is the land I grew up on, the temperatures I endured for the first 33 years of my life. The sound if the cicada, the warm, humid, hot breeze, only refreshing after a dip in the pool, opens up long forgotten neural pathways of childhood memory. The blue jay's screeching, the tanager chirping, all these sounds of my former life, flooding into my ears and into my head making me see myself as a child running through the undergrowth and the bracken on some wild adventure of my own making. But everywhere, the heat, and the humidity, the sticky sweat on your skin causing anything to adhere to it like glue. That, too, is opening up memories.
On our drive down, we passed through five of the most beautiful states in the union, in my opinion. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. Three reds and two blues (last time around, that is), all four unique in their own way. Pictures do not do any of them justice. They must be seen with real eyes, not digital eyes, in order to be experienced fully. We're still uploading the pictures of that part of the trip, and I'll create a set of road trip pictures for you all to gander at, should you desire, in the very near future.
Time for us "left coast hippie liberals" to make a trip down south in our new tricked out hippie van to see our "southern conservative" family and friends.
Baseball. The All-American sport. The picture at left was taken at opening night for our Spokane Indians! Summer has officially begun, when the crack-whack sound of leather against wood splits the night air, I think. Or maybe it's the repetitive organ music, or the smell of chili dogs, or the siren sound of "COLD beer!" floating on the cool night air.
We have started our summer. We've even had our first guests. Indeed, we've already had a mountain top experience. This year, it'll be a memorable summer for the boys, because we've decided it was time to move ahead and get something that will help make moving around the countryside this summer, a little bit more luxurious. It's not new, but it's new to us. It's not the fanciest of things, but it's fancy to us. So...with great excitement to the boys, and a surprisingly low interest rate, we signed paper upon paper upon paper and are now the owners of a tricked out 2004 Safari Conversion van, complete with vinyl seats, DVD player with wireless headphones, and more amenities than we ever thought we needed in a vehicle. We'll be looking for the Boris Vallejo painting that we think would be best air-brushed on the hood, next...heh...not really.
Still, you know what? It's just a thing. An inanimate object. A machine, a tool, a means of transportation. But it's a nice object, and I'm thankful that I can provide it for my wife and boys. They deserve it, I think.
...and I think I may have run out of things to say. These days I observe. I rise, and fall, and walk, and sleep. Not in that order, mind you, but it's all there, essentially.
The woman swirls around, gold and silk floating on the air. Hidden behind red, lips obscured, eyes of deep brown under a golden diadem shimmering. My third eye centers on the life around me, before me, and behind me. A haze of hookah smoke rises in the darkness, giving substance and movement to the light and the silk flows.
What other device can I use? What other metaphor, deus ex machina, again, taking care of the finishing touches. The solar radiation brings color to my face, erasing the pale whiteness of extended darkness. Summer. Warmth. Green. Color. The smell of spices grilling. Summer.
...and I think I may have a few more things to say...but the days between the saying are lengthening, as entropy gathers its forces and the onslaught of everything in my think box and feeling box and emotion box is sometimes overwhelming...
Clouds come and go. Clouds are temporary, but carry weight. Clouds can be thick or thin, wispy or substantial. Clouds hold moisture, and power, also. They hold back the winds, but sometimes let them loose upon our lives and houses, tossing them around like insignificant leaves in a breeze.
Clouds also break, letting beams of light through. Someone once told me that they believed sunbeams through the clouds were the paths souls took to heaven...that everywhere you saw a sunbeam, there was a soul heading upward, through that break, into the great beyond.
Clouds bring color to our sky. They paint the sunset, give interest to the evening, but mostly, clouds cause us to look up from our earthly pursuits, and reveal to us just how small we really are.
After taking both Thursday and part of Friday off last week, it is hard to work myself up to go to work on Monday, tomorrow. Later this week, I'm going to be asked what motivates me to come to work. I've been struggling with what my motivation is quite a lot, lately.
Oh, sure, there's the motivation to provide for my family. Because I love my wife and family strongly, the motivation to feed and house them and myself, is strong enough to keep me employed, out of trouble, and responsible. But a job is only the means by which I meet the ends. I don't particularly enjoy what I do for a living. I do it well enough, and it comes easy, but I don't really find it rewarding. I find no satisfaction in it, and get no joy out of it either. It's just something I do, again, to meet the ends.
Is this life? Is this what we bought into when we joined the workforce? Thirty years of working at an occupation that you "don't particularly enjoy," then a brass watch, a thank you dinner, and you're off to Florida? Is this the American dream? Man, I hope not. If so, then I think those of us who endure a life like this have been taken in by the biggest scam in the history of mankind.
Life. That's what it all boils down to, doesn't it? Life's too short. You hear that all the time, but you know what? It is. Time to consider the lilies.
Like the low growl of a distant thunderstorm rolling in over the Texas hill country, or the tell tale sound of a twister over the grasslands, that's the rumble that the bass, seen at left, delivers.
Twelve strings. Three octaves per note. The instrument, this particular instrument, is legend among musicians. dUg lumbers on to the stage, rocking back and forth on his long legs, bass slung low, just above the knee, to accommodate his lengthy reach, and hits a note, just to check the sound. We hear the rumble, we feel the air of moving sound waves rush past us, we hear the sound, that signature sound, and we roar our response. We're ready. He turns, smirks at the crowd...he knows...He turns to his band mates Ty and Jerry, click...click...click goes the drumsticks, and it begins.
Click the picture of the twelve string bass to see all the pictures, and all the videos, I took last night at the show.
