Kristina Stykos

I’m traveling by car crossing the country again, this time going home.

 Chicago once spelled chicagoua now a hell hole of cars human killer bees swarming around its own body I won’t drive that way again I’ll drive a day out of my way to avoid it turn in all that man-made insectual activity for words I can dream into like chippewa ontonagon chequamagon ottawa and white earth instead soak my eyes in earth dawns and plains grass and birds flocked on gravel beds and telephone wires and still water there where a mind can spread out like limbs across a wide bed longing to be down land where deep and natural silences reign hover in a state of permission to be instead of think 

 I have a lot to ponder, with this vague nutritious happiness pulsing inside my chest part ache and part wonder at a heart that’s still working some and for me not against me.  And a lot of - time - to ponder, enough so that the feelings can be smoked out but kindly, for the drive is a kindness to myself I realize that no one can take from me except the car should it decide to break down. Simple things, like his passing me in the hustle of the bar and leaning his tall lanky frame down to my ear, saying “ You’re almost as pretty as that mandola” on the first night I came to open mic at the old hotel, with my brand new custom vintage “F” model on its trial run. The memory runs alongside the rolling secondary highway like an antelope and we’re heading a straight shot to North Dakota red dirt roads empty as whistles on the right and the left and that sweet taste swimming up joining mist over corn stubble yes out here between Buffalo and Bismark I can savor my steaming coffee in the travel mug and the sun rising and my compliment from a cowboy, and make them last.

 Well, trips have their ups and downs and later I’m in a downpour looking for gas following questionable signage a little too far off the beaten path maybe I’m not so sure it mightn’t have been better to travel with someone but there isn’t much use to that way of thinking and doubling back again for some sighting of gas pumps maybe near the grain elevators or the feed lot I suddenly feel that creepy familiar sense of sinking through my own dreams however there is a closed up farm supply fill-up station with a self-serve kiosk that only looks broken so I grab a hat still I’m going to get wet anyway you cut it but I’ll take it standing up straight unflinching sort of proud-like letting the unrelenting rain soak my jeans while I hold the nozzle harder watch with forced interest the vacant sunday morning rail-yard puddles doing my part of course to let my pockets fill with Dakota water and now I’m remembering all those people who never seemed to like me back where I’m heading why would I be thinking that here in the west so far away from it - just because I’m turned east? and it is possible I won’t be able to find a decent motel before dark and I’ll be driving in this hard rain for ten more long hours stuck in the middle of a pack of trucks blinded by the spray just hanging onto my wheel for dear life and damn it mostly maybe my cowboy didn’t really like me either and that’s the one that hurts. 

 At Motel 6 the next morning no I didn’t sleep well it’s hard to sleep well when you’re trying not to touch the bed the internet isn’t working in my room either so I’m back in one of two molded plastic chairs in the “lobby” trying to make contact with some of the people I left behind it’s 5:30 a.m. and not a bad time to be next to the coffee maker smelling something other than air freshener a few other early-rising travelers are showing up on their way out here’s a fella with his young son disheveled in an honest sort of way and right on task as it turns out to get his self to a farm equipment auction before that thresher sells he’s running his hand through his short hair and stuffing it back under this hat as he says to me “you been sitting here all night?!” his eyes are wide like deer’s which reminds me most men this week are chasing deer in the woods but he seems genuinely concerned to see me here twice in the same plastic chair “I would have bought you a room if I’d knowed!” surely a perverse suggestion under any other circumstances a poor excuse for a pick up line but out here in the Dakotas I’m comforted extremely comforted by his words and his eyes and his polite rancher-boy son I can’t tell him so so I just smile and open myself to a bit of conversation and that feels good way better than being paranoid last night he would have offered to drag my heavy guitar cases for me if he’d knowed I reckon there at the far end of the motel parking lot where every shadow was a potential combination rapist/thief/meth-head.

 So I return to driving and I’m making some miles as sleepy towns wake to a clear day its not so much about dealing with conditions now as it is about getting back to pondering and looking to see what’s coming home with me and maybe what’s not or can’t like the bighorn mountains or the laughter of us three girlfriends flirting with hats indoor outdoor ten gallon and otherwise the legendary “Occidental” saloon below our hotel room labeled “Outlaw” could be we’re out on the town for one last night in Buffalo, Wyoming with a few eyebrows still to raise but mostly for me I’m just loving some folks we’ve been getting to know for the last month and wanting to get some last loving in without being too obvious about it. Behind the bar Dave’s mixing up a drink with huckleberry brandy for me because I asked for a surprise and the night is getting on and I can feel my opportunity slipping away even with my back turned. I had hoped for more time and a chance to say some things.

 But it was to be an unfinished conversation with Wyoming.

In case you were wondering the saturday afternoon ham and leek party went off without a hitch at “The Clear” route 107 pittsfield it was up on the marquee in plastic letters a phenomenon that felt too good to pass up I asked patrick if he’d work my cell phone camera course he was flattered to take charge and shot it nicely from several angles satisfied we walked back down the drive to the tavern there again the “biker friendly” sign and vacant picnic tables and ghosts of snow-mobilers unable to mount their machines and dead winter grass and the river slamming against its own banks overburdened by snowmelt off hawk mountain. In the back of the pub the buffet was going strong the grub laid out in stainless caskets the warming trays of ribs and flanks piled high and milky leeks swimming with ham puffy rolls fashioned from dough conditioners and gloppy potato salad it’s where we found bow chortling between mouthfuls he and matt shooting the shit about the night we drove off the ski mountain at two a.m. matt’s plow truck taking the lead the blizzard refilling the road with snow near fast as he cleared it and our much-awaited-for opening gig for a big name act being somewhat a let down foiled by weather with all the friends and fans who’d been planning to come for weeks stuck in their driveways at least several ridges and rivers away well if I’d had any idea to get home to chelsea that night it was not meant for it but being designated driver I’d put my mind to get at least as far as bow and lori’s house above gaysville bridge and I’d managed and revved my four wheel up that last hill rounding the bend with pride just prior to the flumping sound as we slid sideways shy of success the car now half obstructing the road definitely in the way of the town plow when he showed up minutes later and the pressure was on his running lights indicating a polite but metered idle at the bottom so I went at it rocked her cock-eyed to the drift with the determination of a bullheaded mind and the weight of a car load of expensive instruments working to my advantage perhaps anyway bow was full of pork by the time we returned and washing it all down with another pint of beer we went on stage to fulfill the promise of the marquee bringing the tuneful side to the edible fixins for one is only half itself without the other. I was so relieved next morning by all accounts easter sunday though with my children gone hard telling but to finally have a day with no rush in it and so I suggested what I like for lack of horses to do a slow car ramble this I offered my finnish friends we turned the automobile past the playschool then the victory garage the plank bridge and that gorgeous twist of water up next sharp up into the woods bobbin shop road always my first choice as imbedded it lives in my mind I could describe it in great detail each inch and the various moods of it to anyone though I’ve never had the need we took it rubber tires pulling ahead on almost firmed up muddy roads rising like a peeper chorus to the tip top and over and as ever past the ponds of your rented house the dark glimmering shine luring the eye uphill to somewhere sweet reverting time and stabbing the heart’s deep desire to traipse any woods the finnish freedom to roam a better use of the imagination and law applying to certain categories of mainly uncultivated land according to google "mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land" and I’m sure I never see you there but it makes sense for it has always been the mythic terrain of my travels to elsewhere next we tried ourselves to the end of washington turnpike and the dooryard of the old doyle place to check out what’s left of the house and the barn and to glimpse the wet places of ramps coming along and coltsfoot brightening the wayside places past duffy’s patchwork shack the braman’s loose chickens in the road and finally down hart hollow and a spontaneous find of a cemetery with many stones marked ‘baby”.

The day began with a leisurely breakfast because Marion was always up earlier than anyone else spreading food across every inch of the large kitchen table, something we’d come to expect. Bill, on the other hand, had at the crack of dawn taken our broken down car to the village to the garage to get a jump on repairs. We were musicians after all and would be expected to slumber late into the morning after a show and be unavailable to manage the details of our own existence. Parents of musicians knew that and either accommodated it or brought shame down upon their children like rain. “What are you sleeping half your life away?” No, you wouldn’t hear that here in the Thayer household.

I was the early riser, showing up for my first cup of coffee around 9 am. Looking at Marion and taking in her typically chipper demeanor, it crossed my mind that she might have already knocked off a couple rounds of tennis. The most exercise I had gotten since we’d hit the road Thursday was my walk overland from the ski condo to the front desk to get a muffin – a distance of maybe 50 feet. Maybe add to that a little upper body workout lifting guitars in and out of the car. As musicians we prided ourselves on a kind of mental agility that allowed us to avoid physical activity that might strain our musculature and render us useless to our instruments. That included just about everything beyond tooth brushing near as I could tell.

The Starbucks is mostly guys in suits milling around. As a group, I like the combined effect of their gray flannels, scrubbed faces and silver laptops. I know my feeling of contentment has something to do with them, what they represent to me as I sit in my café chair at One Financial Center, watching and listening to heels that click smartly on granite making their way to elevators.

There are people, it seems, who are truly important. Thanks to them, I’m suspended in the illusion that I’m important too and it feels good. The world is suddenly filled with people efficiently making it run. I wish my cappuccino would last forever. I could live here in this lobby if I had a sleeping bag.

But it won’t and I don’t. And when I open my laptop, the “public network” denies me access. I remember that we’re here because someone in an office on the 17th floor of the Federal Reserve Building told us to come back later with the proper documentation. We’re not important and we’re in limbo, stuck in the heart of the financial district between its high-level transactions and coffee choices. One purchase at Starbucks just set us back about ten dollars and we’re thinking about how much it’s going to cost to be parked in the South Station parking garage for five hours. And how high the price of gas is in the city.

My hair falling heavy and unified like rope off my head, that’s what I want. Like a rope swing, a dark length of swirling joy. There had been such a swing in my childhood, tied to a tree at the far end of a neighbor’s backyard, up the creek from my home. We’d sneak there through the woods, discreetly entering the property from bushes unseen. The old elm seemed too big to be true; how anyone had tied the rope in its upper branches will forever remain a mystery. But even one jump filled life with an inexorable timeless few moments of freedom and seamless motion, the softest most vibrant green grass blurring beneath as the body flew out on the heavenly string.

That’s the way I want to feel tonight.

He hadn’t returned our phone calls, but that sometimes happened when his computer was using the phone line so we decided to just drive over. After 40 minutes navigating the familiar hills and valleys, we turned at the old bridge and wound our way up twisting roads into Gaysville. The whole town seemed perched under a bower of ancient fir trees, just barely holding on to the sides of the raging winter river. But with the addition of colored lights on the trailers and camps, the mood was festive. Christmastime on the back roads of Vermont was the best I could imagine.

We pulled a sharp left over the culvert and parked on snow and pine needles. In a moment we were clambering through Bow’s front door. Looking down into the sunken living room we found him. The television was on and they were watching the Simpsons – Bow, his dog Libby and 19 month old River.

We crossed the Boston Common and got to the Orpheum early enough to stand in line with a sense of ease, enjoying the early evening air and sociability of an eager crowd. The letter, tucked away in my bag, was quietly giving me a sense of mission. Of course I was different from all the other concertgoers - I just knew it. More tuned in, more special, more secretly wired to the heart of the excitement and its flesh and blood center.

At our leisure, we would go to the front of the line and find our complimentary tickets waiting.

His tour bus was there, parked with its tinted glass windows suitably darkened and I wondered if he was looking out, in which case I should look nonchalant but vigilant as to which side of me was best for viewing. Would he recognize me? Above all, I should look happy. Wasn’t I happy? Soon I would be soaking in the aural vibrations of his splendiferous talents and then making my way like a princess behind the curtain and backstage into the heart of his temporary inner sanctum. Naturally I was about as happy as a dog waiting for a bone. A bone of my own creation, conjured up out of hunger. The most beautiful bone of one’s dreams if you didn’t mind the fact it had no nutrition or substance. A small price to pay for ecstatic fantasy.

I would have liked to go to bed I think. But my conscience was not at peace. Phil had asked me to attend to some critical details in the final mix and I had left it to the last. It was the night before my appointment with the mastering engineer, and I was halfway to the facility in New Jersey. My brother rallied.

“Okay, let’s load this baby onto my Pro Tools and I’ll see what I can do.” he said.

Since returning from Montana life has revolved like an orbiting moon around feeding big, heavy chunks of hardwood, cut and split by our friend Mark a few months ago, into the yawning mouth of the old soapstone stove. I remember driving up north to Hardwick to buy that thing some 20 years ago, and how I drove away with it in the back of my borrowed truck forgetting to release the emergency brake; how when I got down the road a piece to East Calais, wondering what the smell was, and pulled over to assess the situation with my typical attitude of panic and naiveté, I still felt a missionary sense of accomplishment to be committing to such a noble heating unit. The pride of staying unfrozen in winter is something Vermonters harbor like a secret, guilty pleasure. Comparing woodpiles is a common form of competitive recreation. And the fact that I no longer split my own firewood is a nagging source of chagrin and sadness, which I hope to remedy someday, by once again taking up the ax. Somehow now, the non-heating aspects of life seem to be overwhelming and good old fashioned chores harder to embrace.

The view from the porch of the Farney’s settled over Malcolm like a song as he puffed at his cigarette, squinting into the late afternoon sun. This far north, just a few miles east of Jay Peak in Vermont’s northeast Kingdom, autumn was coming early and consequently, the threat of frost was stimulating food production in the Farney’s kitchen. After two days of non-stop eating and recording, Malcolm was getting ready to attempt the guitar solo of his lifetime. Croissants, vegetarian chili, fresh baked bread, potato salad, dilly beans, tomato soup and congo bars aside, it was time for him to step up and shred.

The rest of us were hard at work setting up Malcolm’s amplifier, three bodies crowded into a small room about the size of a clothes drier. We were busy wrestling the microphone into position in front of the speaker cabinet when a strange buzzer suddenly went off, not the first of many unwanted noises that had plagued our session. The short list included lawn mowers, pots and pans, dimmer switches, truck traffic, cell phones and a drill press. But this noise seemed to be right next to us. Oh, of course – bingo! It WAS right next to us – it was the clothes drier reaching the end of its cycle. Our beautiful isolation booth also had a toilet, a towel rack, a shower stall and matching bath mats. We finished our adjustments and shut the door tightly, leaving the amp on standby.

It was one a.m. and admittedly, we were drinking. “You know you’re old enough to be my mother,” he said, and I smiled, nodding, unable to disagree.

“Can I ask you a question,” he continued,” and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. I don’t exactly know how to say this but … how has making music changed for you now that you’re past fifty, in comparison to, say, when you were my age?”

Roody sighed, adjusting slightly in his dog bed, and without opening his eyes, stretched his legs showing off his handsome sled dog apparatus. The small ranch house living room seemed filled with contentment including the quiet vibration of Cindy asleep in the back bedroom.

The question was an interesting one, the kind of philosophical big-picture question that I would normally jump all over but an off the cuff answer seemed to evade me.

It was back to business as usual: Cousin Steve was back in Boston playing all the cool clubs and I was in Vermont playing renewable energy festivals, barbeques and sports bars with punching bags. “Listen to this,” I said, turning up the CD player in my car so the guys could hear what was coming up on the disk. “Tell me what you think about the bridge section when they go into a jazz thing.” Patrick looked attentive from underneath the guitar rack that was covering his mid-section up to his chin in the tightly packed car. “Okay here it’s coming … here!” I let the music blare for a few phrases and then cranked it back down. “That is so cheesy, right?”

“No, that’s great, it totally works,” said Patrick. The car bounced through a pothole as we entered Pittsfield and slowed to village speed, passing The Clear on the left, a reputed hangout for bikers and roofers, and an old gas station sporting the sign “Yoga and Pilates” on the right . Our discussion continued.

“Yeah, it’s cool” Bow agreed. “Did you teach this Bruce Hornsby dude to drink too? “

Curled towards the crow’s nest window in the dark sky house, I am not asleep. It’s past midnight and the room is thick with sweat. On the walls frames of illuminated cloud flash announce the thunder as it ambles off the wide valley into our bed like confused oxen. It’s an easy conversation for power to have with something smaller. My husband has just gone off to his own dreaming. I lie alone.

These solitary summer days punctuated by one off social swirls of music or visiting - they drift, fall back towards long hot days leaning into gardens. In Vermont one never forgets the season is short. Almost oppressive by mid-summer all shades of green begin to merge and the distinctions between plants so pleasing in spring are gone. Sightings of Dionysus walk among us, begin to fatigue us, make us long for cool water.

I’m in the Ford truck driving with my mother, having steadied her up into the cab earlier with promises of a typical landscaper’s adventure. We’re idling in a construction zone miles from town to the point of turning off the engine. It’s a slim road aiming south just past Ward’s Garage and I’m glad to see he still waves to me even as he’s made enemies in town. As near as five years ago I would’ve been eager to share some of those rural politics with my mom, seeing as there’s little else to do sitting here stopped in our tracks. But today I’m silent and uninterested in my own stories, equally uncertain that my words would have any entertainment value, much less staying power.

The startling sight of snow covering red maple buds, daffodils and freshly cut earth today pulls spring’s lift downward and inward again. I pace the dusty wood floors in boots, restless, almost unable to bear the burden my life has become. Bedraggled strands of hair hang in my face, a symbol of my anger and struggle to be seen and hidden. In such a frame of mind, there are no gigs, there is no money, no one likes me and I can’t strike a chord worth playing. This would be a second adolescence twisted almost tighter than the first because I should know better.

The Venetian mask maker draws his brush slowly and intently across the face of Pulcinella and then with similar economy of movement lifts his eyes and looks at me over his glasses. Perhaps he’s curious to divine my origins but with equal likelihood I am an unwanted intrusion. Seated on a high stool behind the front counter he continues to paint, his eyes glancing up now and then as I move through the shop in silence. The huge noses of il Medico della Peste hang limply from rafters, pointed downwards towards my head. Here in Venice a sense of hidden deity is pulsating - from the massive weathered wood and iron clad doors of locked palazzos that stand sentry-like over damp, cobbled streets; from the hurried, sharp footsteps that echo and fade, detached from any person. The dusty windows just beyond a neat row of smiling Gianduias suggest indirect sunlight – sunset must be just now caressing the dying city's perimeter. I’ve come a long way across an ocean to unwittingly stumble over this threshold into sadness.

He emailed me - again. “Hey k, Lou here. I’d really like to help you set up those speakers. Give me a call when you get a chance. All the best, l”

My elbows on the console, I twirled a long tendril of hair around my finger and while continuing to stare blankly at the screen considered pulling it and for that matter all my hair out in one smooth, well defined motion. That would be the truest expression of how I was feeling on this bleak day in February, sitting alone in my studio, surrounded by knobs and wires. How had I gotten into this technological nightmare of always needing to know more than I did and having to be smarter than my clients at every turn? Had I strapped on my skis even once this winter or tuned into nature? The answer was clearly “No” because I’d been too busy trying to convince myself of my qualifications to be the professional that I am and tormenting myself to keep way ahead of myself as if running a marathon. I was about to crack.

After the rock and roll spectacle was over, a caravan of cars headed single file out of town and turned right up Braintree Hill Road, red taillights disappearing and reappearing in the blowing snow. Not far from here in the craggy hawk haunted hills my old music partner was probably burning the midnight oil with her chocolate brown fiddle, flying through the night on ancient Cape Breton tunes. How many winter nights like this one had I had joined her, settling in next to the wood stove with my guitar, her big old dog at my feet and her husband quietly clanking pots and pans in the kitchen stirring up some dinner for us. Warm memories but life has a way of driving wedges between friends in the oddest way.

Here tonight, positioned between the life saving blow of my hard-working car’s right and left heater vents I was again a refugee following new friends to an unknown destination.

He was having a rain stick malfunction and finally sixth take I got out my rain stick. “Longer isn’t always better”, I said, as his expert hands took hold of it and turned it towards gravity. If life could be so simple, I thought to myself. The flow of brittle seeds cascading filled my headphones perfectly proportioned to three final drumbeats on goatskin. The image on the screen of the sound wave bloomed and slowly receded in pink. “That’s the last thing I’ll record”, he said. I looked up at him somehow stunned at this revelation. After six months of meticulous tracking and retakes, we had finally reached the finish line.

The tree is full of morning doves. I open the French doors to throw a mangy Pointsetta into the snow, and they're looking at me. Do they know how far I've traveled to get here? And now in the swirl of winter’s blustery white, we are holed up together, a wonder to each other. Just as if it were always so.

The jays pretend not to see me because they own the place. They believe the feeders strung all around this huge wooden house are their right, not their privilege. My husband plays into this by chastising himself should any of the stations be forgotten, even for a day, and the seed receptacles gone empty. He tells me no one likes blue jays, and so my secret love of them must go unnamed as I watch them move with the determination of kings from branch to sky, seemingly impervious to the gusts of intoxicating mountain wind. Not like the little chickadees my husband favors, their reliable songs coming from everywhere, unseen and delicate, like clockwork, their small bodies working with.

Long empty road, clear night, the river’s a thousand gems dripping moonlight. I’m slipping through the dark. To this road and river draw memories; dream-like threads come back to find their ephemeral spring or perhaps rolling slip shod gone in search of ocean. But stone nor channel seem moved since that last day we were together - their honest conduits bear the commute of my midnight journey deftly and deafly, distinctly disinterested. Same road, same river, but the steep mountain ravines hold no trace or whisper now of that old situation - not the thrill nor the folly of it. The curtain that had framed the performance so convincingly as reality, that had once held such power over my emotions - it was now gone, and in its place a silly, cheapened cloth. Yes, I followed him from stage to stage for many decades, but he followed me also. It was an exchange - of what we labeled crudely love.

It was a quiet morning on the Chelsea hilltop, huge soft wads of mist weaving through the November trees and a tentative brightness after days of rain. It was also quiet because my left ear was plugged with earwax and the mix session cancelled for the weekend. Scott Davis was extremely gracious as I talked to him, my right ear pressed securely to the phone as to a piece of life saving driftwood. This was a first, I explained: auditory impairment due to poor use of hydrogen peroxide. My attempt to clear my ears had turned the tables on me for the short term, and shaken loose years of accumulated flotsam. I could not, in good conscience, venture to mix this complex stereo field in mono: Scott’s fantastic landscapes of rushing, leaping, tinkling, thrumming, rolling, ringing, thundering, clashing and scratching percussion. We would postpone for a week, giving me time to unglue the jam and return clear eared, even eager to put one last stroke of sparkle onto his creation before releasing it to find it’s audience.

A little depressed by my condition, I turned to bookkeeping for consolation. The rain had returned and as I sat hunched over my computer, I listened absent-mindedly with my good ear to the slow and steady plopping drops.

It was late October and I was in headphones when the boxes arrived, bumping down from a UPS truck onto the plank floor of the woodshed. No doubt rain clattered atop the corrugated plastic roofing as the brown suited driver scribbled in ballpoint on his clipboard. But I wouldn’t hear it – like the good hermit I can be, I was lost in a world of sound - a new song just recorded. And so when towards dinnertime I pulled up on the wooden latch and stepped out my front door into the dusky evening, it was almost a surprise to see 1,000 copies of Bow Thayer’s new CD “Shooting Arrows at the Moon” amidst the bark and the wood chips.

Her car follows mine along the leaf strewn asphalt roads winding and spiraling down into North Pomfret. At the stop-signed corner of Moore Farm: an apple stand unmanned and surrounded by all the colors of the chrysanthemum spectrum and old wooden signs hanging one above the other on eye hooks “squash” “potatoes” “maple syrup” swinging ever so slightly. We turn away to the left driving east one driveway, clouds moving with us or faster above cool morning fields and buildings. Our chitchat settles over shovels, our cart wheels round the barn on thick, dewy lawn grass pulling the gentle grades graciously architected over centuries in slow motion.

Just south of the Chateauguay wilderness there is a hayfield; long and narrow in the summer night a full moon hangs to the south while the dipper shines north. I’m standing on an empty platform coiling microphone cables under the starry dome that even these stage lights can’t dim, and the crowd has receded away like a wave in the dark on smooth but trodden carpets of grass. The food tents are empty but for a couple kitchen volunteers leaning on makeshift counters under a bare bulb with their coffees and cigarettes and far across the hollow a flush of fire fairies whirls upwards, illuminating for a moment the giant pine at tree line. I can hear something faint in the distance, as beside the RVs and campers around circles of fire instruments and facile hands and laughter and well-worn tunes begin to reforge constellations of friendship. Many of the people here know each other well and have made this pilgrimage to catch hold each other again within the warm embrace of mother Bluegrass, a ritual time cannot erode.

anaan land. The railroad valley runs north out of Island Pond on bumping macadam into miles of moose country, rolls on and spills out evergreen woods to honor run-down motel lakes before heading east into rugged, hard-won towns on both sides of the border. Towns with two bench greens, grand ramshackle houses, permanent porch sales and dingy sundown plastic signage. At a mid-town railroad crossing we slow, looking right or left for the expected piece of gas mart civilization: a fill-up, a six pack and snack, maybe a cash machine. The oddly comforting pre-cursor in these parts, to every traveler's inevitable reentry onto more lonely highway.

Our host Brad meets us as planned at his well-appointed camp on Wallace Pond with a firm handshake, bemused smile, tipped hat, barely disguised curiosity – simple welcome from a community where no one puts on airs and lawn chairs unfold Sunday afternoons like clockwork. Brad has organized a benefit concert for Habitat for Humanity and we are the chosen out-of-town musicians imported to Colebrook (NH) to play with local hero Patrick Ross. Having grown up in Canaan, Patrick is part of the fabric of this corner of the northeast kingdom, grown like a weed from the northern forest to become one of Vermont’s best fiddlers. We stand above the lake in Brad’s yard, chatting on grass Patrick mowed as a kid.

We worked hard in hot sun digging rain collection wells under the peonies, pulling witch grass and mounding dry soil with our hands. Scoops of alfalfa meal, green sand, kelp and compost then and the long, patient drink from hoses coming down off the mountain. In the tumble of tools, jars and boxes in the back of her car, Suzy rummaged for our refreshment of grapes and water. We turned and leaned, sweating, against the bumper with our cups and stems, surveying the 60 or so plants. It was a good send off for a bride-to-be, to know that her peony farm would be in happy while she went to Italy to get married.

A month later I drive up the dirt drive into the same field, but this time for a different reason. In the thundery dusk, cars are already parked in rows on the gentle slope and a soft light glows from the open barn doors. It's a night to consider throwing shoes away just to savor the sensuality and comfort of grass underfoot. As I amble up to the entrance I can see the crumpled bags of soil amendments just under the wine and cheese table as feet shuffle on barn board into the candlelit expanse.

Clouds move fast on the heels of night rain, the kind you wake up to out of dreams. We want to be on that ship as it breaks the water and slices through low hanging chunks of mist, away from dockage, away from the slow grind of the city at dawn rising to its routines and normalcy. It’s all about the sky and its reveals of blue that shift and disappear and reappear further on, always ahead of us. Today would be the day to finally leave this city of the ordinary and launch our lives toward the beyond.

Slow moving Sunday morning at Farm Fresh Market in Barre VT, musicians warming up, tuning up under the picture windows fully gray sky. Within the soft metallic ring of bouzouki, smooth lilting penny whistle and fans whirring kitchen side I’ll get my coffee and sink into the momentary peace of community life at a corner table. Swift river summer is in full swing, dipping, jumping, wiggling fishlike and I’m hanging on to the slippery tail. Eyes still closed or half awake in the creamy summer dawns and birdsongs or at dusk awash in cricket clatter, crackling bonfires, and disembodied laughter from the flickering dark fields, of girls and fiddles and tag you're it ... Where could life possibly lead me now?

At the end of a chaotic week I found myself sitting under Carmen’s accordion being serenaded as I savored the last few sips of “the cheapest red wine you have”, nominally stuck to my padded booth cushion in the dimly lit La Cantina. I had done my best not to attract his attention but Susie had gotten a notion to stare at him and now we were reaping the consequences. “Here’s a song you’ll never hear outside the North End of Boston; I learned it from an old man who was a butcher.” His vocal bravado poured forth as he leaned in and out over our table, the bellows of his instrument larger than life when squeezed so at eye level, his little hat perched provocatively atop a devilishly good looking 20 something head. So this is what it means to be middle aged, I thought, nervously smiling and fidgeting with my neckline.

We leaned back against the bumpers of a couple cars half in half out the garage green room of the venue, a warehouse behind the VFW. Railroad tracks, a dozen junked Subarus, mist rising from river to city tops to inky stars. “Is it raining?” Bow said, “ I unloaded 3 bags of stucco and left them by the front door when I left. Shit.” Steve leaned over and gently filled my plastic cup again, as damp concrete echoed the shuffle of feet and music from South Carolina’s Dylan spilled out the other end of the oil soaked bay through a glowing door. “Doesn’t look like anything serious ‘til after midnight as far as the rain, “ Mike clarified.

My mind floated out wandering far from the city to the stucco perched upwards of a dark river, the massive old hemlocks leaning and saturated with the sound of water and a vacant backwoods highway left to it’s own devices. Not long ago I’d worked that valley’s image and written a song called “Flowing West”. Seeing Bow’s bags of powdered masonry slowly thickening in the murky woods seemed just about right. The song hadn’t worked at all.

When I have a gig, he has steak split two ways with the dog and a luxurious, dogs-on-the-bed camp out a la canine. Is music my mistress? Because the dog surely is his. On a night like tonight chilled off and frosty like spring gone backwards, the peepers don't look up to see their moon. I'm in the empty door yard at midnight, unloading the car in the gloom, guitars, mandolin and mic stands all akimbo. I've transcended the heights of my imagination yet again only to come tumbling down to find the normal parameters of life. My life. Why is my yearning so huge and unsuited to these days of regular existence? Soon I'll be getting up, making my coffee, walking for the paper and looking out at the southern hills just after dawn, like i do every day in paradise. But it will never feel like enough. Or rather, I will never feel like enough.

I can't think. This hot sun on my skin back flat on spruce boards under blue skies interrupting everything. Big decision these days which shoes to wear to get from the house to the car. And I'm feeling giddy, almost powerful behind the wheel as if driving farther and farther from home could bring me faster, closer and righteously into spring. So it makes sense that I'd find a new musician up a muddy road from a gushing silver river in a mossy hand built enclave with a half made recording studio rising from crusty snow melt. This would be the time of year to find that branch previously hidden off the same boring highway. Reminds me of the time I slid my car into a ditch in the middle of winter while taking in the view out the passenger side window. That picturesque farmhouse that caught my eye had a stranger in it - the closest human being on this back road who could offer me any hope of a tractor to pull out my stranded vehicle. Well wouldn't you know, the next year we were celebrating the birth of our baby girl.

It's a cruise well suited to the tidal wave of spring, long lanky dirt roads rolling up from the White River self-propelled into Barnard VT. Car slides the sway of rutty sink holes, mud and wash - this particular night I'm leaning into it and the subtle excitement of bad behavior seems stuck to my undercarriage; the front end hits first, then the frame, then the muffler. Someone told me to take better care of my car but like a true Vermonter I'm fixed to smash what's necessary to get where I'm going.

A month of hectic scheduling and beautiful juggling the many strains of my creative, physical and wage earning life. Inevitable as the warm stiff wind driven rains and sudden ice to slush, the loosening snow slides clammer slam off the roof and high shudder of turbine propeller under full throttle. Early for mud season drenching the steady flow of Subarus and pickup trucks, now on now off the hill. And yet even those dedicated to living and working at the end of a dead-end dirt road need to get away.

In my house I'm not the one who brings home the bacon. My husband does it because I'm a vegetarian. But something in the universe is always working behind the scenes to unify our disparate worlds or so it seems. It all began when the computer went down.

We were in the middle of an extraordinary journey into a song called "Reverend Wright". Colin's clutching a cup of hot honey lemon tea to sooth a sore throat while summoning his powers one more time, ready to nail the groove of the Reverend with his understated vocal style. Take three was rolling when suddenly in front of me a very unappealing error message on my screen: "Pro Tools has shut down unexpectedly. Do you want to restore?"

Do I want to restore? Do I want to restore? Are you kidding?

The phone rings, I turn over in bed onto my bad shoulder. A playful dream disappears into the gray light of day as I struggle into my waking identity, sharp pain simultaneously shooting down my arm. My husband's conversation wafts gently in the air about his aging father recently placed in a nursing home. Face down in the pillow I remember the night before, the musicians piling out of the studio into a blizzard. Ben heading a good 2-3 hours north to Newport and an all-nighter plowing snow; Malcolm making for the Canadian border and his grocery store job; Colin pondering backroads into Peacham and if lucky, a snow day at the law office.

The snow is settled on the ground, but the days wax long and bird songs seem louder in the morning. Outside my octagonal desk window, far above the spruce and hemlock I see a wind turbine, recently secured to the top of two new sections of tower. While we make songs, recordings and guitars in our shops and studios, a small crew of sturdy energy system designers is climbing beyond our tree tops. The rebuilt turbine spins slowly, quietly tasting the waters of a higher atmosphere - perhaps remembering its near-fatal spin to the ground three years ago. Meanwhile, the propane generator chugs it's daily workhorse rhythm ever at the ready, spewing its noxious exhaust behind the woodshed. This is living off the grid as near as we can manage.

The best days are ones without borders. Maybe a slow moving snow storm looming or beginning to pour heavy flakes diagonally across the yard. No where to go. The call to kindle a larger fire, quietly laid on coals from the night before. As we pass the landing window going downstairs to put the kettle on, it might even look like the Vermont we held in our mind's eye when we moved here, when we were twenty-three.

The best days are ones without borders. Maybe a slow moving snow storm looming or beginning to pour heavy flakes diagonally across the yard. No where to go. The call to kindle a larger fire, quietly laid on coals from the night before. As we pass the landing window going downstairs to put the kettle on, it might even look like the Vermont we held in our mind's eye when we moved here, when we were twenty-three. It's a journey deeper into the soul of winter. We're flooded with memories. The afternoon snowshoe that turned into a frantic search for a trailhead at twilight. The nights come early and the house meant to be closed in before the snow. A mattress on the plywood floor by the fireplace. The roads still wild and no getting out in weather. Dogs long gone. Those who stepped on the heels of skiis and looked born to pull sleds. And when we did get out, the crazy rides home after gigs on vacant, icy highways - to find local roads impassable. For many months, the days have demanded an immediate departure to meet the expectations of others. But here today, under the soft protection of a storm, the day is all mine. My early chores are a pleasure, leading leisurely towards my guitar and my studio. Today rolls out with enough time for a thorough reading of the newspaper, second cup of coffee, measured collection of wood ash into buckets for outdoor dispersion and filling of all six bird feeders. Today I understand gratitude. Another day I would be worried about not being able to finish a song, or feel frustrated by my relative isolation. I would wrestle with a nagging feeling of depression as I picked up my guitar with so much to say and no one to listen. I would review my guilt around neglecting particular instruments while falling into predictable patterns with others. I would wish for a different voice, a swifter hand, a more outgoing personality. But today is a day of grace. A day filled with the freedom to create without judgment, a day given over to the complex, satisfying colors of music and poetry. A day when the heart flows assuredly like the river she truly is.

The band is taking a break, I’m crouched between the monitor speaker and the sub-woofer shining my flashlight into a tangle of cables. Shards of a broken beer glass litter the spaces between, not far from an ocean of feet. Tonight I’m running the sound board at the Black Door for Erin McDermott’s CD release party and the place is packed.

Band members are returning slowly to their instruments and amps; I’m expecting a quick sound check with guest player Patrick Ross who’s just rushed in with his fiddle case tucked under his arm. But I don’t recognize this woman stepping onstage with the biggest afro style mop of hair I’ve ever seen and it’s notable that she’s wearing a red union suit with Nascar checkered racing stripes. I tell myself I shouldn’t be surprised to see Erin’s weirder fans coming out of the woodwork on this cold winter’s night in the capitol city and for me to judge anyone else’s fashion statement would be extremely hypocritical. Why just look at the gaping holes in my jeans, wolf fur flaps on my Russian Ushanka hat and untidy braids flapping in the breeze around my face. Yes, this would be the pot calling the kettle black.

They invited me to bring my mandolin and the day was cold. Already ice on the driveways and tricky snow lumps to hop over. Walking through the back entrance of the old department store, I stop for a moment to close my eyes and smell breakfast cooking, the distant sound of music hovering on a darkened art gallery. A pause with door held open, rubber boots meeting the familiar linoleum under dim florescent light.

Turns out they need a guitar player actually. "Lloyd, it's been a while," I say, glad to see his lanky arms first meet me with a quick hug then gesture towards the stage. Valerie is sick and so it's my choice: an old Martin or an old Gibson; the latter catches my eye and after short discussion, the tunes are tumbling over themselves like leaves. Lee, Lloyd and Noah 3/4 of a string band from Montpelier or so and I've pulled my folding chair into a tight circle knee to knee with the fiddler. Looking up from the tapping work boots an hour later, there's Jim walking in from the street and now it's double fiddles. This will become a regular thing at LACE every 2nd and 5th Sundays.

Many of the gardening tools have gone into the basement with rolls of chicken wire, hoses, plastic edging, bamboo stakes and deer fence. Into the dark with sleeping gladiolas and silent brooms. Soon the bulkhead will be covered with a light dusting of snow; eventually there will grow a pile that paralyzes entry til spring. The wood stove will be bright and steady then, fed daily on solid chunks of maple, ash and beech. Warm, dry comfort will rise on the curl of the oak staircase to my third floor studio and find me working, guitar in and out of my hands as I move from flat pick to pencil and back again.

I've been booking local acts at L.A.C.E. in Barre and last weekend brought my old friend Andre Souligny to the stage and out of the woodwork of Roxbury, Vt. It's always a kindness when a performer carries in their own gear but especially so when it provides a naturalness to the artifice of sound reinforcement. Andre's newly assembled system delivered his hand-turned songs elegantly. Great words and energizing music, unpretentious and from the heart. I'm looking forward to encouraging - or if I'm lucky producing - the first full length professional recording of original songs from this skilled carpenter, father of three, dedicated social activist and long-time DJ on Goddard College radio: WGDR.

It was a dark and rainy night and I couldn't find the Hanover Country Club despite a little google map study prior to the gig. Everyone jay-walking and talking on a cell phone down here but one woman walking a dog has her attention tuned to my slow-moving car in this highly affluent residential neighborhood. So I did finally find it - locked up tight next to a legion of silent golf carts waiting for snow. Was there a reason why, across the street the Dartmouth Outing Club was filling with revelers? Yes, actually, that was the true location of my gig and I just hadn't known it.

Strange thing, to be a fan - so lifted by another's self expression or creation that love forms a one-way relationship sometimes crushingly private and intimately held, sometimes announced in bold strokes of public praise or aggrandizement. Driven by a complex of emotions that might include excitement, wonder, desire, empathy, gratitude, even unity. Ropes of human feeling weaving a massive constellation, messy and splendid.

And yet I'm uncomfortable as a fan. A classic case of unrequited love, because my reach towards the things that inspire me falls short.

Writing songs connects me to the heart of the world.

When I moved to Vermont in 1980, I had my internal compass set to find the true meaning of solitude and wilderness. When instead I got a waitressing job in Burlington and a red Toyota truck that wouldn't start in the winter, a digression from my original vision began. From this vantage point 28 years later, I can verify that life truly is what happens while you're making other plans. But what hasn't changed despite my having taken every unmarked backroad in Vermont in the meantime is my search for the heart of the world.

When my brother suggested we go to Canada to train for white water, I offered up my son Wilder instead. In some ways, I'm sorry I missed it, but there are other kinds of white water in life that I find myself riding almost all the time. I'm always looking for a faster way to the ocean.

So while they were pushing paddles into the turbulent river, I was also moving across the tops of waves. There were waves of summer flowers passing almost as quickly as the flood waters of flashing storms, hoards of japanese beetles moving into the fields of roses, giant hogweed like Martian umbrellas lining the roadsides, rows of blueberries suddenly dripping with more fruit than could be used and arugula bolting and broccoli gone by. And all the work done on hands and knees in the spring to stave off goutweed, for naught.

As musicians we make things that are tangible and immediate out of measured phrases of word and melody. Ordinary people living in confusing times, we show up for work wondering if our work is relevant. We want to respond to injustice, to counter the barrage of corporate media using our simple tools. Torrential thunder storm rains pound loud on the clear corrugated plastic of the woodshed roof. Tom, Erin, Michael and I are sitting on hay bales, holding beers at the end of a workday. Pleasurable smells of wet air, mowed grass and pine board waft around us, drifting peaceably. Something we all seem to have been holding eases with the careening free-fall of our stories. How many small voices does it take to move a mountain?

It’s midsummer and the summer dream is upon us. Soft winds and rain, alternating with floods of intense sunlight. The high, slow moving thunder-heads of brilliant white and ominous charcoal hover, while the garden overflows with color.

The studio has been cooler at night, and that’s when Doug P. has been coming in to finish over-dubbing his tracks for Erin McDermott’s new recording. We set up his amp in the hallway, and crank the volume to get the desired effect. I leave him alone for a while to work out his parts, and come downstairs to my desk. Blistering riffs tumble down off the third floor, in moody waves, like ravens diving off a dark precipice. After a long, hot day in the garden, I sit back in my chair happily inert, listening - his creative process reminding me of the unruly weeds and vitality of places where beauty is shaped by the human hand and heart.

Two days of live recording goes by fast at Pepperbox Studio when we're having too much fun - this week thanks to the "The Dixie Red Delights", a high-energy band from the Montpelier area that features the original music of Erin McDermott along with the talents of fellow musicians Doug Perkins, Jen Wells and Ben Roy. It was a great opportunity for the studio to break in a new Presonus 8 input mic pre-amp with optical outputs, try out an unused pair of Oktava MK319 large diaphragm condenser mics, and simultaneously enter the world of improved sound isolation techniques, ala: baffles. Meanwhile, the tight groove of the "Dixie Reds" was kicking up dust off the old studio radiators and rattling the third floor rafters. This bluegrass/Americana/alt country group is a hardworking quartet of fine musicians, who fill the immediate vicinity with a fun, cooperative spirit.

Last Tuesday I was invited to lend my ears - for the day - to a final mix at Imaginary Road Studios in Brattleboro. The project was that of my good friend Scott Ainslie (www.cattailmusic.com), who has been cutting tracks since last July. My privilege to be sitting at the side of Corin Nelsen, Will Ackerman's long-time engineer! Settled into the comfort of the padded swivel chair, I let the emotion of the music sink in once or twice, before starting to pick apart its sonic qualities. New material from Scott always touches a complex range of traditional grooves and his own words like strong, sweet coffee.

I'm recovering now from having spent the last few days with more of my favorite people than I ever thought could fit in one room.

Mixing is a bit like herding cats. I should know. This is a 3 cat household - and I'm in my ninth week of "Mixing and Mastering" with Pro Tools, an online course through Berklee School of Music. But in the case of cats, you know you have no business expecting them to be molded to your will. Everyone knows a cat can only express the will of the Great Cat Consciousness in the sky. So different from the art of engineering. When it all goes to hell at the console, there is no one to hold responsible but yourself.

There are days when I'm happy to stay inside the studio all day long, snuggled in with Pro Tools and all my gear. Then there are days when I have to ... get out. Last night was a case in point. The gig was at Main Street Grill and Bar, with free dinner included. This training ground for advanced culinary students at NECI (New England Culinary Institute) is one of the best kept secrets in the area. Despite the 'storm warning" weather advisory predicting up to 15 inches of new snow, I was going to get my dinner, and have a fantastic evening of dueling guitars with Central Vermont's next best kept secret: Doug Perkins. Guitars and equipment loaded into the car, I took a deep breath and said good-bye to my home and my cats, as one says goodbye to land when heading off to sea. Who knew if I would make it back up the hill at midnight?

Last night was First Night and we found the streets of Montpelier covered with slippery snow, the air softly flecked and whirling. I struggled over curbside mounds with my 2 guitars, mandolin and other gear, into the first venue, a snug church basement well appointed (annointed?) by the First Night crew. Thanks to Jeremiah Brophy of "Show Works" for again providing his live sound expertise to First Night, an often thankless job. I learned a few things watching him set up our mics. Our set felt acoustic and intimate thanks to him, although we were gently amplified. In today's loud world, this kind of sensitive use of technology is much needed.

"Scattered snow flurries..." This morning's weather report announces the rapid approach of winter to the North Country. I'm hunkering down by the wood stove, worrying about whether or not my guitar is too close to the heat. Rummaging around in my studio yesterday, I rediscovered a legion of sound-hole humidifiers in a drawer, and so began the annual ritual. My “Froggy Bottom” guitar, built in Vermont by my husband Michael Millard, has a German spruce top that rings with color, and in the winter especially I'm on duty protecting it’s natural vulnerability. Drawn to the soothing warmth of my stove, I must use all my willpower to pull back to where the heat is no longer pulsing across the air.

I'm still surpised when someone tells me they haven't been to L.A.C.E., Barre VT's newest grocery and cafe, run by a group of amazing and energetic young people. Doug Perkins and I have been playing there once a month for Sunday brunch, and it's THE spot in Central Vermont for congenial community networking and wholesome local foods.

A summer wedding at one of Vermont's most secret trout ponds, Noyes Pond in Groton State Park. I arrived to join my band for the evening - The Cleary Brothers - and play some tunes for the bride and groom, maybe kick up a few dances with caller Dan O'Connell. Everything seemed perfect: the white tent, the sound system, the white table cloths and happy party goers...we sat in a semi-circle, bluegrass style around our mic, and launched into an old time tune. Hmmm. Something was amiss. Was my head on fire?

Our sound man extraordinaire for the CD release party, Bennett Shapiro of Mad Tech Sound, gave us an interesting statistic. He said that a whopping 50% of all the bands he's done CD release parties for - do not get their CDs in time!! I felt a little better, having been in charge of sheparding our CD through the final stages of manufacturing. It arrived the Wednesday prior to our Saturday June 16 release, to the rough-sawn deck of my woodshed, without incident. Coming in just under the wire has become a way of life for me it seems.

Last weekend we had Susannah’s CD release party, at the Plainfield Vermont town hall. We did it last year, with her first release, but I didn’t remember loading in from the stage door, from a dirt road that could have passed for the town’s best sledding hill. I tell you right now I don’t trust my emergency brake, but I did realize that if I turned the wheels inwardly, instead of rolling onto US Rte 2 I might have a chance of just going into the side of the historic building or at the very least, the ditch.

I recently visited the site of a young singer-songwriter who shall remain unnamed, to sample the current trend of blogging. However good her music may be, her blog was a mess. I wanted to get out a sharp pencil, correct the grammar and typos, and write comments in the margins. Another confirmation that my having been an English major in college did indeed sow the seeds for my eventual self-destruction by useless editing.

I bring this up to reassure any other former English majors out there that this is NOT a blog, nor will it ever be. I would not blog if you paid me. Well, I might run on a bit, occasionally, but blog, NO. I have my dictionary here and just checked my spelling of the word "occasional". After all these years, I still can't spell it. But with the dictionary, this is a shoo-in. (Not to be confused with the Imelda Marcos footwear sale today). Thank God I can still alphabetize, with a little help from the ABC song.

I swear I only use spell check when no one else is around.

So, about not blogging. The art of letters is a more dignified approach to this type of public communication, and for someone my age, it carries fond memories of past lives lived in more gentile times.