A magnetic north of the heart draws me back again. It’s all rain and wind in my beloved Midwest where dusk is augmented by a beautiful amber-orange sunset. It means fires are raging in the west and people are getting hurt.
I’m reading, Let It Be Told In A Single Breath, by Michigan poet Russell Thorburn. He prods me to take a slow, big breath before speaking. My yoga training opened the wisdom of this act, and now, I'll tell it in a single breath and in my northern tongue where the Ojibwe have influenced my wild outlook. But my telling will be, as Emily Dickinson counseled, slant or in burnished red angle. This slant tells of coffee and root beer, motorcycles, music, and slow-motion videos of grandchildren appearing ever so resilient in ligament and laughter. We’re all on a journey, delicate and mysterious, held in place perhaps by rubbery ligaments only. This trip north has placed me back on sidewalks I traversed in my youth when a long-haired, three-piece rock band from Flint, Michigan sang of the Grand Funky Railroad Closer to Home. Aging in slow motion, I grow closer to home and deeply grateful as the years go by.
For a long time now, I’ve used music and prose to navigate my life: guitars, drums, banjos, fiddles, mandolins, and lyrics, like this favorite by Tom Waits, an important anthem to someone like me who sucks at Capitalism. “Money’s just something you throw off the back of a train. Got a head full of lightning. A hat full of rain.… read more...
