I tend to be tuned to the harvest theme of the season when it comes to creative work. September was a literal blur of shows, each weekend featuring a different presentation of material, the fruits of my year’s labor being a folk opera, a rock EP and a grab-bag of singer-songwriter tunes.
I’m grateful for having outlets for these efforts, and behind every show, regardless the size, is a host of other logistics: If I wasn’t rehearsing for one of said shows, I was likely emailing or texting a musician or collaborator about schedules. Then there’s the gear considerations — what to bring or not? who will backline the drums if any? Is there a sound person? —and the hows and wheres and whens of loading gear, running audio, parking and payment. After all that, playing is easy!
Weekends are generally when shows happen so Monday has become my reset button in the form of being the Headlands to count raptors for GGRO. Standing on a big hunk of earth, staring up at a raptor-filled sky, is a tonic to a lot of human concerns, even if counting said raptors is its own balancing act.
As far as both seasonal, and creative, resets via the natural world, we got one during the last few days of September, when we were fortunate to make it to Camp Lotus for a songwriting camp. Four days living and breathing song-making along the American River with 30 other musicians is good for the soul. The weather was perfect, birds of all varieties were everywhere, as were a host of mammals and amphibians: A garter snake slithered through the grass, Canada Geese honked on the river, Wild Turkey ran past our campsite, and a bat flew into the hallway where musicians tuned up before taking their turn on stage.
Each night there was an open mic/house concert where we played whatever we finished or with whatever new configuration of musicians we’d wrangled to play on our songs during the day.
I spent Wednesday writing a song inspired by the fox encounter on my first evening at camp. I was standing on a trail next to the river clutching a book about tracking animals that I bought more than a year ago, and love, when two other music campers, Anthony and Michael, came up the trail and broke my reverie. Michael asked me about the book and as I was explaining what it was about the fox appeared. It paused every so briefly to consider us and then moved on. Magic!
Wednesday, Kwame and I were walking on a different trail along the same river a mile down the road when a kitten ran across the trail in front of me and scurried up the wooded hillside. It was not a house cat kitten. Every hair on my body stood on end. "We have to go back!" I couldn't tell from my glimpse if it was a bobcat kitten or a mountain lion kitten but I did not want to find out via an angry mama cat. We turned on our heels, chanting and talking loudly as we headed back to the trailhead.
Later, back at camp, a tree frog hopped across the trail; a deer stood in an empty site across the river. Michael, Heidi and I were standing by the river the next morning and a Merganser paddled by while attempting to choke down a fish (or toad? we couldn't quite tell which) as a flock of Cedar Waxwings called from the trees. A family of quail paraded by Janet and Jeff's campsite where a contingent of musicians had circled up before dinner to run through the songs they’d later perform. Within minutes, Kwame suddenly had a new backing band. A little later, some impromptu dancing, led me to join Jay as a backup singer for Julie. I went over my fox song with Janet twice, once with her on ukulele, then with mandolin, deciding which sounded better (uke as it turned out). The spirit of easy play and collaboration was strong and oh-so-good for the soul.
In the middle of last night's open mic, the lights suddenly went out. When the room darkened, our exceedingly well-prepared sound person grabbed a battery to power up the PA. The rest of us rounded up camp lights and lanterns and within minutes, the show went on. It felt more magical that way, each performer's shadow making a unique backdrop, the audience that much more attuned to each performance.
The power was still out after the last performer had shared their song, but outside, the moon was full, the whole campground awash in moonlight. We didn’t need our flashlights to find our way back to our tents.
Study your own own tracks, all the scars and smiles
All those dead ends and vast country miles
Then quiet like the fox, find a warm place in the sun
Let the ground take your weight, appreciate how far you’ve come
Impressions in a field beyond space and time
Your story equal parts echo and rhyme
Here a moment, another moment and its gone
a paw print, a whisker another heart song
— from my fox-inspired camp song ‘Tracks’