Mom and I took apart the shed that I’d helped Dad put together nearly 30 years ago. I remembered the aching wrists I had from driving all the sheet metal screws and we agreed that Dad would’ve liked the electric screwdriver we had to take it all apart. We stacked up the pieces in the garage, took old leaky paint cans to the recycling center, got $8 for an old battery, brought up garbage from the basement and Terry and I jumped Mom’s Plymouth and she drove it to the garage on her own. It felt like Dad was there, looking on, griping about my decision to throw away an old coffee can full of bent nails that had rusted into a solid mass, laughing about the decomposing bottom shelf of the bookcase we shouldn’t have put out there in the first place, and I could feel him asking where the hell my shoes are. We are starting over all over again, like we do in the spring (even when it’s so late), like we do each Monday, like we do every morning when we wake up and we are alive and happy to feel the sun on our faces as we walk the dog again. I’d like this year to slow down a little bit, so I could catch my breath, I can’t believe it’s about half gone and there’s so much I want to get to do yet, but I’m grateful for this moment when my world is small but intense and I can see my Dad in my kids and hear him in the voice of my Mom. We’re here again, rehearsing the littlest things because they are the best. I’m not sure why I unpacked my bag, I’m leaving Duluth in the morning for Wheaton MN and the Old Jehovah Hall and then Saturday I’ll be in Mankato for the Solstice Festival in the afternoon. On Sunday I’m playing the last show for a bit with Ben Weaver at the Winona Arts Center, hopefully we’ll be back together again soon, but if you’re around this is a great place and a great town for a grand finale. On Monday it’s Madison WI on WPT for the 30 Minute Music Hour which is live at 5:00, and then back to Duluth for the Chester Creek Summer Series at 7pm in the hopefully very nice warm and dry evening with the hula-hoopers and the kids on the swings and blanket picnics and wet dogs and Brother Dave if he’s not behind the controls of a freight train.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 04:02:14 +0000
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