Brrrrrrr December

 Okay, it's not nearly as cold as most years at this time but I'll repeat that Tennessee cold is colder than any other because of the omni-present humidity. That humidity is cursed in the summer and the winter with equanimity. 

On a happier topic, I'm beginning work on a new painting, another dive into another arena of complete inexpertise (there is some uncertainty if this last is actually a word, but apparently Wictionary approves).

I had a chill (in every sense of the term) experience at my friend Matt Melon's detached garage workshop in Madison a few weeks ago, sitting with mutual friend Rocky Alvey, smoking cigars, drinking some Green River bourbon, and watching Colombo episodes on Matt's laptop while Matt worked (see https://www.magicmetaldesigns.com/ for how truly magical his metal artistry is). I snapped some pics and one of them is this one:

Matt Melon making magic

There are soooo many angles and objects in this image that I may well tame it down. On the other hand, that is what gives it its interest, so I may lean more toward realism than I have really yet to do. It's never boring, largely because if it seems to be getting that way, I will veer away onto other paths of decisions. Stay tuned.

I recently finished a pic I alluded to in my previous post (https://scottmerrick.blogspot.com/2022/11/december-2022-looks-to-be.html) and I'm pretty happy with it. Anyway, here are two stages of it--the first is what I brought into the workshop, and the second is what I consider the finished piece:

UPDATE 121622:

I attended the awesome Blended/Broken Color full-day workshop led by sensei Charles Brindley yesterday at Scarritt Bennet Conference Center and Charles made some suggestions for my "rocky's ridge" painting that I spent the whole afternoon implementing, (pictures above). Luckily for me, ten feet away from me in the full-to-capacity painting studio the amazing beautiful and amazing Amanda Shires was working on several absolutely beautiful abstract canvases. I got to meet her at the end of the day when Charles gathered the artists around my easel to view the final painting. I laughed when he told them "this guy came out of nowhere" to learn painting. Amanda was painting with her mother, Lisa, also a very capable artist, and both were really, really nice human beings. New adoring Amanda fan, check.

On another topic--Yesterday my brother Ed and I sat in on a Zoom meeting with our first cousin twice removed, Kathy M., who lives in California and who recently tracked me down via this blog. Her mother, the daughter of our half-aunt (nothing is simple), recently passed away and left behind what appeared in Kathy's background to be a dozen or so bankers boxes of letters and photographs. I won't be sharing these as they come my way, but childhood pictures of our dad, baby pictures of us with our mom, and the like  are exciting to look forward to. As of now the only baby pic I have of me is on the cover of my novel, Lives, and Kathy has already sent me another one. Who's that grumpy baby?

Mom and me at 4 months old

I look forward to continued correspondence with this distant newly in-touch cousin!

Finally (let's just go for it--is this the randomest blogpost ever?) I'm hitting The Blue Room Bar at Third Man Records Friday night, with my pal Rocky, for a show featuring the Lockland Strings, a group of East Nashville musicians who get together and perform a concert once a month or so. I am all giddy and expectatious (sic) to see Madi Diaz live, as well as to be introduced to a tidy handful of other performers I have not heard, until I put together this playlist on Spotify with one "record" from each artist who will be there. Feel free to listen, and I do recommend randomizing, if you can't make the show. (Note: Peter Mulvey will not be there, but it was the album with SistaStrings I found that features the most of them.)

Cheers! Have a lovely Winter Holidays season! 

Wait! I want to share that Thursday night we'll be attending "A Sonos Christmas," live at the Parthenon and getting to hear our marvelous, beautiful, talented, and, well, perfect daughter Miranda sing. She auditioned for the choir a couple months ago and was embraced into it, happily. Although I had the pleasure of attending the Timbre Cierpke Christmas Concert at a Nashville church this past Thursday and got to hear her sing, my honey has not and I couldn't be more excited to sit at the base of the golden Athena and share that experience with my life's love. Well, I couldn't be more excited until Friday at the Blue Room!

Now go be good and have fun!

December 2022 Looks to Be...

 ...a fairly normal month. Which is to say that, yes, anything can happen.

It's thickly foggy outside my studio window this morning, Saturday, 26 November, 2022. I have been delivering food orders for my dearest's business, Tinwings, for a couple weeks now and despite that twice-weekly addition to my schedule I do miss my painting classes with graphics master Charles Brindley, which are suspended until the first week in January. I took a lovely full day Brindley workshop on underpainting and paint application techniques a couple weeks ago, and did enjoy the drive up to his home in Adairville, Kentucky to do so. I'm just rambling here so stop me anytime. 

I finished my penitentiary painting (because at some point you just have to call it done) and I'm pretty good with it. 

After a still frame from Brian Siskind's brilliant video portrait of the abandoned Tennessee State Prison, "On the Inside"

The day of the painting class in KY I started a new canvas, which is an attempt to capture the mood of a photo I took up at my friend Rocky's ridge. Here's the photo:

Sunset on Rocky's ridge

The colors are beginning to work, as I apply layer after layer to the canvas. I think this will be a long effort. Yes, I expect it will. One pervasive challenge is implementing the transition between what is seen and what is not seen until it is painted. Charles says "We artists paint what is seen and what is unseen" and has said that "visual literalists must be the unhappiest people in the world." I smile.

My Life's Love Lee Ann and I went out last night! We were invited to go downtown on a Friday night, and though we don't normally venture out on weekend nights, our friend Michael Sharpe's Sinatra tribute set in the gorgeously decked out bar within the Hyatt Holston House last night was early in the evening, and we wanted to see the show mainly to support him. We were thoroughly entertained! Michael's voice is perfect for the iconic Rat Pack crooner style. Technically on target, he pays effective respect to his phrasings and is pitch-on throughout. I believe that those long pitch-perfect word endings can only be achieved by hours of rehearsal and a perceptive and self-critical ear. The trick in that is to do the trick without it sounding like a trick, and he's certainly mastered it. Michael also brings an infectious joy to his show--a little self-deprecating banter here, a sizable helping of music trivia there, the well-placed prop; he's got it all.

Michael Sharpe in a li'l Happy Holidays pose with my sweetie, Lee Ann

I have a rare day off with my honey today--Tinwings is traditionally closed on Thanksgiving and the following weekend. We have ambitious plans to relax around the house. A little day-drinking may well be involved. A nap. Certainly a nap. 

I hope things are well in your world and I say come on, December, come ON!

There and Time, Recorded 2020

In the course of doing a little YouTube management this morning I came across this little ditty I wrote several years ago while visiting my dear Godbrother, James Morrison. At the time he and his (also dear) family were living in a cozy little house on North June Street in Hollywood, just 3 miles, as the California Crow flies, from the famed HOLLYWOOD sign. I was in running form then. I will admit that running is something I miss from my life prior scheduliberation.

On a morning run that included Beverly Boulevard, probably something like this,

I started by humming the melody that generated the first line and the song took off. It was one of those that I finished in one day and it never took any later revision because I was satisfied with its gestalt. My current assessment of the performance/recording is that boy oh boy do I have some serious looks on my face, and...it's a pretty good song. I also like my rhythm patterns and yes, it's a pretty darned good song, despite the fairly common misinformation about the Einstein quote.

Please pardon the sleepwear. I was pretty much confined to the home for much of the pandemic and this video was a trial for a series that never came to be. I have to laugh at the Covid Beard in my profile pic at the time. Checkout Jimmy's website, linked above, and enjoy...

and just for good measure, here is an archived pic of him and me with our band behind us. JK, it wasn't really "our band," but the cast of the Western spectacular, "Diamond Studs" from the Alaska Repertory Theatre's season in I think '78. We're ancient history!

Peace out. Stay Safe and Well.

Where, Oh Where is November Weather?

 Hi. 

It's 7:09 a.m. on November 5, 2022 and it's 66 degrees of the Fahrenheit here outside my 2nd floor window beyond my desk. This time tomorrow, it'll be 6:09 a.m., as Daylight Savings Time sweeps in to give us an extra hour of sleep, or have us up an hour earlier, whichever way we roll. Here's a Ventusky grab built around a search for my specific address. I like Ventusky, like, a lot.

According to the Googly, the current temperature is 5 degrees above the average annual monthly high.

Average monthly temperatures for November (highlighted)

Another search return from a site called whereandwhen.net, sadly neglecting the capitalization of November, makes the comparison more drastic:

So, what's the happs?

I don't really know, but the folks at the Cumberland River Compact (the mighty Cumberland is about a football field away from my home in The Nations Nashville neighborhood) share some interesting discussion and links to resources to learn more. I highly recommend the read, and also spending some minutes of your own investigating the state of your home's change patterns due to global warming. If you're a denier by inclination, you may ignore this. That said, the length of time you (and our children) have to do so is dwindling by the day. We get an hour's slack tomorrow, but of course that will change back in the springtime. See ya.

November, comin' right up!

 Time's a'flyin'. As I always say, "Time is money and money is time and we ain't got all day."

One of my many bosses at Williams Island Club in North Miami Beach, Florida used to proclaim while stomping his diminutive frame through the about-to-open restaurant, straightening place settings, "It's only a job of work. Get it done!" I was the Club Manager and it never sounded as good in my nondescript Nashville accent as it did in his high-pitched South African one. 

So, I say to me own self this chilly October's end Friday morning, "Get it done."

I performed a proof-of-concept camping road-trip back starting Oct. 17, driving to Montgomery, Texas, that little lake town with its twin city of Conroe, to visit my dear older brother. On the way I stopped outside of Charlotte, TN to have a brief visit with childhood friend John Depriest, after fortuitiously passing his remote house and turning around at the first opportunity to do so. After driving halfway through Arkansas, I camped at Iron Mountain Campground at DeGray Lake, arriving there after 7 hours driving, around dusk, setting up my Oasis tent, sleeping in Casper, my new Kia Soul, on an air mattress in the back, awakening cold and on a deflated air mattress around midnight, blowing it up with the electric pump and pulling it into the tent, turning on a borrowed (thank you, Rocky!) ceramic heater, and awakening snug and warm in my sleeping bag to 36 degree pre-dawn. I broke camp in the dark and headed out to the nearby interstate Cracker Barrel for a big breakfast, only to discover it closed due to an overnight power outage. Around Texarkana, TX the interstate route became obsolete and I hit 300 or so miles of state highways, enjoying the fall colors and everything else about the drive. 

You can thumb through my pics at https://photos.app.goo.gl/E8B3LFXNQWtxJmFeA . It was a good trip in a number of ways, not the least of which was the chance to be with my brother, the other last man standing from our nuclear family, and visiting with old friends along the way. I really enjoyed the drive down to Texas City with Ed and our unproductive but relaxing fishing at "the longest fishing pier in the world," the Texas City Dike.

Fishing at the Texas City Dike

On the way back,  I stopped and had dinner and a spare bed at the home of childhood friend Ross Bandy and his lovely wife Donna. They are retiring together in 2023 and I was able to pass on now-expert advice about this new leg of life, for what it is worth. It's all about scheduliberation, you know. 
Now that I'm back home, I attended my painting class with Master Charles Brindley yesterday and did some more work on my current acrylics project, working from stills from friend Brian Siskind's award winning film, "On the Inside." Here's the film, and you can read more about it at tnstateprisonfilm.com. Thanks to Brian for his permission to screen-grab and paint. 

And here are some snaps of my first OTI painting in progress, on reclaimed 2x12 lumber:

At the very end of class, Charles gave me suggestions for how to approach the bars and I'll be spending the day today on bars, as opposed to in bars, or behind bars, to create the bases for varying washes that will retain the depth of the darkness within the cells and still convey the abandonment of the structure. This'll be fun.

More bars

More bars. I thought about taping for clean lines but the process for building up the negative spaces and tidying up their relationships with the bars is intriguingly meditative. There is much more to do before completion, including fixing that bottom left shadow of open door and thinking about whether the texture for the central open door is what I want.

did I waste 20 YEARS trying to "GO PRO"?

Hey.

My second son (technically my son-in-law, so as always kudos to his birth parents) Tim has created a short but fascinating video about music. If you are a musician, which you are if you make music, even if it's singing in the shower, you must watch. I promise it will make you feel good about yourself, in addition to exposing you to his own 20+ years career and all the promise it holds for the next decades. Do yourself the favor:

October? Really?

 Allllllllllrighty, then...

It's early October. I spent some time yesterday putting together a little 41 song playlist of one of my favorite songs, one we covered in Alaska Summer/Summersong back in '77, in The Last Frontier Band in '79, and on the cruise ships in (I think) '81. This new mini-infatuation with listening to versions of songs is made simple by Spotify and I'm having fun with it. If you have Spotify, I suggest listening in the app and sorting it by duration--that way you'll get any remasters/rereleases played back to back for comparison. And there's one lurking in there that's not a cover, but rather a song by the same name. I like to leave those in for fun. Fun fact: the 11+ "The End" Doors masterpiece was included in the search results originally and I almost left it in since in the duration sort it came at the end. Ha.

Listen (might take a moment to load):

 

On other fronts, I had a fun one-night camping experience at Cheatham Lock and Dam last week. I had intended to make it two nights but the first night's low was 46 degrees and the 2nd was predicted to hit 40 and I discovered over a long first night's "sleep" that I needed a little more gear. I have that now, and my upcoming road trip to Texas to see my much-loved bro' will be more comfy camping. It's a 12 hour + drive and I plan to break it up with a night camping at another US Corps of Engineers dam campground. I like dam campgrounds. Dam campgrounds are damn good. Here's the view from the fishing chair outside my new tent. This will soon be a painting.

pano at dusk, cheatham lake (really just a wide spot in the mighty cumberland river)

By the bye, I am loving my painting classes (really an "Open Studio") with Charles Brindley. I learn a little each time I am in the room with him, and the two classes a week for 3 hours duration are perfect. Here are the two pieces, one on canvas on one on upscaled 2x6 discarded lumber, that I most recently completed:

purple vetch, barbed wire, and montana

riders on a piece of brownland farm in franklin

That be all for the mo'. I'm not gonna promise to blog more regularly. Something about scheduliberatedness has made me comfortable with doing it when I do it and not when I don't. You should try it in all kinds of scenarios. It's a dam good thing (sic).

Scott's Worried Man Playlist!

 Ahhhhhhhhh, mid-August. When the weather should be very hot but instead is a little cooler in the mornings, when the kids are back in school, and when I am not. Sublime.

Oh, I had the Covid. Three weeks ago I awoke at 3:20 in the morning in the throes of a sneezing fit the likes of which I cannot recall ever experiencing. I was a little warm so I took my temperature and it was a solid 99.4. That's low grade high for me, whatever the scale says 99.4 is. I took a home anti-gen test and that dreaded line showed up. 10 days in our bedroom alone, masked whenever my honey was in my line of sight, and I escaped back to my scheduliberation. 

At no time did I feel the crud was life-threatening, but it laid me low and I did just that--laid low--until the fever had been gone for two days and all symptoms were back to my snotty normal--allergies back to their Tennessee most active. I'm feeling okay now, back to my routines of fishing, painting, playing music, long dog-walking, and general mischief. Masked almost always in public and always in crowds. That's a way of life. 

This morning while walking Watson I searched in Spotify for a song I want to (re)learn and the results were so varied and interesting I decided to make a playlist from the search results. Two hours later, I'm calling it done. I've made several passes in different ways towards reducing redundancy, but I have found that even the same recording re-issued can sound significantly different in a new mix so I intentionally left some of those. I've also sorted the thing by artist, so the thing to do may be to play it on shuffle. You'll rehear some re-issues and sense some redundancy, no doubt, but bear with it. And there are some stunningly odd and some outright bad versions; but one supposes that odds would have that in a list of this size. That is what god made the skip button for! Again, I enjoy having those mingled in, sort of like I enjoy the very occasional bad B-movie just because it is so bad (e.g., "Dead Possum"). 

Have fun with...

Painting and Learning

 So. I'm very excited about visiting renowned painter Charles Brindley's class at Scarritt-Bennet Center here in Nashville, across from the Peabody at Vanderbilt Campus I attended 'way back in the early '90s . I first met Charles at University School of Nashville's Artclectic, which my wife, Lee Ann, was leading (she did so for 10 years of its biggest growth). I taught at USN for 14 years, and Lee Ann was deeply involved in both, in part because both our beautiful children attended school there and in part because USN was her alma mater. I was immensely impressed by Charles' art--who could see and not be so?

I am not going to copy and paste evidence here, it's copious at his website: Get lost in the man's mastery of visual imagery at his online gallery at cbrindley.com. 

Charles' class info is at https://www.cbrindley.com/classes if you want more information about that. I am at least tentatively planning to enroll in one for the Fall semester to learn from the master and I'm buzzed about it. I haven't taken a class of any kind since graduating from Vanderbilt in 1995, and I am visiting tomorrow to see how they work and to assuage a little anxiety about doing so. We'll see.

I first started painting, again, during the pandemic, of course. I walk my dog every day. Just about to go out after jotting this down. There is a great deal of construction going on in my neighborhood, just like in virtually every neighborhood in Nashville, and people are moving in and out all the time. I keep an eye out in the construction lots and alleys for useful throwaways, and I started making Kountry Kraft signs for my front porch out of discarded 2x10s a couple years ago, first using Sharpie markers and graduating to a beginner's set of acrylic paints. Here's an example:

Hoppy Holidays, yes, a beer reference

Other signs include "Love Trumps Hate," "Only Love," REIMAGINE HOW SCHOOLS WORK," "Happy" (4th of July), "BOO!," "BeKind," and...you get the idea. I recently discarded my "Back 2 School" sign because, well, I ain't never going back. 

I am, however, going to class tomorrow and beginning regular participation twice a week starting September 8, barring some jolting turn-off during tomorrow's recon mission. I don't anticipate that. 

I take a lot of photos. Some are well-documented on my Facebook album, "ThingsOnTheGround." In November of 2021, I had to stop the car on the way down the hill from my dear buddy Rocky's home on the ridge above Little Marrowbone Creek Road to take a photo:

Some time later, likely around December, I took one of my reclaimed 2x10s and spray painted it flat white enamel, then spent the next maybe 3 months painting. On January 8 it looked like this:

and when it was "done," it looked like this:

I sketched it out in pencil, threw a plethora of color at it, mixing as I went, and just kept going until it satisfied me. I also extended its field to the edges of the lumber:

Since then, I've finished paintings from a photo of an ancient cinderblock building a couple blocks from my home and from a pic of a great blue heron perched solemnly atop a condo rooftop in Destin, Florida. I'm now working on a panorama view overlooking the grassy field of Brownland Farm horse ranch in Franklin, TN. I don't see an end to it. I've found the zone a few times where I am one with the brushstroke, intuitively understanding when something is right, or right enough, and smiling. I want that feeling again, often and deep.

Examining Charles Brindley's vast body of work at his website, I see that my own crude work with paints is just that, lacking realism, which is okay, and rudimentarily color mixed, which is understandable; and I know that anything I can learn from him will strengthen my experiences. I also believe I may be onto something with my choice of canvas. Building something meaningful and artistic from a discarded piece of lumber imbues it with something a little magical, I think.

That's all today. Watson is getting a little cranky and it's only getting hotter outside. Rain today though! And thankfully not flooding rain. Climate change is. Peace.

It's the late middle of July in Nashville, Tennessee, and I am thankful for the rain this morning. It's just shy of 6 am and it's 72 degrees and according to timeanddate.com, dawn came 11 minutes ago. A gray cloudy sky still smothers the world outside my windows and the streets are dark and shiny with the light rain falling. As I type it grows brighter gray by the minute.

The first thing I did after coming down the stairs from our bedroom with Watson leading the way was to approach the locked back storm door and peer into the dim light to see the rain chain hanging from our porch gutter cascading down with water. Sweet water, Rare water this summer.

Sitting on our lush leather sectional before the 61" flatscreen tv last night, enjoying a big dinner salad prepared by my love, we rediscovered Killing Eve last night, starting back up from where we left off after episode 1 of the third season. I don't recall why we did not continue--something else more glittery came along, we switched to another series on a whim, it was in one of those platform transitions where we ditched the Roku and bought an AppleTV device, something. Maybe we discovered Ted Lasso.

Whatever the case, it's a doozy of a series and we have most of this season and all of season four to enjoy. During the show, I enjoyed a Vesper Martini and Lee Ann drank some Pino Grigio and we sipped waters and laughed and talked, me on the sofa, she in the luxurious, monster Barcalounger we bought on sale during her recuperation from emergency intestinal surgery this year. We probably watched four episodes, bingelike, until agreeing it was time for bed and snuggle time.

Life does not suck. I don't know what I thought retirement would be like, but likely it was like this. I like it. Like, did I say "like" too much there?

After a whirlwind pair of trips away from home (see most recent posts), I like our home. 

I spent yesterday and most of the previous two days totally relaxing, sort of an enforced relaxing due to my sprained hip (self-diagnosed) from over-exertion on Montana. I shouldn't say that, really, because it was just a strain imposed by a less-than-intentional steep step up out of Blanchard Lake 

Pano at (little) Blanchard Lake off US83. We fished a bit off a little pier on Harper's Lake then drove on a smidge to this little gem. The creek comes in at the right of this pic and my handsome son Colin surveys the breathtaking surroundings. Ah, Montana. 

after standing in the cold mountain creek water that fed it for maybe an hour and a half. I remember Colin reaching down from above to help me make that step and I remember a slight pulling sensation as I pushed myself up with my left leg. Two days later, getting up from a seat on my last of eight air flights in 2 weeks, I felt it again. That's when I started limping. It got progressively worse.

Now, 3 days later, it gets progressively later. The weakness is still there, but I'm not grimacing or moaning out loud when I move my left leg. I walked the dog for a mile yesterday and there was a little backsliding in the pain department, but it was worth it. I'm on the mend. I'm going to bounce around some antique stores with Rocky today. 

It's funny the games the mind plays. When the pain was at its worst, and it was bad, I kept conjuring in my head the phrase, "degenerative bone disease," knowing that was malarky but teasing myself with it anyway, much like when I hear the one "...crashed on takeoff" when I'm strapped into any plane during lift off from the tarmac. I counter that by repeating a mantra that goes, "I love you Lee Ann, I love you Miranda, I love you Colin, I love you Watson, I love you Ed, I love you Tim, I love you Katie, I love you Rocky, I love you Jimmy, I love you Seamus" until the plan levels off into its flight. On repetitions, I often add other names: I love a lot of people. If I left you off the list, don't get your knickers in a twist. I remembered to add you as it grew. The cool thing about these last four takeoffs was that I got to say the first sentence to Lee Ann, as I held her hand. 

As the bright green happy red maple in the front yard releases unhurried droplets of water, leaf to green green leaf, as Fred the Fly (wondering how the hell he gets out of here back into the vast outside) wanders beyond my white wooden blinds on the window overlooking the porch and my little idyllic rain garden, as Watson sleeps behind me on my office rug in my beautiful home, I just want to say I'm grateful. 

I am grateful. And, oh, I finished a painting yesterday. I just need to seal it up with a layer or two of shiny polyethylene glaze and it's done. Here's the final form it took:

blue heron on destin rooftop

I really do enjoy painting on these reclaimed cast-off 2x10 (and other size) pieces of lumber. Always from photos I have taken with my iPhone. I think it's a thing. Next up I'm going to try a pano on a wider 2x6 I picked up in an alley walking Watson yesterday. We'll see. 

That's my blathering for today. Peace.

Montana Trip 2022

Final update with pics from July 9, 2022--Done!

So, I think I'll just let the images describe this leg of our summer Montana trip, 'k? Click on the image above to view our dynamic annotated album from July 3, 2022 to July 9 when we head on back home to Chez Merrique in Nashville. Click on the first pic and navigate through the photos with the arrows on the sides. This album will stop growing but remain as long as the Internet loves me (and you). Check back often as I'll be uploading and adding brief comments to most pics until the end of the trip. 

BTW, the alarm is armed and neighbors are watching at home, so don't even think about it. Cool.

Sojourn to the Berkshires 3, Last Day (kind of)

 Okee dokee. At the moment I am in a beautiful hotel room in Missoula, Montana, having hugged my son and daughter-not-in-law-but-so-for-real for the first time in a year. My lovely soul-mate is sleeping in the king-sized bed behind me, and I am up after being comatose for nearly 12 hours to (begin to) get caught up after a challenging mess of a set of flights home from Albany.

What happened, you may ask.

I may answer.

Friday morning Jimmy came by the Fairfield Inn and we took the Purple Charger to breakfast. Or we took ourselves to breakfast. A skip and a jump up the highway to the Rio Café we went. It's a cute little place with a back lawn hosting well spaced picnic tables and we took one, chatted about the play and life and family, just enjoying one another's company. It had been 7 years since we had been geolocated and it felt so, so good to be with him. And it had been around 42 or 3 years since we had met as young men in Alaska, becoming fast friends who have stayed in touch along our meandering paths through lives. I love him and trust him completely. 

After a tasty breakfast, I took a selfie. This is us, together and happy. 

Two old friends at Rio Cafe

We hugged goodbye a couple times in the motel parking lot, bid each other see-ya-later, and he drove away to his next rehearsal. I had already checked out and minutes later I was on the road northwest to Albany. I called Lee Ann and chatted a few minutes. She was elated to hear that Seamus was home from the hospital, beginning to recuperate after his two latest brain surgeries and The Virus (that's all I'll say but it was a challenging few days for my brother). I told her that since I had several hours before the flights home (an optimistic assessment), I was thinking about spending one of them at the Turn Park sculpture garden, an attraction along the way. but as we spoke I encountered a sign that said "Berkshire Botanical Garden" and quickly came up on it, turning into the entrance. That's my favorite way to travel, friends, making it up as I go. Like life, you know.

I took a number of photos during the hour I enjoyed strolling through the gardens, but I'm going to save some blog-time here by sending you to the Garden website photos, which are generally mo' better than mine. I do like this pano though, so click on it to view it larger and scroll it, then click here to see the official pics. 

Berkshire Botanical Garden

I was sweaty enough after an hour or so enjoying this beautiful set of gardens so I returned to Purple and hit the road. In Albany, I returned him and got inside through security uneventfully. I figured I would have a beer or two over the next few hours and grab a salad. 

I found my parking spot before flying home!

I spent a couple hours working on my previous post and ate a bad salad with undercooked chicken which I scraped toward the side of the plastic go container, along with two 20 oz. local draft beers, and headed to my gate at the appointed time. On the way, my phone vibrated.

What? 

In a nutshell:  Look here, there's a message from American Airlines that my flight has been cancelled. I rushed to the gate counter and sure enough, it had. No line before me, I approached the harried but really helpful service counter attendant and after some discussion of alternatives was booked on a new flight to Nashville, not through connecting flight to Chicago, but to Charlotte, North Carolina. And not arriving that night, but flying out at in an hour or so and out of Charlotte at early AM the next morning. I grabbed my phone and found a room at the Hampton Inn at a sale rate (what a deal--not subsidized by AA and costing me 250 dollars and tips for shuttles and grabbing me oh about 4 hours sleep before grabbing a Lyft another unexpected expense, at 5 a.m. to get boarded for home. The flight to Charlotte was half hour late but hit the sky, in an hour or so hitting storm turbulence that elicited at least one scream from a passenger. Perfect. 

I called the motel upon landing and barely caught the last shuttle, got into a weird suite at my ersatz bargain rate, hit the 7-11 next door for a turkey sandwich, a breakfast sandwich to micronuke the next "morning," (it already WAS morning by then), wolfed down the first, drank a canned margarita and half a liter of water, laid down on the giant bed, and did not move until my 4 a.m. alarms went off. I showered, dressed, inhaled my bad microwaved 7-11 breakfast sandwich, and raced down to my Lyft, which got me to the church on time. I had no bags to check and things went well at the airport so up in the air I was.

Let me hold forth a bit about COVID-19. I am quad-vaxed. I wore a KN-95 mask on my trip anytime I was anywhere in close proximity to strangers. I was never harassed about it, only got a few demeaning looks from others, and hated the claustrophobic feeling of the hot breath for hours at a time. In airports, I was in the fairly small minority of folks doing that, but I did not give a hoot. I'm pretty sure I do not have COVID. Enough said.

Lee Ann picked me up and home we went. I went straight to bed because we were flying at 5 something the next morning, bound for Montana. 

I'll consider this the end of my Berkshires trip, and a memorable one it was. Will I continue this blogfest with descriptions of my week-long trip to Montana? Maybe. We'll see. 

Sojourn to the Berkshires Day 2 -- some walks, a dinner, and a play

 OKAY! I'm in the Albany NY Airport, and I've found a perch at the terminal walkway bar table  counter, on a stool with a nice draft local hazy IPA beside my laptop. I have 3 1/2 hours before my flight to DC boards, but I did save a little $ on Bruno the Purple Charger by getting it in a bit earlier than the reservation. 

Yesterday morning I slept in until around 7, grabbed a decent and filling "free" breakfast in the motel lobby, then drove out to the theater to make sure I knew where I was going when I had a curtain time to honor. It's a good thing, because pulling out of the parking lot I went rogue on Waze directions and found a shortcut that bypassed all of the roadwork that slowed down my drive there. I made a note to go out without cell phone directions and to turn on Tacatonic Road to get there that evening. That night, after the play, I drove out at waning dusk onto the road bordered by fields of high wild grasses and lit by more fireflies than I have ever seen in one place. I almost pulled over to video, but decided to save the image in my old brain instead. 

As I have shared before, my mantra is "I am good, I am well, I am healthy I am Happy I am whole." Yesterday I changed this to "Healing Seamus Seamus Healing" and will continue utilizing that for the immediate future. He is healing and he is home from the hospital as of last night, but I figure anything I can do, you know, on the spiritual plane... The benefit of this tack, as opposed to praying, is that no deity, no higher power, needs to hear and respond. I am certain it is at least as effective. After all, if there is one God, she must be checking those mantras, right?

Okay, I'm getting all non-linear again. Jimmy and I talked about that at breakfast this morning. He cam to the hotel and we took Bruno ("because your car is cooler") up less than a mile up the road and ate outside at the Rio Cafe. Really good stuffThanks for breakfast, buddy, if you're reading this. Who is linear anyway? "Oh, there's a dandilion. Oh, that thing I did in high school." Right? But. That discussion was today, and we were talking about yesterday.

Let's pop in a picture to break things up, shall we?

After breakfast see ya later hug at the Rio Cafe

Okay then. After leaving the theater on my scouting mission, I hit downtown again, and found a place to park at an entry point to River Walk, an attraction that came up early in my searches. It was attractive enough, and everyone needs to see it, but it turned out to be only maybe a city block long. I took some video along the way, and a couple pics--note the two of a dark barn with a bright little something in its darkest region, then the close up. Class, folks, that's class. I wish I'd got a pic of the road-facing wall of the building. It's just an old barn with two big doors and nothing else, but I can imagine families starting here, on a cool fall night with the disco ball fracking the room.

I walked the little downtown, saw some cute shops, refrained from buying art at some really inspirational studios, took a pano from a corner, and noted the location of The Well, a restaurant and bar I had my sights set on for the next night's preshow dinner. 

Okay again. First little thing after my scouting and my Riverwalk aside was to head up to Housatonic Flats. I pulled into the parking lot with only one more car there. It's been quiet in GB during my stay. Jimmy says they are getting big weekend tourist hits, but luckily my stay was Wed-Fri. Here's Bruno at the trailhead. I was hoping it was a bit longer than a city block. But, it calmed me down nicely. 

Bruno the Purple Charger at the trailhead

I checked my shoelaces and hit the trail. 

Trailhead at Housatonic Flats

Flats sign with explanation. It's a buffer, ya'll.

Trailhead sign closer and clearer

First bench stop with an aside trail to the river

Two dandelions

Pano at the river, click to enlarge-o

I just liked the color here and think it might be fun to paint

And a video... Ducks, ya'll...

It was a quiet, wonderful walk. The trees are taller, older, up here, I think. And the tall wildflowers grow taller before they dry and turn to seed, as they are doing in Tennessee as I type. I just cut mine down in my little back "yard," though I really enjoyed the Queen Ann's Lace and the tall clover that I let run out its time in my "meadow," as I like to call it.

I drove back to the motel and after an hour in the pool with an intervening hot tub soak (excellent power in those jets, Fairfield Inn by Marriot). I took a nap. I got into my nap by meditating on my new mantra, "Healing Seamus Seamus healing." With the help of a phone alarm (I left my iWatch charging at home. I hope it's good for it) I got up, showered, dressed, and drove.

At the Great Barrington Community Theater, Bard College Daniels Cultural Center (say that three times really fast), I parked and moseyed inside, where my ticket was awaiting me. I jacked into the play, which I thoroughly enjoyed and believe is going places, but will not review here. No photos were allowed after I took this one 

of a couple audience members (Sandy and friend, as I found out later) awaited the dimming of the lights. Turns out it was a preview performance with opening night tonight (as I write from the airport). There were only about 20 of us in the small theater audience. That's all good. It was spectacular, and intimate, and I enjoyed emersion in the world I only peripherally experienced. Jimmy called me the day of the diagnosis. I remember it so clearly--I was helping a kindergarten teacher, Mary McCullough, set up her classroom printer and begged off that to go to a corner of her bright, welcoming, kindergarten classroom to talk and to weep a bit. I do that, and it was certainly all right to do that day. From my perspective as a retired human person, I now know that the right thing to do was to fly out there. I did not. I wish I had. Jimmy and I have talked over the years, and I didn't get far from Seamus's recovery, but neither did I really get close to it. Regrets. And healing, which this trip generated, at least a little.

"Leave your Fears Here" is  a "Rememberer" play, a Father play, and a play everyone should experience. I got to meet both Robert Egan and Michael O'Keefe, sat next to Michael for the preview performance. More on all that later. 

That's freakin' it! I'm ready to fly om the morning. I am ready to be home. I love you, Jimmy. Keep plugging into that impressive piece of writing you've created and bringing it alive. You are going to awaken a whole new audience to this kind of journey and its kaleidoscopic complexities and contradictions, and to your beautiful son, to your beautiful soul mate, and to your beautiful self. I love you.