Carpe Muse-um
Once life and the sea cast their spell, you must find a way to exist as a vibration between two worlds. Alternating pleasure and pain.
We have stopped in Petal MS to overnight. The road hasn’t been long or hard.
I rose at 5:30 and was on the beach by 6. I had just plopped into place when the sun poked herself over the horizon. Gorgeous red orb. The atmosphere filters her brilliance for color and watchability. How terrific would it be if light bulbs were this glorious when they started for the first time each day. We are moving out of our golf bungalow this morning by 10, so no time to waste. I make some notes on various pieces I am writing and dump all of my clutter for another glorious hour in the gulf.
Today is trickier. Though I have hiked further, there are more people. Walkers, not swimmers or fishers. Small obstacle, just time the terrestrial to aquatic transition right and everyone stays happy. Me most of all. The water is incredibly refreshing. Is it possible it is CLEARER than yesterday? Yes, yes. at 6' I can still see the undulating seabed.
And there is SO MUCH life here. Schools of thousands of tiny fish keep rushing past me. I assume my float position when a flock of 30 or so pelicans swoop around me, just inches from the water. They seem soundless against the backdrop of the wind and the ocean. Following the birds, a school of a million fish rushes past for many seconds. I would have expected the order to be reversed.
My muse sends me a watershed of music. It takes me a moment to realize this playlist is ALBUMS. More than 100 songs. This is easily days of listening and a week or more of pretty dense research. But, I am immediately smitten with the range and emotional arc of the list. It starts deep and dark, mysterious. Then wades into love and beauty with loss, then hope, reflection, joy, intimacy, courage and finally... an album that hints at the goal of something bigger than this life can offer. Even the best of it. It's a good journey so far (4 albums in) and relishing the message: to laugh and embrace at the fragility and absurdity and passion of life.
Joy!
So, I spend an hour organizing the list into a playlist I can access and then want another 45m even though by 8, I should be gone. Our golf bungalow ends at 10. I get a nervous text from the missus. But, this moment here under the cerulean sky is simply too irresistible. A lifetime of following the rules means I become adept at justifying ignoring them sometimes. And today. I stay as long as I dare.
My reward comes with a beautiful golden glow from the long hours in the sun. No burn, just beauty. Strange for a man to think of himself as beautiful. And I do not mean it in a self-centered way. Just in that way that says you've been displeased with your appearance for so long, that it feels good to feel good, to be pleased.
Always room for improvement. My standards, not the beauty industry.
AH! A last 'I love you from the gulf': a HUGE jellyfish is floating in 3 feet of crystal clear water. I was always taught they are bad, dangerous, painful. This morning, I am completely unprotected from its stinging tentacles. But my molted soul wants to feel the danger of it and I reach in and place my hand on his incredibly intricate dome. Little designs and translucency IMMEDIATELY take me to one of my favorite films: close encounters of the 3rd kind.
It is art in life.
And I name him Marcellus. I don't think he's incredibly bright, but I do think he is incredibly beautiful. Marcellus would no doubt prefer ‘handsome,’ but beauty has the greater weight.
It feels strange to leave him—this fragile, floating alien—yet the day calls me back to earth. If I stay longer, Poseidon may press me into his army.
All good things must end, and my morning here has to conclude at 8:30. I clamber and sputter onto my private beach and lay on my sleeping bag and let the sun and the wind do their work. In moments I am wrapped in a towel as I collect my things and bounce back to camper van Beethoven.
Opening the back doors to the dunes, ocean, gulls and crabs, I cast off the damp beachwear and shower and thrill at the lusciousness of it all. I smile that my wife is at home. She would blush and stress at the nakedness. Such is her nature. We are different clothes, we two. The water is hot and refreshing and it occurs to me that at 53 I have achieved the goal of beach bum.
Here on the shores of the white sand gulf am, showering in a parking lot driving a van. Oh! I should have a surf board lashed down.
That would be perfect.
Refreshed and grinning, I slip back into the rhythm of the road. Our next stop: Bodacious Bookstore Café in Pensacola once the move-out is complete, trash disposed, 'swash loaded and kit all stowed in CamperVan Beethoven!
I am abuzz with the essence of existence. It is so electric and invigorating that it seems a shame to not share this wonder. My wife refuses to be its recipient however.
Arriving back at Golf Bungalow, she is a grouch at having been abandoned for my escapade. I cannot defend it other than to express that some moments must be seized. Consequences be damned.
It takes 10m to load our things into camper van and I still have time to luxuriate in another shower and laugh at the absurdity of the morning. How can something so simple as a trip to the beach be so profoundly spiritual?
We leave Pensacola after a long and simply delightful time at a local bookshop named Bodacious Bookstore Cafe. Mostly cafe, with a lovely half of the space filled with beautiful hardback novels. Several pique my interest but I have a stack to finish, so make note to come back and see if they hold my eye, or if it was just book-lust.
'Court Of' series by Sarah J. Maas
'1Q84' Murakawi
'All Fours' July
'Oceanography of the Moon' Vanderah
Armed with the promise of future reads, I return to the wheel—and promptly take the wrong turn.
The drive is enjoyable. I love driving. My thoughts drift too and fro like the waves on a seashore. They undulate like a tentacle in light. My mind drifts too far afield and I notice after almost an hour that I made a right in stead of a left. I am headed east on I-65. Directly to where I'm not supposed to go.
Must. Resist. Urgent pull. No alignment shop will be able to correct this tug.
A sigh and a u-turn and everything is right as rain. Road trips are for getting lost, are they not?
As in life, it's less about the travel and the destination as it is about the company. And, I have the best company in the world.
Tonight we will call home a generous older couple, Tracy and Tommy who host us at their barndomenium. The home is simple metal building but it is set on 30 acres of immaculately manicured lawn, rolling hills with a pond and surrounded by forest. As we pull up, the gate is framed with two huge bronze swordfish sculptures and we drive by pineapple planters that line the gravel drive.
We have stayed many times with services like this. Free or cheap overnight parking for camper van usually with electric and water for a nominal fee. But this is the first time we have been invited to join the host for burgers and beer. Tommy is a retired oil and gas salesman and he and his wife drive a massive class a Phaeton motorhome that is more posh than my real house. They are living in it full time while they build their dream home here.
They regale us with stories of life in west Texas where they lived. Running an oil and gas business on Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Mardigras for 10 years and the challenges of entertaining clients and raising a family.
They are party people. And we party the night away. 3 beers, 3 bottles of wine later, I find myself spinning and dancing like a fool while their three Weiner dogs join me at my feet. My muse and my company no doubt find me in rare form tonight.
Our host Tracy goes into detail on the nature and effect of THC products. It seems she's a bit of an expert on matters. She helps me to have a tremendous experience that is—like every worry and stress in my life bled away in effervescence. I am floating in the gulf for hours tonight.
When the laughter quiets and the house lights dim, well after midnight, the meadow calls me like the gulf did that morning.
I try to retire to CamperVan and I am suddenly wide awake. Nature calls me and I drift into the dark like a tide drawn to the moon. I abandon everything but a blanket and wander out into the meadow to gawk at the moon tearfully. I dance some in the dark. The grass is cold and wet on my feet and legs. The crickets krii-krii-krii to my choreography and the owl offers high marks on my lunge.
After a half hour, it's marvel was strong, but my early call time+beach+moving+travel+meeting+greeting+dining-wine-ing has left me suddenly quite spent. And I collect my things and retire to our welcoming bed at the back of the van. AC blowing cool and hard.
At about 2am, sleep is easy come, easy go. I sink to dreamland and forget the world.
And at almost 6, I rouse just as quickly as I drop off. No alarm, just a latent knowledge and desire for: earlier is better. There are tense moments when my wife puts me on the edge of the roof with a dozen questions that all essentially boil down to: why don’t you come back to bed.
How do I convey my primal drive to be under the sky, hear and feel the wind, to be wetted like the beasts of the field? It sounds mad. It is bonkers.
Hi, just call me Bonkersman.
My power is a superhuman ability to focus in impossibilities.
So, 5:45 and the lunatic is on the grass.
Crescent moon 🌙 is smiling down. I hear her whisper in moon-ese., “Come, Wolf-Jack if your head explodes with dark forebodings. You may come—to my dark side. I’ll lock the door and throw away the key. And then all that is, will set as it should be.”
The lunatic smiles at this kindness, but sees it for the trap it is. My mind is in the kitchen, my mind is in the hall. My mind just isn’t here at all.
The wise crickets chirp mutters about:
‘this figure not even in shoes!
He should be locked up.
Up-up-up!
Can’t have madmen
a-going blue canoe strut.’
The eastern sky has blossomed her flower of lavender orange and pink. She has never been arrayed so beautifully as she is this morning. Praise to her Creator!!
The crickets hear my declaration and for a moment their overlapping din harmonizes in a single zrii-zrii-zrii!!
As if to punctuate their declaration of agreement, a distant rooster crows. It is an earnest squawk and the cock has pressed his essence to make it the greatest performance of his life.
The world—and I—are impressed.
As the dark lost its grip on my world, Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon finished its tenth track, ‘Eclipse’ and with absolute joy, Tull’s ‘Benefit’ slips into my soul like the sun into day.
Days of peace
Sweet summer nights
Of wine and song
Oh! Ian!! You saw my future before I was even conceived—when my father was head down in the jungles of Vietnam, you wrote me here in this glen 5 decades hence, with my chorus of birds, crickets, cocks and cicadas.
It’s been a long time
Still shaking my wings
I’m a glad bird
I got changes to ring
I slip into slumber where my muse waits. My dream is brief and carries the weight of finality. As if a decision is being made.
We are at a library whose walls extend impossibly beyond sight. Filled will colorful spines that move and rustle like birds on a wire. Millions and millions of volumes.
Her mica eyes look over horn-rimmed glasses. The muse has the face of European ancestors, not angular, but with features inspired by geometry and symmetry. The lips as painted by a renaissance master, eyebrows arcing high and dense pointing to the perk of her nose. It is a face not of excess, but the sort that inspires golden means and ratio—Fibonacci would be stunned. Dignity.
Her dress is green—no, it is grass. Long and swaying in the breeze. When the wind blows it waves like the spring grasses in the roadside and we suddenly are upon a hill. Then it grows calm and the bustling library walls are back.
She has a thick, nearly impenetrable German accent. “Tell me… ven didt your Pree-ah-peec shtate become your guidink force? Und does being a klee-shay bodder you?”
I am laying in a giant pink high heal shoe that cradles me. It is crafted so that all of me is gently clasp. Like I’ve been pressed into clay. It is very comfortable. I am weightless and cannot move.
I start to speak, but a curt finger presses my lips.
“Nein, I zupoze you are right. You are yust a tipically afferage male of a zertain age. Zere are no fools like an olt fool.”
Her face becomes stars and showers me whole with a thousand star-kisses.
Before the effect can fade, she turns and returns to her station behind the desk, grasses waving wildly. I can spy glimpses of what lies beneath: shining and sparkle-more star material.
Returning to her tome, a longhorn with horns longer than a school bus plods over.
In an old gravely voice, he says:
“You were kissed by a muse
one night in the wood,
And later insisted your feelings were true.
The muse’s promise was coming,
and you’re looking Elsewhere
for your own selfish gain.
You won’t find it easy now,
it’s only fair.
She was willing to give to you,
you didn’t care.
You’re waiting for more but you’ve already had your share.”
I look at the muse at the desk, she glances again my way and says, “Zis iss hopeless. Zere iss nozink to be done. Re-ehduka-shun iss our only choyce.”
As she slams the massive tome closed, the books flock from their perches and bury me.
My eyes snap open to the now warm morning sun. The glory of sunrise has given way to the early heat of a summer day in August with the dew rapidly melting into breath and contributing to the coming weight of humidity. I scramble quickly to make notes of my dream visage as they slip away like the melting mist.
The stars dissolve into sunlight, and as the dream fades, Tommy’s drawl anchors me back in Mississippi.
Pleasant and stereotypically thick, Tommy says, “You alright, down 'er? I saw somebody campin' on muh' lawn and figured I better make sure hippies ain't movin' in!”
He chortles at this invocation of that long-standing southern resistance to the 1960's movement. I can hear him thinking 'damn dirty hippies, put on some shoes.'
“Ah, Good morning, Tom!” I charge back. “What a GLORIOUS day!! And a perfect follow up to the wine and company last night. Thank you again for entertaining us!”
I am glad my wife insisted I not sally forth as originally desired. Her fear that cameras were watching the meadow it seems was valid. I just hope they aren't infrared—if so... they'll have gotten the full monte of my 30 minute Moondance last night. Such is the risks of an artist high on life, wine and other substances.
But, each day has enough worries, no time to keep my hand on that rudder and looking back. Today will take us to the Natchez Trace.
At least in plan!
In reality, I will first take several detours trying to find a waterpark we can enjoy. Then I will get lost. Several roadside vendors will woo us with melons (no blind ones however) and fresh peaches (SOO INCREDIBLE), honey and just weird (ratchet beaters painted like Lightning McQueen). And a day that as 3 hours of easy sight-seeing becomes 5 of wandering. And since we stayed too long with the wine and piercing the veil of life last night, she is in no mood for camper van Beethoven-ing it tonight. She craves the luxury (and boredom) of a hotel.
So, here I am pouring my heart into little kisses and barbs with my muse, hours of music that rocks and soothes and 3000 words that will capture a day. A day, like so many countless others that I'll become an impression in time and that I will have to scramble to recall details.
The day that was long, but not forgettable. Another single thread in the tapestry of Woolfinius J. Wherl.
To day was the sea to the mountains and on into the atmosphere.
The Muse’s Promise
Lend me your ear while I call you a fool.
You were kissed by a muse one night in the wood,
And later insisted your feelings were true.
The muse’s promise was coming,
Believing he listened while laughing you flew.
Leaves falling red, yellow, brown, all are the same,
And the love you have found lay outside in the rain.
Washed clean by the water but nursing its pain.
The muse’s promise was coming, and you’re looking
Elsewhere for your own selfish gain.
Keep looking, keep looking for somewhere to be,
Well, you’re wasting your time,
they’re not stupid like he is.
Meanwhile leaves are still falling,
you’re too blind to see.
You won’t find it easy now, it’s only fair.
He was willing to give to you, you didn’t care.
You’re waiting for more but you’ve already had your share.
The muse’s promise is turning, so don’t you wait up
For him, he’s going to be late.
The playlist opens with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon suite, a concept piece that journeys from “the first breath of life” to “death,” exploring conflict, greed, time and mental illness; it then segues into Jethro Tull’s Benefit, whose harder, darker songs hint at cynicism yet also reflect Ian Anderson’s budding romance; from there the mood softens through Misplaced Childhood, a concept album about “lost loves” and a “touching love song” (“Lavender”) that ends on an upbeat note, and continues with 1980s power ballads (“I’ve Been In Love Before” and “Died in Your Arms” as well as powerfully emotional tracks that are lesser known, and heartfelt pleas like Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” where a lonely narrator asks a woman to take a chance with him; the playlist then deepens with Led Zeppelin’s romantic “Rain Song” and “D’yer Mak’er,” in which the singer begs a lover not to, before resolving with introspective yet hopeful pieces such as the Beatles’ gentle love ballad “Here, There and Everywhere” and Warren Zevon’s mournful but cathartic ballad of romantic loss “Accidentally Like a Martyr
Click here for 21 Albums that Will Rock Your World
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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