Small world after all...

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears...
It's a world of hope and a world of fears...
There's so much that we share, and it's time we're aware,
It's a small world after all...

Grade 3, during the blur that was my elementary school years.  I think it was St. Edmund's Catholic School where I spent all of four or five months.  I was dressed in my buckskin, and even a little moosehide headband with black yarn braids.  I was the Indian.  Among little Dutch girls, boys in liederhosen, and all the colours of the rainbow.  Was I the only one who felt shame?  How terrible that I was ashamed to be Indian.  How fucking terrible that a seven year old has to feel those feelings.  Where did they come from?  How does the purity and innocence of childhood become tainted by asshole things like shame and fear and the need to be liked over anything else?

Who knows...

Singing became a big part of my life.  Always, always.  My family were all musical - Kokom "Mother Maybelle" Edna, Uncle Vic and his lap steel patent and professional session time and road trips with the likes of Ferlin Husky, Anny Murray, and a bevy of country stars; Uncle Jimmy and his banjo, mando and fiddle, brylcreem pompadour and a smile that shone brighter than a National steel guitar.  Uncle George, who I remember dancing in pantyhose and skirt, front partial plate taken out, but whose fiddle playing rose above his fashion sense and penchant for drunken showmanship.

My mom taught me my first song - how fitting that it was a Hank Williams tune, Blues Stay Away from Me.  My uncle Rocky showed me some chops - a Carter family riff, a little Ghost Riders in the Sky,  and these things sent me on the way to discovering a talent for song.

Soon, Dwayne Arlidge shared a little Black Dog with me and thus a love affair with Zeppelin was forged.  Rob Wingo introduced me to Major Pentatonic scale and some 12-bar blues. 

But it was my mom's record collection that really created my love of music.  Jackson Browne - Running on Empty - a record recorded entirely on the road, some in hotel rooms, and one even on a bus (this is obviously not the bus recording, but such a groovy tune; the bus recording has the drummer playing a hi hat and a cardboard box with a footpedal as a bass drum, and you can hear the ol' Silver Eagle gear down in the background as it approaches a downhill turn).

Music transported me.  I remember lying on the floor with some big ass Dolby headphones just sitting there listening to Jesus Christ Superstar, "I don't know how to looooooooove him..."

How I longed to be soothed by Jesus like Mary Magdalene.  How he could touch her heart, this woman of the street.  How he could rattle her to her core...  I could relate.

I remember feeling so ripped off by the world.  How could we continue to kill, stockpile arms, hurt our children, drink, fight, drug and steal when clearly the truth was laid bare before us by this humble Galileean some two thousand years before.

Music used to make me cry.  Softly, gently, laying on my back, all of nine years old or ten or seven or even six:  Warm salty tears sliding down my cheeks, ears and ragged mullet, finally gently laying to rest in our myriad shag carpets.  Comforted me so deeply.  Brought reason and timing, stories with starts and finishes, middles and denouments.  Brought order to my chaos. 

Funny, we sometimes had pretty meagre fridge contents, but shit we had music.  Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Nana Mouskouri , Beach Boys , Charlie Daniels Band.

Lots of music, all kinds. All flavours.  Rock, country, blues, classical, Indian Music - AWESOME Indian music  I loved this band, this album, this song.  Idyllic lifestyle, being one with the rivers, the woods, the deer and fish and sky and sun. 

Even my dream last night.  I was diving into crystal clear waters.  Swimming with my crazy step daughter while her mom was all worried, chiding us from the bridge.  Free.  Alive.  Tears and laughter.

I awoke to a sickness in my chest and a pain in my heart, fear and loathing in my brain and hurt in my stomach.  All these beautiful things within this world, and I choose crackdens, the paranoid highway - eyes in the rearview, scoping the countryside, looking for cops, people following me.  What the fuck.

I missed my trip to the mountains this weekend.  So sad for me.  How I treat myself. Fucker.  The guy that's driving this train is really starting to piss me off.

I was just listening to that song from the last link:  XIT, Plight of the Redman, At Peace, and watching the video.  At the end it says, "For You Native Americans Looking for Peace.  Just Go Home. Where Home is.  And Peace Will Find You.  Mother Earth is Waiting. Grandfathers are Watching."

So I cry yet again, knowing full well the words are true.  How I could have dove in crystal waters.  Friday night I sat in my truck, me and my little asshole friend hiding somewhere in the hood, alone and broke, yet again.  I looked up at the moon, knowing she was shining down on my friends in the lodge out in the mountains.  In my home.  I knew the grandfathers were sad for me, that they missed me, but that the show would go on for those whose moccasins took them there.  And then, I looked above, as my thoughts were strumming around all guilty-like and self loathingly, I realized the northern lights were dancing in a circle right above me.  Despite my level best effort to hide from life and responsibility and spirituality and what is real in this universe, there they were, the Grandfathers and Grandmothers themselves, dancing like I've never seen them before.

I thought of my childhood and the pain and the poverty and the shit and the scum, but I remembered only the gold and the happy days and the joy and the laughter.  I thought how amazing my life was.  How blessed I was.  What a gift was my miserly little life and the amazing gifts I have been handed to steward and share.  How could I keep thumbing my nose to Creation and flipping the hurtin'est bird to my Creator and ancestors.
What is beautiful, is that they still love me.  So dearly.  I know it.  I want to share my vision of the world with my family, with my kids. 

For so many, this has been an amazing summer.  I read my Facebook; I creep friends' pages.  I see what fun you're all having. 

For me, this  has been the summer of shame. 

But watch out mofos:  It's going to be the Fall of the Fall of Selfishness and the Winter of my Contentment.  And heretofore, a life of Hope Springs Eternal.

I'm not ashamed to wear the buckskin anymore you know...  I love it.  I'm ashamed of something else, and I don't know where it is or what it is, but I'll find it if I have to. 

I was just offered a nice little fulltime job from someone who knows my shitty ass truths and has seen my shine.  Someone who believes in me.  I think I can follow his lead and believe in me too.

Love to you all.
S.