Wayne's Adventure (In Motion)

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I maintain no faith… except when hiking. Gods get twitchy when you get them indoors. I was once asked to explain my belief system, so I produced a 23 page PowerPoint deck that prominently featured historically pagan deities and a few of the Greek Gods. Bottom line, you get out into the wilderness alone for long enough, you’re going to see here and feel things that push your logic way beyond. I have stories. Call them wood spirits, fairies, fay-folk, green man, desert devils, nature spirits etc. I just lump all the ancient,  wild entities together and call them the Old Gods. They were here before man and will be happier once he is gone.  That being said…..  

To me, music is a pipeline to my memories and my past.  I always hike with my original iPod (16,410 songs currently).  When the mood is right and I can briefly relax from listening for rattlesnakes, I plug it in, hit random shuffle.   As I move thru the wilds I hear songs that inspire, motivate for those big climbs and forested strolls thru nature. Often the perfect song comes on for the perfect moment.  It’s a kind of beautiful magic. And it’s always surprising.  

It’s also a review of my life.  As I walk a song comes on reminding me of a girl I danced with in college, one reminds me of a vacation, high school lunches, a concert, my mom, a trip, a person, a moment, a memory… seeing your life, not flash before your eyes, but whisper in your ear.  

I was crushing along on a very windy but beautiful desert evening and put in my earbuds to cut the howl.  Music put me in a cruising mood and I was in the zone, enjoying life, making time, happy.  

And then my entire universe blew apart in about 8 seconds…  

I heard the opening piano part.  I knew the song well.  A song I loved.  Billy Joel’s “Just the Way you Are”.  But when the vocalist started, it wasn’t Billy Joel.  But the voice was familiar….  

The uncontrollable sobbing started before my knees hit the sand.  Giant gasping whoops.  Couldn’t get any air in me.  Driven to my knees and elbows with tears falling into the dirt.  

The voice was a sixteen year old Twyla Davis singing her favorite song karaoke style in a recording booth in the Houston Galleria in 1978.  I had found a tape of it after her death and had it digitized.  Couldn’t stand to listen to it.  But apparently Apple decided to add it to my iTunes library.  And had hidden this fact from me.  Until. Right.  NOW !!!  

I didn’t throw up.  Not exactly.  I did a half retch possibly.  But even now, pitched face down in the dirt, leaking from eyes and now bloody knees and elbows, my brain struggled for control:   “Uh, Wayne.  I know this is a bad time, but the next water is two days away and you can’t afford to waste the moisture.  Quit bawling, Cowboy up and get a grip.”  The good thing is the hot desert winds can dry your face before you can.