My Happy Death (The Hidden Spring) Part I

Summer now and the feeling of new beginnings all around like the feeling of rain-water pouring down--something buried deep in the pagan blood, inexplicable except on the most basic of levels: the wheel turned 'round.

Where was I when lilacs last bloomed? In some distant sleep, waiting to wake from reptilian dreams. Lost in late nineteenth century hallways, tears of humidity running to the stone ground like an antebellum play. I had lost everything; forgotten my own name. Shuddered inexplicably whenever I passed my shadow in the street and seeing strangers in every mirror. The memory of the star-lit lake had been lost in the dust-covered distance, miles passed unnoticed, but not like Li Po drifting down the Yangzte; more like a hobo refugee leaving behind the smoking crater of a life, whatever remnants remained carried on his weary frame.

Funny to think how I was reborn from a smile and everything leading up to it with the precision of dominoes. Sometimes the universe showers you with blessings, and others times burning hale; and all of it is beyond our grasp. We are all little players in another play of which we are only vaguely aware; suspicions aroused for a brief moment while waiting for a bus, but then suddenly dispersed with a voice asking for a ticket or exact change. You've walked this road as well, right?

Anyway, I had gotten to the end of one road, feeling like a trapped animal cornered by Fate. But as always, another door suddenly opened and I found myself headed west in the bright month of July, not too long after Independence day. I was originally going out to see an old friend in the foothills of Colorado and lose myself for a while in Denver's neon swirl, then head on to Bay Area San Francisco to pass a few days in a small house in some other friends' back yard and gain some much needed perspective on life and what it was all about. I was then going to take the coastal roads up to Oregon to reconvene with another old friend whom I have not seen in years (no, Tim, I have not forgotten your backroads wisdom), but at some point it dawned on me that it was a no-go in the time I had--life is too damn short and we our left scratching our ass for far too much of it.

(A whole new genre was given birth by Blonde on Blonde.)

And then, after the whole itinerary was formed, word came down the cyber-pike that Phil Lesh would be playing Denver and Red Rocks with Ryan Adams at the exact same time as I would be in town (and who doesn't believe in some form of God?). And this was back in the days when Cold Roses was still freshly ringing in my ears. So one rainy morning in the green month of July, I hit the road all alone except for the constant companion and counterpoint of a random soundtrack made out in large part by the Grateful Dead (perfect music for the highway with Robert Hunter's road-tested wisdom guiding you through the Great Plains), Bob Dylan and the legend of America, the Band with music out of some strange silent movie, the Beatles White Album straight through covering all sorts of ground, and listen to Dark Side of the Moon twice in a row one morning while following the white-hot line through the desert's canyon basement. The whole sonic menagerie weaved together with Cold Roses, which really took hold and grabbed my soul while out on the road.

(Charles Mingus' II B.S. is now on in the background and I just got another cup of coffee and am ready to write. To write you need to be fully alive, and yet, so much of this world kills you off in small bits. My battle is with the forces of death who constantly circle about waiting to rip off another piece of flesh. They killed Jesus but he came back--and we can all rise from the dead!)

But the smile! That smile I first saw turning around suddenly first day off the road--how did I know that my entire future lay ahead in that smile and those bright hazel-brown eyes? What is it that gives birth to those moments of supreme clarity, when one can see beyond today's horizon and into the murky distances that lie ahead? They say your life passes before your eyes when you die (did I die in that instant and was reborn?) Her name was Jill, and one traveling-road had ended, but a whole new road had opened up before my eyes like the Red Sea parting to show me the way to the Promised Land way beyond California--the greatest road of all-time, the road inward to that hidden spring forever flowing.