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April 08, 2008 Postcard from Hawaii part 1
It was January and it was cold in the northeast where I was touring with Jonathan Byrd. But three things were in perfect alignment: A Southwest airlines frequent flyer award, a small open window in March, and a friend with a guest futon on Maui, I wrote to my friend Amy in L.A. “want to go to Hawaii?” She texted me back: “when do we leave?”
My good fortune continued on the long trip out there: I won 200 dollars at the slot machines in the Las Vegas airport. I’d started my journey at 8 a.m. in Nashville, and 4500 miles and 12 hours later I landed on Maui.
The airport is open to the air, like many things in Hawaii. It’s pretty much 80 degrees year round. You really don’t ever have to close your windows. As soon as I got off the plane I smelled it: unmistakably, the smell of Hawaii. It probably has something to do with all the leis floating around the airport, but I swear all of Hawaii smells like plumeria and tuberoses and ginger.
David and Frank are our hosts. There’s an ease about them and the way they live and it’s contagious. They ride bikes to work. They surf. They never get tired of watching whales and sunsets. They leave their flip-flops outside the door. And they’re so generous with their small space that we feel at home right away. Home is a simple cottage (or ohana) right in Lahaina, one of the sunniest spots on earth, facing due west. It’s built up a little on stilts, in order to be just high enough over the house in front of to provide an ocean view from the lanai, a luscious covered back porch. As you drive the main road along the coastline, you see window after window, oddly shaped, irregularly spaced, strategically placed like big glass eyes taking in the ocean view. Like the way a plant turns its leaves up toward the sun.
It’s said that smell is a most powerful evoker, and the one sense you can’t actually remember in its absence. To get to David’s door you walk down 20 steps and then up 10. Along the way, fallen plumeria flowers litter the ground. They’re small, five-petaled, and mostly white with yellow bursting around the middle, although they also come in pink. Their perfume is so intoxicating it’s dizzying. Heavy and delicate at the same time. They’re a popular flower for lei-making because they have no stem to speak of. They just grow straight out of the tree, even when there are no leaves present. Sometimes we pick them up as we go toward the house and put them in a shallow bowl of water that is always on David’s coffee table. Their scent is the one thing I wish I could take home with me from Hawaii, and the most elusive,
Day 1
We spent the day at Ka’anapali beach. We’d been to the grocery store in the morning and bought a bunch of food for the week. Mostly produce, and we both felt better to have that out of the way. I knew right away when we started shopping for food that it was going to be easy to have Amy for my companion. We seem to have the same ideas about eating and sleeping, the same impulses in general about how to fill our time.
Oh my the salt water felt good. I went in with my snorkel gear that I’d brought with me, and hung out with some fish for a while. I tried not to get too much sun on my first day. Later we met up with David in a posh hotel bar, still in bikinis, and had a mai tai, watching the sun went down.
I find I need so little here. You can go the other way and stay at the elegant resorts, spend a lot of money of fine food and souvenirs, but for me everything becomes so immediately simple. You need very little clothing, for one thing. A bathing suit, a pair of shorts, 2 sarongs and a handful of tank tops was all I wore the whole time. A sun hat, a single pair of good sandals, and a light sweater. A good novel. A mandolin. A journal. I feel happy to eat lightly, and spend my time and energy with the ocean, the rain forest, the smells and sounds, the fresh fruit and the flowers, and it’s more than enough.
I’m in love with the poetry of the Hawaiian islands- the way they rose up out of the sea, farther away from a major landmass than any other island chain. In the beginning it was only the strongest birds, or the luckiest, who could make the 2000 + mile trip across the ocean to land here. I think about the randomness, (or destiny) of the seeds that remained aloft by the fluke of a chance pattern of air currents, or traveled inside the birds like fetuses. And of the original Polynesians, who traveled here in large canoes, based on nothing more than faith and astrology. Of course, humans did their invasive thing and later introduced all kinds of things that didn’t belong here. Like mosquitoes. But still, there is that sense of remoteness. Rental cars are the one cheap thing here, because you can’t steal them: where are you going to go? You can feel the clarity of the air, the cleanness of the salt water, and the fresh water. Drinking water straight out of the tap. Everything seems ready to help you be more healthy. It feels like if you stand still in the rain forest you can almost see things growing in front of your eyes.
Day 2
We hiked at Iao Needle State Park today. It is a lovely inland hike up to the cinder cone of the Iao Needle, but the best part is where the paved trail ends. We continued up a narrow footpath, thick with plants scratching at our calves and sometimes obscuring everything but the next foot ahead. Amy said she felt like Hansel and Gretel. We climbed until we reached a thicket of thimbleberries. (We didn’t actually find out what they were until later, but we were sure they were meant for us to eat.) They resemble raspberries, but lacier, more delicate, and such a bright crimson they seemed to have a light shining from inside of them. The sun magnified this effect, as we moved about in a sea of green punctuated by tiny red lights. We ate as many as we could stand before heading back down the path.
This afternoon David came home, came out to the lanai and plopped a big bowl down on the table. Then he opened his backpack and took out a dozen bright orange mangoes and put them in the bowl. He’d just gotten them from the neighbor’s tree. They’re not in season, really, but lucky for me this one tree didn’t know that. I can understand it’d be easy to get confused, since the weather is pretty much the same all the time. I picked one up and fondled it a moment and I swear it was still warm from where it was hanging in the sun just minutes ago. I plunged my teeth into it, skin and all, and I’m not being melodramatic when I say it was a dream come true to be eating my favorite fruit right off the tree. I was pretty pleased with this thought, that such a tiny wish was so easily granted, at the right place and time. How can I find more ways in my life to be so easily pleased?
April 07, 2008 Postcard from Hawaii part 2
Day 3
I’m up at 5:30 this morning, writing by the light of my headlamp on the lanai. Sunrise is subtle on the west side of an island, but still it’s the quintessential metaphor of Hope. Little by little I’m relying less on the concentrated circle of light from my headlamp, as it homogenizes with the air around it. The mourning doves start singing, louder and thicker, and I know I’ll always associate their sound with Hawaii dawn. I seem to be on camping time- going to bed early and waking up with the sun. I get up, make the coffee, and pack a lunch of vegetables, fruit, homemade hummus, crackers, and nuts. Today I am particularly anxious for everyone else to get up, for I’ve been promised the great hike of the Four Waterfalls!
This is one the most magnificent hikes I have ever experienced. Hard to find, if you don’t know where it is, but it had the 3 components of my favorite kind of hike: forest, rocks and water. We hiked in through a narrow path, and at the first crossing of a fast-running stream, the party behind us turned back. Then there was the trek through the bamboo forest, and at the end of that we had to climb a diagonal rock wall. It wasn’t that steep but it was wet and completely slippery. There was a fallen bamboo to hold onto so it was a lot easier than it might have been. Then we came to the second waterfall with a pool at its feet. This is where many people stop. They turn back, or just swim in the perfectly lovely pool.
To get to the next part of the trail you have to climb a 15-foot vertical rock wall, and I do mean vertical, with dubious handholds. There were two ropes attached at the top, so it was mostly a matter of hauling yourself up by your upper body strength. This is sort of the moment of truth of the whole hike, and some don’t make it. which adds to the exhilaration. We hiked over and around rocks, in and out of ankle-knee-high water, and then the path turned completely to water. We had to swim upstream to the next waterfall, which we then had to climb to the top of. Then we found ourselves reaching the fourth and final waterfall, which was maybe 60 feet high, and the canyon wall went up double that behind it. The end of the line. We lingered at the pool, jumped off the rocks a couple times, and sat quietly in our beautiful room for a while before we turned around and did the whole thing in reverse.
That would have been a day in itself, but it goes on….
We got back home and regrouped and got ready for the beach. Baby Beach is near the house, and has both sand and grass, shade and sun. We played horseshoes (my first time!) as the sun started slipping down. I started to get a little bit good at it right after we quit keeping score. Honest.
This next part was so cinematic I can hardly believe I didn’t make it up. A little further down the beach, behind us, we saw a bunch of Hawaiian kids of varying ages arriving on a huge covered concrete slab. It was some sort of a back porch of a building that we (obviously) couldn’t see. Soon they started moving in elegant graceful gestures, and it seemed that we were witnessing some kind of dancing lessons. But it didn’t quite make sense; it seemed unorganized, and nobody stuck with any of the movements for very long. It was like they were distracted. But I was transfixed, like I was watching something very private. They all had flowers in their hair, and every single one, girls and boys alike were wearing sarongs tied around their waist, and very little else. The boys were as graceful and comfortable in their skins as the girls.
Gradually the porch began to empty, and I was feeling disappointed until I realized that they were congregating next door. Live music started rumbling! I walked down the beach to where the event was gathering momentum. . It was quite dark by then, and I felt invisible as I plopped down in the sand right up close to the 8-ft. chain link fence that separated the beach from the event, and suddenly it became clear that we’d stumbled onto a private luau! We found out later that it was a birthday party for a local 1-year-old. The porch we’d watched was actually the backstage of the community center where it was going on. On the stage there were several musicians- giant Hawaiian guys with large accents. There were several hand drums, an 8-stringed ukulele and an electric bass. People were sitting at picnic tables eating and drinking. And between them and the stage was the dance floor. The same dozen or so Hawaiian kids, in various combinations, came out and danced an elaborately choreographed hula presentation. I’m sure I had the best view. I had a cinematic omniscience, where the camera goes through walls to show you a live cross section. I sat there for who knows how long, in complete glee and awe. I’m sure if I’ve ever been in wide-eyed wonder, this was the moment. The dancers were as pure and lovely as brand-new daffodils in the rain, and the music reached down into my bones and shook them free. I didn’t know whether to weep or giggle at the unbearable beauty of it, and to tell the truth, I’m pretty sure I did both.
April 06, 2008 Postcard from Hawaii Part 3
Day 4
Today was a leisurely beach day. I alternated between swimming and lying in the half-shade reading. Again and again. Salt and sand. I have good goggles and even better lungs, and I played underwater for a long time. Underwater, with my head towards the shore, I watched the floor dance below as the water moved above me. For a while I let myself quit being in charge of anything, gave myself up to its manipulations. I let the water suck me in like an inhalation and release me back on the exhale.
When a wave came in, I could see it without looking back at it. I could feel it, and hear it, and then see the heavy darkness coming up over me and falling down around me. Instead of white frothiness, from this perspective the waves were black weight coming down on me, like a sudden summer thundercloud.
Day 5
We started out early on the road to Hana. This is a famously windy and lush road that meanders along the coast and curves its way around to the east side of the island. The wet side. It’s funny, this road is quite famous, and the saying is that it’s the journey, more than the destination, that’s the most remarkable. I don’t agree. Maybe it has to do with how much time I spend in cars. You’re supposed to stop along the road here and there and take pictures of the waterfalls and gorgeous ocean vistas. Certainly it was lovely, but I was reminded that I’m not so moved by far away views, where the best way to capture them is through the lens… I want to be INSIDE the waterfall, or at least put my feet in the water at the base of it. I want to leave the car behind and hike my way into the forest. I want to smell, taste touch, as well as look. I want to simply feel how it is to be a living creature in the midst of other living creatures. Sometimes it feels almost sacrilegious to take pictures. Like you have to step out of the moment to try to preserve it for later, which I don’t believe you ever can anyway. I want to take the pictures in my memory.
When we got to Hana we went to Hamoa beach, whose particular appeal is that it’s great for bodysurfing and is completely pristine. As for me, I love them all. If there is foot-friendly sand and swimmer-friendly currents, I love every beach as much as the next one. At this point in the trip it’s become a holy ritual…. Setting up in the sand, lying around reading until my body starts to bake, and then quietly heading for the salt water to knock me around, and rearrange my molecules a bit. For the first time I’m physically aware of having traveled to the east side of the island. I realized that all week I’d been watching sunsets from the west, and suddenly the sun is setting the opposite way.
We stayed at an isolated guest cottage in a wild ginger patch. You can feel that you are on the wet side of the island here, and my body relaxes into it. There is even more greenness and oxygen, in surround-sound. We took a walk down the road at sunset, and I tromped into the forest as far as I could up a path until I couldn’t get through the growth. I lay down at the top of a hill and rolled my self down like I used to do as a kid. A lesson in momentum. I giggled as I picked up speed, totally without my voluntary help, until I almost thought I couldn’t stop, and then slowed to stillness at the bottom.
We soaked in the hot tub, ate a small dinner, and went to sleep in pure quiet.
Day 6
Next day we drove to. the Oheo Gulch, a series of freshwater pools leading down to the ocean’s edge. . Yes they were inviting, but I was dying to hike into the forest and to the waterfalls above. The trail was only about 2 miles long, but was wonderfully winding and varied. We walked over rocks, past a giant banyan tree, and along pools. I took off my sarong and bathed in one of the pools at the bottom of a trickling waterfall. I climbed out on the other side, on impossibly slippery rocks, problem-solving as I went. A mid-hike soak in spring water is a lovely thing. Resets your temperature, adds stamina. I love the feeling of my cool skin, and the water droplets lazily falling off as I walk. We walked through a giant bamboo forest, and I left the trail altogether and squeezed myself through narrow openings between these thin giants. In the middle of the forest, I waited until a breeze came up and then I looked up and listened to the random beautiful clacking sound of the bamboo overhead--woody and hollow and musical. People fashion wind chimes for this same effect of peace and random music orchestrated by the wind. And then the breeze would die down and the sounds quiet, and I waited for it all to start up again.
The next part of the trail had a boardwalk, because it tended toward muddiness here. Now and then I’d see a fallen guava at my feet. I picked one up, and it smelled beyond ripe. I opened it and licked it. Wow, the most sour thing you can imagine. I ate a little of it, spitting the seeds out, twisting up my face in giddy shock.
I could hear it before it saw it. And before that I could sense it. I could smell the air getting wetter, could
taste it getting greener as the path wound farther into the forest and towards the waterfall at the end.
Finally I emerged into the open and reached the temple at last: Mahoku falls- 400 feet high! Even running lighter than usual its force was magnetic. I walked as close as I dared and sat down with my feet in the water- the same water that had tumbled down the falls minutes before.
How can I describe the church of this? I breathed deep. Thirsty for the water in the air. The cleanest air there is, I think. I looked up into the sun and could see the fine mist swirling around in the air, like a million soft caresses, like a balm on a burn, and I’m not required to do anything to deserve this blessing, except notice it. I couldn’t get enough of this rich air in my lungs. I sat there for a long time, and I felt more peaceful than I have in a long time. And I think: this is what I came to Hawaii for. For just this feeling of being able to be here in the moment, and realize I have everything I need. I wasn’t regretting the past or worrying over the future. - I was breathing it, tasting it, absorbing it. And that was enough. It was more than enough.
Don’t let anyone tell you it’s expensive to hang out in Hawaii.
Day 7
I’m walking into the airport at sunset, and I feel a combination of contentment and heartbreak. I can smell myself- freshly showered after one final playful day at the beach. The plumeria on my ear is filling the air around me. The breeze in my loose hair is swishing the smell about my head as I walk. I decide not to buy a lei to take to the mainland- I’ve got to quit cold turkey. Otherwise I’ll have to watch it wilt into brown and eventually make the sad decision to throw it away.
Actually, I didn’t buy any souvenirs from my vacation. The only thing I take with me is a bit of a tan and a picture on my phone. A plumeria, of course.
August 23, 2007 Six Days on the San(d) Juan
THE DRIVE
It was Saturday night at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. There we were, at midnight, trying to tear ourselves away from Eliza Gilkyson's majesty. Deborah and I knew we had a thousand miles ahead of us, with barely a day and a half to drive it, catch a few hours of sleep, and arrive at the put-in at Sand Island in Bluff, Utah. With cups of coffee in hand, we snuck away during Eliza's encore, her bronze voice fading as we got to our car. Deborah and I were both looking forward to the luxury of so many hours in a row in each other's company, paddling inflatable kayaks through canyons on the San Juan river for six days. No civilization, no electricity, nothing but what we would carry in our boats. The rest of our party- four more women, three men and three teenaged boys, were already on their way.
The line between yesterday and today was a blur. We drove in shifts while the other slept, straight through for 16 hours. We figured that stopping for a short nap in a motel bed wouldn't be any more satisfying than sleeping in the back seat of my Toyota. (It's handy to have short legs)
I love the way the sunrise creeps up on you on an early-morning drive. It barely glimmered at first; a tiny mirage of a glow in the rear-view mirror. Then the roads got emptier, the landscape starker, the air drier, the rocks redder as we drove through New Mexico and into Utah. And all of a sudden, although your brain knows it's gradual, it's full-blown morning. A miracle every time.
We pulled into the Recapture Lodge at about 4 p.m. We were expected, and welcomed warmly in a swamp-cooler-ed lobby.
GEAR AND MUD
The next morning was a hot chaotic jumble of gear, and rigging the boats. Floating at last by 2 p.m., and right away we found ourselves at a good pace of 3 1/2 miles an hour-- walking pace, although it feels faster, gliding along on the current. This is going to be a pretty easy 85 miles, with mostly easy rapids, and one class-3 towards the end of the trip. Our biggest problem will be the low water. Seems like it's flooding everywhere else but here.
Towards the end of the day we stopped to see some petroglyphs and found a great mud pit. Four of the women stayed behind and we took off our clothes and covered ourselves in mud. It felt cool and creamy, smelled dark green and musty, like the beginning of life itself. We crawled out of the mud giggling, on our hands and knees. It was so deep and slippery we couldn't walk out of it on two feet without sinking back up to our thighs. In the river we scrubbed off the mud with sand and water, along with the all the toxins we imagined had been coaxed out of us.
SLEEPING AND WAKING
Deborah and I brought a tent but we've been sleeping without it. On the river's edge, on a tarp, on an air mattress, under a flannel sheet, under the sky. My favorite feather pillow. (Never skimp on a good pillow) Our camping bag is huge compared to our personal bag. It's July in the desert, and we barely need any clothes at all. Anyway we wear the same thing every day, more or less. I've got my second guitar (my river guitar) for playing around camp. I have to work at letting go of worrying about the heat. Guitars are meant to be played.
I love sleeping with nothing between my face and the sky. Bright stars in a dark sky, right up to the edges of my eyes. The only boundary is where the canyon wall makes a horizon, hundreds of feet up from where we lay. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was the whole world sparkling, and each time I woke in the night, the stars were still there, guarding my rest with a billion blinking eyes. In the morning, the first thing I saw was an empty, expectant pale blue. A blank sky. As if someone had erased the stars one by one off a blackboard, and then rolled back the dark layer of night to expose the waiting day. Between me and the sky, in their own air corridor, were clouds of midge flies fluffing around. The sun is my only timepiece, and it feels right to rise when She does, and enjoy a couple hours of morning cool. I sit with a cup of organic coffee, listening to the soundtrack of the water, and the accompaniment of the canyon wrens. I never did actually see one, but they were there the whole trip, singing us down the river.
SUN AND WATER
Air temperature: 108 degrees. Water: 78 degrees. Humidity: 5% In the high heat of the day we're paddling in full sun. I wear a wet long-sleeved shirt, hat, a wet sarong over my legs, sunscreen on everything exposed, and still the backs of my hands are turning startlingly brown.
I love the hot days, but by day three I'm starting to feel sun-cranky. It's not the heat, exactly; the water keeps me cool enough. It's more the FEELING of the sun on me. Assaulting and relentless, like dull razor blades. Like a hair-dryer without the breeze. It's so dry; you can feel the moisture just getting sucked out of you. I was starting to feel like beef jerky, so I handed my boat off to Holly and swam the last few miles of the day. It was marvelous to get into the soft and silky water, which was warm and cooling at the same time. It's such a pleasure to be on a river that's so easy to soak in, and I'm constantly in it.
So it was day four before I had my first real bath. It had been a breezy night, and my face felt like sandpaper. I don't just mean it was dry-- I mean I'd woken up covered in a thin layer of sand, stuck to me all over, like sandpaper. My hair was sticky with river residue. It was time for some soap and shampoo. There's nothing more satisfying than a bath when you REALLY need it.
THE LONG DAY
We paddled 20 miles on day 4. A long haul, and I was trying out a little hard-shelled whitewater boat for the first time. I was paddling without a spray skirt so I had to keep stopping to dump the water out of it, and then catch up the the others. I really liked it, but it was a challenge to get used to. One of the first rapids we hit got me. I hit a rock in a big hole and couldn't recover, I went over sideways and slithered out of the boat, put my feet forward and swam the rest of the rapid. It was my second (accidental) swim. The day before I'd been sitting on top of the cooler in my boat (really dumb choice for going through a class 2 rapid), with a passenger in the front, and there was nothing to hold onto when the boat threw me off like a spooked horse.
When I finally saw David's raft stopped, up ahead, I was so relieved. My muscles were running on reserve. I literally crawled up onto the beach and collapsed. But camp was by a rapid, and it was lovely to sit and watch the river run as Joey and Linda prepared dinner. Lentil soup and Cowboy Cornbread in a Dutch oven. It was definitely the highlight of the week's food.
GOVERNMENT RAPID
Today I paddled my first class 3 rapid. It's something of a climax of the trip on this stretch of river. We stopped above the rapid on the left to scout it. The rafters huddled and pointed and discussed strategy. I remember lots of times like this in the Grand Canyon. I would watch and listen on the periphery, then climb on the raft, with the easiest job of all- just ride through and try to stay on the boat. But this time I was one of the paddlers.
It was going to be rough for the rafts in such low water. Joe got his raft stuck on exactly the rock he was trying to miss, and it took 20 minutes of bouncing up and down, in the middle of the rapid, to free it. I wasn't nervous until I watched Nancy, one of the most experienced boaters, get caught up on a rock and be thrown from her boat. She swam head-first through the rapid and I thought I saw her face hit the rocks. Her boat was stuck, and someone had to walk up to it from shore and cut the bow line to free it. Then I was scared. A couple people opted to portage, and it crossed my mind. But I imagined myself looking back on this moment and knew I had to do it. I made sure everything was strapped in good, took off my hat, pulled my hair off my face, and went for it. I had a perfectly smooth, almost anti-climactic run and it was over in a flash. I never came close to the rocks I was trying to avoid. It's funny how easy it is when things go well, and yet how quickly they can turn bad. As we continued downriver, I looked back one last time, feeling pretty pleased with myself. And I marveled at how sometimes it's the tiniest moments that define our lives. August 08, 2006 The Other Colorado River
Day 1
(Evening, by the light of a headlamp). It’s the beginning of five whole days on the lower Colorado River. The Texas Colorado, that is, which flows all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. We'll be hanging out with many more animals than people, many more plants than animals, much more water than pavement. Chief No-Pants himself (Joe Riddell) has scouted this trip and planned our itinerary, about 50 river miles between Bastrop and La Grange. He’s thought of everything and he’s a terrific leader. He’s a man who listens more than he speaks, and likes nothing better than cavorting in nature. Captain Habitat (Bill Oliver) built our mother ship and hauled it to the put-in The Mark Twain. It’s a 2-canoe raft with a plywood deck, a silent trolling motor, and storage hatches for all our camping gear and food. Bill keeps us laughing with his quick dexterity with words. Samantha is queen bee on the raft this trip, and an exquisite queen she is, preparing food for us, sharing natural remedies for river wounds, and generally smiling brilliantly like the sun itself. The chief paddles a canoe, and Debbie and I have single kayaks. It’s Debbie’s first time on a multi-day river trip, and I want everything to be spectacular for her. And it is. Debbie’s a great combination of gentle femininity and great strength and adaptability. She takes to living on the river right away.
The flurry of preparation today drew on for hours, and by the time we were iced down, rigged up, ready to launch, it was six p.m. But it’s July in Texas and early evening is lovely. The sun’s intensity is blurring. It’s shining on the water like clarified butter, as the day slows down. Oh, and the smell of it! The wild river air smells thick and musty, green and wet. Super-oxygenated. July in Texas. Last week in Austin the temperatures were in the hundreds. Some of our friends wouldn’t come along because of the heat. But it’s different on the river. It’s cooler on the water than on the pavement. And you can just stay wet all the day long. Water, the great air conditioner.
After only a couple hours on the river, the raft gets stuck in shallow water, right near a gorgeous island. A perfect campsite. There’s a wide ribbon of sand winding right through the middle of the island. Probably the flood-bed when the river rises. We set up camp and by starlight we eat Samantha’s wonderful lasagna, heated on the 2 burner Coleman stove. At one point during dinner a deer comes running into camp, practically crashing the party. He makes a frenzied turn at the last minute and disappears into the woods. It was too dark to actually see him, although he was just a few feet from us. But we could HEAR the deer-ness of him: the long slender legs, and the small feet kicking up leaves as he sped away. He’s probably run through this open path a thousand times before, but tonight the world is suddenly under an enchantment: there’s a small village blocking the road.
Day 2
Seven a.m. There’s a little snail slinking along on the ground beside me. He takes a tumble off a huge one-inch-high mountain on to his back, letting me see the length of his boneless, colorless, slimy body. He rights himself, continues along. I can’t resist. I poke him with a stick-- just like Ivan Brown’s song-- just to see what he’ll do. In an instant he sucks and slurps his body into his shell. He waits nonchalantly. “Ain’t nobody home in this shell here…” After a while (what IS his clock???) he pokes out and goes about his business. A chunk of wet sand falls off his back and he flinches. There’s another snail dragging a shell that looks exactly like a tiny French horn. What’s he looking for? I feel like I’m in an old Star Trek episode as I pick up the first guy and place him right in the path of the second guy. Right in his way. They keep moving in opposite directions, with no drama whatsoever. I keep watching…
I woke up on an island in the river this morning. In a screen tent that feels like a little palace, with my flannel sheet and pink blanket. It’s 10 X 10, floorless, tall enough to stand up in, with hardly any fabric at all. Just four screen walls. My luggage is a couple books and a tiny bag of clothes; I barely need any on this hot trip.
The rest of camp still sleeps. I’m in a grove of trees and the sky is brightening. The sun is shining shyly through random frames of leaves. The inevitable beauty of dawn. It’s sparkling with little spindly crystal fingers through the trees on the horizon upriver. It’s cool and the ground is still wet from yesterday’s quick hard downpour. In front of my eyes the river runs by.
Well, the snails have absolutely nothing to say to each other.
Later…
We left our island with a team effort, guiding the mother ship through the shallow waters and the bright green seaweed, back into the open river. It was hard work paddling today; over flat-water and into strong headwinds blowing up from the Gulf of Mexico. 12 miles later we’re looking for a campsite. I love that moment in a day on the river, when we know the work of the day is done and we scramble up off the river looking for flat spots and shade, and a place to put our kitchen and living room. Tonight’s dinner is vegetarian tacos. Refried beans, cheese, and a big Tupperware full of chopped yellow peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, sprouts, spinach. Food on the river when you’re really hungry after a day of paddling is so satisfying. We all go for a dusk swim. I can’t get over the temperature of the water, so warm and welcoming. The bright green seaweed looks like underwater weeping willows. We play some music, dance, drink rum...
August 07, 2006 The Other Colorado River, part II
Day 3
We’re launched by ten a.m. today. It’s nice to get an early start, get a little ahead of the sun and the winds. As we’re finishing rigging the boats a horse comes walking down to see us off. He looks me in the eye and we talk awhile. I offer him an apple and he hesitates, so I bite off chunks of it for him, which he takes eagerly. It made me giggle out loud. Such grace. Thanks for the send-off.
We have about 11 miles to go today. We’ve been averaging two and a half miles an hour. By 4 o’clock we’re back in civilization in Smithville, where the cars are waiting. We walk up from the river, wetly and lazily, to ask the guy at the bait shop if we can borrow a cup of electricity to charge the Mark Twain’s batteries. After a short conversation about fishing, it’s agreed. We put the boats on the trucks and drive to Plum Creek, where we’ll start the second leg of the trip, skipping over 18 river miles. From there it’s another 18 miles (2 days) to the takeout in La Grange.
The air and the ground are thick with creatures. There are cattle now and then on the edge of the river, birds, egrets white as snow, blue herons, frogs, crickets... And biting things. The mosquitoes are manageable but the worst is the fire ants. My lesson from this trip for next time: bring socks.
After dinner I sit in my palace awhile in absolute darkness. The stars are hiding behind clouds, the moon is on holiday. Blackness. Nothing at all for the eyes to see but my ears make up for it. The frog chorus is fierce and loud, with 3 or 4 different tones. It is said that they croak until they mate. With the rest of the bugs, and under it all the sound of the river, I fall asleep, accompanied by a thick soundscape. Through the course of the night the players shift, birds take over in the morning. But the sound of the river is constant.
Day 4
Music on the river feels so fresh all over again. Almost sacred. This morning I play guitar for awhile, looking out at the river. I watch the Chief swim and underscore the whole thing, from his walking dry into the river to his walking wet back up and out of the water.
Today we have overcast skies again, so it’s awfully comfortable; almost cool. The whole trip has been unusually mild. Probably averaging around 85 degrees. I have to laugh when I think of what 85 means back in Wisconsin.
I ride on the raft today, mostly to give my wounds a rest. I had started out the trip a little scraped up from playing volleyball a bit recklessly on dirt a few days before. We boat up into a tributary, Miller’s Creek, and the atmosphere changes at once. Trees form a canopy over our heads, dropping the temperature. It smells dense and rich and even greener. We stop at an old sycamore tree that’s fallen completely over, from one side of the creek to the other, but still keeps growing sideways! Branches grow straight up towards the sky, like little trees growing out of the earth that is the mother trunk. They make great handholds for climbing up and walking the tree across the creek.
Tonight my mosquito net palace actually has a moat around it. I have to wade through several inches of creek water to get to a little island where I’m camped, like a princess in a fortress.
Day 5
There has been no traffic whatsoever on the river. We saw not one boat, not one camper, the entire time. Unless you count the horse.
This morning, right before my watching eyes, a great piece of rotting trunk falls from a tree into the creek. I look up from my journal when I hear a long loud crackle in the silence, and watch the wood yield to gravity and decomposition, and fall with a splash.
We stretch out our last day of paddling, stopping to eat lunch leisurely under a tree. I take a questionable (= not so smart) gamble, and am rewarded with an accidental swim. I thought I could paddle under a tree that was hanging over the river, for a little sport. But I misjudge how much current there is and fail to line my boat up right. The tree knocks me right out of my boat; I have no say in the matter. One thing I should know by now is that if there are branches hanging over the top of the water, chances are there are hidden branches under the water, which can be dangerous. So I swim under water, get through the first tree, and another set of branches catches me up. Meanwhile I let my upside-down boat go, try to keep track of the paddle and get myself out of the mess I got myself into. I swim to the raft, unhurt except for a small scratch under my nose. It was very exciting. And dumb. But worth the fun.
The takeout comes, as it always must, and we unload boats, upload trucks, and leave the river behind. It’s always a little strange to get back into a car after a river trip. So we take our time driving back to Austin, watching different versions of the same sunset, around each new bend in the road.
February 06, 2006 Barging Across America
I’m spending a week on a 3-story barge, cruising the Texas Intracoastal Waterway between Port Isabel, Corpus Christi and Galveston. My friend Ken Gaines and I were hired to play music, but it’s an embarrassingly easy schedule, with lots and lots of free time. The barge is like a charming, much smaller-scale version of the colossal Carnival Cruise I worked a couple years ago. The staterooms are spacious, and the Sky Deck is lovely. In fact I’ve been spending most of my time up there, leisuring in the sun in the afternoons, and soaking in the hot tub under the stars every night. There are chaises to lounge on, and a great exercise room. Every morning I’ve been simulating walking, biking, climbing stairs, but gaining no ground, only river miles as we are pushed along downriver. It’s an odd sensation, having no soil to walk on, no trees to walk under. We have no internet access either, which is probably good for me, although I do have the troubling sense of business not being done. Lots of quiet hours of reading, writing, practicing, watching the wild coast go by, playing Scrabble. And watching movies. This morning “Scent of a Woman” was on and I was enchanted once again by Al, playing the superhero, with his shy bare-backed partner in the tango scene.
We spent two days docked in Galveston. My feet were happy to walk on the Earth. You could feel the age of the city. Some of the large homes reminded me of being in Savannah, Georgia, only you could somehow sense the intense history of storms coming off the Gulf. You could smell the salt water in the air; see it taking its toll in the peeling paint of the old houses. We had delicious good strong coffee for the first time in several days, along with a 30-minute internet session. We ate an exquisite meal at a Greek restaurant downtown. The vegetables were luxuriously fresh in my falafel salad, and Ken’s spanikopita was equally good. We visited the 1877 tall ship Elissa at the Texas Seaport Museum. I had so much more fun exploring the ship and watching the video of its history and elaborate restoration than I did looking at photos and placards inside the museum. I guess it’s the theatre in me. And the beauty of the day outside.
But right now the scene is this stunning river. I’m sitting in the height of mid-afternoon in the Pilot House, which is the most forward spot on the barge. To my right is the coast, and to my left the Gulf of Mexico crashes into the small strip of land in the space between us. Through great big windows I have an unobstructed view of the river, as we head due west, chasing the sun. It reminds me of my Grand Canyon trip, and my throne-like seat on the front of the very first raft in the party, for 238 river miles. The sun through the glass is wonderfully warm on my shoulders; if I were a cat I would purr. And yet I log to be closer to the river. It’s like traveling like a noble lady in a litter with windows, carried high above the ground. I haven’t even managed so much as to get my feet in the river. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to touch.
The slogan for this company- I’m not kidding- is “Barging Across America!” Ken and I keep laughing our heads off about it. That they don’t see the irony of it: Here we are, using up all kinds of energy, pampered with creature comforts, plowing right through the Aransas National Wildlife refuge, peering through binoculars at endangered sand cranes.
Maybe it’s not how I would choose to spend a vacation, but there is a certain peace in spending these days quietly, with very few options in front of me. Mostly in solitude. Food appears in the dining room at regular hours, although I’ve learned to avoid the entrees and stick to the fruits and vegetables. (I won’t go into the reasons; I’ll let you imagine them.) Without a computer I’ve no business to attend to, nowhere to rush off to. Or escape to, for that matter. No outside world. My cell phone mostly works but it’s nice to give it a break. Time passes slowly. I know this barge is covering a lot of miles, and yet I’m spending an entire week “on tour” in the same exact place. I even unpacked my suitcase, which is generally against my travel policy. But I still draw the line at hanging anything on the back of the bathroom door.
November 01, 2005 Flying Day
Flying Day
The sun is setting in random colors flung from the Painter’s brush. The clouds were cotton-ball white earlier this afternoon. Now they’re colorless canvas, splashed and dripping and glowing with paint. And every night, whether or not I or anyone watches, there's a different painting. Brand new and age-old at the same moment. And I’m Queen of the heavens, watching this exhibition from up above it all…
Okay, so I’m flying in an airplane at sunset, on Halloween night. But it feels good to remind myself to see it as if for the first time. I’ve been flying a lot these days, sometimes once a week. I’ve been noticing that lately I hardly ever look out the window anymore when I fly. How did it become so ordinary to me?
But I actually like the bustle of airports. No, really, I mean it. Watching people in the transitions of transportation. Everyone’s on their way to or from somewhere, to or from someone. Too far from someone. Temporarily untethered. Just like me. Time is suspended on a flying day. People drink in the bars in the morning, drink coffee late into the evening, eat dinner food at breakfast time, and sleep in flight, regardless of the time of day. You never know what time their day started or when it’ll end, how many time zones they’ll go through, or who waits on the other side of the flight. I love to watch the drama of greetings and partings. Once I watched a couple reuniting most un-self-consciously at the Tucson airport. Actually I stared pretty blatantly, enviously even, and wondered about their story. I think that’s what I like so much about the movies- having permission to eavesdrop on people’s stories. I never get tired of watching how people navigate through love and loss, conflict and reconciliation. And long-distance travel.
I have to admit, one thing I like to watch from the airplane window is the capital building when I’m flying home to Austin. No matter where I’ve been, coming home to Austin is always a great feeling. Tonight, coming back from Los Angeles, I’ll walk off the plane in my home airport. My feet already know the way down to baggage claim without me directing them. I know where my white guitar case will be birthed out of the oversized luggage canal. I know the airport sound system, programmed by our friend Nancy Coplin, only plays local musicians; maybe the music of someone I know will welcome me home. I love that moment of passing through the automatic doors into the real air outside. I know the weather will probably be as nice as wherever I’ve been. And I’ll be on my way to my own home, my own bed, tonight. Until the next trip.
March 08, 2005 The Gift
I went to hear Chris Gage and Christine Albert play last Saturday. It was one of Chris’s first shows back after his emergency back surgery. The accordion is off-limits for a while yet, but his guitar and piano-playing lit up the room as usual. Chris is a bright shining star in the Austin acoustic music scene. His playing is completely stellar; miraculous almost, except that I know he didn’t get to be that way by magic. It seems to me that his talent and his work ethic must have met in the middle, early on in his career, and become life partners.
But beyond that he is a gentle soul and a generous friend. Friends show up to his gigs, and he’s always ready to invite them to sit in. And then he knows their songs as well (if not better) than they do. I’m always thrilled to get to play with him.
Throughout Chris’s recovery, the community rallied around, helping with food, donations, a silent auction, and finally a grand benefit concert, to help with medical costs and lost income. It was a huge turnout, and proof of what a community can do.
Listening to Chris and Christine play, I looked around the room and watched our friends listen to them play. It seemed like there was a feeling of triumph in the air. It’s a beautiful thing when someone can ask for (and accept) help when they need it. Chris and Christine probably felt they were the ones receiving the gift of their friends’ support, but it's such a gift to the rest of us be able to help the people we care about. There’s nothing more important. So often we feel helpless; we wish we could do something, when there is really nothing we can do.
That same week we lost Rachel Bissex to a battle with cancer, and Bruce Rouse to a sudden heart attack. We couldn’t, of course, help them. So now we’re all going around trying to figure out how to grieve, how to help the ones left behind. That’s why it’s such a gift when we can do something. It also reminds me that there are lots of us who need help, and have a hard time asking for it. Before Rachel passed, she sent out a beautiful note explaining that it would be impossible to talk to or email all of her friends. Instead she invited us to:
“Maybe just look at your own life…treat each day and each person as if it’s the last time you’ll see them, as if they were the most precious thing…please email someone else you know, someone who needs a friend, someone who may need to hear that you love them. That will be a gift to me. “
December 15, 2004 Mostly Florida
DECEMBER 3
Yesterday I flew to Nashville to meet up with Laurie McClain for our annual Mostly- Florida tour. Nine shows in 13 days. I’ve been crazy about Laurie’s songwriting from the first song I ever heard her sing. It was in Nashville a few years back, when our friend Mike Williams took me to see a songwriter round she was in.
Last week at Radio Shack I bought an inverter, or --for the gadget un-initiates—a device that converts your car cigarette lighter into a wall socket. So I can type away on my laptop while Laurie drives and listens to her new iPod. I don’t have a TV, a microwave, or a camera even, and I’m always trying to live more simply. But I have a laptop, cell phone, an inverter and a GPS. The irony of this is not lost on me.
We are driving through a gorgeous stretch of road from Knoxville, TN, where we played last night, to Weaverville, NC. Don’t know where Weaverville is? Don’t worry, my GPS does. We’ll visit with a friend of Laurie’s for a bit, then drive on to Greenville, SC.
It’s an impossibly sunny day, driving into the mountains, and we keep flirting with the French Broad River, which weaves around the road. Wait, I think it’s probably the road that was built around the river, not the other way around. Seeing the water makes me wish I could stop and paddle, but we are headed for a Thai curry lunch that Laurie’s friend has promised on our arrival.
DECEMBER 5
We made it to Florida today. Warm weather and bare feet. Drove 11 hours, from north of Atlanta all the way to Naples. I love driving south; stepping out of the car eagerly at each rest/gas stop to feel how much the temperature has risen since the last stop. It helps your body understand how far you're really travelling, the way driving east/west into another time zone does. Almost catching up with the sun.
Both Laurie and our host for the evening have each gone to bed, and I am wide awake at 1 a.m., wishing I were outside. I can smell the warm, humid night air, whispering into the window next to my bed as I type. My favorite kind of air. We’ve the next 2 days off, and are headed for the Keys to see what we can see, and to find some water to play in.
DECEMBER 7
Yesterday, driving southeast from Naples, we stopped in Everglades National Park for a short hike. A real day off. Our first alligator sighting. We saw a couple right along the edge of the little road leading to the entrance to the trail, and actually wondered for a moment if they were real We weren’t five minutes into the trail when I was stung by a wasp, but I forgot about it quickly. We hiked for a couple hours among the sawgrass and the little canals and saw all kinds of birds, and snakes too.
We decided to get a cheap motel in Key Largo, instead of pressing on towards Key West, which is an extra 2 hours down the 2-lane causeway. We had a great meal at an outdoor restarant, right by a boat dock, and enjoyed a leisurely sunset and fresh fish.
Today we had a grand adventure on a snorkeling boat. Laurie had never been before. The boat took us 5 miles offshore to 2 different coral reefs. It was a bit windy so the visibility wasn’t the greatest but still there were lots of fish to see and swim with. It was so thrilling just to be swimming in the ocean again. And the water was 79 degrees! Ever since hanging out on the 51-degree Colorado this summer, water everywhere else seems warmer than it would have felt a year ago. Sort of like living in a smaller city after you’ve lived in a big one like New York. Things like driving, parking, surviving, making a living--by comparison seem easier.
We shared the boat with a crew of 2, a family of 3, and 5-member film crew from a British television travel show called “Wish You Were Here”. It was big fun talking with them and seeing the experience through a documentarian’s eyes. And yes, you guessed it, we had our instruments along and played some music while they filmed. Who knows, we may make it onto TV in the UK. The whole film crew bought CDs, which paid for our expedition and then some. We got back to shore just before sunset and Laurie and I both felt like a million bucks.
DECEMBER 9
Had a really good show last night. Laurie and I seem to be hitting our stride as a duo, after a few shows together.
We returned to the Everglades today and rented a tandem kayak. The weather was perfect; hot but with just enough cloud cover to stay comfortable. We paddled up a canal for a few hours. You meet the most interesting kinds of tourists out in nature. We paddled alongside a couple of guys from Holland, lent them our bug repellant, and sang them a song. We didn’t have enough time to get up into the narrow canals, but had a great afternoon of it anyway. Cuban food for dinner.
DECEMBER 11
Well, we’ve finished our book on CD so I am back to typing in the car again. We are reluctantly starting to make our way back north, towards Sarasota.
Yesterday we spent a magnificent day at the beach in Hollywood. Leo the lifeguard lent us 2 pairs of goggles and I swam and swam in the ocean and played in the surf. We also shot some photos for my new record, but it was so windy… not sure if we got anything. The water was 79 degrees again, and the air mid-80’s.
Played our CD release concert for our live record at the Main St Café, and later stayed up until 3 soaking in the hot tub, visiting and playing music with our host for the night, Ellen Bukstel. She is a lovely singer, has a duo with her brother. (see bukstel.com) This morning a “cold” front came through, and I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of the hot days for this tour.
DECEMBER 13
Suddenly we are at the end of the tour. Last stop Jacksonville. We played lunch and dinner sets at the Listening Post Café, a new venue with a completely delightful, musician-friendly atmosphere. (listeningpostcafe.com ) The people here are wonderful, and the menus are old record jackets. One last chance for a walk on the beach, and tomorrow we get in the car and drive 600 miles back to Nashville.
DECEMBER 15
Sitting at the Houston airport now, on a layover. A tumble of Christmas gift commercials is falling out of the TV overhead. After 2-weeks of being constantly together, Laurie and I parted this morning. It’s a remarkable sort of microcosm of an intimate relationship, touring as a duo with someone. You get to know each other pretty quickly, and before long you start speaking for each other when people ask if you are hungry, tired, etc…. You learn about the other person, and about yourself, too, through the other person’s eyes. How do you react under pressure, running late with confusing directions, dubious accommodations? Who gets to drive when we’re both tired?
September 12, 2004 Wine, Music and Fire Ants
I played last weekend at the Kerrville Wine and Music Festival, the abbreviated version of the 18-day festival that happens around Memorial Day. As always, there was music overflowing at the Quiet Valley Ranch, both onstage and in the campground. All day and and all night the notes spilled into the air like pockets of upside-down rain. I reconnected with friends, played music with new ones. There was more music than the few days could hold.
The best night of all was the last one, which was an unexpected bonus. I'd planned to leave Monday when the festival officially ended, but spontaneously decided to stay over an extra night. It had rained heavily all Monday morning, and my campmates and I couldn't get in the mood to pack up the wet pop-up camper and tents in the rain, and then haul the big wet mass of gear home.
We went into town for lunch Monday and when we got back to the campground the energy had palpably shifted; the majority of the people had left. We'd missed the whole whirlwind of campers packing up and driving away. Later we built a fire and invited all the other stragglers we could find back to our camp for one last song circle. After the bustle of the weekend, it was lovely to sit leisurely and play music with no other agenda, no mainstage acts to miss, no other campfires calling out with other great song circles. And I wasn't even supposed to be there.
> I was playing upright bass when I started to feel something like stinging needles on my foot. Now the the physics of the upright bass means you can't really hold the thing and at the same time reach your foot with your hand to brush the ants away. And you can't really move to another spot while still playing. I was playing on a song I'd never heard before and concentrating hard so I just figured I'd wait it out until the end of the song. How bad could it be, right? Maybe you're wondering why it didn't occur to me to just lay the thing down on the ground and save my foot. I was just too stubborn to give in and stop what I was doing. Guess I'd never had much experience with fire ant bites.
> I do now. The next day I counted 57 bites on my left foot. If a typical song is three minutes long that's about one bite every 3 seconds. At the end of the song we discovered sure enough, the ants weren't just stragglers, like us. I'd stepped on top of their whole campground, and their festival was still going full-swing. August 23, 2004 Notes from the Grand Canyon
This summer I spent eighteen days in the Grand Canyon on a rafting trip. 226 miles on the Colorado River. Here is the journal I kept, mostly unedited. The names of each day's entry refer to the places we camped the previous night. (Please check back in October to see photos from the trip.)
JULY 20, 2004 DAY 1-- LEES FERRY
I woke up in the Grand Canyon for the first time today. Pink pearly dawn and red rusty rocks decorating the blue, blue, blue. So large my eyes can't take it in all at once.
It's true what I'd been told: that I wouldn't want to sleep in my tent. Unless it is raining. It is the monsoon season. You might get all the rain you are going to get forthe whole year in 30 minutes. So there I was, lying on my Paco pad, and when I opened my eyes I had a banquet of the whole sky. Ear to ear, face to face, cliff to cliff, north to south and east to west.
Last night we played music and looked at stars for the first of many nights. The stars in an uncluttered skyline are not something you just look up to see. They are sprinkled from horizon to horizon, all around the globe, a blanket around the earth. I remember in Manhattan how the stars were framed in rectangular boxes, the straight edges and right angles of buildings. Like looking through the peephole at who's coming to visit, but here the door is more than open. It's off its hinges, in storage, back in civilization.
DAY 2--BADGER CREEK mile 8
After hours of rigging the boats, inspection by the park ranger, more rigging, lunch, breaking down camp for a first awkward time, more rigging, we pushed off for our first day of boating. My first rapid ride!
The ranger examined all our driver's licenses and recorded our social security numbers. He inspected the life jackets ($100 fine for not wearing one on the river, even on flat water) and all the gear. Then he narrated an hour-long slide show about the canyon. Safety, cleanliness, wildlife, lots of statistics, protocol for all manner of things. Condors with a nine-foot wing span, scorpions, rattlesnakes, caves, ancient artifacts, hand signals for distress. I didn't expect the absolute reverence about the handling of the canyon. We may leave nothing behind except the earth's memory of the weight of our bodies: our footprints. And soon enough the wind will come to tousle the sand like a smiling parent and blur the prints away. As if we'd never been here at all. The bent branches of the river willow bushes will dust themselves off and stand up straight again, heading back inevitably toward the sun.
We passed the landmark 10- MILE ROCK, a huge slab of rock 20 feet high and wide just standing there on its edge in the middle of the river. What could that have sounded like when it fell? And why did it stop on its edge instead of flipping over?
Our second camp at Badger Creek had a side canyon that I hiked before dinner with our trip leader. I kept stepping into clay-like mud and then enjoying the feeling of washing it off in the next murky pool of water. The canyon walls are mostly just rock shooting up steeply from the water, and every now and then there is a patch of sandy beach for a campsite. All the campsites have names and mile markers on the map, and the idea is to shoot for the ones that are spacious and have good shade, and then hope another party doesn't claim it before we get there. (We ocasionally pass commercial groups on the river, or more accurately, they pass us with their motorized rigs. But on land we mostly do not see anyone else.)
Although there is no trace of anyone having been there before us, you can see where the flat spots have been bedrooms, where the kitchen must have been set up,
where someone tied off their boat to a tree. Badger Creek was near a rapid so instead of playing music after dinner we let the sound of the water wash us to sleep.
THE BOATS
We have 7 rafts, which are loaded down with an astonishing amount of gear, including an elaborate kitchen and mountains of food to go with it. The ice is intended to last 10 days. After that point the food is dried and freeze-dried. Each raft, fully loaded, weighs around 1000 pounds. Darting around the rafts, 4 of our party paddle kayaks. They are lovely to watch-playful as puppies and graceful as a leaf in the wind. Like dolphins riding the wake of a whale. The kayakers have more flexibility; they can paddle right up to the edge of the river to touch the wall, or a trickling spring. They can go faster, can go up ahead or back upriver easily. They are important to have on a trip because it is they who can facilitate a rescue if someone swims (=falls in the river!) But the rafts carry all their gear and food, so it is a symbiotic relationship.
DAY 3 LOWER NORTH CANYON mile 21
Yesterday I learned to trust my sandals. And that the rattlesnake antivenom costs $70,000.
We overshot the spot where we were supposed to stop and hike a side canyon, so a few of us walked back upriver towards it. Big chunks of red sandstone randomly lingering this way and that. They were mostly flat rocks, and easy to walk on, although sometimes sticking on the ground on
crazy diagonals, edge or corner straight up. My sandals were heroic. They have quickly become an extension of my body.
Camp last night was just below a rapid, and several rafts were unable to cross the current and make it to the beach. They were stuck a bit downstream so there was some grand drama leading them back upstream. The wind was high, the hour was late and the rain was threatening. With some help from people on shore who helped pull the boats as they rowed upriver, we all made it. I shouted hoorays and praises to each rower as their boat staggered up to the beach.
TEMPERATURE
Life on the river is a pendulum of hot and cold, constantly switching back and forth. The air is twice as hot as the water. When the river is calm: I become hot in all my clothing, despite the swamp cooler effect of the water. A hot breeze blows off the walls which store so much heat. A cool breeze blows off the water. A wave crashes on us: instant cold. I had an idea of colliding, interacting Hot and Cold, painted in colors you could see. A graceful dance, a cinematic fantasy.
DAY 4 SOUTH CANYON mile 32
The Roaring 20's. This is a stretch of river miles with lots of rapids close together.
Last night I had a late night of it, playing music with Bill and a handful of others. Bill brought a guitar and I brought a mandolin on the trip. Music is my primary job here, along with the kitchen, and not falling off the boat. All the people on the trip like to dance, which is so delightful! Music takes on a different divinity and purity out here. With no recorded anything, nothing electronic except our cameras, music after dinner feels like what it must have before the TV age. Everyone is so appreciative and always ready for more songs. I've taken to playing at breakfast too, to help bless the day. Bill is so good at improvising and lighting up the nights with fun. We played last night until I don't know when. I have no watch and so there is no time unless someone tells it to me. I sleep when I am ready and wake up when I am done.
THE RIDE
How do you describe the ride? A friend of mine who'd been on the trip said to me: I hope you like roller coasters. But that's not quite it... You don't fall off the track on the roller coaster. Running the big rapids can feel chaotic and and unpredictable. The roller coaster gives the same ride each
time. The rapids are classified by number, 10 being the highest and most difficult. The ones that don't quite deserve a number are called riffles.
What a great word.
It starts out gracefully, waves rolling under you in a gentle rocking. Feels like slow motion when you look at the big water you are heading for. Then the rhythms intensify, the waters turn whiter, higher, and David at the oars manages to guide the boat through. Sometimes we are knocked around, sometimes we crawl up waves and glide right over the top of them. Sometimes the wave slams us in a loud rush, sometimes I barely get wet. Once the raft was suspended in mid-air for a few seconds. But it is always thrilling. I like to laugh out loud or sing to the water's rhythms. And I can't manage to be afraid at all. I suppose I would if I were at the oars, but it is not in my control, and my raftmate is a master oarsman. I am happy to trust him. The worst that could happen is that we flip before it's over, and I know I'd be okay.
My seat on David's raft is on the front of the boat, high off the water. Most of the time we are in front of the other boats, setting the pace for the expedition. This means that I, on my royal seat, have a completely unobstructed and pristine view as we float downriver. I've been given the nickname Queen Bee (also Singing Feather). I have been writing in my journal on the raft on the calm stretches, so it is a constant dance of writing and stuffing the journal back into my dry bag as I gauge the size of what's up ahead and how wet it will be.
August 22, 2004 Grand Canyon Part 2
DAY 5 SADDLE CANYON mile 47
At Red Wall Cavern we stopped for lunch and took turns howling for echoes. We hauled the instruments out and Bill and I played while every single person in the tribe danced and cavorted. At camp I fell asleep early and slept through the night. It was the best sleep I've had in a long time.
AIR WATER AND SAND
The air is 100 plus degrees and the river water is 51 degrees. It is our life, our highway, our cooler, our comfort from the heat, and our adversary all in one. I am always in a state of partially wet, partially sandy. We constantly flirt with the water when we are not on it. The air is so hot we wet our clothes for relief. They feel icy, then they dry and we wet them again. We dip in, briefly! We haul it up in buckets to rinse dishes, wash hands, pour it
in the hot sand around our campsites to cool the sand and make it easier for walking. But you don't want to be in it for long. Hypothermia can set in after 15 minutes; you start to lose motor skills pretty quickly.
We are averaging 20 gallons of water per day. 160 pounds for 14 people. Yesterday we stopped at Vacey's Paradise, where we pumped water from a stream, through a filter, and filled up our jugs. It was a lovely scene. We bathed in the clean water, and and took turns lying in the stream
getting our hair washed. Anywhere there is water, patches of green spring up in bursts.
We discovered pretty quickly that the best way to wash hair is to lie across the deck on someone's boat
and have a friend wash it. The water doesn't feel icy that way. We also carry camp showers, 5-gallon bags that heat up in the sun and give us hot showers at the end of the day.
Sand is as present as air and water. Sand in my shoes is replaced as soon as it's washed away. In my ears, cuticles, crusted in my drinking cup (take a drink anyway), in my scalp after I wash my hair, kissing the corners of my eyes in the morning. Sometimes I leave it in my washed clothes;
just shake it out when they dry. Sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night I find I am chewing on sand when I thought my mouth was empty. I wondered aloud how much sand we will end up eating on the trip. Thelma and Mike said when we get back home we'll be adding sand to our
food because we will crave the added flavor.
DAY 6 PALISADES mile 66
Hiked to the grainaries today, a popular hike; one that you see in postcards. The hikes are always intensely steep and hot, especially as you get away from the river and your clothes dry. They are always half hike, half climb. But today we were granted a blessed overcast sky. What a gift. I stopped and did a rain dance on the way up and I think Bill filmed it. It worked.
Tying off the boats when we get to camp is always a thrilling time of day. We have the whole night ahead of us for fun and music and dancing. We scurry up from the boats, excited to get the lay of the land and pick our campsites. Each person picks a spot by dropping a piece of clothing or gear on the spot they want. Then we set up the kitchen and living room in a large flat space and start cooking dinner.
THE KITCHEN
I am in charge of kitchen set-up and break down, and usually take part in cooking as well. The kitchen is 3 tables, a stove (with legs) a grill, dutch ovens, lots of pots and pans, griddles, shelves, a hand and dishwashing system with a simple pump that uses river water, a pantry with spices and other supplies, silverware and utensil bags, a drying rack, trash and recycling bags. It takes a bit of time to set up but each time it becomes more
streamlined. The food is incredible. Three or four people, who have done the trip before, masterminded all the food so impressivley. This is not just granola and power bars: we have lovely exquisite gourmet meals every night.
DAY 7 NEVILLS mile 76
Stopped for a short hike at the Anasazi ruins. Shards of pottery, stones left over from ancient homes. We got to camp early and despite the unrelenting sun it was delightful to be still for a bit. There is much less down time than I'd thought, between boating and hiking and food-making. Sat under umbrellas with Jayson and read and wrote in the journal. Lasagna for dinner, music afterward. We fashioned a capo with a spoon and a clamp and serenaded the cleanup crew. It was the most magical night yet.
THE TRIBE
Three weeks with 14--and only 14-- people in the wilderness. We quickly went beyond friends and became a tribe. We are taking care of each other, and sometimes literally saving lives. As civilization falls away so does all manner of self-consciousness-- replaced with the easy intimacy of family. We've learned to notice and treasure each other's idiosyncrasies, food sensitivities (no nuts for Jayson, no onions for Karen). Everyone is a leader in their own way. Everyone's strengths help them find their roles in the community: the food and itinerary planners, the margarita master oarsman, the heroic protector, the agile graceful climber, the keeper of the kitchen, the fire and wildlife expert, the endearing mischievous one, the funny entertainer, the gentle one, the free spirit, the nurse, the motherly one, the nurturing healer, the loner. Which one would you be?
DAY 8 CREMATION mile 87
Arrived at camp at 3. Cremation is named because there is little shade and so is scorching hot, but our luck was a cloudy day. We ferried across the street. Phantom Ranch, just across the river, is the one place on the river you can hike out (5-hour hike) to the rim. We picked up another passenger there. It's the only bit of semi-civilization on the river, with cabins and a small store where we bought fresh-squeezed lemonade and postcards that are carried out by mule. We saw a bunch of people who were a lot cleaner than us. Also Bright Angel Creek, which was warm and flanked by greenery. So lovely to see different shades of green from the solemn, majestic, darkish quiet greens. Around the springs you see more of the yellows, and brighter merrier greens.
A light sprinkle as we set up our campsites. It was brief but the first real rain we've had and I got to smell the hot sand absorbing the water. I looked up, waiting for a rainbow, and it painted itself in the sky right before my watching eyes. It started as a dim translucense, then bloomed into brightness, then doubled itself, stretching unencumbered from one canyon wall to the other. I slept in a tent for the first time. Missed the sky.
Today at Granite Rapid (8) we flipped a raft. A couple of us were at the bottom of the rapid with the boats tied off, waiting for the rest to come through, when I heard a yell: get in the boats; somebody flipped! The rafters and kayakers rallied around trying to corral the flipped raft and rescue the swimmers. I watched Big Steve reach down and pull Jenny out of the water with one hand, rowing with the other. We all pulled over to the shore
when the boat was secured and set to work flipping the raft back over. Yesterday a rower was thrown from her boat, and her passenger had to take the oars. We pulled her onto our boat and let her catch her breath and warm up before going back to the oars.
Working as a team. Food, water, warmth, cold, the canyon walls, the river, music, and each other. That's all we have. That's all we need.
DAY 9 BOUCHER mile 96
Felt our first monsoon as we were setting up camp last night. And WIND! We were trying to cook dinner when it started coming down heavily. We put a fly over the kitchen but it took 5 of us to hold down the poles in the crazy winds. For the first time since the first day I put on my fleece jacket, under my poncho, and it felt like the most luxurious garment I've ever had. Slept in a tent for the second time, up on the highest point of the camp.
Day 10 and 11 LOWER BASS CAMP
Our first layover. Two glorious nights in the same spot. I spent the afternoon setting up camp leisurely, washing and cutting people's hair, showering, visiting, taking a lovely nap before dinner preparations. Green chile enchiladas.
We arose leisurely the next day, enjoying not packing up. We went on a hard and steep hike, and at end we were met by a perfect wading hole of clear cool water with smooth rocks in the shade for lying and lingering. And green everywhere. Back at camp, pleasantly tired out and hot from the hike back, I had a beautiful hot shower; one of the best showers of my life.
August 21, 2004 Grand Canyon Part 3
DAY 12 BELOW FOSSIL CANYON mile 125
The ice is gone. Hard to belive it lasted this long. The only produce left is apples and oranges and baby carrots. Doctor Bronner's lavender soap makes my clothes happy. A welcome change from river-smell.
I am sitting at the edge of the river, looking at Crystal Rapid. (9) We always scout the big ones. We pull over and tie off the boats just above the rapid and hike down to where we can see the whole rapid. Then everyone huddles and talks about options for the best way to run it. I love to listen to them. I've learned a little about reading the water, but still, it basically looks like a chaotic bunch of big wild water. And from the shore it doesn't look nearly as big as when you're in it.
DAY 13 TAPEATS mile 134
Another spectacular hike to Elves Chasm. Felt like a pilgrimage to get the waterfalll at the end of the hike. And greens and moss. We jumped from a ledge through the waterfall into a pool below. We clustered on a rock like seals.
Flipped another raft today. Bedrock rapid. It was a little scary to see the giant boulder in the middle of the rapid getting closer and closer. That makes 8 of us who have swum so far.
What a lovely camp. A fresh spring that we hiked up along , burbling through the entire camp and mixing into the Colorado. One of my favorite memories was here: Nancy showing me how to pick watercress from the stream for our salad. So welcome, since all the lettuce is gone.
DAY 14 LEDGES
Two water hikes yesterday! At Deer Creek we did a steep hike to Deer Spring and waded. But back at the bottom there was a spectacular waterfall, 50 feet high. We inched as close to it as we could, in the pool at the bottom. It creates its own wind, and of course misty air flies everywhere. Nancy held my hands and I leaned backwards until my head almost touched the water and felt and saw the water as if it was shooting up. I stood in the
pool, watching, listening, breathing deep, feeling the moist and overwhelming power of the thing. What a rare treat in the desert to feel moist air. The air went to a deeper place in my lungs and I felt healing come in to me. A greater sense of well-being I have never had. Everything is right in the world, after all.
Matkatamiba Canyon was unlike anything I had ever seen or imagined. Hiking through a very narrow canyon, (sometimes only a few feet) through water sometimes chest-high. Climbing up and up, over smooth rock, small channels. At the top a large open space with the canal darting this way and that, forming small pools and descending over the smooth rock like little waterslides. We played in the water, damming up the flow with our behinds, sliding down first on our backs,
then on our fronts, riding the rush when the dam opened. I slid and giggled and slopped and crashed, and best of all-- the water was WARM!! Heavenly.
A very echo-ey camp made for good music. So quiet and sacred. There was a trickle of a stream and Julie and I filled up buckets to take down to the river by the boats. We washed each other's hair and bathed in the clean cool water. It feels like a holiday to get all the way clean all at once like that, after getting so dirty from a day of using my body the way it was meant to be used. Like being born again. Everything smells good. Everything feels possible.
DAY 15 FERN GLEN
There was a solemn feeling in the air this morning at breakfast. I could smell people preparing for Lava Rapid. A ten. It is spomething of a pinnacle. Close to the end of the trip, the biggest one. the King. After Lava it's mostly flatwater.
We stopped to scout. What a churning mass of crazy water. A few of the rowers had their oars knocked out of their hands. One might have flipped if the passenger hadn't thrown her body weight almost over the side of the raft that was sticking straight up into the air. But nobody swam, nobody flipped. It was almost anticlimactic. (dare I say it)
DAY 18 DIAMOND RANCH mile 226
The journal entries have trickled down to nothing. Towards the end of the trip I have become unwilling to be anywhere, except directly IN the experience. (i.e.not recording or commenting on it) The last days and hours, the last views, the last conversations and playful moments with my tribe.
There's an almost desperate effort to soak up as much grandeur, as much clean air and wilderness, as much adventure and love as possible.
A couple mornings ago we were rigging up to leave and I said that I still hadn't been in the river over my head. When Julie (the Devil Otter) heard this she decided it was her responsibility to fix this. After a brief struggle I let her drag me in to the river, but I didn't let go, so we both went in. The water, at this point, had warmed up considerably and it felt really wonderful.
The last morning was somber. Abbreviated breakfast and a float of only an hour or so to get to the takeout. What followed was a flurry of motion so fast I couldn't keep up emotionally. Breaking down, deflating rafts, derigging for the last time. All the gear was loaded into a truck, and before I knew it I was soaking in our river for the last time.
It's funny how memory works , and how present turns into past in the blink of an eye. During the trip, the days seemed to fly by. But there was still a sense that we had all the time in the world. The only only evidence of time passing was the rising of the sun and the mile markers on the river map. Eternal present, right up to the moment we started derigging at the takeout. Then we climbed into a motor vehicle (?!?!?!), and the river, the
canyon, the adventure, was instantly banished to the realm of memory, to lie on the big banquet table. Now it keeps company there with memories of folk music festivals, theatre tours, summers in Wisconsin, old loves, childhood, college days, friends who have moved on, and visions of northern lights, meteor showers and Venus in the early morning.
When the Grand was my future, my daydreams about it were vague and in the darkness. Now that's past I remember it achingly, wistfully. But when it was my present... I had everything I needed. From the first day I let go of the rest of the world, and of tomorrow. Only Today was real. So the question is how to take that back into my life. The only things that mattered: respecting the river and the canyon, taking care of the gear because that's all the gear we had, and taking care of each other.
Maybe back in the world that's still all that matters: respect our earth, treat the gear like it's the only gear you'll ever have, and take care of each
other. What else is there?
EPILOGUE: REENTRY
One night Rosemary joked: Forget about Lava rapid. How are we going to deal with reentry?
Sleeping under a roof. What is that white thing so close to my head? Feeling so small suddenly. Washing my own hair again. Eyesight cut off by borders, walls, curtains over glass windows. I dream of water and sand, and motion. An odd sense of being dry. And without my tribe. The transition has been a challenge.
I dreamed someone gave me the gift of being able to re-write the end of the play (the trip). At one point on the river I'd had a daydream that we'd get to the takeout and there'd be no one there to meet us. We'd just keep on floating...
But I really do like my life. This became especially clear when I played my first gig back in Austin, a week after takeout. I was so excited to be reunited with my instruments and my bandmates and the Music. It took me that long to get back to the present.
Would I rewrite the end of the play if I could?
I will leave that to the imagination.
October 12, 2003 Blue Paper Coffee Cups
Last week I played drove into Manhattan to play at the Post Crypt for the first time. First time at the Post Crypt, on the Columbia campus; not my first time driving into Manhattan. I lived on the Upper West Side for many years after college.
I navigated through the spaghetti network of highways to get onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, and approached the toll booth: Gateway into the City. Seems fitting that the road physically goes downward at this point. I felt that old shift in my body. My pulse sped up. I sat up straighter in my seat, my vision became sharper, more focussed, even in the back of my head, as I fell in with New York drivers, changing lanes with gusto. I was excited. Anything could happen.
It's a funny thing; when I return to NY I always feel so much more at home than when I lived there. I'm visiting friends, I already know where everything is, how to get around, and usually I am playing a show that I am excited about.
I'm always startled by the sensory overload. By the juxtaposition of car exhaust and concrete with an overwhelming assortment of fresh flowers, and the best produce in the world spilling out of every corner bodega. There is just so much data for the senses to process. Anything could happen.
The show was great; the Post Crypt is a magical space that creates a real sense of event. A shared bill with my friends Erik Balkey and Laurie MacAllister. (please visit erikbalkey.com and lauriemacallister.com)
We stayed in Laurie's West Village apartment. The next morning was a gorgeous, warm, and unimaginably sunny day. We went down to the the corner and sat on a stoop lingering over coffee and watching people. Blue paper cups with Greek symbols; the same ones they had in the old days. Out of nostalgia I had what used to be my favorite breakfast. A toasted poppy seed bagel with cream cheese and tomato. Mmmm.
There is a certain smell on a Sunday morning in Manhattan. Coffee, of course, perfumes and bath products as people walk by, and new sunshine. But more than that there is a certain slackness of the usual pace that is palpable, almost smellable. Less hairspray and aftershave, maybe. Fewer suits and more sweatpants. Sunday morning leisure. Anything could happen.
Of course it's romantic as an outsider to think that anything could happen, and it's true enough. But what everyone on the inside of their own life knows, wherever they live, is that more often than not.....nothing does.
July 18, 2003 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival
I'd heard from so many people about the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Woody's hometown of Okemah, OK. This summer I built it into my schedule.
I started the weekend off by playing at the Senior Citizens Center, where I sang some songs over lunch and met June Neal, an elegant 72-year-old yodeler. She asked me to stop by her shop in town. When I asked the name of the store she said: oh, the sign fell down a while back but it says 'shop til you drop' in the window. I went by later and she yodeled for me; a song she'd written for her pet squirrel Katie.
I wasn't slated to play the festival, but by the time the weekend was up I'd sat in with some folks on all the stages. Every night there was all-night picking in the parking lot of the one motel in town, where most of the performers were staying. 3 or 4 hours a night was plenty of sleep. Playing music always seems to generate energy rather than deplete it. Funny how that works.
Someone asked me later: Does everyone just play Woody Guthrie songs all weekend? The answer is no, but there is a beauty and comfort in feeling Woody's presence like a thread that weaves through the whole festival. Not to mention his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids running around backstage. Life goes forward. Babies are born, the tradition is carried on. And periodically someone sings a Woody song, and no one ever gets tired of hearing them.
This is a free festival-- the listeners do not pay; the performers donate their time; the folks who run the festival are all volunteers. The lineup of performers was incredible. Many return every year, because they're dedicated to the spirit of the festival. The final set on Saturday night was Pete Seeger (who had the shortest bio in the program) and Arlo Guthrie. A complete thrill. Now my job is to take those moments, like fuel, back into my everyday life. I think they are what keep a lot of us going through the hard work, through the solitude of self-improvement, and through the quietly ordinary moments. December 17, 2002 Irish music in New York
I took a last-minute trip to New York last week to play some traditonal Irish music with my old friend, award-winning fiddle player Brian Conway. (check out his new record-- First Through the Gate on Smithsonian Folkways)I first met Brian 10 years ago when I was lurking around the Irish music scene in the pubs in New York City. Truth is I was on assignment that winter: my friends and I at the American Folklore Theatre were preparing to mount a show based on Irish folk music, stories and humor. At the time I was spending my winters in New York.
I began to sit in at the sessions, meekly playing along in the corner on backing guitar, trying to understand this powerful music for the first time. As I became more involved I started learning to sing songs and play the tunes on the mandolin. I even acquired a fiddle and took some lessons from Brian, who's always been a bit disappointed that I did not follow through with it...
From time to time Brian invites me back to New York to play music with him at his sessions and private parties, although I play so little Irish music anymore. It is a great honor, although I feel a bit of an imposter... When asked, I regretfully say I have no Irish blood in me, but I love this tradition. I am completely in love with the idea of folks sitting in a circle all playing the same tune many times in a row, with small variations and ornaments maybe, but the bottom line is the gravity of the reverence for the tunes. It is not about individuals shining so much as the music itself shining. It is completely old, and yet it never gets old.
What a lovely change of pace from what I usually do, which is reluctant self-promotion, and struggling to come up with new material. In Irish circles, the musicians are delighted to play the same tunes again and again and again and again. August 14, 2002 A Midsummer Nights Music
It's twilight, in a garden, under the stars in a Northern Wisconsin sky. I'm sitting on a blanket with my sweetheart and a bottle of wine, watching Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream. Sound divine? Even better: I'm listening to original music and sound design that I composed for this production. It's an outrageous feeling; and a brand new one.
I've been resident composer for the Door Shakespeare Company in Baileys Harbor, WI for the last several years. (see www.doorshakespeare.com) But this is the first year my schedule allowed me to sit in the audience and watch the finished production. Usually I have to run off before rehearsals have even ended. Other times, I've performed in the production. So this is brand new.
Midsummer Nights Dream is a play so much about romance and magic. It also takes place in a forest, and here it is being performed in a garden. I created underscoring for all the places magic happens in the show. Plus a couple of songs that Shakespeare wrote into the play, a dance, an overture, scene-change music, and theme music for various characters that underscores their entances. Here's the trick: there is no budget for a pit orchestra. The acting company takes turns playing the music in a delicately choreographed dance to and from the pit when they are not onstage. On the first day of rehearsal I had my doubts, but as I watch, they pull it off beautifully and seamlessly. I am so impressed by how hard they've worked.
Even better still: the house manager plays my CD before the show, at intermission, and post-show. People are buying the CD. And all I'm doing is sitting on a blanket under the stars with my sweetheart, smiling with pride and laughing my way through an enchanted evening.
August 04, 2002 Side trip to Connecticut
Chester and Millicent Mal, my folks, have lived in the same house in Plainville, CT for nearly 35 years. In the last 15 years I've moved somewhere around 20 times. Wow. No wonder I don't have much stuff.
Chris and I decided to surprise my parents for their 40th wedding anniversary party. 40 years seems like something worth honoring.
They sure were surprised. We strode into the backyard party with an armful of gladiolus and a sack full of corn for the grill. Hmm. No one seemed to notice us. Should I have yelled surprise? Should we turn around and try entering again? Funny how we can get so used to what belongs in our view, when we see something incongruous, impossible, or out of place, it's hard to react to its being there. At least that's what I think happened. It's better than thinking that nobody was excited to see us.
Then the shock wore off and they were both very thrilled. HOW did you manage it without us knowing? my mother asked all weekend. I felt sure that with her powers of sense, she would have literally smelled my presence when I got to town, if she hadn't read my mind 1000 miles away.
I asked what the secret is of keeping it together 40 years. Mother said one word: Commitment. Not very romantic, maybe, but she also added I'd be lost without him. Father's turn. He looked out over the party noise, the food table, the cousins, all 3 children present at the same time, his life partner, and most especially-- the 3 grandchildren, and said: Consider the alternative.
July 24, 2002 Slugs on the tailpiece
It's not every day that you open your violin case and see slugs going about their business on the tailpiece. I came home from 3 weeks on the road to a water-logged walk-in closet, plus an entire new ecosystem in there.
I live in a very wonderful tiny condo. One of its attributes is that I share no common walls with other residents.
Well, no neighbors except for the pool pump, which lives in a small room adjacent to my walk-in closet. It's hard to say how long the water had been leaking (rushing?) into the closet. Luckily my most valuable instruments were with me. But it got me to thinking about all the flooding in Texas in the last month, imagining the people whose entire homes were flooded. Made me feel that I'm pretty lucky, all in all. Some rotted walls and carpet in the closet, some damaged moldy stuff- but I've got a great name for a new fiddle tune.
July 22, 2002 Concert on Washington Island, WI
You drive up the Door County peninsula until you run out of land, then put you car on a ferry which takes you across Death's Door to Washington Island. I'm told the longest distance you can drive on the island without coming back around is 8 miles. The quiet greets you immediately when you drive off the ferry.
My partner Chris and I made the trip on July 14 to play a coffeehouse called the Red Barn. It was a rare treat to skip the P.A. because the sound in this place was so glorious. Like being in an old one-room schoolhouse.
(Maybe it was indeed that; I don't know) We had about 50 very enthusiastic people there, including some small children. I know that when you have small children in an audience, they usually stop being in the audience and become part of the show. Everyone's eyes (including mine) go to a baby following her impulses. There is nothing more interesting than watching children see things for the first time. But sometimes I really like playing the kind of shows where folks are comfortable bringing their children. I think it's important for families to get to go out together to see entertainment; we need them to, if we are going to try to hold our own against the convenience of TV.
Some might ask what there is to do on Washington island. I don't know much about that, but I do know there is so much not to do.....You don't get to eat bad food at McDonalds, or hang out under flourescent lights and muzak in a shopping mall, or get lost on your way back to your car in the parking lot. You don't have to worry about choices; they are few and they are right in front of you. You don't have to worry about life back on the mainland.
The day after the concert, I would have been content to sit on the porch of the coffee shop and drink coffee and chat all day. Unfortunately we didn't have time to linger on the island, which was beckoning..... Next time.
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