One
When was the very first time for you? That first time when you suddenly realized that what you thought you knew about how life wasn’t even close to the reality of it all? That moment in your history that suddenly tells you there’s something more in life than what you’ve known until that instant when some flash of insight just creates a new world of possibilities you’d never before even had the ability to consider? That moment when who you’d been until that moment was the final moment of being who you were and though there was no way of knowing who you might become the simple truth was you’d never, ever look at the world around you or yourself again the same way?
For me it was one of those nothing special days in Mrs. Nichol’s sixth grade class. Before that I’d never given it much of a thought as I recall but even today I remember that day, that first time, like it was only a moment ago. Oh sure I knew that there was something different about girls but the truth was it wasn’t something that interested me all that much until that day when the door to the classroom opened and the principle walked in to introduce us to our new classmate.
I don’t remember exactly the words he used but it was something along the lines of, “This is Mary Jo Gilberts and she will be your new classmate.”
That’s when I literally fell out of my desk and fell in love for the very first time. Not a way to impress anyone for sure but I guess I made some sort of impression because though the steps to carrying her books home for her are now long forgotten I actually did find myself wanting to be with her and around her and way too many other things suddenly took a backseat to what I’d found inside myself while I was picking myself up off the floor and setting back into my chair that day. And I did carry her books and I want to say I held her hand and I want to say I kissed her but I’m not sure about that one though you’d think I should remember such a thing.
Some two years later I remember laying on the gym floor after having made a diving catch for the ball during a whiffle ball game and having broken two fingers only to see her laughing and seemingly at me. It’s rather intriguing now to think that both vivid memories of her have me on the floor. Foreshadowing does come to mind.
That was the start of it, the start of a life of looking at women through eyes I would come to realize that at times I wish I didn’t have. Women left marks on my soul and not only marks but scars that unfortunately for those that would come after never really healed and so through no fault of their own became the recipients of thoughts and actions that were never their doing until they would do what they would do and then leave their memories and the things that came with their leaving. Each parting left another reason to never try again and yet there’s always been a constant yearning to once again fall off that chair because in the end the falling is what makes it all worthwhile.
Two
Have you ever fallen in love with a song? Have you ever heard a song that changes something inside you to the point that you’ll never be quite the same again because of it?
It was a campfire at Young’s Farm in Dewey, Arizona one night and a man that I would one day call friend was singing in the circle. It came his turn and he sang a song that would change my world. The song he sang had been written by Ian Tyson and Tom Russell and titled “Navajo Rug” and in years to come it would become something of a theme song for me. That night when Tony Norris sang that song I saw the words and I saw someone I’d never seen before; I saw Katie who in that moment became the woman I knew was out there somewhere and more importantly was out there for me.
Over the years since that night I have sung that song countless times and always told the story of hearing Tony singing it and being so taken by it that I got him to go back to the Bean Tree with me and got him to sing it once again as I recorded it. A day or so later I’d learned it and added it to my playlist. And every time I’ve sung it since I tell the folks that I keep looking for Katie.
That song became a part of me and has remained so over the years. The requests for me to do the song, the times when the audience will just join in on the chorus, the times when I’ve stood on stage with fellow performers and all are smiling and singing are memories I will always cherish thanks to that night when Tony Norris sang “Navajo Rug” the way he did.
Why a song? What’s so special about that song? The answer is oh so simple and yet so damn complicated one wonders how it could ever be explained clearly. It’s like the times when I have the privilege of doing the song with one of my favorite local artists, Andy Hurlbut, and she and I turn to look at each other and I do believe we get it each in our own way. I’ve never talked to Andy about it but it seems to me that she sees some of the same things in the song that I do from her perspective and when we turn toward each other and sing that chorus we smile.
You see there’s a part of the song that talks about Katie saving a Navajo Rug out of a fire. That rug is the one that she and he had made love on. And in that moment of the song I always find myself thinking how I wish I might have meant enough to someone that in the end they would make sure they kept something of us. And in that moment I always find myself wanting to find her, to find my Katie, and mean that much to her.
Three
She’ll never read this, of that I’m certain, and so she’ll never know the mark she’s left on my soul. It’s OK for any number of reasons but the fact that in that moment I felt myself in the presence of “my Katie” needs to be remembered for the lessons I learned in the moment.
Were I to describe “my Katie” to you I have a fairly good idea of just how I might have described her up until that night. The truth is there are a couple women who I might use as something of a template and build from there. Of course there would be Mary with her auburn hair, blue eyes and Cowboy Coffee. And there was for a very brief time in my life a woman who should have stayed in my life for as long as I could have kept her but the truth is I was so screwed up I walked away from one of possibly the best things I ever had. Her name was Barbara and the honest truth is that she is the only woman whose kiss still stays with me. The two of them and in bits and pieces others that have shared their time in my world might very well ultimately end up making up this imaginary Katie that I have created in my mind.
I’d never thought my vision of “Katie” was shortsighted but I was to learn that I had not considered all the possibilities out there and because of my lack of vision I was to learn a lesson that for me was far more valuable than most that I’ve learned over the years.
Four
For several years now I’ve been blessed to have a regular gig at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Over that time when I’ve been paying attention several remarkable things have happened to me that have made me so very grateful for the opportunity to share my stories and songs with the folks that stay there. The thing is that sometimes things don’t look to me like they’re going to be anything special and so that’s when I have to remember something a very talented friend of mine once told me. Sue Harris is a beautiful woman, a top notch performer and a wise woman to boot and one night while talking about the size of the audience she told me something I’ve never forgotten.
“Wally, you never know who is sitting out there and so you need to bring your best each and every time,” she admonished me and I still hear her words today.
Over the years I’ve had my share of one person sitting and maybe or maybe not listening to me. One night a man from Zaire who thought of cowboy music as Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell. Another evening there was a man seemingly paying no intention to me and writing in his journal. The story around him is one that I will tell for the rest of my days. And then there was this evening when the only one in the room was one woman sitting at the computer with her cell phone pressed to her ear.
“Remember what Sue told you,” is the mantra I kept repeating to myself.
And so I sang to the woman with the cell phone and the computer and the occasional person or couple checking in or waiting for the shuttle.
On most evenings when there is no one sitting there listening to me I tend to simply go into my practice mode and do songs that I don’t usually do in my regular hour long performance. It’s a good time to see how a song feels out in the open and outside the confines of the doublewide. I never get too crazy but what I normally find myself doing is the songs that I like that I never do because they don’t work in the program.
And so I sang to a woman with a cell phone and a computer.
The good thing for me in singing to her is that she’s an attractive woman without a doubt (yes I admit to being a jerk) and combined with her voice I have to admit I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, she’d pay me the least little bit of attention. So I kept an eye on her but she never seemed to waiver from that computer screen until I sang “Happy Trails” and went to put my guitar away.
“You’re all done?” she turned to me and asked.
Five
I believe there are moments in one’s life when there really are two paths to choose and most of the time we don’t see the choices until sometime after we’ve made our choice. Still, once in a while if we just pause for that moment maybe we will see it and we can know that we really do have a choice. And so it was in this moment.
“You made me feel like I was sitting at a campfire somewhere out in the desert,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, “that’s really a part of what I try to do.”
“I really enjoyed it. You are really good.” She said to me from her chair in front of the computer.
Somewhere along the way I came to the place where I decided to get past some of my insecurities and simply do whatever it is that feels right in the moment and I can honestly say that thus far it’s been a good choice to go with those feelings.
“I have to tell you, you have a lovely voice,” I said to her.
I’ll never forget the look, “Really?” she asked.
“Yeah, really,” I said to her in total honesty.
For me there was a connection that was can I say both physical and spiritual in that moment as she looked me square in the eyes? I’ll likely do my best to hold on to those deep brown eyes forever.
And so we talked and then she was sitting on one of the couches in front of me and I sang and we talked and I told a story and sang and we talked. All the while I knew she was someone special and all the while her eyes never seemed to leave mine and though I admit to shifting my gaze a time or two there was no place I wanted to be looking other than in her eyes.
I should have done several things that evening and done them with no expectations but instead I did nothing. I should have offered to take her out to dinner when she said she was hungry. I should have asked her name or given her my card. I should have said something more and seen what happened with no expectations but I didn’t.
As we said good night she hugged me and rested her head on my shoulder. All I did was tell her I hoped I’d see her again though even then I knew I never will.
For an evening, for a moment in time, I believe that I looked into the eyes of “my Katie” for reasons other than that Navajo Rug.
I think it’s said that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. There’s more than one thing I likely should have done that evening but the truth is there were years of other thinking in one way or another that held me back. She was from Virginia so how would that work? She was maybe younger than she “should” be for a guy my age. The thing is I was comfortable with her from the moment we began to talk and as I sang to her I wanted her to hear me and I wanted to touch her inside where it really matters. I actually sat there seeing me walking along with her on my arm. An old man’s folly?, perhaps but I don’t look at it that way.
And then there’s the really pathetic little secret about all of it that in the end shows me that in some ways I’ve grown far more than I’d ever imagined. Yeah, I’d always had “my Katie” figured out more or less in most ways and all the things all of us take for granted and never think twice about. And yet here was “my Katie” hugging me and resting her head on my shoulder and she was black.
I learned more than a little about myself that evening and some of it was very good.
