With my company safely departed, Judy Branch seems quiet these days. Not silence, but the kind of quiet that allows frogs, crickets and distant trains to dominate the night air. The sort of quiet where you can actually hear the percussive beating of a moth's wings or an insect leap onto a broad, damp leaf. If you cut out the intermittent conversations between the Judy Branch pack and neighboring dogs, this place provides the perfect soundtrack for dreaming, reflection, and just being part of the quiet. Sometimes I sit inside and listen from my kitchen table, rocking chair or couch. Other times I contribute the creak of a porch swing, the brush-thumb of a banjo, or, like now, the muted click of a keyboard.
Tonight, I am soaking in the quiet after a turbulent day of withdrawal. For the past few days I have been 100% engaged in living life. I have opened myself to the hearts and minds of people I have come to deeply love, and I have basked in their friendship and affection. I have given myself completely to music and danced for hours without abandon on streets. These days spent in good company of the band (aforementioned house guests) provided me with an essential escape from the poisonous politics of my workplace. In hindsight, I realize that those crazy guys, who now feel like brothers to me, not only gifted me an escape, but reminded me how people should interact with each other every day they are alive. Traveling on the road together as much as they do, you would expect some seriously dysfunctional behavior. Yet they really seem to know how to treat each other and the people that they meet. The times they are stuck together are not only tolerable, but really good. Now that I am out of their fold, I am facing some of the nastiest forms of human interaction and manipulation by day. Even so, my doubt in the goodness of the human spirit is not so intense as it was before. Tonight I am soothed by the symphony on Judy Branch and the recent memories of fine times with friends.
I just wish that Judy Branch dogs Bingo, Monkey, Lucy, Sally and Frankie Mophead would stop it with the solo breaks already!
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I enjoy catching up with you via your adventures in the holler-- reminds me of Annie Dillard at Tinker Creek... I hope to catch up with you and your pack someday in the not-too-distant future! Much love. -ls
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