Back in the winter Brian and I decided that we wouldn’t plan a real "vacation" this year. Last year, of course, we had our trip to Ireland, but we thought we’d take 2010 and try to pay some stuff off and get a little more financially sound before spreading our wings and leaving America behind for an extended period of time once more.
So now, the summer is beginning; for me, starting next week that means 3-day weekends and a generally more relaxed (if not incredibly busy) work environment. Hopefully it also means these random cold snaps are behind us, but it’s Oklahoma, so I’m not holding my breath.
With no major getaways or adventures planned, this summer looks to be a mellow one. This is just fine with me, as we’ve been put through the ringer for the last six weeks, and I, for one, could use at least ten weeks without an agenda. I’m not talking about it much anymore, because I don’t really know what to say, but I’d call our asses still firmly kicked. Vegas helped, a little, but the last month – for me at least, I’m not speaking for Brian – has seen me staring into space an awful lot, and occasionally breaking down in tears when the wrong song comes on my iPod.
No matter what else, though, I always believe there’s room to hope. Believe it or not, and however I may come across, I really consider myself a glass-half-full kind of guy. I happen to think the empty half of the glass is the funnier part, but not the more important. All this is to say that grace has been all around us in all kinds of ways of late.
Yesterday two friends found themselves with an extra ticket to the Conan O’Brien show in Dallas, and texted me to see if I could take the afternoon off and come along. Brian encouraged me to go, so I threw caution to the wind. I met up with them, we drove down to Dallas, caught the show, and drove back, talking endlessly about music and sharing stories from high school.
Then tonight Brian and I are driving back to Dallas once more for the first night of the Wildflower Festival in Richardson, where we hope to catch sets from two of our favorite bands in the world – Toad the Wet Sprocket and The B-52s. We caught the Bs when they came through on the True Colors tour in 2008, and it was one of the best live shows we’ve ever seen. We got to see Glen Phillips in Petaluma, California, in 2007 on the "Various and Sundry" tour with the Watkins Family, Grant Lee Phillips and Luke Bulla, and it was amazing. But we’ve neither one of us seen Toad live, which is a shame as they tour only intermittently, haven’t recorded new music in over a decade, and since "Dulcinea" is a "desert island album" for both of us. I haven’t slept more than 4 hours a night all week – really, to be honest, I’ve *barely* done that in five weeks at all – and so I scored myself one of those 5-hour energy shots for later. You might want to keep an eye on my Twitter feed tonight; it could get hilarious.
So, summer’s beginning. I’m finishing final finality on my novel and working on a new major creative project and new stuff for This Land and the Gazette. The garden is taking off. My brother and his fiance just bought a new house. In a couple weeks two of our dearest friends are welcoming their first child into the world, and we cannot wait to meet him.
Things are still hard; there are still shards everywhere. But the sun’s peeking out and grace is everywhere. We have love, and music, friends, and thunderstorms, and enough to get by. Amen, and amen, and amen.
14 May 2010
Love, Music, This I Believe, Travels | Comments (0)