Hold On

Getting back to blogging after about a week away…first a trip to Phoenix and then leaving my Power Book cord at my friends’ place kind of crimped my Internet activities for a few days.

It was a good trip to Phoenix – Memorial Day weekend with F1 and F2, finished up with a flamenco guitar lesson. I got some helpful pointers and corrections to what I’ve been doing, plus new material – Bulerías compás, Tangos compás, Sevillañas accompaniment, along with more Alegrías. My teacher gave me some great bar chord changes and alterations on the Alegrías, very colorful, and they are excellent stretches as well. I can take and capo them up to where I can make the reaches then start moving back a fret at a time as my left hand strengthens and limbers up. A major headache coming on in the middle of my lesson did little to dampen my enthusiasm, but I did cut my time in Phoenix shorter than planned. I intended to do some more networking while down there, but decided to go back up to the high country early and tend my aching head.

The last two times I’ve been to Phoenix, I’ve had a strange reaction upon leaving the Valley. I head north on I-17 and start to feel bummed out and depressed. It isn’t the uncertainties that I’m heading toward that are bothering me; it feels like I’m leaving something important behind, but I can’t identify what. Flagstaff doesn’t feel like home anymore, yet I don’t want to live in Phoenix. I am betwixt and between, with no idea how I can keep my place and make a living (preferably doing music) whether that be in Flagstaff, or Phoenix, or some combination of both. The Universe does not seem the least bit concerned, but I am. Despite all the years of things always working out, of intuition being vague yet ultimately spot on, I still keep looking for rational explanations and wasting inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to figure out the indecipherable.

I was preoccupied, running various scenarios through my head, as I approached Black Canyon City. The steep canyons get strong wind gusts and it’s common to see ravens playing in the air currents in that area. This time, off to my left, I saw one literally flying with his feet to the sun, almost level with the guard rail, hanging in the drafts blowing up-canyon. Given my motion relative to him, he appeared to be flying upside down and backwards! Once I got over my surprise, I heard, “You’re going about this backwards. You’re putting the wrong things first.” How much clearer of a message do I want from the Universe?

Did I stop being preoccupied upon receiving that wonderful little message from “the Is?” No. Did I pay attention to the massive bloom of matilija poppies in the median strip that I had so enjoyed on the trip down? (Large swathes of white poppies for miles along the roadside – it’s the biggest bloom I’ve seen in twenty years of living in Arizona.) Barely. I spent most of the three-hour trip back up the hill worrying and trying to figure out how I could get my place ready to put on the market, figuring that was my logical best option, even though my heart says that’s all wrong. I had myself all turned in knots – clove hitches, bowlines, and figure eights, by gosh.

To top it all off, there was a wildland fire along I-17, a little bit south of the Stoneman Lake turn-off and I was seized by the old wildland firefighting bug again. A great little afternoon fire along the highway, not over 85 degrees out, a couple of acres of PJ (pinon-juniper woodland), steep slopes but a good line around it at the top of the little canyon. Sweet. Four Type 6 engine crews from off the Prescott National Forest, a Type 1 crew (Rawhide Hotshots), and a tender. (The tender engineer had structure turnouts on – didn’t someone issue that poor boy wildland gear?) Oh man, there’s not much better than being on an engine crew on a fire like that. I topped the Mogollon Rim deriding myself for how out of shape I am and reminiscing about the “good old days,” thereby getting myself even more depressed. Good grief, someone call the “wah-ambulance.” The pity party was getting downright stifling.

Oh yeah, surrender. I forgot all about that! So, I finally prayed to God/the Universe/the Great Mystery and asked for a sign. A very clear one, too, please, as I knew I was not in a good place. About a mile down the road, I spotted the NAU billboard that reads “Hold on. You’re almost to the best part!” I burst out laughing. Certainly the cynic would say that I’ve traveled that road enough times to unconsciously know that was coming up. I tried that one out, too. Sure, but that logic does not do justice to either the feeling I got from seeing it or the hilarity I got from the Higher Power’s sense of humor! A sign, and a clear one…that’s for sure!

I haven’t been worrying since, just going about my business, doing webwork, practicing, promoting, tending to whatever needs to be done today and letting tomorrow take care of itself. I still don’t understand a lot of my reactions, I still don’t know where it’s all headed, but I’ve at least been content to put one foot in front of the other the last few days and not keep trying to bend Heaven and Earth to fit my own will and my little vision of what is possible. “Hold on,” that’s my mantra for now.