nakedjen

Divided Sky, The Wind Blows High

You know there's that moment in your life, right?  I'm sure you've had it.  That moment where you're sitting at your very stable graphic design job in San Francisco and it's late December and you look over at your friend and colleagues and instead of thinking it you actually say out loud, "Fuck it.  I'm moving to Colorado!"

Now, while they choke on their coffee and ask you why Colorado, you tell them that even though you don't particularly like the snow and you've never skied a day in your life, that it seems like every girl should spend at least one year of her life working in a ski resort in Colorado.  What's life if it isn't an adventure, right?  And just how many Post cereal boxes can you really get excited about designing, anyway?  I mean really. 

So in that moment, that moment when you've announced that yes, you're moving to Colorado, the entire Universe shifts.  Because you've got a life in San Francisco, you know.  A flat, a job, a dog, a bank account.  Stuff.

But what do you do? 

You stuff some clothes in your backpack, you grab the dog, you purchase a 1969 VW Van with most of the dollars in your bank account, you tell the landlord that you're vacating the beautiful flat on the panhandle and you head for Colorado.  Because, like you said, every girl must spend at least one ski season in her life there.

Of course the van breaks down in Santa Cruz.  90 miles.  You get 90 miles before your van breaks down.  You spend four days waiting on the one guy in town who can possibly fix it for you who happens to have a bit of a drinking problem and can only be found during certain hours at a bar called the Hurry Back Inn.  And you have to catch him while he's still able to stand upright or it's all over.  Thus the four days of waiting.  It takes you four days just to figure out the catching while he's able to stand upright part.

On that fourth day you do manage exactly that.  And he takes a look at that van of yours.  That you and your dog have been sleeping in while waiting for him to possibly fix it.  But it doesn't look good, this van of yours.  It's very sick.  It needs lots of parts.  Parts that are not easy to find in 1989 when your van is already 20 years old.  So you do what any sensible girl with her heart set on Colorado would do.

You leave your brand new very old VW Van parked on a side street, give the keys to a good friend in Santa Cruz and rent a car to drive one-way to Colorado.  You pile the dog in the front seat, your back pack and sleeping bag in the back seat, and you wave goodbye to the ocean and promise that you'll be back.  You're just not sure when.

You get to Colorado and land in Steamboat Springs.  You remember hearing about Steamboat long ago when your summer camp offered winter ski trips there as a way for the summer campers to have a winter trip together.  You never participated in these trips because you weren't fond of snowy climates and you didn't ski, but if Steamboat had been good enough for Wyonegonic it was certainly good enough for you now.

So now's the part in the adventure where you might think that things start to get a little difficult.  You know no one in Steamboat.  You haven't exactly planned to move here.  Last week you were a very well-employed graphic designer in San Francisco.  One who by all outward appearances seemed rather responsible and not who would just take a deep breath one day and quit her job and abandon all reason. 

But that's what you did.  And now you're standing in front of a bulletin board at the only health food store in this very small town and hoping that you're going to find some inspiration.  Because it's FREEZING in Colorado and sleeping in your car doesn't feel like the best of choices even if the dog is big and cuddly.

Fortune and the Universe and luck all conspire in your favor that day and it just so happens that there are five single boys who are sharing a big beautiful house on the side of the ski mountain and they need just one more roommate.  Just one. 

You call them up, they decide you're perfect, and they let you and the dog move right in. You've never felt so loved for just being you.  Ever.  You want to kiss each and every one of them, but refrain because you also want to make sure they really allow you to stay and you haven't brushed your teeth since Santa Cruz.

Finding a job also proves very easy and by the next afternoon you're employed at not one, but two, establishments.  Two jobs.  A house.  Your dog has dog food.  You have health food.  And you've even managed to score a bike to get you around town. 

Life, as they say, is good.  Or perhaps even grand.

It turns out the boys are all excellent snowboarders and spend most of their time on the mountain.  You rarely see them.  You spend many many hours working the breakfast, lunch and dinner shifts at the two restaurants who have hired you and before you realize it two months have passed and you've yet to actually go skiing.  But you're making lots of good money (nearly as much as you were in San Francisco) and because you're working in restaurants, you're not spending any of it on food.  Or hardly any of it. 

It also just so happens that one of the boys happens to be a music promoter.  Who likes to arrange for bands to come and play all the resort towns in Colorado.  And so in addition to the five boys with whom you're already sharing your big fat house on the hill, you're also often sharing it with various other boys in the bands.  Who are crashing on your available floor space.  Or couches.  Or sometimes even in your bed. 

It's all good, you know.  This is what it is all about this spending a ski season in Colorado.  You share your bed.  Your share your food.  Your share your heart with a boy or two in the band.

That music promoter boy tells you that this AMAZING band is coming.  And they're going to stay for two weeks.  In your house.  Maybe even in your bed.  They're coming from Vermont.  He loves this band.  He went to college with them.  They're the best thing since sushi! 

A few days later this band called Phish arrives.  Of course you've never heard of them even though you're a card carrying tie-dyed Deadhead.  Why not?  Because at this point in their careers their universe is very small.  Very, very small.  And there's hardly anyone who has heard of them. 

It turns out that this band called Phish is made up of boys who are deadheads, too.  So when you're passing them in the bathroom or sharing the sink while you brush your teeth or inviting them to come to your restaurant for free breakfast, lunch and dinner you actually DO have something to chat about.  Actually, you have a lot to chat about.  Because if there's something that you can chat about ad nauseum and until people want to beat you into a small naked pile of whimpering slush just to get you to please shut up already you can chat about the Grateful Dead.

 

And so can those Phish boys.  They can most definitely chat about the Grateful Dead.

So you share your house.  You share your couch.  You share your bed and you even share your dog.  For two weeks.  And they bounce around your living room and they go off and play all the resorts and come back and go off and come back and go off again and jump around on their trampolines and come back.

And while they're there?  While they're crashing at your boy crash pad on the side of the mountain?  You go to one of their shows.  And you hear this song.  The Divided Sky.  And you decide it is perhaps one of the most perfect songs ever written.  It is certainly, you decide and tell them, their most Grateful Dead-like of all their songs.  And you fall in love with that song.  That one song.  For you, that song epitomizes the band.  It is the definition of Big Phish. 

Their two week visit comes to an end, of course.  And they leave.  And eventually, so do you.  Because a ski season in Colorado is just that.  A season.  It ends.  The snow melts.  The flowers bloom.  It's a beautiful site, but it means that the restaurants close.  You must move on.

Where do you go?

Of course you go back to San Francisco.  It holds your heart, anyway.  It's still there beating and waiting for you.  So back you go. 

And a few years later you attempt to go see a bigger and more popular Phish at the Warfield Theatre.  You don't have a ticket, but why would you need one?  You shared your house and your couch and your toothpaste with those boys.  However they don't seem to remember that when you see them during the sound check.  Don't remember it at all.  And wow.  Just wow. 

No more Phish for you.  It just hurts too much.

Until last Saturday.  Just last Saturday.  Nearly twenty years later. 

Because you're you and you're quite stuck on traditions you make up a huge Easter Basket for NakedIan just like you do every single year.  It's not Easter if NakedIan doesn't have nearly infinite amounts of chocolate confections to eat.  With a basket weighing nearly 40 pounds, you play the NakedBunny and take it over to NakedIan's house. 

It's a huge surprise, but he's actually home.  So you get to stay and visit for a while.  A visit that includes watching DVD's on his amazing HDTV with a surround sound system that's worthy of any live concert.  Maybe even better.  And what does NakedIan decide to play for you?

A Phish concert.  Live at Brooklyn.  You skip right to the encore, The Divided Sky.

A thousand beautiful and amazing memories flood over you.  You squeal.  You dance around the room.  You're transported, instantly, on a journey back to that time in Colorado.  That ski season.  When life was, as they say, good.  Or even grand.

And when the song ends, you hug NakedIan and with tears you tell him, "Thank you."  Because that really is your favorite Phish song.  And sometimes you need to remember exactly how wonderful your life really has been and how very lucky you are to be alive.  And to be loved.  And to be able to love.  Every day. 

Forget Taylor Hicks. Peter Bradley Adams is MY Alabama Idol!

One of the tenets of good improvisational theatre is for the players to be open and willing to say "YES".  I am not really an improvisational player, however, I did take a stab at it recently with DearSweetDave who is in the process of becoming more of an improvisational player than he has been in the past.  The experience for me was definitely eye-opening and perhaps even a little bit scary.  It is well known around these parts that I am, if nothing else, a perfectionist.  I like to get all A's.  I like to win blue ribbons.  I like to come in first and be the absolute best that I can possibly be.  Improvisational theatre makes being first and best and getting all A's very difficult.  Very difficult, indeed.  Because it's not about YOU.  It's about you supporting all the other people who are there on stage with you.  It's about letting go of being YOU and being a part of the bigger whole.  And it's most certainly about being open to all the possibilities that the WHOLE presents.  It's about saying YES.

At least that's the biggest lesson I learned from my first stab at improvisational theatre a few weeks ago.  Being open and saying YES.  I've been trying to apply that more and more in my every day life.  Especially in my marriage to and with DearSweetDave.  One of the things that DearSweetDave wishes for our marriage is that we were more playful.  I admit that my own desire to win and be first and get all A's can make things awfully serious around these parts a lot of the time.  Perfection does not come without emotional sacrifice.  But I do not have to be perfect all of the time, now, do I?  No, certainly not.  In fact, my own perfectionist sensibilities are perhaps what are standing in the way of my own ultimate happiness.  Time to rethink the necessity of getting all A's.  Time to learn to just say "YES!"

Late last week DearSweetDave sent me a link for a house concert Sunday night in Sunnyvale.  He asked me if I wanted to go?  Without even clicking the link or thinking about it, I just hit the reply button and said, "YES!"  I could have just signed myself up for crickets rubbing their legs together to play chamber music, but I didn't care.  I had said, "YES!" and DearSweetDave and I had a date for something fun.

The whole day turned out to be quite lovely.  We spent the early part of it in San Francisco.  We had lunch in the Haight with two imaginary friends of mine from the Internet and DearSweetDave even surprised me by finding and buying a CD at Virgin records that I have been wanting for a very long time.  He isn't just called DearSweetDave for nothing, you know?  We cruised back down 101 to Redwood City and hit their Whole Foods for dinner.  Why oh why can we not have Whole Foods in Santa Cruz?  Such choices!  Such yummy things!  We stuffed ourselves, piled back in the car and headed for Sunnyvale.  DearSweetDave was just a tad worried that we would be late and not get good seats, but we arrived exactly on time.  Go us!  And then walked in to quite an intimate setting.  This guy truly was putting on a house concert in his living room. 

The concert itself was just, well, amazing.  You can not beat the intimacy provided by a 10 x 10 living room.  Peter Bradley Adams played two sets.  And talked to us about how it was so difficult for him to play when he could actually see our faces and look at our eyes.  He sang nearly all the songs on his new album, which we bought.  It's really good and currently has permanent residence in the dog transport vehicle.  Buddha and Stella are becoming huge fans!  One thing I didn't realize when I said "yes" is that I was already sort of familiar with Peter.  He was one half of the band EastMountainSouth which I had seen open for Tracy Chapman a few summers ago.  I had really loved their harmonies and their songs when I saw them.   So I suppose in one aspect I was a bit predisposed to love him.   

Peter can definitely sing.  He can also definitely write songs.  And he can make you feel all warm and fuzzy while singing those songs that he writes.  Especially when you're sitting not a foot from him on a cozy couch in some guy's living room in Sunnyvale.  His songs take you on a journey you didn't even know you wanted to take.  But you hold on, almost breathlessly, waitingwaitingwaiting while he sings those next notes carrying you ever closer to a place deep inside your own heart that you knew existed but you weren't quite sure how to reach.  Really, it's quite a trip.  It wasn't until after the show that I learned that he was a classically trained pianist and that he was from Alabama.  I wonder where his accent went?  Because he really didn't have one.  At all. 

Peter is touring the country over the next couple months.  If he's coming anywhere near you, I highly recommend that you go out and give him a listen.  It won't be a waste of your time.  Just say "Yes!", keep yourself open to the possibilities and be ready for a journey you didn't know you really wanted to take.

Half Eaten Shoes

my youngest sister, halfnakedrobin, sent me a package. i received it today. seventeen years ago, shortly after clyde came whirling into my life, i left colorado in a whirlwind of my own and landed on my own mother's doorstep in washington, dc. me and my puppy and little else. the clothes on my back. i was thankful that my mom had a house where i could, in fact, land.

my sister, halfnakedrobin, was living there at the time in the english basement apartment that is part of my mother's townhouse. she had recently graduated from college. in fact, clyde went to her college graduation in north carolina. he even waltzed across the stage with the graduates and paused to ask for a diploma before running off and narrowly escaping the big gruff security guys. that dog.

anyway, after graduation, halfnakedrobin left north carolina and came and took over the apartment in mom's basement. and then i arrived from colorado. and announced that i was going to liver there, too. halfnakedrobin was not at all happy about this arrangement, but because she's the YOUNGER sister, she had to go along with it. before you go saying, "poor halfnakedrobin" do not feel too sorry for her. she has always been our mother's most favored child and has had her share of many blessings. and clyde and i needed a place to crash, man. it was there or the streets and the streets wouldn't come until much later.

now let's remember that clyde was a puppy. a tasmanian devil puppy. a whirling dirvish puppy of fur and teeth and unbridled energy. a puppy who for some reason could discern which shoes belonged to halfnakedrobin and which shoes belonged to nakedjen. maybe it was because my shoes were all from england and were made of expensive leather. or maybe it was because halfnakedrobin's shoes were not. but in any case, clyde seemed to get lots of joy out of choosing one of halfnakedrobin's favorite shoes and chewing it into one inch by one inch pieces. always her shoes. never my shoes.

the thing is, halfnakedrobin is just as much a dog lover as i am. really and truly. she loves dogs with every fiber of her being. but clyde knew that she wasn't his. and never would be. and neither were her shoes.

so a package came today. for me. from halfnakedrobin. inside? one seventeen year old half eaten shoe. complete with clyde teeth marks. lots of clyde teeth marks. the note from halfnakedrobin said that she thought it would make me laugh. it made me gasp. there was still so much of the young whirling nutso clyde in that shoe. halfnakedrobin suggested that i get it bronzed. which i think i might. for now, it's sitting on clyde's altar. next to his ashes. with his tennis ball. a tribute to all that he was and still is.

halfnakedrobin also included a CD. music by jack johnson called "in between dreams". she said that she always used to sing to her own dog, lucy (who tragically died two years ago) every morning. halfnakedrobin never noticed it, but her housemates always did and that's how they knew exactly how much she loved lu,lu,lucy. she heard the song "better together" from this CD and the minute she heard it she thought of her morning walks with lucy and knew she would have sung that song to her dog. it also made halfnakedrobin think of me. and clyde. and how much the two of us shared and our own morning walks together. for hours.

there was another song on the CD, though, that really, really struck me. truly. to the core. better together is a happy song and i love it. but this song, "if i could" just hit me in the heart. and to my core. as i doula i witness life being born all the time. and in my work as an herbalist and healer, i see life slip away. one goes out. one comes in.

i wish i could somehow link the mp3 for you here. it's an amazing song. halfnakedrobin had no idea when she sent me that package just how deeply she'd touch me. or maybe she did. the shoe made me cry. but the music? it will always make me smile.

p.s.  halfnakedrobin reads nakedjen.  thank you, dear sweet sister.  you made me both laugh and cry today and love you more than ever.