"Lazy Dog" or "Wanderer"

For some time now, I have felt like the lazy dog over which the quick brown fox has jumped. My priorities for the last several years have gone somewhat askew, it seems... or perhaps they haven't.

I've not kept a particularly tidy household, and my ability to keep project details in my head has slipped. I've been tempted to believe that I've been servicing a part of me that has been too-long ignored – my desire to be a bohemian.

Is that irresponsible?

My children have grown to the point of essentially fending for themselves (although not necessarily judiciously), and instead of yanking on the tethers, I've opted to let loose of them somewhat – perhaps a bit too freely as Allison goes, but while I fear so much about what lies beyond the threshold of this home, I sense that she ultimately will make the right choices; the ones I would never be able to make for her anyway.

Perhaps it's just my nature that I don't follow straight lines – grade school, high school, college, job, marriage, kids... I certainly can put that entire list into my life résumé, but I wouldn't exactly say that the line has been a straight one.

I didn't attend university until two-and-a-half years after high school; I went to school wanting to pursue art, decided upon journalism which led me to the Visual Communications Technology program. I feel as if my major chose me.

After ten years of work as a supervisor of photographic service at Michigan State University, I chucked it all when my heart told me that it was time. I was living but had little life in me. Penny, was having much the same struggle within the marriage as it turned out.

It took me a while, but I learned that there can be an up side to divorce. The scars are still many, but thankfully, there are few remaining open wounds. But, as I often quote (Jackson Browne) to friends, "I thought that it would kill me, but I'm alive."

I suppose that had I not experienced my divorce, I wouldn't have become as active with the Ten Pound Fiddle, I wouldn't have leapt so deeply into songwriting (forsaking my photographic yen), I wouldn't have met so many of the people I now call my friends &ndash they are amongst the most wonderful people on any planet (though particularly earth!), I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to book the music for the Great Lakes Folk Festival – a dream job if ever there were one.

While budget cuts eliminated my university employment, I'll still do the work as an independent contractor (and that's a good thing, Martha!). The work will begin in earnest this month. I'm hoping to complete the work as quickly as possible this year since my contract isn't the most substantial that's ever been bestowed upon me.

There seems to be something about these last few years, though, that I need to learn. I have felt as on a precipice, needing perhaps, as Richard Shindell wrote of Dave Carter, to leap into the blue...

So Says The Whippoorwill

by Richard Shindell

The change could happen any day
So says the whippoorwill
It comes 'round for the seeds I leave
Out on the window sill
Be free, you fool, be free, you fool
She sings all afternoon
But as if to show me how it's done
She leaps into the blue

And the change could happen any day
Or so say all the guards
In the prison I have built around
My solitary heart
I tell myself that I'm alright
That is not so bad a place
The truth is that I'm just scared to death
Of walking through that gate

And the change could happen any day
So say my true love's eyes
They see into my shadows
With their sweet forgiving light
She smiles and says come on, let's go
Let's stroll the boulevard
It's such a shame to waste the night
Just sitting in the dark

And the change could happen any day
Or so says Father Brown
I listen for that still small voice
But I just can't make it out
Beneath the constant snickering
Of the devil that I know
But who would I be if I believed
Who am I if I don't

And the change could happen any day
So said the mountaineer
Before he turned to face his cliff
Without a trace of fear
Yodelay-oh, yodelay-oh
He sang right up until
He caught sight of that open blue
And became a whippoorwill
He caught sight of that open blue
And became a whippoorwill

Last night, on my cold, crisp walk to the Fiddle concert, I thought about Canada. I thought about Montreal. I thought about the blue.