Tag: Reverb 10

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Let Go

Reverb 10 Prompt (from Alice Bradley): What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

Come on Alice, that’s not fair. I’ve already blogged like, thirty-nine times about turning forty, and nobody wants to hear anymore about it! But what can an old guy do. The expiration date on my youth is only a week past, so maybe it’ll be okay to go there one more time. So for now, keeping in mind I always reserve the right to ramble off in any direction imaginable, I’ll give some further consideration to the letting go of my youth.

Okay. Fuck that. I changed my mind already. I don’t want to let go. What’s the next prompt?

Alright, that was a bit rash. But “youth” is just too broad, too amorphous to get my arms around (and then let go of). I suppose everything I write over the course of this month will boil down, in the final analysis, to my big blobby issues, like that I don’t want to die and that I want everyone to love me and all that crap, but what I’m resisting right now is digging into the specifics, the nitty gritty of it all. Like Friday night, for instance. A favorite local band of mine, Transportation, was playing at The Reservoir, and I met up with Eric for a rare night out. I hadn’t seen Eric for a while. He had just returned from a few weeks of touring with his band, Minor Stars. Shit, there are already too many layers for me to keep track of. You see, until a few months ago, Minor Stars was also my band. I quit because I couldn’t go on this fall tour. Because I didn’t have the time and energy even to continue practicing every week and playing local shows. Because I had so many other projects I wanted to pursue. Because I couldn’t afford to quit my full-time day job. Because I had to support my wife while she finished up her Ph.D. Because my wife was about to go on the job market and we’d probably be moving away. Because being a rock star is Eric’s dream, not mine. Because I was avoiding facing my own destiny.

The Reservoir was where I played my first local show with Minor Stars, back in August of 2009. I’ve got the pictures to prove it! (I’m the bass player, the elder of the group who at that point was just three months shy of thirty-nine. Oh to be young again…) The Reservoir was also the club where I played my last show with Eric’s and my first band, My Dear Ella. That was back in 2003, and I remember thinking then, “This is it. I’m letting all this go. It’s really over.” Then I moved out of state to be with my girlfriend, now wife, who was just beginning her Ph.D. program at that point. Five years went by and we moved back here to Chapel Hill for my wife’s year of dissertation writing. You see, digging into the specifics can be dizzying as hell.

So it’s Friday night, as in the night before last, and I meet up with Eric at The Reservoir to see Transportation. We’ve been going to Transportation shows together on and off for that past ten years. Ten years! And they still rock. Eric and I grabbed a couple of beers and caught up. The Minor Stars fall tour was a success, but things didn’t work out with the new bass player, the guy who replaced me. I told Eric that, of course, I would be happy to step in if he needed me to play a really important local show. After all, as it turned out, my wife didn’t get an academic position for this fall, so it looks like we’ll be in town for a while longer than expected. And then there’s always the possibility that she will get a job around here, and then, well, who knows…

You see, that’s the fucked up thing. I did let go of Rock and Roll this year! I swear, I really did! And I have the video to prove it! It was on June 3rd, my last last show, at the local NBC television station. It was a tough night. I had just separated my right shoulder a few days before, so I was in some pain. I was sad to be leaving the band. I was terrified of those damned TV cameras. I had finally come to terms with the fact that Rock and Roll is a young person’s game. It’s done. Buried. I’m old now. It’s official. Bobby D. has left the building. Total letting go to commence in 10, 9, 8, …

Ahhh… All better now. Now, what to do with the rest of the afternoon? How about a little session with the old guitar. We’re talking an acoustic guitar mind you. Don’t want to disturb the neighbors. Yeah, there’s nothing like rocking out… er, I mean strumming out some nice folk/adult contemporary music on a Sunday afternoon.

I wonder what I’ll let go of next year?

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Wonder

Reverb 10 Prompt (from Jeff Davis): How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

I walk to and from work every day. From my house to the office takes me about an hour, depending how late I’m running. If I leave the house at 7:30am, I can enjoy a leisurely stroll. This rarely happens, since I found out I can leave at 7:40am and still make it to work on time, if I haul ass the whole way and get lucky with traffic-light timing. I could sleep in much later and get home a lot earlier if I drove or took the bus, but my walks keep me sane.

Anyone who knows me (or reads my blog) knows about my leaf catching tradition. About ten years ago I was sitting on a rock in the middle of the Eno River here in central North Carolina. I had recently broken up with a woman whom I’d loved very much, and I was mourning the loss of that relationship. She and I had hiked the trails by the Eno countless times together. Sitting on that rock, the sound of the water rushing by put me in a peaceful meditative state. I felt a sense of openness and clarity much like the “most alive moment of the year” I wrote about yesterday. It was sometime in the fall, and the sky was full of floating leaves. I noticed one leaf in particular break free from a tree far from where I was sitting. It floated high in the sky, drifting slowly and unpredictably toward me. I watched intently as the leaf zigged and zagged its way over the river, and when it was about fifty feet from me I realized with a rush of anticipation that it might actually touch down very near to my rock, maybe even near enough that I could grab it. Before I could formulate a clear thought about it, the leaf quickly zigged left, zagged right, dipped down, floated up, and then dropped right in my lap. I was stunned for a moment, then positively filled with joy. I felt like I had just found my Golden Ticket. It was raining leaves that day, and I’m sure several leaves had already touched down on or near my rock, but nonetheless it seemed to me to be the most awesome thing in the world that this particular leaf, the one I’d had my eye on, found its way into my hands. I thought for a moment about keeping it, preserving it between the pages of whatever book was in my backpack, but instead I gave it a kiss and released it back into the breeze.

Every fall since then, I watch for falling leaves and resolve to catch at least one every season. This is not as easy as you might think, as leaves don’t always float right to you as you stroll to and from work everyday. Even if they do float within reach, they can be slippery little buggers. I did finally catch my first leaf back on November 1st. Up until then I had been on a mission every day during my commuting to make the annual grab. I’m sure I looked pretty insane at times, darting into the street or onto people’s front yards chasing down a potential catch. On days when the wind wouldn’t cooperate, I even resorted to chasing a few squirrels up trees in the hopes they might kick a leaf loose. It was all good sane fun, and I finally got my prize on a weekend stroll, while talking with my Mom on my cell phone, telling her all about my trip to DC the previous day for the Rally to Restore Sanity.

So yeah, my walks keep me sane and keep me in tune with a sense of wonder. Winter is looming now, and there aren’t many leaves that haven’t already found their way to the ground. I’ll keep walking though. Sometimes I’ll turn my walks into a formal meditation practice, bringing my attention to my breathing or to the sensations in my feet and legs whenever I notice I’m lost in thought. Sometimes a song idea will come to me, and I’ll spend the entire hour singing a melody line over and over again so that I won’t forget it. Most times I forget it anyway. But like leaves to the trees, that melody will come back around and, sooner or later, somehow, some way, find its way back to me.

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Moment

Reverb 10 Prompt (from Ali Edwards): Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

That’s a tough one, Ali. My first impulse is to pick one of the “big” moments, like a funeral or a musical performance, but I have a strange tendency to slip into a somewhat disembodied, surreal state during big moments. I remember waking up the morning after my wedding and saying to my wife, “Did we just get married?”. I also find myself wanting to describe some big, dramatic moment because doing so would support the narrative of “I am so awesome! (Right?)”, which seems to sneak its way into too much of my writing, contributing to a vague sense of dishonesty and insecurity. So there’s an important distinction for me between the biggest moment and the most alive moment. Another obstacle to being unflinchingly honest about such things is that our most intensely alive moments could involve taboos, like drug intoxication, infidelity, reckless endangerment, or some other secret shame. I doubt a single Reverb 10er will describe a moment from the dark side, even if they tasted life there like never before.

As it happened, my most alive moment was neither a tale from the dark side nor a dramatic event. I described it here on my blog back in January:

As often happens, I popped awake at about 2am feeling restless and stiff. I fell into a meditative trance while loosening up my muscles with gentle, subtle micro-movements. After about twenty minutes of this, it happened. Again. A sense of clarity dawned on me so intensely that the last several months of waking life seemed like a coma by comparison. All the life issues I’ve been struggling with felt either completely resolved or else utterly unproblematic. I knew without a doubt what I needed to be doing with my life, how to refocus and realize my full potential and destiny.

Strangely, things were a bit more fuzzy by the time I woke up the following morning, and my life issues were mysteriously transformed back into their unresolved state. I hate when that happens. Reminds me of when my little sister would mess up my Rubik’s Cube. Still, every now and again I’m graced with these mystical openings of radiant clarity, and often they hit me after extended periods of tension and internal struggle. If fact, the last several of these little kensho awakenings have come in the middle of the night, after I’ve woken up tense and allowed myself to unwind with some body-centered meditation. It’s not something I can easily describe in terms of vivid sensory detail, as it’s more like an overall state of consciousness that makes everything seem clear, simple, and perfect as is.

I went into some more reflections and surrounding circumstances in my original blog post about it, but in keeping with Ali’s invitation, I’ll try to describe what I can remember of the sensory details. My muscles were very relaxed. I could feel the blood flowing through me and my breathing was deep and unrestricted. When I got up to play my guitar and read and think, my actions felt effortless, like my movements and thoughts were happening of their own accord, as opposed to my usual sense that everything is being powered by will or directed by conscious intentions. Sounds, specifically music from my voice and guitar, came to my ears unfiltered and clear, undistorted by thoughts, associations or expectations. Likewise, objects in the room appeared subtly clearer than usual, more there, more significant and beautiful in their stark simplicity. It’s tough to capture the sense in words. In some ways, it seemed like I was just experiencing my senses in a completely ordinary fashion, the extraordinary thing being the absence of my usual mental filtering mechanisms.

Well, there you have it. To anyone viewing the video footage (which hopefully doesn’t exist), it was just me squirming around in bed, then getting up to play my guitar and read for a little while. I suppose that’s all it was after all. The other nine of my top ten most alive moments were all in my living room playing my guitar and singing at the top of my lungs, but this zen moment just seemed a little more, I don’t know, … awesome. Right?

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Writing

Reverb10 Prompt (from Leo Babauta): What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

I do a gazillion things each day that don’t contribute to my creative projects, but I’m at a point now where just about everything I do in the course of my day is important to me for one reason or another. Prioritizing my time has been a zero-sum situation for me in recent months, where making time for something important (like writing) is taking away time from something else important (like music or exercise). I’ve already eliminated just about (there’s that phrase again!) all the time-wasters and distractions that have held me back in the past. Of course, I indulge in a little bit of TV and mindless web-surfing, but it really is just a little, and I’m not the type to be focused and engaged in purposeful activity all the time. Can’t you see I’m doing the best I can, Leo?!?! What do you want me to do, write while I’m sitting on the toilet? Just kidding, man. Actually, I have written while sitting on the toilet. Used to keep a notebook under the sink once I discovered that epiphanies tended to descend from on high as soon as I dropped my pants. But now I’m getting off track…

The truth is, there are still a few places in my day to day routine where I can carve out some writing time. In fact, I’m swinging the machete right now! But again, what I’m eliminating in order to participate in Reverb 10 is something I’ve held onto for two years now, namely the idea of myself as someone with a superior work ethic who refuses to surrender to the prevailing office culture in which it’s become perfectly acceptable to do one’s personal business on the company dime. I’ve finally thrown up the white flag, and now I feel okay about spending a wee bit of my work day journaling or blogging. I’m an office temp, and my supervisors are thrilled with my productivity, attention to detail, and congenial demeanor. And they themselves spend significant blocks of work time attending to their personal lives. “When in Rome”, right?

How this blog post turned into such a rambling rationalization I just don’t know. I’d explore it further, but I think maybe I should get back to work…

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One Word

Reverb10 Prompt (from Gwen Bell): Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

Half-life. A hyphenated word, yes, but it’s the word that immediately comes to mind. Three days ago I turned forty. I was home for Thanksgiving weekend, and that particular morning I woke up to my eight-year-old nephew Joey bouncing up and down on my air mattress in his Spider-Man pajamas, imploring me to get up so that he could play “War of the Monsters” with me. I didn’t feel like getting up right then, but I was relieved the big day had finally arrived. Not since turning twenty-one had a birthday felt significant in the least. But this one caught me by surprise, and my ruminating began as soon as 2010 rang in. I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I had long ago planted the thought that forty marked the cut-off point in separating the young from the “not so young.” I was fourteen when my Dad crossed over; sixteen when Mom hit the mark. I vaguely recall the parties, the jokes about getting old, the gray starting to show. “The Big 4-0” was a big deal for sure, and sure enough those old farts were right when they reminded me that my day would come, eventually.

I tend to choose the titles of my creative projects before I start writing or recording, when I can sense only the fuzziest of outlines and my ideas are in their most nascent form. “Half-life” succeeded “The Lucky Dark”, which followed “Waiting for the Miracle”. Thinking about 2011 stirs my mind into a whiteout, like one of those holiday snow globes. I’m not at all sure what to expect, given all the irons in the fire, but what I’d like 2011 to be about is fruition. Wow, that came a lot easier than I expected.

Letting go of my youth, for me, means shifting from a focus on what’s potential to what’s actual. I’ve spent most of this forty year ride in the passenger seat, waiting to see what would happen next; wishing someone would come along and take me somewhere new and exciting; hoping everything would just fall into place and that I’d always get where I needed to go. Waiting, wishing, hoping that I’d eventually arrive in one piece and that I would enjoy the ride. And I suppose I got what I hoped for. I’m here. I’ve arrived. This is it. I am who I am. I’m doing what I do. It’s been this way all along, but I didn’t fully realize it, accept it, embrace it.

So, fruition it is. Let’s see what I can actually do when I stop waiting until some far off future day when I’m finally good enough to go all-out and do all that I hope to do as well as I can possibly do it. You know, when I’m like, forty or something.