Show, Load Out, Five Hundred Miles
The sun is setting around 4:30 PM in Northern Canada, the trucks are constantly screaming by on the highway outside our lodge-style hotel, and the traffic lights at the intersection visible from my window change for nobody. Tomorrow I will be doing a show, then hurtling down the road almost six hundred miles to the next city. As for right now, today I am thoroughly enjoying my time with Nikki and will resume a more regular posting schedule as soon as she departs.
[continued the next day]
The stage lights are down, the curtain is closed, and Nikki is gone after having spent this weekend indulging ourselves in excellent food, exquisite scotches and wines, and each other. We spent time alone and with my friends, which I appreciated her willingness to do as it is significant of another part of our worlds integrating. As we drive, the weather has turned quite cold, and a light snow drifts down from the grey underbelly of the clouds. I am obviously sad she is gone, soaring high above those clouds and gazing up at the sky I wonder where she is, as I sit in my seat looking through a dirty windshield and the floating snowflakes sailing by outside. It will be Christmas before I see her again, but I take some solace in knowing that this will be the last extended amount of time we are apart before she is coming to my city to hopefully stay.
Three days with her were not nearly enough time, but I have a feeling anything less than an indefinite amount would have fallen under that title. Show number four went off well, each one is getting substantially tighter as we go and that's how it should be. I catch myself checking the date today and seeing how long it is until I get back. Not a good sign.
One of my best friends, Byron, is happily beside me in the driver's seat singing along to a Squeeze song coming in through the satellite radio. Byron is one of the nicest people I've ever met, and he and I have toured together extensively through thick and thin. Touring is a true crucible of character, you learn people's idiosyncrasies pretty quickly when you're forced to be around them nearly 24 hours a day. As a result, I'd like to think I know Byron really well, and he knows me better than I'd like to admit.
Byron also has a lovely girlfriend back in his home city, which is about eight hundred miles from mine. The thing that the two of them have taught me in their own, unique way is that there is something to be said for true love and honest forgiveness. Byron, like me, is a man constantly on the move, traveling, working, and possessing the "traveler" way of thinking. Also like me, it means he and his significant other are separate a lot of the time. Earlier this year, Byron and I were on a huge tour which was some of the most unbelievably arduous work I have ever experienced and for the latter third of it, he and his lady were going through some incredibly difficult times.
In April, they were in a completely nebulous state, and today are two of the most "in-love" people that I know. I know what they went through and I know it was serious, but being privy to their healing process gave me a vastly new perspective on loving recklessly and beautifully. It gives me great faith to know that they survived what they did, and did so gracefully in the end.
The darkness is vast outside our vehicle, stretching into a horizon I cannot see. Hour seven of driving has nearly passed and my body is sore and pained due to the flux of being in action and being stationary. A small stretch of illuminated road beckons us forward, each passing second signifying a few more feet closer to our hotel, where I hope I will find some internet access, a soft bed, and a chance to catch Nikki on Skype before she boards her red-eye flight back home.
For now though, the headlights fading into the distance are all that exist in our world and whilst I usually find that quite comforting, right now I just want it to end.
[continued the next day]
The stage lights are down, the curtain is closed, and Nikki is gone after having spent this weekend indulging ourselves in excellent food, exquisite scotches and wines, and each other. We spent time alone and with my friends, which I appreciated her willingness to do as it is significant of another part of our worlds integrating. As we drive, the weather has turned quite cold, and a light snow drifts down from the grey underbelly of the clouds. I am obviously sad she is gone, soaring high above those clouds and gazing up at the sky I wonder where she is, as I sit in my seat looking through a dirty windshield and the floating snowflakes sailing by outside. It will be Christmas before I see her again, but I take some solace in knowing that this will be the last extended amount of time we are apart before she is coming to my city to hopefully stay.
Three days with her were not nearly enough time, but I have a feeling anything less than an indefinite amount would have fallen under that title. Show number four went off well, each one is getting substantially tighter as we go and that's how it should be. I catch myself checking the date today and seeing how long it is until I get back. Not a good sign.
One of my best friends, Byron, is happily beside me in the driver's seat singing along to a Squeeze song coming in through the satellite radio. Byron is one of the nicest people I've ever met, and he and I have toured together extensively through thick and thin. Touring is a true crucible of character, you learn people's idiosyncrasies pretty quickly when you're forced to be around them nearly 24 hours a day. As a result, I'd like to think I know Byron really well, and he knows me better than I'd like to admit.
Byron also has a lovely girlfriend back in his home city, which is about eight hundred miles from mine. The thing that the two of them have taught me in their own, unique way is that there is something to be said for true love and honest forgiveness. Byron, like me, is a man constantly on the move, traveling, working, and possessing the "traveler" way of thinking. Also like me, it means he and his significant other are separate a lot of the time. Earlier this year, Byron and I were on a huge tour which was some of the most unbelievably arduous work I have ever experienced and for the latter third of it, he and his lady were going through some incredibly difficult times.
In April, they were in a completely nebulous state, and today are two of the most "in-love" people that I know. I know what they went through and I know it was serious, but being privy to their healing process gave me a vastly new perspective on loving recklessly and beautifully. It gives me great faith to know that they survived what they did, and did so gracefully in the end.
The darkness is vast outside our vehicle, stretching into a horizon I cannot see. Hour seven of driving has nearly passed and my body is sore and pained due to the flux of being in action and being stationary. A small stretch of illuminated road beckons us forward, each passing second signifying a few more feet closer to our hotel, where I hope I will find some internet access, a soft bed, and a chance to catch Nikki on Skype before she boards her red-eye flight back home.
For now though, the headlights fading into the distance are all that exist in our world and whilst I usually find that quite comforting, right now I just want it to end.