The People Whisperer

My plans (which change about every six hours) were to head back east on Thursday. To fly to Atlanta and drive up to Murphy and pick up Roxanne and head back to my city.

So I got up this morning with this on my mind and this is what I found. A new tropical storm, expected exactly over Atlanta at precisely the time I was planning on landing, driving up through the mountains and heading back to Murphy.

I expect it's not too much of a surprise to people that I decided to change my plans.

Then... later today I had lunch with my good friend Jim Callahan, who proposed a whole new way of looking at the way my life has gone for the last 40 days.

He suggested to me that perhaps my experience was a lot like the training of a horse.

He said that the way you work with a horse is that you prevent it from moving in the direction you don't want it to go, not with anger or force, but by simply standing in the way. You do that again, and again... until when the horse goes where you DO want it to go, you give it its head and let it run.

What happens from this process is that the horse learns that doing the right thing (as it were) is its own decision and it becomes capable of acting on its own in the way you want it to act. At least that's how I understand it from within my world of absolute equine ignorance.

What Jim suggested was that, like the horse, when I find my way, everything will suddenly open up and it will be - to mix metaphors - smooth sailing.

Frankly... despite my religious tendencies and my sense of a generally faith based reality, I find the whole idea of being directed in such a manner to be a little creepy. At the same time... I'm damn ready for some smooth sailing.

The New Normal

It's been four days since my last posting here and I woke up this morning feeling an odd sense of responsibility to get something up so that I give the lovely people who care enough about me to read this load of dung some kind of fodder for your trouble.

A lot has happened in those four days and at the same time nothing has happened.

This past weekend I traveled into The City to attend The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the height of which came at the end of the day on Sunday when Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller were joined onstage by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings after a set that covered the whole range of Emmylou's music, and more. The weekend also included incredible sets by Rodney Crowell, Roseanne Cash, Guy Clark, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and others spread out over 5 stages and two days, all FOR FREE.

The vibe of the people, the widely ranging music and the massive audience spread across the entire western end of Golden Gate Park made it feel a lot like Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Sucking up some damn good crawfish etouffee didn't hurt either. It wasn't exactly home, but it was a pretty good substitute considering the circumstances.

I'll have some musical postings and some "sound-seeing" from the fest coming up soon... Hopefully later today.

Late on Sunday I got an email from a friend of mine who has a recording studio in San Francisco. We had met up a week earlier (for the first time in about ten years) and we discussed the possibility of my setting up an office next to his studio that would help to serve as a base of operations while I try to figure out the rest of my life. The email he sent on Sunday was to tell me that the space was unexpectedly available and to ask if I was still interested. I told him that I was, and so it seems that at least part of my confusion has been at least partially (and temporarily) settled.

This is what Aaron Brown of CNN likes to call "the new normal." I've still got much to do and I've got to get back on the road shortly, but the last few days have at least begun to give me a handle on sanity again. As I talk to, and receive email from, friends from New Orleans this seems to be happening all over. It's been a month since we left The Crescent City, and while things are still confusing, they also seem to be settling out... more or less.