Point of Indulgence

Ok sportsfans, this is not strictly a post about the project; in fact it will have pretty much nothing to do with it.

well maybe not totally nothing, perhaps it will obliquely touch on what i've been doing with this chetbaker project thing.

I only say this out front to help those of you who don't have time.

Go ahead and skip over it. head on out to something more fitting...say, fly-fishing or extreme fighting.

But those of you who feel that little twine of connection between kindred souls (and that's everyone), read on.

It's just that i feel a little off kilter. Scared maybe.

The obvious question: Scared of what?

Well let's see now.

I've been away.

Went out west for a little over a week. Drove. It was wonderful. K and I drove in her red convertible; a pretty snazzy little number. The weather was fine the entire two days it took us to get from Austin to Denver.

Warm weather, bright sun, audacious storms, impressive sights. I could do that forever i think.
No i couldn't. not really. cuz you know why?
At some point necessity would collide with adventure. and then...

the vortex would open up and....

The vortex? huh...

Maybe i mean that feeling i can get when my thoughts run over the speedbumps.

Speedbumps...wtf?

Uh, yeah. those little considerations of the rational mind that, when considered seriously, derail whatever else is going on.

I know you know what i'm talking about. it's a universal experience. albeit unique to each of us...which is why i won't go into it right now; not sure it would resonate with anyone else.

i'm compassionate that way.

But back to why i'm feeling so...strange.

i'm home...that is, i'm in my new home. another one. Yet another one.

After fifty years, i find myself bouncing around like one of those crazy super balls i used to get down at Crayton's Drugstore, on Fall St.

It started about five years ago.

Right after i blew my family up.

Apparently thirty years was long enough. long enough to be married, to live a householder's life, to raise two children, to play in the same bands with different rotations of musicians, going to the same workplace, talking to the same people about the same things in the same place at the same time.

It put into motion this thing...this different thing..this new, different thing.

Predictability morphed. Maybe 'morphed' is too gentle a term; perhaps a word that better fits the violence that this next phase in my life took on would be more appropriate.

Jarred, shook, jostled, spasmatically exploded? I don't know...suffice it to say that since my life took an abrupt left turn, i've found myself...well, that's the thing...i've NOT found myself.

No, this is not just a middle-aged guy crying in his beer, although i've been known to do that too. This is more like a guy trying to make sense out of something that seems resistant to the process. It resists being found out.

And if this sounds like just more sour grapes, well I can't help that. I really don't feel a victim. How could i really? I mean, it was my decision to light the fuse.

I watched as it burned evenly and then not so, steadily and then fitfully, until it sparked and sputtered toward the motherlode...and blew everything to hell.

it was all me. nobody held a gun to my head. it was me...pure and simple.

so why is it that i feel scared?

well shit, if i knew that, i wouldn't be pulling on your coat, now would i?

Course by 'you' i don't think i really know what or who i mean. No one is reading this blog, cept me. and i happen to be writing it, so what's the point?

Right. What's the point.

The smile dissolves, the compassion bounces back from the surface of the self-reflected mind. i recede within. again.

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But wait. I'm not gone. turns out i can't go. turns out i have to stay now.
Till i let myself know. Till i know where i am and where i'm headed.

And this project, this Chet project is part of that process. in some less-than-explicit way, it's part of remembering who i am.

And to this i say:

Ladies and gentlemen
Here's my advice.

Pull down your pants

And slide on the ice.