Guitar and vocals

As I sat her waiting on time to depart for church, I pulled out my battered guitar and hit a few licks on some of the music I have gathered over the literal decades that I have been playing.
I am not delusional enough to believe I am really good, but I have enough self-confidence to say that I play o.k. and can accompany a group sing-a-long or eek out a solo for myself.

Something struck me as I sat playing today that as our nation migrated from sea to shining sea and from the north to the south in our search for our own piece of sky that guitars had been at least a part of the process.

Hunkered down around the smokey embers of a fire listening to the howl of the coyotes that added their own lyrics to the music, many a pioneer has been lulled to sleep by the sounds of a guitar strumming through the night air to sooth the trail weary souls of those who had many more miles to go tomorrow.

I think I would have been a good pioneer. I say this because I absolutely love camping and have been rough camping more times that I care to count. I love the smell of a smoking fire where the dinner bubbles away in a dutch oven buried in the coals. I love to wake up in the first gray light of morning when the sky hasn't yet decided what color it will be for the day. I can cook even in the rain because I know how to build a 'hatful of fire', as the cowboys used to say. I am not afraid of the work of setting up and taking down camp. I have done it too many times for it to have any real mystery anymore.

I have enjoyed riding horses since I was so small I was held in the saddle by someone else. There is a certain freedom that comes from seeing the world through the ears of a horse that comes in no other fashion. Though it has been many, many years, I have also ridden in a horse drawn wagon with the peculiar version of shock absorbing seat springs that did nothing to lessen the jolts to the lower back as the wagon rode across uneven ground. At this point, I must confess that were I a modern day pioneer, I would insist that the wagon be equipped with some sort of shock absorbers and some serious padding on the seats along with a lumbar support cushion. Just because the pioneers of old didn't have these things is no reason to discount them now. Comfort is in my vocabulary even if it wasn't in theirs.

There is a romance of sorts with the idea that we could willingly leave all that we know and step out into a world that is simpler and less filled with the grind of daily living that has become normalcy for too many people. Commuters ride for hours to reach a job they hate, but that pays the bills. They make the same trek home at night only to see their family scattering for the various activities that constitute the separate tracks of their existence where they pass near one another but never intersect. Like old time locomotives on parallel tracks, they move near but don't really touch lest someone be thrown off course.

The romance and mystery lies in the idea that we could leave the hustle and bustle behind for a life less cluttered by calendars and appointment schedules and more full of the human companionship that made families strong. The fireside chats, the long talks while doing the mundane chores that meant the difference between mere survival and success as a family unit.

Perhaps every family, comprised of whatever members it may possess, should be part of a new great migration. The familiar strains of the music of our lives should be more tightly woven and the harmonies that make us unique should be the multihued threads that make the tapestry a true work of art in the making. It would be hard for people who lack experience to succeed. This is why they should be paired up with others who have the pioneering skills to teach and help them to become surefooted in there quest of finding their particular 'corner of the sky'.

In return, their own skills and talents would be brought to the fore. The skills of management, direction and ability would be combined with the latent skills of pioneering under pressure of survival would be used in all new ways. Being able to stand uncovered and unvarnished under the azure skies of heaven would be a prooving ground of sorts. Within that moment of life, people could discover not only themselves, but the wonder that is inside them all.

I have always felt like that was what we miss the most. The requirement to, as a group, circle our wagons and work together to make the journey more pleasant for everyone.

Just thinking while I strummed....