(no subject)
I was realizing the other day that i haven’t made a real and actual personal text post here in a while. and i think back to the days of livejournal and how the interface of a site can really change how you interact with it and what sort of content you make. ugh and that last sentence just made me hate myself a little for how techbro it sounded. but in all truth, as I’ve moved in my life further from writing and poetry and literature and more towards music, I miss the introspective 1500 word pieces I would write about the light hitting the leaves while I drank my coffee. self indulgent sure but they were a moment of peace and beauty in what is often a violent and chaotic world.
it’s always fascinating when people start to move away from being acquaintances and into being more true friends. the other night i left too many things over at a friends house when leaving at 2am because I was exhausted. texting him a few days later to ask if yet another thing was there (my necklace) he said that he had found my rings but I was wearing the necklace when I left. and I was so touched. because I’m not used to being seen. not in a long time. and that he had noticed and remembered that I was wearing my necklace, it might seem like such a small thing, but being seen like that made me feel taken care of, appreciated, like I mattered. and it was… it felt like old times in the best way. and i guess that’s part of it. finding new friends that feel like old times so that your ancient souls can reconnect in the now for new adventures to become memories. sometimes time is just a joke being played on all of us I think. more of a figure eight than a circle. giving us the illusion of always being new and moving forward but really just moving and intersecting with its own future and past now and then.
K brought me lilacs at work last week. deep purple and smelling of sunshine and that big yard where you could roll around in the fresh grass, pick wild rhubarb and eat it under the willow tree without a care in the world. sometimes I think my whole life is just trying to get back to those moments. but as time is the trickster, even if I went back to that same house, and that same yard… it would never be the same.
i live in the strangest place of analog and digital in my life these days. dayjob and band job times spent on the computer 8 or more hours a day. tied into my phone gadget. responding in 2 mins or less to fire drills and emergencies that matter for a bottom line but not for the world at large. and then I disconnect and go record music to tape with microphones that are 50 years old on guitars that haven’t changed in a century or more. singing words and learning chords from men that work with their hands and none of us care for a moment that we are anything but real and alive in the moment. it’s fire and life and sweat and music and nothing else matters.
a heat wave is coming. the second in just a few weeks. i’ll need to keep some extra water on hand for the new plants i put in the ground last week. this morning it’s 7am and already in the mid 70s. Oakland doesn’t have the crazy ocean wind that keeps San Francisco cooler on these days. I dream of lunch breaks at the lake and swimming for hours with nary an email in sight. i want to be sunburnt and tired from play and picnics.
on Saturday night after the Vagabondage show I went to the Cloyne Co Op farewell party for alumni. Technically I was a crasher - just like I had been when I hung out there and partied with my friends all of the time. 30 - 50 old punks and rabble rousers hung out with the current students trying to give the place a good send off before all the current kids are evicted to make the place a substance free academic housing sort of thing. I wandered the halls drunkenly and lost just like I did 20 years ago. Looked at the 30ft palm trees my friend had planted when they were tiny baby palms, and hugged so many old timers while meeting new amazing folks young and old and soaked in the feeling of being the right age to remember being in my 20s and to appreciate being older and knowing how to have fun smarter now. i kept having a small court of male students asking me about music and fire. why do my topics always go back to that? it was flattering in a hilarious way. my ego was happy and my boundaries were solid.
the air is already losing it’s morning salt smell of the bay and turning dusty. time for more coffee and a few more moments to dream.