Big Birds Were Flying Across the Sky

I'm noticing today how my thoughts don't really give any information about what's coming next. I'm tuned in to the planning nature of thought. Not like it's a problem, but I'm just seeing how thoughts say one thing and actual life either presents that or something completely different. It must be different. We can't think out exact future, can we?

Well, what about that time at the Dead show at Richfield? Spring 1994, I think, and I had played in my head the image of me being in the section where I preferred to sit, up on the side, Jerry's side; and he (at the time Hugh) would find me. Like I saw happen in Atlanta that night when we were on the Barrel of Monkeys and at a very bright and jammy moment, here came Sean, Jackie's boyfriend. In the whole giant Omni, and she said, "I knew you'd find me." She sort of has that vision. And in Richfield it worked out much the same way, right there on Jerry's side. I turned around and there he was. The only show we spent together. At least the only time we saw Jerry together.

They played this could be the last time . . . and I knew that Jerry was one before Hugh. See when I say that I'm okay, they look at me kinda strange below.

Last night I went to my friend Donna's 50th birthday party. One thing that is so clear to me is there's really no such thing as age, at least not in the way I'd thought. We talked about junior high, about outfits worn in 1989, travel in Greece: other lifetimes. And we were there, Donna's hair curled up in a super-hip flip do, and all her friends were there, reading odes of great devotion and playing music, many duets.

We played Willin' and most everyone sang along. Now that was really cool. I stumbled and fumbled through it and was nervous as I always get, but the group was so receptive and merry (and probably a little drunk) and happy to be there together, everyone clapped when we were finished.

Thank you so much to the Meandering to a Ramble blog that had me writing the word willin' . . . that had me move more deeply into the song. Thanks to youtube for turning me on to that great live video of Lowell and the band and for also having instructional videos that actually taught me how to play the song. Thanks to Todd Doerr for handing me this guitar and saying, "It's time," those many many lives ago in San Francisco. Thanks to Scott Grantham for helping me play it in a higher key.

Heh heh this sounds like my Oscar speech.

If you want to bake a Carin from scratch, first you have to create the Universe.

And while we're at it, I hear it's Neil's birthday today. Let us pranam. 




And while we're bowing, let us touch the lotus feet of our Joni, her birthday being just a few days ago.

Great people were born in November. Yep, that's you.

xx

It Makes No Difference, Rick Danko 1997

Dare I try to play this one? I bow to the memory and living presence of Rick Danko!

I want to write more and must journey at the moment.

Much love. Back to ya soon.

xo

Nothing comes of thinking, but I do have impulses to move. To go where no one knows me and maybe linger there. With new people or by myself or both. I don't know. Is it the fall air, at last arrived in Austin, that calls me away? Is it a day with a friend, pleasant enough, but by the end of the day, I don't want to talk with anyone anymore. I don't want to step into an already-known relationship.

Some trees, the longing for the color changes from my home state that I leave, again and again. But fall in love with at this time of year. It's a northern seduction, distracting you from the agony of the death of summer, the on-going winter, right around the corner that will linger and linger.

We don't have that here in Texas. I don't even really know where I am. It's cooler in my apartment right now than it has been in months. I want to put my pajamas on. I feel tired.

Will I someday . . . what? What goes on the end of that question, when turning back to see if there's even an I here to ask about?

View of My Lap

I love how that title sounds kinda dirty, but when you look, well, it's all blanket and laptop love. 

I felt like I should put a picture in here, so I took one of the view from where I'm sitting (minus the hand that was holding the camera).

The mind is quiet today, curious, happy.

I went to see Francis the Healer again for the first time in, as it turns out, at least two years. He looked a little older, a few pounds heavier, perhaps, and I was really glad to be there. The first thing he said to me is, "You look like you've grown since the last time I saw you." Emphatically and like a little girl, as I lay on the table, I said, "I have grown!"

My days are just so trippy, and I can't tell what begets anything else. Oh wow, I just saw that I was sort of looking for causality. Well, that's interesting. Some thoughts are becoming more and more apparent when they had been very subtle.

And all of this experience is passing.

I submitted poems to a literary magazine yesterday. I feel to share one of them here with you now, but I don't think I'm supposed to, now that it's gone to the magazine. Oh I don't know how these things work. I'm gonna share some of it. Let me go get it . . .

{footsteps walking down a hallway, a wooden floor . . .

                                                                                    . . .  now coming back}


poem excerpt, from "Like Thoreau":

May I have time to rest?

How else am I liberated to write &

write & write?

Like Thoreau,

I need benefactors.

I cannot hide anymore

in the world of the punch card.

I love my poems, even if I do still slip into the obvious sometimes. I sent them off unedited, a typo in the one that I think is best.

* * * * * computer crashes * * * * * 

Well! I didn't realize this was still here . . . I re-wrote most of this post, but just found this. I'm going with this one. There's something to be said for the original.

xx

Worry Makes Less and Less Sense

I used to feel twinges of comparison. I guess I could say that sometimes I still feel them, as I just did, which spawned this writing, but it passed very quickly.

I used to compare myself a lot to others and the way they were living their lives. In fact, the other day one of my friends told me that she doesn't like to go on Facebook because she always comes away feeling like her life is small and boring.

I'm sitting on my living room couch. My friend's birthday party going on in the back yard is kicking up to a ruckus, somewhat to my disappointment, as I'm a slut for my peace and quiet.

Anyway, moments ago I saw something on-line . . . a post by a musician friend describing what sounds like his glamorous life. And I felt this envy or comparison come up, like a subtle voice that says, Why aren't you living that life? You should be doing more. You're lazy, a loser, a fat kid on the couch.

It was a sweet little flicker, though, because I saw it come up, and I checked in with the veracity of those statements, and they just fell away.

Yes, I'm sitting here on my couch. But I don't feel the need or wish for anything other than this. That is, this is the life that's unfolding for me, and I don't wish for something different.

Even when I'm feeling stress, I wish I didn't have the feeling of stress, or I might wish for something to solve it, but my sense of a future is so blank, I can't look that far ahead to worry. It's as if worry makes less and less sense to me.

And still there are thoughts that come through . . . thoughts that threaten, that insist on worry, on fear, on strategizing, and though I suffer when they come through, ultimately they, too, pass, and life continues to go on.

And even when the worry comes, when the conflicted mind comes, as Mooji reminds us here, that, too, is seen, even as the peace is seen. And life continues to unfold beyond my mental comprehension.





It is a mysterious time for me. Will this relaxation settle more and more? It seems like the only way it can go. That is, the unfolding is inevitable. I don't see how I could go back to living from my thoughts. It doesn't make any logical sense, and I suppose it's simply the sense that I am a separate self with a sense of doership and responsibility to manage and control life that feeds the worry. I'm very curious right now. And grateful to my teachers.

Entertaining Myself

Thanks to last week's post when I thought I was moving house (whew! glad I got clear about not to do that just now!), I developed a new love for the song Willin', as played live below by Little Feat c. 1976. I've spent the days since then learning to play the song on guitar, and I'm downright proud of myself.

I'd looked at the chords written out before and in not being able to make sense of their apparent over-my-head-ness, I gave up pretty quickly. But thanks to the joys of YouTube (that also helped me fix my toilet all by myself today), and some patience, and a sprinkle of desire to be bad ass for knowing how, I've learned to play Willin',

I'm still not totally sure on how to sing the verses over the chords, but I also feel that they are too low for me, so I've asked a few of my male music buddies to help me out. I think Chris Cage is a great bet. He has that perfect story-telling way of singing that makes the verses of this song what they are.

And now I want everyone to pay attention and talk about how charming my doodle is and how cool of a chick I am for learning Willin' and  . . .  what? . . . you say the boyz are all busy watching Monday Night Football? Oh well. I am entertaining myself.

xx

freedom from an office

This time of my life feels like a groundless quickening.

I realized recently that even when we have situations that appear to be stable, they aren't necessarily. Change comes on its own timetable.

I feel fortunate, like the super scary time has passed for now, but knowing the reality of anicca, impermanence, steady times come and go. Upheaval comes and goes.

I see in the story of Carin that there has been a desire and a movement toward living life in the style that works for me, but there were some thoughts that simply felt it was not possible. That there had to be a windfall or a steady job. As I read over this now, it's funny that I wrote that the thoughts felt.

I just heard Mooji say, "Leave room for some surprise."

And so the steady job removes itself and it was a big and sudden surprise, and it's had me see the direction of this compass.

The night before I was told that I was likely to lose my job, I'd made a list of qualities I wanted in my life. Actually, I'd titled it What I Want from the Airstream Life, as I'd become restless at work and wanted to focus my intention. Here's the list:

freedom
spontanaety
natural sleep cycle
beautiful places
beautiful new friends
new places & locations
creativity
creative inspiration
rest
physical health & wellness
freedom from an office (ALH) [those are the initials of the hospital where I'd been working]
pay, for what I do naturally
complete leap of faith
peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace

And I'd say I have it all, really. A few days ago I moved my bedroom around and I didn't plug my clock back in. It's one of my favorite things about this change: sleeping and waking up when I want. Natural sleep cycle.

Interestingly, I find that I don't sleep quite as much as I have in the past. That is, I have been sleeping under 8 hours a night, and I'm not missing the extra 30 - 90 minutes that was my preference and natural cycle before. And this, too, will not last in this design. I cannot predict any of my behavior or patterns or anything.

Perhaps because I'm seeing more and more that it isn't "me" in the way I've always thought of myself, who is actually guiding things. I - as Carin - am not in charge. There isn't really any such thing as a Carin anyway. Surely I am not those letters on the screen.

And if I were, they couldn't be making decisions and driving my life.

I feel comfortable in the groundless feeling. It seems as if life has been giving me feedback the last few days that I can actually go with my instincts, live a simple and flexible life, live comfortably, get paid to do things that are fun for me, and just stay relaxed and unscheduled enough to enjoy the gentle unfoldment of life. Until it doesn't seem gentle anymore, says memory of recent angst.

I wouldn't say that I'm angst free at present. Nor would I say that I have an official mental trust in what's coming, for how could I know anything beyond now? It's impossible. I wouldn't call it hopeful nor even encouraged. I might call it peaceful or spacious, but neither of those quite says it. I just am. Living.

Great Movie. I give it 4.5 stars.

Too much to tell but I'll start . . .

Just finished watching It Might Get Loud, and what is sexier than three guys with electric guitars?

The Edge singing The Weight? That's bad ass. Jack singing it.

Great movie. Great guitar art music life inspiration.

Also tonight my friend handed me a copy of Patti Smith's acclaimed recent book, Just Kids. They're makin that one a movie, I read in RS.

I told my landlords that I'm not movin out. Roger came by tonight and told me that he's so happy and that made me feel so good. So glad I'm not moving house just now. And I feel the vulnerability of the situation has been enlightening. It's kinda floaty. Gosh, how did it get to be 12:09?

I'm not really into writing anything else right now. Hope you guys are having a good night. xx

Without a Net, part 2 - Willin'

I get to know myself in ways that I would not have had things around me stayed stable.

Had I still been working full time at my mind-numbing job, I might have complained, felt weary, hid away on the weekends, had a pretty good time with my coworkers and our clients, felt fat and stagnant, and watched Mooji videos on YouTube from my desk though I couldn't really hear them.

But I wouldn't have had to really look. Not that I have to now. And not that looking is like a should or is even happening at all. You could say seeing. Observing, noticing, relaxing, seeing. Yes, looking almost feels mental. Like there's pressure to do something.

This is a good reminder for me to notice. If I'm moving toward an action and I can feel that pressured ache inside my forehead as if pushing my skull outward from above my eyes, I know this is not coming from a place of rest.

Ah, yes, this is a helpful distinction.

I feel that I do not have to push myself. Have a willingness? Perhaps, but even that seems to be arising on its own. A willingness, a wonder . . .

Oh la la la la la . . .

I wandered away from this for a moment and came back and it all feels like dribble! Seems so serious and significant, and sometimes that's just how it is, and amazingly it just drops away, again and again, with just a little allowing and a little space.

I have to pee.

It's quiet in my apartment and I love it here. I will be moving out in about a month and I'm glad to have this time off of work to be here, to rest and enjoy my space this month, to . . . yeah, maybe freak out sometimes. I'm willin' . . .



Don't be surprised if I start playin this one myself pretty soon . . .

Live: Without a Net

Just as I put on Disco Pandora when I'm working on promoting my upcoming class, Disco & Doodles: Unleashing Creative Freedom, I've turned on the Levon Helm station to write this post today. Now, as I go back to edit, I'm hearing, well, you'll see.

I just feel like writing. I also feel like taking a nap.

It's Saturday, October 1, 2011. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to give my notice that I'm moving out to my landlords today. I'm nervous about it! Leaping without a net . . .

Back in 1991, I was in college in Miami, tripping around with Mike Russo, and on a particularly stressful night, I hit the change button on his CD changer, and on came "Eyes of the World" from the Grateful Dead's live recording, Without a Net (1990). After years of hearing worn out bootleg cassettes of the Dead, I finally got some clarity about what my friends loved so much. The song was incredibly soothing in the moment, and the rest is latecomer history. The following spring I hit the east coast tour, and three and half years later, when Jerry [Garcia] died, I had seen him perform 81 times. Not bad for a latecomer, if I do say so myself.

Of course, among Heads, this album is known in part for Branford Marsalis's saxophone contribution to "Eyes," and his sound was familiar to me that day, too. I'd met Branford at a jazz festival in Nice, France, on the eve of my 20th birthday in July 1990.

Here's Branford sounding awesome with the band, 3/29/90, a sweet audience recording. If you're interested, here's a soundboard recording of the entire show at Nassau Coliseum. Watching this video reminds me of the one Dead show I saw with my dad (thanks, Dad!) at Nassau and they played "Eyes." I remember thinking, "This is what they must mean when they say 'a religious experience.'" The band played so strongly that night (this was 1993, spring tour, I think), and it was my favorite "Eyes" that I ever saw them do live.

Wow, my meandering is going deep into my Dead history. Just a few days ago, when I threw away all those journals and photo albums I mentioned below, I also threw away some little rubber toy snakes that I'd found both in New York and again in Orlando on that same '93 spring tour. Sigh . . .

What is opening up now? Life unfolds and unfolds and unfolds, and underneath and within, something remains unmoved, unchanged, awake, alert, unopinionated, even though sometimes it seems to smile.

I've been worried before. Scared plenty. And surely I haven't seen the last of it.

Today one of my friends called me to ask me if I was in need of a place to stay in November. Felt great to have her call and ask and to be able to tell her I really don't know where I'm going and that if it feels good to them (she'll be on her honeymoon), I'd love to stay at their place, and also to tell her that I'm okay with whatever feels good.

This blog and this intended journey helps keep the spark of enthusiasm alive for me in the worrying times.

In life, I'm never truly without a net, and this is what I've been coming to find. Awareness/awakeness is here all the time. Cradling everything in its arms. The fear. The glee. The longing, lust, anger, delight, hunger, fatigue, sickness, dreaminess, joy, love, peace, swooning over your favorite band.

xx

p.s. As I was finishing this post, another friend called to invite me to travel with her and her husband, starting at a retreat they are offering in Louisiana in November. Yes, invitations! I welcome your calls.

when I say that I'm okay, they look at me kinda strange

10 years ago, almost to the day, I took off from Columbus, Ohio, to a few hours in Chicago, and then off to Amsterdam. I spent six months away (ooooh isn't Uncle John's Band just coming on my Paul Simon Pandora? and aren't I just swooning?) . . . whoa oh what I want to know is are you kind? . . .

see? I can't hardly get into an expository writing or telling a story without getting grabbed into the synchrnoicity of being alive right now.

it's the same story the crow told me, it's the only one he knows
like the morning sun you come, and like the wind you go

{{{{{{{{{{ string of hearts }}}}}}}}}

this is the song that pulled me in to the Dead. A time of much transformation and a big invitation:

come on along or go alone 

life sometimes does feel lonely. doesn't it.

yesterday I threw away my photo albums and my journals from when i took that trip, including India. and some other tidbits. it's funny. i held on to a few things, but, until i opened up those boxes yesterday i didn't even know that i had that stuff. if i hadn't opened the box, i could have thrown it all away and not missed it. of course acoustic John Lennon comes on now: Watchin the Wheels. well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me . . .

but anyway, i put most of it in the garbage, and some photos of my family in frames. didn't even take them out of the frames. then i forgot that i did that, and when i went to bed last night, i saw the big gap on my shelf. i moved some statues there. they looked awkward, but anyway.

shedding stories? or just shedding stuff i won't have room to carry around.

before i threw out the travel journals, i grabbed a few of the decorations off of them: an Annie Lebovitz photo of Joni Mitchell, an ancient Indian quote beginning "There is no happiness for him who does not travel," and the little painting on the right in the above picture: when one door is closed, another door is opened (painted in Chiang Mai, Thailand).

I don't enjoy the trite, and I cannot bear lip service, but when the time is right, sometimes I can hear, or should I say, recognize.

Amidst the detritus of nostalgia, I found an envelope, sealed and unopened, addressed to an old love of mine, with the words Paths that cross will cross again (attributed to Patti Smith).

My more current lover is out the door now as well, or the door has closed as much as it's gonna, and I can settle back into the opening of the ever unfolding road of life, piling out from within me for me to step on. He told me to take care of myself until our paths cross again. Fucking kiss of death, if you ask me, having been around the block more than a few times. (Ha! I didn't even notice Simon and Garfunkle singing "Bye Bye Love"! See, the explosive synchronicities are on it.)

So anyway . . . rambling girl, you are already at a ramble! . . . I found this letter yesterday, and at bed time, along with a copy of Writing Down the Bones, I took it to bed with me to open, like a treasure chest, and read.

Five beautifully handwritten pages of open and relaxed honesty. Sometimes it takes years before something like this can come out. I was stunned and moved by the generosity and poignancy of that moment, and how it came back to greet me, now 5 years later. I wrote it to Hugh. And, when I went to see the (Grateful) Dead that one spring ('94?), and exactly as I'd daydreamed, in exactly the spot I'd imagined, I ran into Hugh at the show. We spent the show together and I knew then that the Dead had been with me before Hugh. One before the man. And, as I read the letter last night, I was present to 2006 being one before Mike, one before this more recent, really not current anymore, man. Refreshing.

The letter begins,

Dear Hugh,

There were a few after you but only one of them fucked me up pretty crazy.

I go on to speak of loneliness and the unresolved state of our relationship, the physical magnetism that will bring two people back for years, until one day

one of 'em just doesn't come back.

I speak of gratitude for Kristi and Roger, my landlords (I'd lived here 3 months at the writing of this letter; now it's been 5 1/2 years and this could well be my last month as a tenant). It was sweet to see that, and the synchronicity of this timing also moved me. The hello and farewell in the same letter.

I write of being like a rolling stone (no moss) and the same-time longing for intimacy, like my Queen, Joni (Mitchell). And sometimes I do feel lonely, I write. And sometimes I do.

Life of a single 30 something woman.

And some years later, here, meandering and rambling, we find the life of a single 40 something woman, accepting that her man is gone, sometimes with a stillness that questions nothing for no questions even arise, and sometimes with the watery watery blue waves of relief grief.

I threw away my photo albums and travel journals and that book I wrote in high school whose chapters my friends used to pass around, dreaming I was wealthy and had minimal parental supervision and phones in the house with multiple lines and intercoms like my schoolmates.

But this unopened letter spoke to me and asked to be taken to bed to be read. Paths that cross will cross again?

facts and words fall away

changing so constantly . . . what I intended to write seconds ago has wandered away. dave van ronk singing we are born to die. there's something relaxing in the relaxing into this fact.

but i don't even know what a fact is.

here is a picture of my friend randall changing the battery for my car this evening. thank you, randall.

i'm glad the car issue was simple and about half the price i'd expected it to be. i feel $50 richer from the experience.

* * * * *

i can't predict anything. i really can't.

well, shoot, i sat down to write but right now i don't have anything to say. glad my car's working. everything else is a strange state right now. changing all the time. listening to john prine.

xx

Impermanence, Meandering, and the Appearance and Disappearance of the Road

The first post I wrote for this blog, that subsequently disappeared, told of my life since my last megatrip, eventually explaining my ever-since-then desire to go wandering and make my way up north and east from Texas, eventually to visit Levon Helm's barn and get to be at (at least) one of his Midnight Rambles. Honestly, I forget what else I'd said. Something about wanting to visit my friends in Grundy, Virgina. To rest. Make music. Make art. Go where guided. Go for it.

I mentioned this Steve Jobs quote: 

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment, failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only the truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

and how it's been speaking to me lately.

And I added that I don't know how life works, at all. I do know that I function on intuition and guidance and not much else. And although I find myself nervous at times, I am more and more guided to seeing the direct, fresh, natural and spontaneous unfoldment of life, now and now and now and nnnnnnnnnooooooooowwwwww.

Indescribably now. 

I feel comfortable and satisfied right where I am. At this moment, I desire nothing. And life found me today with the clarity of this feeling to journey and to visit a Ramble in the midst of it. What comes next is unknown. I can predict nothing. 

Life simply finds me here, tonight, enjoying creating this blog, introducing the world to the wind of inspiration, encouraging me, meandering us all. 

And speaking of introducing the world, I heart-ily welcome little baby Oliver, born to my friends Mona and Pat, this morning at 10:37. Auntie Carin can't wait to meet you!

I'm grateful to have been liberated from my desk job, as are my ass and my skin that's finally getting a kiss of summer. I'm grateful for the comfort of writing on this laptop and for the speakers and the music coming through them and for the curiosity to see if an impulse will have this journey unfold as the sparks have imagined. 

Ramble on.