Citizens of a Broken City.

She’s shuffling around the lake in flip-flops,

pregnant belly hanging

over the open strings of her sweat pants,

and she’s shouting into her cellphone:

“You just don’t get it!”

Indigo twilight streaked with horsetail clouds.

I’m dogging her discreetly, wondering:

What don’t they get? Everything, probably.

What it’s like to be lugging her particular load,

wanted or not, into the uncertain future

while above us the sky is doing its big art-instillation thing,

sunset’s last flush lighting up the west

like those pink neon thighs

on the sign swinging outside a saloon: enter here

for the time of your life.

We’re citizens of a broken city, yes,

in a dying time, yes,

amid the general din;

improbable that we’ll be saved,

but still we keep hoping,

which is to say shuffling, limping, or whizzing along —

kids on skateboards and bikes,

the woman with the pink hula hoop

swinging her hips in wide joyous circles,

Chinese elders practicing tai chi under a spreading oak,

all of us putting one

semi-discouraged foot in front of the other

while above us the absolute indifferent magnificence

abounds, abides;

from a certain perspective even our ignorance is dazzling.

— Alison Luterman

Be fearless.

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." — Chris McCandless

Esperanza Spalding & Gretchen Parlato — "Useless Landscape (Inutil Paisagem)"

Today's musical diversion is simple enough. It's this one. Right here. Not brand new by any means, but that doesn't much matter, does it? Esperanza Splalding has always flat out amazed me and this take on a Jobim tune is a welcome reminder of her talent. Thanks, Internet, for leading me in that proper direction.

Rest. — Richard Jones

It's so late I could cut my lights
and drive the next fifty miles
of empty interstate
by starlight,
flying along in a dream,
countryside alive with shapes and shadows,
but exit ramps lined
with eighteen wheelers
and truckers sleeping in their cabs
make me consider pulling into a rest stop
and closing my eyes. I've done it before,
parking next to a family sleeping in a Chevy,
mom and dad up front, three kids in the back,
the windows slightly misted by the sleepers' breath.
But instead of resting, I'd smoke a cigarette,
play the radio low, and keep watch over
the wayfarers in the car next to me,
a strange paternal concern
and compassion for their well being
rising up inside me.
This was before
I had children of my own,
and had felt the sharp edge of love
and anxiety whenever I tiptoed
into darkened rooms of sleep
to study the small, peaceful faces
of my beloved darlings. Now,
the fatherly feelings are so strong
the snoring truckers are lucky
I'm not standing on the running board,
tapping on the window,
asking, Is everything okay?
But it is. Everything's fine.
The trucks are all together, sleeping
on the gravel shoulders of exit ramps,
and the crowded rest stop I'm driving by
is a perfect oasis in the moonlight.
The way I see it, I've got a second wind
and on the radio an all-night country station.
Nothing for me to do on this road
but drive and give thanks:
I'll be home by dawn. 

— Richard Jones

Wordless Wednesday.

Happy birthday, Elvis!

Bryan John Appleby may, in fact, cure what ails you.

I regularly wish for a magic wand to wave. If I had it, the technology they teased us with in The Jetsons would presto change-o exist and I'd not have to depend on cheap airplane seats and work schedules to allow me to pop into any part of the world I wanted. And, more specifically, I'd get to be at Kilby Court in Salt Lake City in just over two weeks to sit at Bryan John Appleby's feet, quietly demanding triple and quadruple encores out of him. And there would be campfire songs after that while the snow fell and people would put off breathing for an hour, lest we cover up the beauty of the long moment. Am I laying it on too thick? Am I, really? 

I'm not sure how well known he is in those parts just yet (and, if I had that wand, I'd wave it and change that noise real quick, too), but that's so entirely beside the point. Selfishly, I want to be there more than I want most things right now. On a bigger scale, perhaps, those who love the best kind of music ought to put aside whatever they're doing to be there as well. Especially if they're within a few hours of a drive. It'd do good things for their hearts, that's what I think. *

Show's on January 21st (since you were asking). And it'll blend well with that winter weather.

If it's good enough for George Clooney, it's good enough for me.

When she stops mid-conversation, looks at me and says, "Your grey hair suits you," I'm inclined to a) immediately like her more, b) compliment her on her amazing ability to lie or c) some combination of the two. 

The Rose — Charlie Smith.

I’m looking everywhere for new ways,
poking, selecting, looking everywhere,
turning the trees over, rummaging among skirts
and stars. I’m so lonely and intense, so
tense and energetic, I’m getting up early
to touch the slick habit of ice on the windowsill,
to touch dust and the dried blue berries of juniper.
I’m shaking and scared of life,
and of the absence of life, childless, love
buried out in the prairie far from here
under the shifty grass; I’m watching the white birds
drift up from the south, reading the last lights
in the tall buildings like lines of white type
spelling the future, I’m into everything
haphazardly and wholly, revenant and pilgrim,
I’m looking as I go and I go formally and
rapidly, moving through gales of solitude,
through crowds and the cries of young children;
I’m tasting, I’m smelling everything, I’m
stooping in Chinatown to lick the boots of
the Buddhists, I’m pressing my bare skin
to the ancient stone designs of artisans lost
to the world; I’m looking everywhere, I’m alert,
I’m open like a child’s blue coat as he runs,
I’m ready for bronze and happiness, I’m gamely
adjusting the water level, I’m forgiving it all,
telling it all, hearing it all, I’m ready
for fake silk patches spilling from envelopes,
I’m ready for a “vague splintering of rain,”
ready—I’m looking everywhere—for a delicate means
of transition, I’m stumbling against
beauty and not apologizing, I’m almost naked here,
skinnier than I used to be, almost helpless
or maybe I’m completely helpless as the religious
say is the way to heaven—all right I’m helpless—
I’m swaying on the platform, I’m tenderly
toasting the bread, I’m placing the saucer,
the spoon on the tray, I’m arranging the rose,
I’m pulling the curtain, I’m letting light flood the room.

Charlie Smith

Happy Holidays, eh?

24 things I'm grateful for: a list.

1. That I work in a place where my name is occasionally replaced with ‘punkin.’

2. When I can make my mom cry her eyes out and know it was because I did a good thing.

3. Sometimes being able to talk to the interesting sorts around the nation, share their stories with others and even get a regular paycheck for doing so.

4. Pumpkin. Great gourdy gobs of sweet-tasting, autumnal-spiced pumpkin.

5. Being able to do four unassisted backbends.

6. Getting remembered by someone I truly enjoy, then talking for an hour, until we both run out of words.

7. Luz, the waitress who gifted us with a free tiramisu, even though it was about four-and-a-half months past my birthday. Sometimes free tastes better.

8. The fact my “I’d really like to see if I can and I really want to” comes out as “I can totally do that.” Sometimes (and that’s enough).

9. Discovering continual inspiration in a friend I already admire.

10. DayQuil.

11. Being able to comfort a friend without knowing at all what to say. Sometimes it just takes a couple of ears and three hours sitting impossibly close in a van for things to feel better than they once felt.

12. Having a friend help me, too, without even so much as knowing it.

13. Feeling raindrops on my face during yoga in Nicaragua.

14. Coconut and pineapple shrimp curry. Land sakes.

15. Getting to hear fishermen singing in Spanish before they dive and go about their work … you don’t need to speak the language to understand the feeling.

16. Nina Simone singing to me in the nighttime (okay, anytime, really).

17. Open hearts.

18. Being able to notice an open heart, in myself or others.

19. When it’s cool enough to live with an open window at night, I sincerely wish I could locate Mother Nature, just so I could high five her.

20. For a next-door neighbor who neatly piles my collected newspapers on my porch when I skip town for a few days.

21. Remembering what it feels like to hold someone close.

22. Surviving a wayward GPS leading a rental too far up a mountain in the Dominican Republic (a very specific thank you and answer to a plea).

23. Dancers who’ve a true sense of rhythm.

24. Crumbling walls.

Wordless Wednesday.

thanks, PASTE.

"Wonderful (The Way I Feel)" — My Morning Jacket.

I can't say I felt especially wonderful at the My Morning Jacket show last night, at least not right away. After about 10 days of back-to-back travel and cramped flights and some all-too-brief nights of shut-eye, a night of being on my feet at the Hard Rock wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered. At least, that is, until this song came on. Pardon my shaky hands, and go ahead and close your eyes if you have to ... but just put your life on pause and let this song wash over you. It'll do your body good (as it did mine).

Wordless Wednesday.

thank you, louisiana. thank you.

I still love you, New York.

I don't try very hard to stay away from New York. And, every time I go there and spend a few days, I get to taste and do more than I did the time before. This time it was famous old delis and Jewish pastries I still can't pronounce and wandering around during the day and night, even risking both life and limb on an ice skating ring (no, not Rockefeller ... it was far too crowded). I could list everything out, maybe, but that one moment I like to relive this morning? It's simple, but it comes down to discovering a woman on the street, happily peeling mangoes, cutting them up and placing them in tiny plastic bags. I'd never seen such a thing, so I had to try it out. I bought one of them off of her and continued on my way, but not before she added a generous amount of hot sauce, salt and lemon juice. It set me back just three dollars, but the taste was worth far, far more. New York, if nothing else, is incredibly, impossibly, undeniably delicious.

Wordless Wednesday.