The end of the summer brings about changes. I know the freedom I have enjoyed with the
kids is slowly going to be taken over by school, activities and other
obligations. It is all good, but it is a
change. With it this momthlete begins to
change as well. With the local Xterras
over with, I now start to focus on running.
The air gets cooler and my memories of racing cross country in school
resurface. I feel a bit like a salmon
that needs to return to its spawning grounds.
I have almost no choice but to run, it is simply in my blood. The Mac Forest in my back yard has endless
miles of flawless trails to run on. And
I get to feel the wind slowly creep back from the Pacific Ocean, bringing
cooler temperatures that slowly tell the big leaf maples that is time to start
thinking about dropping those leaves. Year after year I need to run out and meet the
fall.
I love the simplicity of running. I love quickly throwing on my shorts, shirt,
socks and shoes and running out the door.
There is nothing else to rely on but my body. No bikes to fix or clean
or break. Almost right away I hear my
breath, hear the rhythm of my feet hitting the ground, feel my heart beat. My body becomes an instrument. I hear music.
Let’s talk about music because it is the other thing that
has been coming up this fall, lots and lots of music. I just can’t get enough of it, listening to
it, dancing to it, singing it. Our band
(The Brutal Bridges) has just wrapped up our first CD, and we are starting to
play outside of our living room for people who are not us. I am beginning a new relationship with music,
taking on the job of sharing it with other people and accepting the risk of
everything that entails. Dealing with my
own judgment, the reaction of those gathered, are we good, are we not? Learning
about microphones and having my voice thrown out into a crowd, or not.
Matt and I had a pretty crazy week, starting with an
amplified band practice on Monday. Tuesday was the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic
Zeros concert in Portland. Wednesday was our bands first show at Les Caves. Friday was a jam in my friend’s garage. Saturday we played a wedding. Monday we wrapped up the crazy week at the
Ninkasi brewery in Eugene at a benefit show for the GOATS trail building group
in Oakridge. It was a fitting end to the week for this old mountain biker.
Oakridge is where Matt and I spent our 10th wedding anniversary on
August 24th this summer riding our bikes on some of the world’s
greatest cross country trails. I felt
honored to share music with these amazing folks. The free Ninkasi beer was also a nice perk. It was the first “mini tour” for the Brutal
Bridges and I feel like I have learned something in this last week.
Band practice was great, trying out the amps and
microphones. Microphones are
interesting. My voice goes in and then
comes out a speaker that is far away from my body that just produced that
sound. There is a delay to my voice
being sent out and my ears hearing the sound, because the sound I am making is
no longer coming out of my mouth (which is close to my ears), it comes out of a
speaker, louder than I have ever heard it before and takes a moment to return
to me. If I wait to hear my sound to
adjust to the note I just made, than I risk stepping out of time with the next
note I need to sing. However if I don’t
listen to the sound, how do I know I am singing in tune? This is a new skill I
have never tried out before and I fumble along much like my first day on a
piece of single track. If this were a
race I am not sure I am at the point where I should be on the start line. But I
suppose I need to start somewhere.
The next night was the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
concert. My friend Jamie Simpson sent me
a link to the song Home back at the end of the school year and over the summer
it occurred to me that if this band produced one great song, perhaps they have
more. But it took me awhile to check,
even though it is now so easy to do with the internet. Sometimes I think I am nervous that the rest
of the music may not be as good as that one song and I will be disappointed.
But Edward Sharpe did not disappoint me, the more songs I listened to, the more
new songs I liked. Soon I had bought
both their albums and was listening to them almost nonstop. It was like making a new friend. I now had
all these great songs to follow me through my house work, dance with the kids
to, drive around town with, sing loudly as I ran alone through the burned
forest wilderness area at Waldo Lake (I believe I chose “Man on Fire” as my
cougar repellent).
When I found out they were coming to Eugene in September I
knew I had to see them. I couldn’t tell
you why I had to see this band. Taj
Mahal has played in Eugene and I did not have to see him even though I really love
Taj Mahal. But I had to see Edward
Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. “No
matter what” I told Matt. He said
ok. We were close to booking our Eugene
tickets when Adrian (our band leader/lead guitar/singer song writer and
recording engineer) got us our first real gig at Les Caves. Hmmm.
Well the Portland show was Tuesday night. “How crazy would it be to see them in
Portland on Tuesday leaving our 3 children with an all-night babysitter (Uncle Adam
Hadley) and play a show on Wednesday?” I asked Matt. Too my surprise Matt replied, “Not that
crazy”, even though we both knew it was a bit.
I was actually surprised to find myself driving to Portland
on Tuesday night to see our first big live show since our pre children
Tragically Hip days back in Canada. We were late and had to run from our hotel
about 20 blocks to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, but we know we could run
it faster than a taxi could take us (another strange perk of being an
athlete). We whipped through the
Portland streets, Matt navigating using the wonders of his new iphone. We
arrived a bit sweaty at the concert hall with enough time to grab a Bridgeport
IPA (which has to be drunk with a lid and straw in the concert hall, who knew
that was a good idea? A piece of information I feel will be useful in other
situations).
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is no small band. There
were twelve musicians on stage including an accordion, trumpet player, two keyboard
players, bass, violin, two lead vocalist, and two drummers. This added up to a lot of sound in this turn
of the century concert hall that I don’t think was quite designed to hold this
much amplified music. I could barely make out the lead singer Alexander Eberts’
amazing vocals in the huge wash of sound.
At first I was almost disappointed, but that feeling was quickly
replaced by just feeling the amazing vibrations that soon made their way
straight through my body. It was the
first time in over seven years I had heard this much sound with this many
people. It felt amazing, feeling my body
respond to each song, this one making me so happy, this one making me feel so
sad, the next one lifting me back up. It
was a giant reminder to my body of what my emotions actually feel like. It was one of the most amazing things I have
ever felt, and there is nothing I can write that would explain it without me
sounding more ridiculous than I already do.
At one point Alexander asked everyone to raise their hands if
they were cool. There were many beautiful and very cool Portlanders in the
crowd that night. I was in awe of their
stylish clothes and beautiful hair.
Probably a third of the crowd raised their hands. He asked them to stop dancing and have a
seat. Then he asked everyone who wasn’t cool to raise their hands. Slowly Matt and I added ourselves to this
group. If you know me at all, you know I
have not a cool bone in my body. I have
absolutely no ability to keep myself at one cool level of being for more than
three seconds. I get too excited, too
happy or too sad or too angry at almost every experience I encounter and this
makes me fundamentally very uncool.
“Stand up uncool people” Alexander asked us. Matt and I obeyed with about a third of the
crowd. “Now, you don’t have to be cool
to dance, I bet you never dance because you don’t think you are cool, but it is
not about being cool. It’s about feeling
the music. I want to see you dance”. Slowly
and maybe not as awkwardly as I expected myself to, Matt and I started
dancing.
By the time we got to the song “Home” the fullness of how
great life is hit me hard. I sat there
with Matt after 10 years of marriage, three kids, death, sickness, health and
happiness and realized how amazing and beautiful my life is. And that I just couldn’t have known that as
fully as I do if I hadn’t of held Miles in my arms for those first 5 minutes of
his life waiting for him to breath, sat with Matt’s Dad for three months at the
end of his life, or been with Ava for days in the oncology unit in New
Hampshire. I could only truly know how
amazing my life was by fundamentally understanding that life is by no means guaranteed. It is one crazy, amazing, sometimes painful,
sometimes beautiful gift.
Is that the power of music?
It matches the vibrations of our emotions and makes them clearer to us
than words maybe ever could? I believe music helps us feel all of our emotions, good and bad and accept these feelings without as much judgement as we sometimes feel in the heat of life's moments. And I really think it is feeling this full range of emotions and feelings that our bodies can produce that truly makes us human. Without the good feelings life is just too miserable, but without the bad feelings we don't fully understand just how beautiful those good feelings really are. Is that why I love running so much? It allows me
to hear the rhythm and the beat of my own body until my emotions surface and I
can deal with them in a reasonable and healthy manner? Is this what being a human
being is really all about? Not just
going through our days and doing what needs to be done, but truly feeling the full range of feelings that
life has to offer?
The next day was our
first gig at Les Caves. It was my turn to share as much of that feeling I got
the night before as I could. We played
and had fun, our friends came out and drank beer and listened and clapped for
us, and we put out our music for whoever would listen. Perhaps we livened up
the atmosphere a few shades that night. But it wasn’t until the wedding, when we got
to play the first dance for the bride and groom that I got that feeling. We played a song I wrote for Matt a few years
ago and soon other couples joined in and danced, and I realized we were all
together in this moment, and that was a very cool feeling.
We finished our mini tour in Eugene. It was just Adrian and I and we were
amped. I tried to enjoy the feeling of
my voice going out into the crowd; finally I could sing quietly and not have
the sound get lost. I tried to back off
on the p sounds that were causing the mic to make a loud, distracting puffing
sound. I tried my best to stay with the
music and not worry too much about the resulting sound. Then Etouffee performed. Two guys, violin, rhythm guitar, Cajun music. The first song brought everyone’s ears and
eyes to the stage, focused on them. It
was fun, uplifting, fast, and very happy.
We all were captivated by the sound.
Before long my friend Danielle said, “These guys need people dancing”. Well, since I don’t need to worry about being
cool I figured we may as well be the dancers.
And that was probably the first time I have ever found myself dancing in
public on a Monday night.
The next morning Miles, Anna and I listened to more Etouffee
and danced around our living room together.
I want them to feel this with me, the music filling up our living room
making us spin in circles until we fell down.
I want them to sing with us around the campfire and someday make music
that is all their own. I hope we figure
out how to make more and more people dance.
Perhaps I will figure it out, that perfect song as I am running through
the forest, listening to the rhythm of my feet, feeling my heartbeat and
meeting yet another fall.
Thank you for reading. Start dancing:
