Stranded Here in Llano with the Taos Blues Again

I was angry enough over the last few days to understand a few more things. Suicide bombers, for instance!

Not that I wanted to kill myself or hurt anybody else, oh no, but there was that intensity of intent. I just wanted to DO something, you know? But since there weren’t any torches-and-pitchforks parades to go join, all I could manage was to wrassle with the evil Faceborg, drop apocalyptic comments into decent people’s blogs, and gnaw the back legs off our cat. All right, I didn’t do that, but I might have if I’d thought it would have done some good.

In the end, my sense of things was like this post suggests:

This doesn’t have to do with money but with being whole, and what do actualized screaming genius art gods do in the face of onrushing doom?

Since I was already pumped, I tried attacking with my mighty electric 12-string guitar. After a two-day hiatus, I jumped back into practicing today for my debut with Los Changos del Mar. There’s a debut in my mind, at least, and one practice session with the band will tell the tale. I’ve learned about 11 songs so far, and my upper body is getting quite a workout from the playing. The most surprising (and gratifying) effect is the increased muscle strength in my left hand, which makes all the difference. It’s just amazing to me that I never did this before. Here I am, almost old enough to just drop dead, playing power chords and high-speed rockabilly boogie wahoo bullshit at high volume in the middle of the day. That alone is worth a religious conversion.

Whenever I get into this, I stop thinking… I can’t tell you how valuable this is for me. It’s like a new dimension. A crack in the dam.

Today we were heading off to Sonic Drive-In for a spontaneous fast food run, and I decided to demonstrate my coasting prowess. With just a little effort, it’s possible to coast most of the way down to the main road about a mile away, and I do this fairly often. My wife was unimpressed, but grateful I was driving. Easing over the stupid speed bumps by the church, a thought arose about my coming birthday: “You know, on August 9th, I’ll be just three years younger than my father was when he died…”

“Wow. That’s something to think about!” she said.

“No, it isn’t,” I retorted. “Well, to think of once and marvel at, but not to dwell on.”

I then went on to say that while one is often quite mistaken in these matters, I wasn’t worried about dying anytime soon because I felt this “great momentum” and didn’t think anything nasty would happen to me for quite some time. A minute later, the traffic on the main road almost proved me wrong, but the momentum thing is true. Of course, I might be feeling something altogether different than the pull of my own wonderfulness: the momentum might be that of quantum dreaming rushing toward the drain. What if it’s the pull of death?! Geez, what isn’t the pull of death? Not that that would be so terrible: some of my best friends are dead, after all. But I think it’s something else:

I AM the crack in the dam!

(Either that, or I just peed on my shoes.)

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