Roscoe

The little day-to-day habits are the hard part.

I keep looking out the front window to see if he’s laying on the front porch, ready to come in.

I wake up and expect him to be coming into the bedroom before my feet hit the floor, doing cheek rubs on the dresser and the nightstand while I get dressed, then herding me into the kitchen for my coffee and his breakfast.

I come back from town and unlock the door, habitually looking at my feet to see if he’s greeting me or instinctively glance to my right to see if he’s laying in my desk chair, sleeping in the quiet of my absence.

And now, nine months on, I'm still catching ghost glimpses of him in my peripheral vision. 

Little streaks that aren’t there when I look over to see him.

I never even liked cats...

Croz

Like a few million other kids of the 60s and 70s, David Crosby had been on my radar since I was a teenager. I was a Byrds and CSN fan from the start and they were a big part of the soundtrack of my youth. I even had a CSNY poster in my room.

David's first solo album, "If I Could Only Remember My Name" has always been one of my top five favorite records. It's all in there - joy, sorrow, love, anger, celebration, and heartache. The musicianship is superb and I still say it's the best album the Grateful Dead or Jefferson Airplane never made. Just the way the acoustic guitars are recorded is worth the price of admission. If you've never heard it, I recommend a dark room with a candle and headphones.

Sometime around 1990, I ended up with a copy of his autobiography "Long Time Gone". I had been dragging bottom for years and had several more to go before I found sobriety. I remember reading it drunk, late at night after everyone was asleep, and thinking/hoping that if he could put his life back together maybe I could too. There were several musicians in the early 90's whose recovery stories were a big influence on me and his might've been the biggest.

Fast forward to 1994. I'm a little over a year sober and I get a call to go out as a lighting tech on a short CSN acoustic tour, and of course I jump at the chance.

We were a few days into the tour when one morning I was walking through the hotel lobby and noticed David sitting in the restaurant. I went against roadie protocol and walked over and introduced myself and began telling him what an influence his book had been on my sobriety. He interrupted me and asked if I'd eaten, then invited me to sit down and order some food. We sat and talked for about an hour over breakfast and I got to thank him for sharing his story. He was more than kind and very self-effacing. He knew how to laugh at himself. The next day I asked if he would be willing to sign my AA Big Book. He hesitated for a second, then laughed and said, "As if I have any anonymity anyway" and signed it, "to David H. from David C. "Stay With it".

Over the years, in not-so-obvious ways, he was always on the periphery of my career and I enjoyed watching him turn into everyone's lovable curmudgeon uncle. Those "David Crosby Answers Your Questions" video clips from Rolling Stone are brilliant and hilarious.

I believe we're all connected and there's a thread that runs through us. I also wonder if maybe sometimes we're used by that thread to strike a chord in someone's life; to have a profound positive influence on them and never even know we played a part in it.

I can't say I knew him, but David Crosby played a bigger part in my life than he knew and I'll always be grateful for him.

I stayed with it.

Music is love...

Device

I watch silently.

With my coffee and poems, incense and prayers.

Two tom turkeys circle the pond, dancing for dominance around the tall purple flowers and brush piles.

A bluebird lands and enters the small round door of the birdhouse in one seamless motion.

Two passing deer catch my scent. They stop, sniffing the air with tails flipping. After deciding it’s safe, make their way behind the dam. Half an hour later one of them, not noticing me and deciding it’s safe again, will come back across the dam and drink at the edge of the pond before slipping away into the safety of the woods.

Unseen crows squawk and caw, raising hell somewhere in the distance.

A big snapping turtle rises, staying under the water for a few seconds before it’s head breaks the surface with the smallest ripple.

A bullfrog barks on one side of the pond and sets off a loud amphibious conversation around the pond.

The snail that’s been hanging on the side of the rocker for a few days like some mountain climber bivouacked overnight on the side of a rock wall, remains motionless.

The old cat lays by the glider, watching it all, occasionally letting out a tiny guttural sound, as if to remind us of the carnage he was once capable of.

I stand up to pull the porch ceiling fan chain and catch a small flash of movement on the far side of the pond. I’ve been spotted by a tiny, wobbly fawn that runs halfway across the dam before cutting hard into the dark between the big cedars. 

Having lit the incense, drank the coffee, read the poems and said the prayers, I watch all of this and feel myself genuinely a part of it all.

Then I reach for my 128 GB iPhone 11 with 6.1 inch multitouch screen, liquid retina HD 1792 x 828 display, 12 megapixel front and rear cameras, and check in for my morning dose of spiritual junk food and ego driven outrage.

Proud to have risen above the dumb animals…

Losing Her

I saw the switch flip. 

The one behind her eyes.

Then came the broken glass and the blood.

I called an ambulance and sent the kids over to the landlord’s house while I held the towel tightly and waited. 

She was panting, like an overheated animal, but the reality of the wound had already brought her back from the edge.

And so it went.

Living with the jagged edges of her father’s handiwork.

Looking back, I’m always reminded of when I was a kid and my dad and I were night fishing with my uncle and cousins. They’d hung one of those hissing propane lanterns off the side of the boat because fish were drawn to the light.

So was a big snake.

 

One of the cousins spotted it coming toward the boat and in spite of all the commotion, managed to hit it with the edge of an oar like a knife blade, breaking it's back. 

I'll never forget the snake, suspended vertically like a ribbon, wriggling up and drifting down, over and over, struggling in vain to reach the surface as it slowly disappeared from the light, sinking into the darkness of the lake.

Addiction and madness. 

You offer your hand as they're drowning but they tell you it’s the wrong one. 

If you offer both hands they might pull you in with them, where you'll both sink into the darkness.

So you stay in the boat.

Because it's safe in the boat.

Watching helplessly as they slowly shapeshift into a drowning serpent you wish you could somehow trust and save.

Riding with Family

"Man, I'm scared shitless." 

I'm doing my best to telepathically communicate this thought to my best friend Terry, sitting beside me in the backseat of a faded white 1964 Chevy Impala. Terry's on my left and some guy who looks like a redheaded version of Sluggo from the Nancy comics is on my right. The guy in the front passenger seat is pretty plain looking; nondescript except for black horn-rimmed glasses and a haircut that looks like maybe he's recently gotten out of the military. The driver has long, greasy, black hair, combed straight back, and is wearing a white T-shirt. He has his arm out the window and occasionally the wind lifts his sleeve, revealing a jailhouse tattoo that reads, "Family".

It's 1975 and we're hitchhiking from Berkeley to Austin. These guys picked us up between Bakersfield and Mojave. Except for the broken muffler and the hot wind blowing through the rolled down windows, we ride in silence. They haven't said more than ten words to us since we climbed in about twenty minutes ago. They barely speak to each other and don't even look at us. Terry's a natural born comedian and pretty fearless in conversation with strangers, but after about five minutes of trying to make small talk and drawing zero response, he gives up and we resume our silence, exchanging curious looks. 

It's late summer and it's not a good vibe. 

Terry and I had a normal routine for hitchhiking. You walk up to the car and the first thing you do is size up the occupants and ask how far they're going. (You try to avoid short rides. The short rides always seem to drop you in the middle of nowhere.) If they appear okay and are going far enough, you get in and make small talk for a few minutes, usually answering the same three monotonous questions: "Where you from? Where you going? How'd you end up out here?" What you really want to do is just enjoy the air-conditioning and maybe one of you catch a nap after sizing up the driver some more. 

We had two rules: Don't get out in the middle of nowhere, and don't hitchhike after dark. These rules sorta' went together. It can take forever to get a ride in the middle of nowhere and you don't want to take a chance at night. If you get stuck somewhere until nearly sunset, you try to find a semi-hidden spot off the road where you can get some sleep and try your luck the next day. Of course, it's harder for two people to hitchhike, but it's a lot more fun. We once spent 36 hours stuck on the side of the road trying to catch a ride out of some unmarked spot on the map. We also spent one of the finest nights of our lives sharing a bottle of wine and a Big Mac, sitting by a tiny campfire on a hill overlooking Flagstaff and I-40. You never know, but eventually you learn that it's best to just get out at the next town or before they turn to go another direction and drop you off at some crossroads out in the sticks.

Sometimes we'd get a jackpot ride where somebody pulls over and offers you a beer and a sandwich before telling you to stretch out and catch a nap in the back of the van because they're going about 400 miles in the same direction you are. That's when you cough up what you can to help with gas.

This wasn't one of those rides.

Terry and I hitchhiked all over the country and had been in Berkeley a couple of weeks when he found us a place to stay in a little room on the top floor of a frat house just off campus. It was rented out while the students were gone for the summer. Terry had made friends with John, one of the frat guys that had stayed for the summer and we got jobs working with him at Dovre Hall, across the bridge in San Francisco, where he was the part-time building manager. Dovre Hall was owned by the Sons of Norway and it was an old community hall with an auditorium and some meeting rooms. There was also a bar, the Dovre Club, tucked into one corner of the building. It's now the San Francisco Women's Building and the Dovre Club got evicted and moved to another part of town several years later. 

John's duties consisted mainly of answering the phone and unlocking the building every evening so a local theatre company could rehearse their production of Noel Coward's "Blythe Spirit" in drag. Our job was to sweep up, then slip in the back door of the bar and relieve the walk-in cooler of a case of beer. After rehearsals we'd lock up and take John's VW bug back across the bridge for a night of drinking. 

Years later I learned that the Dovre Club was run by a gentleman named Pat Nolan, a fierce supporter of the IRA and the Irish Northern Aid. Rumor was that more than one fugitive from Interpol sat at the bar of the Dovre Club in those days. I suspect it wouldn't have fared well for us if we'd been caught stealing from him.

Our time in Berkeley came to an end shortly after I got arrested for shoplifting a rotisserie chicken from the Safeway on Telegraph Avenue and spent the night in jail. The next day I went before the judge who suggested I "Go back to Texas and never return to California." Of course I ignored him and a couple of weeks later nearly got arrested again after drinking with some of the fraternity brothers and throwing hotdogs at passersby from the roof of the frat house. We saw we were pushing our luck in Berkeley and decided to heed the judge's advice and head back to Texas. 

Somewhere on the road I had picked up a paperback copy of "Helter Skelter", Vincent Bugliosi's book about the Manson Family murders. Oddly enough, Terry and I had been hitchhiking through Sacramento the same day that Squeaky Fromme tried to assassinate President Ford. I'll never forget walking through downtown when the whole city exploded with sirens and police cars. The cops never even batted an eye at us as we walked through downtown, two dirty hippies with backpacks. Today we would've been detained and questioned for hours. So needless to say the whole Manson thing was fresh on our minds when we started hitchhiking back to Texas.

I'm eyeing the tattoo. "Family". It's not a good vibe. 

I'm mentally running down options and excuses for getting out of the car when the engine lurches and sputters a couple of times, keeps going for about 20 seconds, then does it again before shutting down completely. We coast to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Silence for about 20 seconds. Finally Sluggo starts yelling at the driver that he told him to fill up before they left and now they're sitting here like idiots out of gas. The driver quickly turns around to yell back at Sluggo when Terry says cheerfully, "Hey guys, it's cool! We passed a gas station just a ways back! We'll run back and get a gas can and we can get going again!" He nudges me in the ribs and says, "C'mon, let's go!" I didn't have to be asked twice. He must've been reading my mind when the car died. We grabbed our backpacks from under our feet, jumped out of the car, and were gone before anyone could protest. We headed back in the direction we'd come from and were out of sight in no time. I asked Terry if he'd seen the tattoo and he said he was wondering if I had seen it too. We talked about the three guys and the whole experience while we half walked and ran down the road. 

Terry hadn't been lying about the gas station. A little less than a mile back up the road was a little store with two gas pumps out front. It was a small whitewashed concrete building with just rocks and brush around it as far as you could see. Across the road from it was a steep hillside that rose about thirty feet above the bend in the road the station was on. Terry and I put our backpacks behind a kerosene tank next to the building and went inside. We grabbed a couple of cokes and a bag of potato chips, paid the teenager at the counter who said nothing, and went back outside. We sat down behind the kerosene tank for a couple of minutes and drank the cokes while we figured out what we were going to do. We decided to go across the road and up the hill and see if we could circle around and get past the car without being seen. We ate the chips, washed them down with the last of the cokes, then ran across the road and scrambled up the hill. 

We had just topped the hill and stopped to plan our route when we heard distant voices coming from the road below. We looked down between some rocks and saw Sluggo and the passenger pushing the Impala down the road toward the gas station, with the long haired guy behind the wheel, steering. We could hear them talking as they got closer and one of them was saying, "They aren't even there! I knew they weren't going back for gas!" We froze like rabbits in some brush behind the crest of the hill and waited. After about a half an hour we looked again and could see them in front of the gas pumps, working under the hood of the car, trying to get it started. We hid behind the brush again and waited. We finally heard the engine turn over and after it revved up a few times, car doors slammed, tires spun on gravel, and the sound of the noisy muffler slowly faded into the distance...

We made it back to Texas and my dad tells the story of sitting on the front porch, home from work on his lunch break, and seeing a couple of worn out looking hippies walking up the street. As they got closer he realized it was Terry and me. We ate better that day than we had in a long time and there was much rejoicing. 

I never hitchhiked again.

Terry is long gone from this world. Knowing his sense of humor, he'd throw his head back and howl and laugh when I say that he sort of went a piece at a time. Like some dark British comedy, he lost an eye, then an arm, then a foot, then he was gone. He's buried down in South Mississippi and one of these days I might make a trip down there and pay my respects to his marker. But like everyone that plays a big role in our lives, there's a thousand reminders. 

I think about Terry when I travel through California. I think about him when I see a Safeway store or an old Chevy Impala.

 

I think about Terry every time I see a hitchhiker.

 

Christmas "time"

It’s morning and I’m standing in my parent’s kitchen making coffee. I walk back to the bedroom that I’ve slept in every Christmas since I got divorced. I sleep in this bedroom now because the bed is smaller and either my brother and his wife or my son and daughter-in-law need the bigger bed now.

While the coffee brews, I make the bed and light a stick of incense, which I place in the wooden incense burner that I borrow from my Southern Baptist mother every year. I chuckle at the little brass Taoist yin/yang symbols embedded in the side of it. 

I go back to the kitchen and pour a cup of coffee then return to the bedroom where I sit and read a page from a book of daily thoughts that a friend wrote, after which I say my morning prayers, which follow a fairly verbatim outline. After that I say prayers for who or whatever comes to mind.

Then I just sit for awhile and look at the big mulberry tree standing in front of the house across the street.

I’ve watched this tree on winter mornings from this same vantage point for almost twenty years. I’ve seen several generations of squirrels play chase through its branches and feed around it’s base. At Christmas one year I saw that it had a big scar on the side of its trunk, like a car may have hit it. 

Different families have moved in and out of the house, but for the last six or seven years, it's been sitting empty and neglected, abandoned by the previous owners and foreclosed on by some far away bank in New Jersey or somewhere.

Now it appears someone has bought it and is in the process of gutting and remodeling it, probably for resale. And now, out in the yard next to the Mulberry tree, stands a harvest gold double oven; like some monument to the 60s and 70s, when this subdivision was built, it's a testament to every family that's lived there since. 

For me it serves as a stoic reminder of passing time and my own mortality.

A psychic pushback against some deep-seated desire for things to stay the same.

I hear the sound of one of my parents shuffling down the hall to the kitchen, followed by the tip tap of their little lapdog’s toenails on the hardwood floors.

A subtle reminder to savor every moment because none of it lasts...

Coincidental - Handiwork.

A couple of days ago I was listening to a piece of music that reminds me of a dear friend and thinking about how I came to associate that music with them. As I was listening, I started reading a friend’s blog and interestingly enough, he’d written about a song that came up on a random playlist and grabbed his attention, informing his thinking about a book he’s been working on.

He wrote, “If I were the type of person who saw such coincidences as the handiwork of various haints and deities, with nothing better to do than to manipulate my music to my spiritual benefit, I would be in a frenzy of narcissistic delight. I am not such a person. But I do have some faith in the reality of Karma - the law of causes and effects. I cannot possibly understand all those vectors, endlessly operating in my life, but I can, as at this moment, use what happened in service of my inquiries into the spiritual paraphernalia my consciousness.“

As a sober alcoholic, one of the traits I share with other alcoholics (and a lot of “normal” people too) is wanting “more” of anything that feels good. I’ve realized that this can also apply to spiritual experiences. I don’t know if they didn’t happen much before I got sober, or if I just started noticing them afterward, but my sober life has been marked by occasional deeply personal and mystical occurrences.

Coincidences that don't feel like coincidence.

A friend calls them “Woo Woo moments".

I used to lean heavily on these warm, fuzzy events as the basis of my spiritual life; using them as stepping stones, hopping from one spiritual highpoint to the next, like they'd keep me from falling into dark waters.

Over time I've learned to rely more and more on the ordinary, everyday miracles found in things like the changing seasons, a handful of dirt in a well tended garden, a child’s laughter, helping others, and yes, even the dark waters.

But I still can’t help but smile (and look upward for some reason) whenever one of those spiritual surprises comes along, sits on my lap, and tickles my nose.

So here’s a story of one of those bright and shiny moments and the part music played in it…

After many years of drinking, I finally got enough of a beating from booze and called a guy who had tried for a long time to help me get sober, and told him I needed help and I’d do whatever he suggested. I had tried to get into treatment a couple times before but always got turned down when I mentioned that I had no money, job, or insurance. However, he helped get me into a treatment center with no money, job, or insurance, and they took me in as indigent. A couple of weeks after I got there my roommates told me late one night that I'd gotten my bed because the guy who had it before me had hung himself in the shower stall that was about three feet from the restroom where I'd been saying my prayers every morning because it was the only privacy I could find. (Regarding that - it took a while but I've stopped asking, Why them and not me?" about alcoholics who die. I believe there are some things I just don't get to know.)

I’d been there a couple of days when I was introduced to my counselor, a woman named Joan. She was very soft spoken and had a peaceful look of wisdom in her eyes that immediately put me at ease. A lot of divine feminine energy.

Later that week we had a long talk and I spoke at length about my life and how I got there, being more honest with her than I’d been with anyone since I was a little kid. She listened quietly, occasionally handing me a tissue. 

A couple of days later she called me into her office and said that the treatment center and the insurance company had a curriculum that we had to fulfill, but she saw a willingness in me that she didn’t see very often in the people who came through there, and that if I would trust her, she could take me through what she called “spiritual surgery“ but there was just one catch – there was no anesthetic. She said to think about it for a couple days and let her know. I was as desperate as I was curious, so the next day I told her I was game for whatever she had in mind because I was sick of living like I’d been living. 

Over the next few weeks she took me through a process of "peeling, revealing, feeling, and healing" that I’d never had the courage to face before. As we progressed, I felt like a beat up old car that had been taken apart, repaired, refueled, cleaned up, and put back together properly. When I told her this she said, "Good, because how can something that’s not broken be rebuilt? How can something not empty be filled?” 

Joan was the first person I met whose description of God made perfect sense and rang the bell of truth inside me. It’s a bell that I still listen for. She knew exactly what I needed, when I needed it. She introduced me to Alan Watts and gave me a copy of the Tao Te Ching, although she was a devout Christian. She strongly encouraged me to explore my newly awakened spiritual curiosity.

They say when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I also believe that the best teachers are the ones that never forget they’re students. Joan never forgot she was a student. 

She once said that keeping the spiritual garbage cleaned out wasn’t easy and that "it's like snowfall; you never know exactly when it’s coming or how much there’s gonna’ be.”

The day I checked out was her day off and it snowed about a foot in Tennessee. I left a thank you note on her door with her snowfall saying on it.

We stayed in frequent contact for a few years and I watched as she went through a divorce, job losses, and health problems that would’ve brought NFL linebackers to their knees; always with that same knowing look of peace and wisdom in her eyes. As time passed, I went through some tough times of my own and got busier and busier, but we would connect with a phone call once or twice a year and catch up. The conversation often went back to when I was in treatment and we’d compare notes on how much things had changed for both of us since then. She would occasionally post a photograph on Facebook and I could see how she had aged. She had a son who’d served in the military and I believe had deployed to the Middle East. I think that, coupled with her health problems, and working in a prison counseling program that she had created, took a heavy toll. You could read it in the lines of her face.

Eventually our talks became less frequent. I’d get the occasional intuitive “push“ that you sometimes get to call or contact someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time, and I’d tell myself, “I need to call Joan this week”, then get sidetracked, the call would go on the back burner, and it might be several more months before I made the call. It was in one of those in-between places when I decided to visit her Facebook page before I called to catch up with her.

Her profile name had been changed to “Remembering Joan” and I knew that she had gone home. 

My first thought was that her pain had ended. And then I felt regret for not contacting her when I had the chance, but something told me she understood and had forgiven that. 

I sat with my thoughts for a while and decided to find out where she was buried and pay a visit. I found out through Facebook that she had been gone for about six months and that our last talk had been a month or so before she passed on. There had been a service in a little country cemetery outside a small town about an hour from me. I decided to go pay my respects. I looked it up on the map and jumped in the car and took off. 

It was a beautiful June morning. I plugged in my iPod and navigated to a playlist titled, “Ambient” I’d made a few months earlier. It contained several albums I had forgotten about it. I pushed play and the first sound on the track was a deep, low chime which faded into a light electronic sound wave with a delicate acoustic piano over it, which created a cadence, followed by a bass and drum track that established a steady rhythm that felt perfectly in sync with the road. The album went through several tracks and movements over the next hour that segued perfectly into each other and each movement somehow felt more joyous, mysterious, and comforting than the previous one. 

As I got closer the track broke down into a quiet section that gave way to static that slowed to a distant echoing electronic noise over an acoustic piano interspersed with sound treatments, quiet distant explosions, and a distorted voice in the background. 

I topped a hill that overlooked a sunlit valley and a big, descending, sound echoed from the speakers and very slowly faded into one long note, which led into a delicately unfolding melody that featured a woman singing in an angelic voice.

I could feel Joan’s presence as I reached the small cemetery in tears as the last track of the album faded. I was awestruck by the timing of the whole thing. It was like something from a ridiculously sentimental movie. 

A few minutes later I got out and begin to search for her marker. It was a tiny cemetery with about 20 or 30 headstones, but I couldn’t find hers. As I wandered the grounds, wondering where she was, I noticed an old cut stone church next to the cemetery. I walked over to it, thinking maybe there was another section of the cemetery. It was old and run down and had obviously not been used in many years. The paint was chipped and faded from the stone walls and the roof had fallen in, but you could see it’s past glory. I walked around and shot a few pictures of it, hoping for a clue to where the service had been held, but I couldn’t find anything.

I decided to drive into town, just a few miles away, grab a bite to eat, and see if maybe the county clerk had any information about a gravesite.

I stopped by the clerk’s office and in typical Southern small-town style, the lady said sweetly that if I’d give her a few minutes she might be able to find something for me. I told her I would get some lunch and come back. When I came back she said she had been able to find a death certificate but no record of where the burial had taken place, so I thanked her and drove home. 

That afternoon I found her son on Facebook and sent him a message explaining who I was, the influence his mom had on my life, and that I’d been to the cemetery and found no marker. He sent a reply that evening and said that he remembered me from when when he was a little boy when I would call and ask to speak to his mom. He said she was always grateful that I'd found peace and stayed sober. Then he said that there wasn’t a marker because she’d been cremated and they’d scattered her ashes in the cemetery after the service, but it meant a lot to him that I’d gone to pay my respects and that he’d received other calls and messages like mine from people that she’d helped through the years.

I’ve had the blues and had music bring comfort in times of darkness and despair. I’ve rocked out in unbridled joy and raised my voice in anger with protest songs, but music spoke as directly to and through me as it ever has that morning. 

I may never be more surprised and overjoyed than I was later that morning when I read the title of the album I’d been listening to when I topped that hill overlooking the sunlit valley that held that little cemetery, while a woman’s angelic voice told me it was all okay, assuring me I was not alone. 

The album was called “Contact Note”. 

Here’s a link to the album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX5M65ghzvI

And a screenshot of Joan’s last Facebook post…

“Coincidence” or “Handiwork”? 

Whatever it is, I'm grateful I get to bear witness to it...

Birthday Prayer #62

For this birthday I ask to simply live long enough to escape the road and it's "highly motivated, highest level performing individuals".

   

To escape from the overly masculine world of rigid straight lines, ringing telephones, ones and zeros, tight schedules, tighter egos, and self-importance.

  To fall, exhausted, into the arms of the natural feminine world of squiggly, squirmy, squishy, reality with all it's curvy, fleshy, folds and furry, dirty, flowering beauty...

  

   Into a world that moves to no set schedule; simply unfolding to Mother Nature's non-existant timetable.

That's my birthday wish today.

The Heart Collector

She found hearts everywhere and in everything; it was as if they sought her.

She saw them in clouds and photographed them. She collected thousands of heart shaped rocks and arranged them in spirals and circles of love. 

Heart shaped leaves and flower petals fell at her feet and she placed them gently in mandalas that the wind carried away.

And she found my heart; scarred and weary. She held it and awakened a softness and tender courage that had been sleeping too long.

I gave my heart joyfully, but I guess it didn't belong in her collection. 

Out of kindness she let me down slowly, forgetting that time isn't real...

❤️

For granted

Things young men too often take for granted...

The sound of children's laughter and the smell of dinner in a warm house on winter evenings.

Her legs as he peers out from under the car, while she tells him she's going to the store and asks if he wants anything.

The reckless freedom of following his heart before it's been broken one too many times.

A blissful disinterest in world affairs.

The perpetual wanderlust and sense of high adventure that lay waiting to be discovered around nearly every corner.

A size 29 waist and a medium t-shirt.

Too many of the times she says, "I love you."

Taco Night

Thursday night is Taco Night. 

Which really means it's Treatment Center Night, the night a couple of friends and I take a 12 step recovery meeting to a local drug/alcohol treatment center and then go out for dinner at a little taqueria down the road afterward. 

Before you say, "Aw, thats so nice", let me tell you how it often goes.

We get there and there's a roomful of 50 or 60 chairs that get put in a big circle. We always leave one chair in the middle, mostly just so the residents will wonder why it's there and who's gonna' have to sit in the "hot seat", which never happens (it's our own little inside joke). Sometimes we'll say that the chair is there for the addict or alcoholic that didn't survive their addiction, hoping to remind them how fatal their addiction really can be.

While we're setting up the chairs a few of the residents will start to wander in and help us. The early ones are often the people who seem most interested in really getting help. They might ask a few questions about what to do when they get out, or tell us what's been going on with them since last week, etc. 
Then there are the smokers and jokers, who mill around outside and slowly filter in as meeting time approaches. As the place fills up, the once quiet room builds to a cacophony of laughing, yelling, coughing, and the general mayhem that is inherent to a group of freshly detoxing drunks and addicts. Some are sullen and withdrawn, others loud and obnoxious, with all manner of behavior and attitude in between. By meeting time, it's often like a room full of human pinball machines.

"Hey! It's starting time! Let's have a meeting!" usually quiets the room enough to get started. 

After a brief moment of semi-silence and saying the Serenity Prayer, the meeting begins by going around the room and everyone introducing themselves with their first name followed by "and I'm an alcoholic, addict", or both; (is there really anyone who hasn't seen a 12 step meeting portrayed on television or in a movie in the past 30 years?).

It's not uncommon to see a young kid who got busted or who's parents caught them smoking pot and sent them to rehab. They say stuff like, "My name is (Justin/Brittany) and I'm like, um - an addict? Giggle, giggle..." 
Then a couple of people down the line you've got Joe. Joe's 58 and has lost his family, job, driver's license and all self respect. He says, "I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic" and he knows it's true. 
Joe isn't laughing about anything.

As the meeting progresses, the residents show varying degrees of interest and participation, from intense focus to complete disdain for the whole thing. 

Some of these people really don't want to be here and would leave now if they had any other option. 

To be honest, trying to get them to realize that they don't have to live the way they're living and see the fact that they're some of the world's worst decision makers, can be infuriating. You take the time to come out there and try to offer some hope to a bunch of people who many times give the impression that they couldn't care less, and sometimes it can make you feel like giving up and quitting the meeting out there altogether. 

But we don't. 

Over the years I've watched people in this meeting and thought, "He/She obviously has no interest in being here and we're just spinning our wheels with that one", only to hear that person speak up later and say something so honest, vulnerable, and profoundly heartbreaking that I have to choke back tears. 
Or have one of them come up to me after the meeting and tell me what's going on and describe exact circumstances or feelings I went through when I was in early recovery and offer me a not-so-subtle reminder of why I do this. 
These can come in the form of a jolt of spiritual lightning or a gentle intuitive nudge, but they happen fairly often. I sometimes wonder if it has something to do with being so close to the raw spiritual condition of many of these people. 

It happened again last night and as usual, I wasn't expecting it.

Last week I met a guy out there who was pretty fragile and scared. Detoxing from meth has a tendency to make you that way. 
But he was asking questions, and it's always nice to see the ones that show enough interest to ask questions. I spoke with him and a couple other guys for a while after the meeting and as we talked, I could see he was worn out and had been down a very tough road. But I also detected what I thought was curiousness and hope behind his wild eyes. 

Last night he was one of the guys who showed up early. He said hello and mentioned that we'd talked last week. I told him I remembered him and that he looked a lot better today. I asked how detox was going and he said he was feeling a lot better. The meeting was about to get started so we both took our seats. 

After the meeting ended he came over to me and I said he looked a lot calmer this week and he laughed when I told him his eyes weren't lit up like roman candles anymore, either. I mentioned the connection between the mind, body, and spirit and the damage our addictions do to that connection. He quickly said he'd been doing yoga as part of his treatment, then he stopped mid-sentence, smiled a smile that was obviously from somewhere deep inside, and gave me a gigantic hug that I felt go through my whole being. Then he turned and without another word, walked quickly out of the room. 

I don't know what happened with him in that moment, but I do know that I experienced the connection we have to one another when we let our guard down enough to allow it.

I don't have a clue what the future holds for that guy, but I got to experience the joy that comes from simply "showing up" and connecting with another human being. And that's the constant reminder I need about withholding judgement of who is and who isn't gonna' "make it". 

Then we went to the taco joint and I had a delicious burrito and enjoyed the company of my two comprades.

Like the song says, "C'est la vie say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell..."

Mercy for me, Justice for you...

I wasn't always as young as I am now.

I used to be a very old man, drunk on alcohol, yes, but just as drunk on selfishness and ego; dirt poor inside and out. I ran the car off the road over and over, literally and figuratively, each time promising to let someone else drive, only to find myself behind the wheel again, out of control and headed for the ditch one more time.

I was trapped in my own thinking and I didn't trust anyone enough to follow them out. I was drowning in self pity, self delusion, and self loathing; totally self consumed. I was offered many lifesaving hands, but always insisted they were the wrong one, until I knew I was going under for the last time. I finally accepted the hand that was offered without reservation and began taking the suggestions of people who had been where I was. I started rebuilding my life and it almost felt like I was aging backwards, aided by a spiritual curiosity I'd ignored and left behind as a very young man. That was many years ago, and while my body has aged, I am decades younger inside than I was during those last years of drunken spiritual crisis. I never want to lose sight of how it felt when I was on the verge of drowning.

Which brings me to what's been on my mind for a couple of days.

The local news recently reported on the tragic death of a police officer who drowned while trying to stop a suicidal woman from driving her car into the river. If the news accounts are accurate, this officer died trying to save a woman who has an arrest record going back years, consisting mostly of drug and alcohol related offenses. She survived, and after being released from the hospital will be facing criminal charges that will change the rest of her life, for better or worse. 

The comments on the Facebook page of the local newspaper show a mob verdict of guilty with a sentence of death. 

But what would that officer say if he could speak to us now? Would he ask if he died in vain, trying to save a woman who's life wasn't worth saving? Someone who'd lost hope so deeply that they thought suicide was the only option left? Would he question the desire to see her dead after he had sacrificed himself trying to save her? Or would he want to see her turn her life around and show others that they don't have to go down the road she travelled, making his attempt to save her life a success? 

A wise man once told me that most people want, "Mercy for me, Justice for you..."

Two Bills

First things first. 

A confession:

I can't take credit for the blog name, "Shaolin Wolf". 

I stole it from my friend Bill, who once said that he wanted to "spend my next life as a Chinese monk. I'll play and sing the blues, and call myself Shaolin Wolf."

So credit where credit is due. 

Bill and I sometimes differ politically, but unlike some other friends, I respect his insight and intellect. He's also got a dry, sarcastic, roadie sense of humor that I'm very familiar and comfortable with. 

Bill and I once spent a weekend working a show next door to the Super Bowl and he kept me laughing with some very inappropriate humor when the hours got long. I also got Emmett Smith's autograph that weekend, the day after the Cowboys won the Super Bowl. And while I'm talking about celebrities, Bill was the lighting guy for a famous old school country singer who died on the road while Bill was working for him. He said, "If anyone ever tries to tell you that he's still alive like they do with Elvis, it's not true because I saw 'em take his body off the bus."

So Bill is the original Shaolin Wolf.

The other Bill is the guy who suggested I start writing some of this random nonsense down.

He's a writer. A very good writer. He says he likes the way I write, and suggested I investigate that, so I'm doing it. He's another one who's insight and intellect I deeply respect. 

I was introduced to Bill through his books about ten years ago when I was at a pretty tough fork in the road. The old saying, "when the student is ready the teacher will appear" was never more true than when his books showed up in my life. Bill appeared with what felt like a message of, "Yeah, it's weird, but follow us, we know the way. Not the way 'out', just 'the way'."

Then I found out he's an old Tennessee boy with a heart for the blues, and a head for zen mindfulness. Apparently the student was ready and the teacher appeared. His words have been a constant companion ever since. 

I finally got to meet him and break bread, where he told me stories of Hollywood actors and trickster gurus. I don't have many "heroes", but if we're lucky, sometimes we get to know people who have a way of ringing the bell of truth inside us. Bill is one of those people for me. Having been in the music business for many years I can attest to the old adage, "Never meet your heroes because you may be disappointed". 

I'm glad to report that this was not the case with Bill. 

And that's how this space came to be...