I’m writing this from the remaining embers of my subconscious. Where we just spend the better half trying to find one another.
I wrote the directions down, but the letters didn’t line up – the numbers ran like water. Ink never dries on paper in a dream.
Finally, we bumped into each other. Frantic on a stairwell. A collision of flannel. A hug in chaos. A sigh of relief.
And then I was falling… Trying to grab bits and pieces in the ether. But that was like trying to catch thread on an endless bobbin in the wind.
Note: Sometimes a poem falls between the cracks and I forget to collect it somewhere or make sure I capture it so I can remember what it was about. This is one of those poems. I wrote it sometime in 2018 and it could be about anything or anyone. But I can see the stairwell in my mind when I close my eyes.
Here is my homage to those folks who never take their racks off their roofs. They probably never check to see if the hardware is tight either, but I digress..
Kayak racks in Jan Like ski racks in the summer Are just for show, man
Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians were part of some wild wave of hippy music that took off in the late 1980’s that also included bands like The Black Crowes, The Spin Doctors, and Blind Melon.
Mother Love Bone could be considered part of the same movement, but they were on another wavelength because Andrew Wood was a gift from outer space.
Anyway… I fell in love with Edie.
At seven years old, I had never seen or heard anyone like her and her voice would carry me through years of falling for brunettes with wild eyes. She would launch a thousand ships of poetry, and awkward situations – and looking back on it now, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Fun fact from the rumor mill: when Jerry Garcia tried to quit The Grateful Dead in the late 80s, he was going to form a band with Edie and Rob Wasserman. There’s no telling what that band would have sounded like, but with Edie at the helm – and Jerry and Rob backing her up – I bet it would have been quite a scene.
Anyway – here’s to Edie and all the amazing music she’s made.
And here’s to WFUV for playing her around 10 o’clock this morning and waking up all of those great memories in my head.
The outdoors is my area of refuge. It doesn’t matter where I’m at, what I’m doing, or what’s going on around me – the outdoors fills my sails and keeps me going.
And this time of year is actually one of my favorites.
There’s not a lot going on out there in the winter. There aren’t any pretty leaves to look at; no flowers to faun over. Even the animals are scarce during these cold months – but there’s so much more to see, because everything is so empty.
As if everything that’s been hidden by leaves and flower and an abundance of color have final come into focus in the absence of the aforementioned.
Take yesterday for instance – it was foggy and raining, all day. Inside of that situation – in the middle of Stick Season – anything that has even a hint of color pops out in the grey. As we were heading into the woods to take the long way home, a beaver lodge popped up out of the fog. Something that’s usually ensconced and therefore hidden in the blossoms of spring, the bounty of summer, and the colors of fall found itself in the middle of a marsh, completely uncovered – a pyramid of sticks that was easy to see if you took a minute to slow down and see it.
Beaver Lodge
I thought about that for hours after I first saw it, took the picture, and moved on. I’m thinking about it now, lounging around with my dog and one of my daughters who’s scrolling through YouTube videos – and it’s keeping me warm; it’s exciting me and making me want to get out there to see it again.
So a little later, on our way to pick up some celebratory New Year’s Day Chinese food, I will intentionally drive out of my way just to see that same lodge on a sunny day.
Hiking this time of year can be a chore. The ground is frozen and rough, ice can make things a little tricky, and – due to the weird warming and cooling trend we’re in this day – we’re getting a mini-mud season which is creating these weird pockets under the leaves that you think will provide a solid footing, but you generally step in and breakthrough which jams up your stride.
But it’s fantastic – all of it. It’s quiet and the woods still surround you and cover you with their coniferous canopy – but they’re more open. You can see farther, you can hear more, and it’s a totally different experience from hiking in the warmer months.
Take right now for example. I’m looking out the window into the backyard and I can see straight back to Hubbard Brook – which is only visible from this far away, this time of year.
And how about anything hanging on? Leftover berries that are starting to shrivel. Beech trees and their yellow leaves that never seem to really peek, but never seem to totally die off with all of the other leaves in Autumn.
There’s so much in a season generally associated with so little.
And for me, it’s never enough. I want to head out there and see everything I can see. I want to take bits and pieces home and leave them on the picnic table out front and study them each time I head out of the house for the day or while I’m making my way back in at the leading edge of night.
Treasures
I want to take my 4Runner and drive through the same trails, in and out of the same ruts, to see if anything has changed since the last time I was out and about. I want to take the same pictures I took before so that one day I can look back and feel the fullness I feel when I’m out there in it.
Somewhere In The Middle
Many moons ago, a handful of us went camping in New Year’s Eve on Bear Mountain. We started in Connecticut and ended up in New York and somewhere overnight it snowed. It snowed a lot.
It snowed so much that it changed the whole trip.
My girlfriend and I woke up with the top of our tent just inches from our faces, the trail was nowhere to be found, and in the middle of trying to regroup and reconfigure the next five miles, we realized that the keys for the car we were eventually walking to were left in the car we came from.
The whole trip – as we planned it – was over and in the minute it was a bit of a panic. But that situation provided us with so much more than we ever expected we would get from the outdoors.
We hiked back on a road we didn’t know existed. We told stories we may not have told otherwise. We experienced things we couldn’t conceive that we would experience. And now, twenty years later, on New Year’s Day I look back on it fondly because of everything it was to me then and will be to me forever.
Music has the wonderful ability to guide you, enable you, inspire you, and help you understand yourself better than anything else on the planet. I don’t know if it’s the rhythm and the words, I don’t know if it’s the tempo and the tone – but whatever all of it is, it’s a powerful thing.
The holidays – which basically ensconce the month of December – are also powerful, but it’s not always rainbows and butterflies – sometimes they bring on stress and dread; drumming up all the stuff you shoved back down into a secret hiding place in therapy. Sometimes they don’t bring on those feelings, but are just overwhelming – in both a good and bad way – and it creates this energy in you that eventually needs to be let out.
Oddly enough, this time of year – Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, and New Year – collectively have the largest amount of music written for and about it.
A few years back, I put together a playlist called “December”. It started off as a Christmas playlist.
We Christmas in our family, but sometimes we throw in a little Yule, and based on some recently discovered family information, we may start to Hanukkah.
But as the month drew closer to its climax, I started adding other songs in there – stuff that was making me feel – both good and bad – and helping me really find balance in the holiday season.
Now! Focusing on Christmas, seeing it really starts tomorrow for most of us, here are my top ten tunes on the playlist that keep finding their way onto repeat:
1. The Pogues – Fairytale of New York I was going through a divorce when this song landed on my front steps and is just the right amount of sad to help you get through anything.
2. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones – Jingle Bells Bela Fleck was my first foray into bluegrass, many moons ago. This version of Jingle Bells is one of the best out there – and I won’t tell you why. You’ll know once you hear it.
3. Tim Minchin – White Wine In The Sun First off, I love Tim. His music and acting are top-notch in all directions – but the bit of drama in this song always makes me cry.
5. Greg Lake – I Believe In Father Christmas I feel like the narrator of this song was stuck in a rustic cabin somewhere, with his synthesizer, and had himself a vision of epic proportions.
6. Keith Richards – Run, Rudolph, Run This gem was a Record Store Day whale or something. It’s paired with “Pressure Drop” and “The Harder They Come” and all three are worth a listen.
7. Bob Seger – Little Drummer Boy My oldest daughter was born to Bob Seger, so I’ve got a spot saved for him under the tree by my heart for this totem.
8. Andrea von Kampen – Old Fashioned Holiday There must be something in the water in Michigan that gives its singer-songwriters the perfect voice and delivery combo. This is love-making music.
9. The Band – Christmas Must Be Tonight I’ll pretty much gobble up anything you put in front of me from The Band. The hook in this tune – where the Levon and Richard come in to aid Rick in telling the tale gets me every fucking time. Every time.
I hope you enjoyed those ten wonderful songs that scream CHRISTMAS to me. Maybe you’ll play them at your holiday party, inspired by my enthusiasm? Maybe you’ll never listen to them again. Either way – there’s no dismissing the quality and impact.
I don’t mind telling anyone that the girls started sleeping in their own beds in the loft last night. They argued over who was going to sleep in what bunk and who was getting what stuffed animals, but in the end – they made the call and made it happen.
Sure you can say they were a little late to the game, but we had other priorities – other hills to climb – before we started worrying about where everyone was taking in their nightly dream sessions.
Anyway. They’re up early, talking and scurrying around and as tempted as I am to go upstairs and see what they’re up to at 5am, I’d rather just listen.
They’re planning out what they should do from now until they have to really wake up and they can’t decide if they want to watch TV or play Roblox. Each idea elicits a giggle that travels from their mouths to my heart.
Here we are. The next step in growing up. Yeah, it’s a little weird to have my bed back and all too myself, but it’s also a little awesome that they’re in their own world up their doing their own things.
And! AND! It was purely organic. We’ve been talking about it for a while and I’ve been telling them more and more that it’s time to make this change, but in the end – it was their call, which they made spontaneously at 8pm last night.
Growing up, I took it upon myself to absorb as much Neil Young as humanly possible. He was big medicine to me – his sound, his words, his politics. He found a place in me that I relied on to help me figure out who I was – and once I did, I kind of got burned out on the old guy.
Now, with the release of “Chevrolet” off of Neil and Crazy Horse’s new record World Record – I’m back in the saddle as Weird Neil rides again.
Somewhere around the age of 14, I picked up a copy of Live Rust and songs like “The Loner”, “Powderfinger”, and “I Am A Child” wrapped their arms around me, pushed me to places I never knew I needed to see. Smoke signals outside of my internal Tipi started forming and I wasn’t only listening to Neil Young, but I was hearing him.
Then somewhere after Prairie Wind, I let go and moved on.
It wasn’t so much Neil and his music as it was me and my life. I had done the same with Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd previously. In fact, the only band that I have never walked away from is The Grateful Dead and that’s partly due to their endless catalog of live music.
Anyway. Neil Young is back with Crazy Horse and taking center stage in my heart of hearts – and this nearly twenty-minute long banger is the reason.
It’s got all the elements of anything from the Neil Young catalog – and then some. So much so that I think I owe it to myself to absorb this whole album. I just can’t do it on any streaming service, besides Neil’s own, because Neil called out Joe Rogan for being Joe Rogan and pulled his music from the bigger streams.
Oh well, I won’t be deterred. In fact, kudos to for Neil bringing Rogan to task. Someone had to say what everyone was thinking.
I’ve been freelancing on the weekends for Gear Junkie since the beginning of the Fall. It’s been an exciting outlet for me to share my technical writing through – but let’s be honest, as technical as it can be, my soul and spirit hang from the pointing edges of each letter, and rest on the belly of the rounded ones.
It’s all there.
My latest write-up is about The Big Banter from WE Knife Co. – and I won’t go into detail about it here, because you can read the article when it drops next week and give them the traffic – BUT, I will share this photo because it’s a real banger and I am proud of it.
So, a little background: I was outside doing work in the yard and I came across this pinecone hanging off a bit of a dried and dying branch that must have blown down from up on high. I knew it wasn’t from the White Pines that flank the property – so I sat down with some tea and a reference book and did a little research. Turns out it’s from a Pitch Pine, which I have one of, off in a remote corner, tucked behind a rotting ash that the Pileated Woodpecker calls home.
Anyway, I had used the knife to remove the pinecone and – in being pulled away to do something for the girls – I dropped everything in place. When I came back, I knew what I saw would end up being the hero picture of the article.
And here we are.
And now you’re left with a little insight into how I get down to the nitty gritty when I’m writing these write-ups for the world to read.
I live in a valley where the Connecticut River has a major influence on the weather we get down at the house.
I’m half a mile from the main road, the other side of which lives the river. In the warmer months, you can hear the powerboats ripping down the multi-state waterway. Due to the proximity, there’s no surprise that there’s such a dense fog hanging around on a day like today.
My family used the Connecticut River for trade. They made their way down from the Hudson Valley, into Vermont – where they settled, both themselves, the town, and the state. The river they lived near up there is the same river they lived near down here.
When I was younger, I planned a canoe trip down the river. But I never took it. I’m not too old to do it now, but I find myself in a spot where – if I wait a few years – I can make the trip with the kids and our dog. Suffice to say, I’ll be older and wiser then.
We would start in Vermont and find our way back down here, eventually arriving back home by taking the Hubbard Brook off the river. Then walking up through the backyard. I’ve never checked the way things flow, but that would be ideal.
The Hubbard Brook is named after the Hubbard Family. Elizabeth Hubbard was an ancestor of mine. Her family owned the property I now live on with my girls. I had no idea about this until we had lived here for a couple of years. It’s wild to think about it all. We even have a family cemetery where we could all be buried at if I really wanted to pursue it.
When we first moved in, I named this place “The Lemonade Stand” because it’s a fine example of how someone can turn lemons into lemonade when their life takes a sharp turn. When I started planting the apple trees and blueberry bushes – with the idea of selling the fruit and honey one day – I changed the name of our little sanctuary to the “River Sisters Homestead”. A named culled both from our family history with the river and the future of this place through my daughters.
It’s all quite magical. There’s a lot to take in from the past and a lot to think about in terms of the future, but for now, I’ll just relish in these mornings when the river makes its own little weather patterns in an area known wholly as Maromas.
Tribe Of Flannel 