May 19 – Bus Station to Indianapolis from Erie

Transport depart

Greyhound 6905, 357 miles

And more to come

But not to count

Once more into this intermediation

Here I am

Again between

Guitar, notebook, camera

Backpack, backseat

Suitcase, blanket

Still not smart enough

To know not to be

Afraid of this change in me

Of this molting

Left foot

Right

Left behind the soul shell

Right

Left behind the river

Right

Crawling

One thousand miles now

Crawl and see and breathe

Grow and grow and grow

Go, Vanishing

Ghost, Disappearing

Act 7

Brave not until now

When I am time

When I am change

When I am growth

When I am consciousness

When I am connection

When I am

This journey

To, not where I am going

But from where I have left

Right

Left

Right out of old skin

Molting

And my soul flies

Around this cloud

//

I hear a song and it takes me back to meet a ghost of myself I once knew, once was. He lays in the shade of the podium on Field B at Trafalgar–the block wouldn’t start for another twenty minutes. He’s laying there listening to the same song. It sounded different to him on that day in spring training of his age-out year than it does now on his second year on staff–his second year searching for closure, rather, his seventh summer on the road, a part of that whole machine.

//

The feelings evoked now, on Greyhound 7191 are melancholy, celebratory and mournful. The song since that day, that season, had turned into something of a memorial or commemoration, an analogy, a cry out, a plunge into something that’s both a dark and luminous place. The song evokes tragedy, a beautiful, beautiful tragedy.

//

I think of Taylor first, who led the hornline, with the help of many others. I think of his effort, of my own, and of all those guys. That knowledge now, that knowing of how it’s all going to go, when I think back to that ghost lying in the shade of the podium…

//

If only I could tell them. And what would I say? To myself, my ghost. He wouldn’t listen, he was too strong. He wouldn’t hear. He heard only the first words, of her song, and believed them.

//

I hear the haunting now

The fading melody

An alarm, a warning.

It was always there.

//

He layed under the podium so confident in himself, so in belief of the others, he was so certain, he was so sure. He was on his way to glory, they all were. This was how they were going to become immortal, this was how they were going to be remembered.

May 25 – Trafalgar, Indiana – Day 6

It always takes some time to warm up to the way of things in the summer life this activity gives you. It’s always been like that. I understand the members’ perspective. In ways, it is almost surreal that the summer has begun and then you get the first wave of, “Okay, I’m here, but holy shit it’s week three already,” or you wake up in August and the last five years had been just a dream.

//

Summer seven. What’s changed, beyond myself? Eric isn’t here. That’s my first notice. Looking back now, the beginning half of the summer all the way until San Antonio, I’ll presume, was about me being there for him. That was my biggest function. And of course through that summer I needed him there for me just as equally, but given his world at the time, I would have never thought that. It was about me supporting him the best I could. He had been there a lot for me in the following months of that summer; we starting talking pretty regularly by the end of the semester and all winter when I was living at home essentially by myself, while was living by himself. I suppose our support has been mutual.

//

But he’s not here this summer. I’m thinking for myself this time around. It’ll be a summer where I am the pilot, and that’s something that I will need tremendously for Syracuse, I believe. And just growing up too. That’s the new set of feathers.

//

The molting continues though–I’ve had a hand in these last months in my personal life, in ripping out old feathers, those old trees, the river… so why would it stop here? Day one I’m tearing out the old shelves that once held our aussies. Never in my life would I have imagined myself in that truck with a sledgehammer. Room for new, room for growth. Those boards were burned in five fires and served as the glow for something special of night for the members.

//

Into smoke.

//

I have yet to invest myself into them this year. I am content being disconnected from them at the moment. I know when I stop to look them in the eye, I’ll see pieces of myself, something they don’t yet realize in the way this all works over the years. We’re all the same.

June 1 – Ben Davis High School – Indianapolis, Indiana

The sun is still burning bright, will soon begin to set. The third week has begun. I thought that I’d have seen every sun rise and sun set as I had planned but this may very well be my first. There has not been stillness, but there has not been thrashing either, and I’m not between the two. I’m somewhere else, something else.

//

I hear Megan playing part of her feature out on another field, and her sound comes bouncing around, echoing, echoing, it’s closer to any exploration of this day than what I could provide. Her sound is calming and beautiful, reflective and soulful, enchanting. Certainly we all had our spirit, as individuals, in all of our times, but she’s going to give something to this corps that I don’t think it’s ever had. I’m not sure if she knows yet that she is carrying us all. Paul, Eric, Taylor, Andrew… our effort, and everyone. She brings peace to this, for me.

//

Is the calm the antithesis to my anger? It takes away thought and feeling of retribution, in a way, heals some wounds.

//

But “we were here.”

//

The sun gets lower now. It’s hue is a little more orange than before. So much of this activity is controlled left foot, right foot, controlled breathing. June 1st, the feedback is very rigid, very mechanical, very technical.

//

The air is getting cooler now. Where does all this effort go?

In the end.

//

All the years and years of effort.

It’s easy to get lost in June.

June 2 – Trafalgar, Indiana

The start of week three.  On the field I had told Rachel that I hadn’t expected myself to be as involved as I’m becoming, because I have remained as “detached” as I had planned. I can’t be both. So I watched for a while, looked into the heart of the eye, the soul of the body of the corps. Maybe it was the first acknowledgement that opened a space, a new capacity–like with myself in other groups, given the time, yes, I can open the space for them, in me.

//

Yesterday Megan’s melody travelled across the stadium in the quiet of the corps resets and then was interrupted by the roar of what is so reminiscent of my melody from Gethsemane, and all that means to me, and straight into the final chords You’ll Never Walk Alone.  I trust them, the mantle is in good hands.

//

A year ago I wrote, “Change grows change.” I also ran into an old message I received from Sean Conway and I understand a little more what he was saying to me now, that “sometimes the best leaders are the ones who own that they are not the best at everything and are humble enough to step out of the way, take their ego out of the picture, and empower the people around them to have their moment to shine… You never failed. You won every day you had.” I am looking for this in them now. “Seeds take a long time to take root and grow. Don’t write off your accomplishments before they’ve had time. I am very proud of you. Trusting you was easy. Thank you for trusting me and fighting every day.”

//

As I am sharing this with Megan and Andrew, they notice that the red bead fell off my nail. It was never untied, it had to have been broken. Shedding more layers. That was the fire then. Only one green and two clear beads remain. Only time could have done this–a miraculous accident with impeccable timing. I believe it is all related.

//

Ice.

I was waiting for stillness.

June 4 – Edinburgh, Indiana

Pairs of yellow barriers–a fan sits unplugged facing the garage of this repair shop, wind spinning its blades, an American flag blowing off in the distance–the buzz of two industrial fans behind me from the table in the sun I’m sitting at, it stops suddenly–QUIET–and I hear the highway again, to my right, a bird chirping to my left, an engine turns on in front of me and I see it is a cement truck. #28, maroon, gold. Cheryl is knitting. David’s here, time to go.

//

It’s easy to get lost in this activity. It’s easy to go from, “This is the dream,” to “This really sucks,” as members, as instructional, as admin–it’s a very normal thing. It’s part of it, part of this. It might be today, could be tomorrow. It could be six years from now and you’re aging out, horn sergeant. It’s an easy thing to feel, to have happen. The difficult part is catching yourself when it happens. Catch yourself, “Hey, I’m not doing my job, I’m not giving this 120%, I’m not being a Madison Scout right now.” I remember a few weeks ago saying, “It only matters who you are when it’s difficult.”

//

Check and adjust.

This is who I am right now,

This is where I’m at, and

That’s where I need to be.

Check and adjust.

//

Reflection

Understanding

Receptivity

Truth/Actuality

Context for a life’s work/Foundation

Stories of growth/Friendship

Leadership/Trust

A record, an account, a truth, an example, a representation of a culture.

//

This matters

This needs to continue to matter

This is bigger than it seems

Contributes a level of human value in and an authentic/genuine quality

June 7 – Trafalgar, Indiana

Field A, Under the Prop

I have the capacity to be a visionary in this activity, though I won’t be. I don’t doubt that the conversations I have plant seeds in some way and effect over time. I am curious, to someday see what the Madison Scouts are without me. Still though, I would have been here for seven years. I’m not sure what impact would have been realized to be mine, but it’s an impossible thing to tell anyways.

//

The sun’s starting to deliver some heat. Field A is more yellow now than green now, and the wind is blowing gently. It’s just blowing heat into the shade. My work here has been interesting as of late; possibly remedial, but incredibly monotonous tasks, despite their necessity.  In it all, I am still searching for quality. I am not unhappy, there’s a meditative quality to it, though I have not yet learned anything from this experience.

//

Rob words echo in my head, to “grow where you’re planted.” I can’t help to wonder what it is I am actually contributing to this corps, to this activity. Perhaps it’s just to this culture, in a quiet way that blankets all. I wonder what my role is, what my purpose is. Can I be a visionary through this work? Can I continue to lead in the way I had, now, through this? Can I influence this activity through the work that isn’t seen? Am I cultivating the lives around me, does this work so small help anything grow? Perhaps I will at least learn patience. If there is a peace to this… 

Blue Tower Above Field A

I just finished reading Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. It has taken me some time but I was in no hurry; as said in earlier chapters, the emphasis has been on “good”, not “time” and “that’s made all the difference”. It seems that his Chautauqua has been running parallel with mine, and with many others I can presume. What a place to have ended his story, where mine continues to begin and begin and begin. I stayed on that tower pretty late into the evening. I wrote immediately after, “I sit here at the top of the blue tower as I had before, as it seems I always had. And as Blake had, and Brad, and Andy, and all the many versions of who we have been through the years, sneaking up after curfew to look at the stars and be in each other’s company.

//

The sun sets now

As it does

Rain clouds may be coming in

But it is still

This whole haunted cemetery is still

//

After a little while, it had left me in a state of heightened receptivity. I realized this when I walked up to the trumpet sectional and quite soon, everything felt like a photograph, every beam of light was deliberate, every gesture, every fragment of life, every piece, every foreground, middleground, background, every noise and sound was “right”. It may have been too that I just simply felt recognition of that space in those moments as I sat there, all seemed so right.

//

Because it was

As it was

And it was

As it has always been

//

I did not have a camera and I did not need one, and in this picture in which I was a part of, did not want one. It wasn’t because it was all so perfect that I didn’t want it contained in a frame, that had little to do with the act of photography and the making of images–of the “recognition of images”, I should say.

//

The photographers with us

Here are not still enough

They’re not seeing yet

They’re looking

Looking all over the place

And never seeing

//

I know now that my understanding of this activity is very deep. It has to come from experience, not just observation, not just direct contact. What I see in them has already happened within me, years ago. In genuine immersion, without cameras, I will still see more than what the many others will see. Part of it, I think, is that they are operating from the camera and asserting it to what’s around them; a rifle rather than a net. A more genuine translation of reality I believe would be found with more quality if it starts from what is all around you, and then finding the camera. At that point it is so far away from being about the camera, you often will never have to consider it. It acts on its own accord, it is led by everything else.

//

I’m thinking of Erik’s remark on my work and myself as a “black and white master” and I was furious. A few weeks later, the surface of his images began to resemble my own, of my old work. He spoke to the surface because he couldn’t see what it was I was really doing, he only had an understanding of the surface of the image of the activity and so the surface of my work received praise. What is felt by a photograph might have little to do with its surface. This understanding, this medium of recognition goes beyond seeing and comprehension, I think there is a lot more there to find.

June 11 – Trafalgar, Indiana

Maddee asked me today what I wanted to do with photography and initially I had a tough time trying to answer that question, then realized it was because I didn’t really want to do anything with photography, it’s a fixed medium, it’s already set, photography does only so much, the act of photography, the material of it, the surface of it, the depth of it… It’s what I want IT to do to ME. All valleys and rivers leading to the same place… photograph as a means… all part of the same work, of a particular purpose. So what is it that I’m trying to do?

June 15 – Trafalgar, Indiana

“Last night’s leadership session was on ‘everyone has a role,’ yeah? I’m going to expand on that. If you ever get the chance to look at the prop closely, you’ll notice that the canvas is held on by velcro, the velcro held on by zip ties. You can’t see the zip ties from the box and you can’t detect the hold of the velcro from the box either. Without either, the prop doesn’t function, and there would be no effect of the prop. When you think about the instrument problems we’ve been having, it’s all come down to one valve being out of alignment, one small percentage of the instrument, one small misalignment, and the instrument ceases to be an instrument, it cannot make sound. It cannot function. We can go on and on–this activity depends on thousands of small and invisible parts to all do their jobs for the corps to function. Absolutely everything is important, everything is crucial, everything matters, by way of itself, or of a butterfly effect. All thousands of relating and unrelated parts are vital. And as you learned last night, these 154 unique puzzle pieces that are you, sitting, breathing in a field in Trafalgar, Indiana, are vital, all matter entirely, all fit together in one perfect way, to become one, to become a ‘we’, to become a Madison Corps. There is a larger narrative to this activity, to this corps, and to this culture. You all fit into this in uniquely individual and important ways. You were meant to. And you were meant to for each other. You, together, were meant to be THIS Madison Scouts. THIS Madison Scouts fits into a larger narrative as well. Every season is like one of those zip ties to something larger, is like the hold of the velcro; a cog in the larger machine, a chapter in their bigger story. This 81st corps is as vital as the very first corps. The Madison Scouts that you are now is the Madison Scouts that was before this, is the Madison Scouts that will come after this. You are the narrative and you carry that narrative inside yourself, on every reset, with every breath, and every drop of sweat, you carry that. You are, right now, everyone who has ever marched this drum corps, you are everyone who has ever walked that walk. You are every child who will see you this summer and dream to someday be a part of this, a part of your narrative, carry that same legacy. You are the 1938 corps and every year after. When you are a Madison Scout, you are every Madison Scout, and because of that, everything you do matters, everything is important. The way you wake up, the way you look at each other, the way you treat each other, and the way you treat this time. We have five days left here, ask yourself what you are going to leave behind. What effort can you give? And what effort can we give everywhere we go this summer? What is it that you are going to leave behind? This corps has a role. Sitting next to you tonight is another Madison Scout. I’ll ask that you devote everything you do tomorrow to them. And the next day, and the next day.”

June 19 – Trafalgar, Indiana – Day 31

Or day 10,000. This is the seventh summer. It’s turning into one long experience, one immersion, one growth. One story, one extensive narrative–like it all is, really. The last night in Trafalgar after all, and perhaps ever, for my time with the corps.These Trafalgar days… I’m walking around and on occasion, sitting to write. There is so much. Every corner of this camp brings on a unique memory from within the five spring training sessions spent here, and I think of what I said to Josh in his truck last night, “This place is special now, sacred in its own ways.” I could describe what I see as I walk around, what I remember, but the photographs can describe that more vividly. What I will pen is the reaction to these holy places.

//

It is thundering though, and I’m sure it will rain soon, causing me to go inside. The plan was to catch the last Trafalgar sunset because I thought that something I wanted to do for myself was catch every sunrise and sunset–just watch. That hasn’t been exactly possible, but I then resolved that maybe there are just specific ones I ought to be present for, and those will occur organically; circumstance will have brought me to them.

//

Deciding what is important, I guess the last one here would be up there on the list. I wouldn’t be upset if the rain forces me inside preemptively though. The real moment I suppose would have been last night, and so naturally, I didn’t pay attention to it until just now. Nick had never ventured his way up the blue tower until this year. I was there for his first, and his fear of it falling while he’s up there diminished. We were throwing a baseball after ensemble yesterday and he randomly just said, “Let’s go to the top of blue tower”. We left our gloves at the bottom and went straight up. He’s quicker with the ladder now. We sat there, laughed, stared off, watched as the tree line grew darker, imagined how we would have painted it, watched Michael and Nicole walk by, talked about older days. The sun set slowly and peacefully, we were there with it. The time now, in one day of retrospection is already endearing.

//

To know what things really mean, to find the spirit, to see the soul, and have the Understanding, seeing truly and knowing the whole value of a person, place, thing, feeling, a time. It’s a capacity, a growth. As I walk here with this notebook, I am making permanent impressions in my mind. I am here now, but also with what feels like a lifetime of memories and ghosts of myself growing up here, I’m walking with all of them. Perhaps… They are walking with me. We’re all here. The clouds seem to move faster when I move below this canopy of trees. Yes, Taylor is here now too, but not with the way memory broke my heart  on my bus ride here one month ago. I wonder where I left that version of myself, who was always trying to go back and warn us all. He’s not here right now. So one was left behind.

//

The first firefly of the evening. The cabin lights were left on today. The breeze makes the trees sound. I sat at this pavilion once before, writing, as it rained, reflecting, thinking I knew about things. In some ways, I had been right. I’d have to revisit those old journals I brought with me. It’s interesting, the things that I discovered that summer. All these summers. Field A now, with the blue tower, right on the 50.

//

What was it Josh said earlier? How fast the change? It felt similar to my thought “Where does it all go?” Clouds coming in now, though the sky is blue straight ahead of me, straight above me. I know this ground, I know it so well. I believe that part of me can say that one of the molting processes, at least here, the pulling of the feathers has passed at last, and the new ones the last few days have begun to show. I remember leaving last year, though I don’t remember what I wrote. It may have been sent to James.

June 27 – Mt. Orab, Ohio – Wednesday

In moments of transparency

Sitting there

You find your Self

Seeing through

The picture

We are in

Endlessly

//

Stand and step

By step and sense

Everything

Calmly fleeting

Time

Being

Everywhere

//

Nowhere

Now here

You realign

To perfect composition

Reorient to

Awareness

Receptivity

//

World unchanged

But you

From the root of Being

From the root of Perception

Become perception

Become being

Become change

//

Become receptivity

Become awareness

Become orientation

Become reality

Become clarity

Become understanding

Become the Picture

//

I have found my self on several occasions on the summer tour so far. The disciplines of awareness and receptivity…seeing, has become meditative, unsurprising for what literature I’ve been feeding myself with, but shocked to find how much truth is found now in what was written then. You are sitting there and all of a sudden you see a picture before you, and another, and another, and another, and you see that you yourself are in each of those, and everywhere you go, every step you take, the entire world you are in is perfectly composed, everything around you, and in every fleeting moment. You’re aware of reality, and receptive of reality, you have oriented yourself to, at all times, to see the picture, see the order, the clarity, the understanding… but the world is not what changed, it is as it has been, the change has been from the root of Being. It is your Self that is perfectly composed, your Self that is oriented, your Self that is the picture, that is Order, that is Clarity, that is Understanding.

June 29 – Muncie, Indiana

In the semi with Jersey John to the truck shop forty minutes from the housing site, fighting off sleep to the stale sound of the motor, the stale sound of the country music playing, the stale smell of his cigarettes, the stale smell of my sweat from last night, this morning, today. Danielle comes into my mind every now and again in times that are adverse like these, isn’t she calming? But what about when things are brought back to zero and I don’t need relief? A lot to do here before the show tonight, hopefully this will be taken care of so we can get to Palmyra alright again tonight. It’s frustrating because it seems like there’s always something to go wrong in the last minute. I’m not sure that we’ve had a smooth day yet.

//

To the eye

To the paper

Show us

Teach us

To see

To think

Lift the camera

Touch the paper

June 30 – Palmyra, Wisconsin

More seeds had been planted than what I originally presumed since aging out. Jason was the youngest in the corps in 2016 and I was one of the oldest–we kept each other motivated, kept each other going, watched over each other, brothers beyond the cliche. He now wears my haircut from then, but he acts like me, I can see it. I can’t help but to wonder what our time together had meant to him, done for him, in his growth, his growing, his development, his becoming. He keeps trying to impress me. He’s best to lead by example. It’s strange the way a relationship changes based on position held. I am thinking of John now, the last guy from 2014 that I marched with. A poem by David Whyte that KC had sent to me, reminds me of him.

//

Clarify

Perceive

Translate

Interpret

Reflect

Understand

What have I really learned this summer?

July 2 – Whitewater, Wisconsin

I want to actually “help”, if I can make things better somewhere by just being there, whatever that means, and if I can use a camera to license my perception to matter, to show and prove how I’m interpreting something, and if that can make things better, create community through art, reflect how something actually is, if photography and writing and music can somehow come together to fix things based on just being there, cultivate by being there, and I don’t know if I have the capacity for that, if I can actually do that. It’d be cool to have a lasting impact, to know you’ve been able to keep things moving in any direction…

//

If you think yourself to be one who can… to think that you’re right to the point of wanting to lead… it’s so close to being really bad by anyone, to WANT to lead, do you want followed, want followers, disciples, a god complex. Art says there are no rules. In trying to understand our human race… is anthropology more about organization that information? “Perceive”… that’s what I’m trying to make of my art form–then it’s… remove the camera, pen and paper, anything that records… an individual standing in a field observing something, perceiving something, can I do that, not necessarily better, but more correctly… breathe in life, experience life… can I maximize, use perception to take the most from reality? To understand it, to digest it, breathe it… As far as trying to be an artist, my perception as the root, my individual-ness… “perception is reality”. I can show someone the world I live in that has meaning, is about all those things that can’t be seen, but believed in, through pen and paper, music, photography, dance… perception of MY reality.

//

The challenge to myself is that I’m trying to make it by that being achieved, having my perception be… if I’m trying to be a photographer, everyone has access, everyone can do it, I have to somehow make it be believed that mine are more valid than someone else’s, but it’s the only way–I have to look at things in a way that CAN influence. I have to perceive in such a way that it can influence the way that others perceive.

//

Celebration of experience in immersion, under the category of “art photography” which is what the degree is going to be in, I’m defining art as the search for reality, seeing things for what they really are, not in the way we have organized them. That’s the goal.

//

Shannon? She said, “Thank you, you saw us.” It’s reaffirming for me, that I did it.

//

Photography as someone participating in the experience. Cultural relativity. Context of my experience. The image itself may not matter, it’s the fact that I made it, because of that… completely at a personal relativity. Not what it looks like, but what had to be done for “it” to occur, the experience of “it”, the act of photography instead of the product of photography.

July 5 – Weston, Wisconsin

I had a dream of Eric last night and so I kept waking in the morning, anxious, but not until the sun came up did I realize where we were. We were in this town for years, it seemed, last season, though only for a few days. An important part of our friendship and personal growth. I recall Rib Mountain, the thunderstorm, the cigarettes, jazz, and throwing the baseball around, and also my first time really working with him on his work, and I don’t believe at the time that I was to be doing much else than photographing the corps. How things would soon change, I talked to Carl Jeter over a beer out at a restaurant, down the road, and I had gotten that classic haircut mess up, the Ernie cut, and the woods of course. Maybe an answer is in there, who he was last summer, where he is this summer.

July 6 – Rockford, Illinois

I can’t lie, I am disappointed by the culture of the corps right now–no self-accountability. The expectations of a Madison Scout should not have changed; it’s not what’s on the field that I am upset by, it’s what’s in their hearts. I plant seeds where I can and when I can, hoping that the right guys will find their voice, make things change as necessary; this is theirs at the end; don’t let the thing fall apart. On one end, it’s not my culture anymore, it’s not my corps, it’s not my experience–on another side, while I am here, I am a part of this all, and cannot neglect any intuition I may bring to this group of guys. Perhaps it’s not my place to nudge it here and there, but what example am I setting by watching something slip from the realms of its potential greatness? By tolerating it, I am encouraging it. I thought that when I marched, if I did the right thing in the present moment to moment, I would honor the past and set the future up greatly for a similar success. We worked our asses off trying to achieve something, and maybe we got close, maybe we didn’t, maybe other things got lost along the way. But what we made wasn’t just for us, and the standard that we kept was supposed to carry on, and it didn’t. What can I do now? The same thing I’ve always done? Plant small seeds, cultivate, cross my fingers? Let it fall by the way side…

July 14 – Saturday,

Van with Sam’s dad picking up Adam from Chicago O’Hare

Pen and pen and pen and paper, pages of this

Preserved

There with the camera

for some of David’s most sensitive moments

He was there busting up his hands and shedding skins

He was speaking to the members, he was…

July 15 – Sunday,  St. Louis, Missouri

Riding to the show in the box truck with James Newcomb. We stopped at a gas station and there was something in his face as he washed the windshield, gas pumping.

Interstate 70, Kingdom City, Missouri, Monday, July 16

Signs outside read Ozarkland, Gifts, Candies, Souveniers. A great big droopy American flag and a water tower.

//

I’m going to take the bus breaking down here last night and this five hour ride link up with the rest of the caravan all as a sign that it’s time to write and that this must be a turning point of some kind. From what and to where?

//

Danielle is in Colorado for a week or so, that’ll be good for her, she needs some time away from the Cavaliers, away from me, maybe she’ll realize a few things. I haven’t seen Emily yet but I believe our and everyone’s tour schedules begin to line up–well anyway, we began some type of ammends. It’s a start.

//

Tonight we have a show with Seattle Cascades so Zach and Anna will be there, and that still terrifies me a little, but I need to remember to be who I am now, not who I was in 2015. Yesterday was a huge moment for me–this whole week has been, in fact. Perhaps it’s going to continue. That’s the way I’m choosing to look at it at least. It’s hard to see the picture sometimes, especially when you’re in the frame, when you are what is happening.

//

We passed Kansas City and I took some time again to pull out the guitar, just another lonely melody and groove that can only happen once. Yesterday was the St. Louis show, stepping into my new skin and hoping to soar like this, trusting myself trusting things like this.

Jul 16 – Maize, Kansas – Just outside of Wichita

I feel the grit on my hands on nights like this, and the sweat still held on my shirt as I sit back. It’s a short drive from El Dorado to the corps housing site in… somewhere out in America. I wrote in a poem the other day;

//

The picture moves outside

My window on the bus and

Looks the same as

All the pictures

From years before

//

I rode in the box truck, initially for more selfish reasons, but later understood it’s important that I share space and time and consideration with James Newcomb. He marched with Dann, and is here, maybe for the same reasons I am here.

//

I’m sitting in a chair outside the food truck. Besides its humming, the only sound that can be heard is the hum of the cicadas in the distance. My hand moving this pen is the only thing moving. The corps will arrive soon and that will all change, but for now, there is peace, there is reflection in this dark Maize, Kansas.

//

James had asked me something along the lines of what I’d call, “Do you still hit walls out here? Do you still get tired, bored, over it…” What happens when I lose my effervescence? After seven years, I recognize it happens about every three weeks or so. The hard part is catching yourself, recognizing that you’re not where you want to be mentally, and then doing what you can to get back–the same check and adjust process from when we marched. It’s so easy, from all sides of this activity, to get lost out here. James said he didn’t know what happened. “Yesterday I was on cloud nine, everything was great, I was so glad to be here, and today was just miserable. I’d die.” He continued that it’s a part of being human. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it, it’s a part of this, just gotta catch yourself and pull yourself back in as fast as you can and as right as you can. It’s no use if it’s bull shit, you always gotta mean what you’re feeling.

//

We talked about our experiences going west coast one of our summers, the similarities of our times, and the narrative of drum corps that remains for the most part, the same, through changing characters. The rest of the drive was spent listening to Fiddler on the Roof.

//

How can I feel such animosity at times?

//

I’ve spent the last seven summers, or perhaps my life, specializing in the dirty work, in the invisible work. The hands, the back… my only hope in my efforts is that there may be a lesson learned through my example. I did not wander here aimlessly–there are life skills I wished to acquire in service to this group. The thought is that if I can produce Quality through what could be perceived as “lower work”, then I can produce Quality in all other work, and would justify the same achievement in other endeavors. How you do one thing is how you do all things, it starts at the bottom. Eventually, it’s in the way you breathe, in the way you exit here, everywhere, nowhere, now/here.

//

Silhouettes shrinking off into the distance, into the light of the school’s lobby… and even the speed at which we come and go through these towns…

//

I feel the grit on my hands on nights like this and the sweat still held on my shirt as I sit back in this silence, in this field in the middle of nothing, middle of nowhere. There has got to be learning through all this, there has got to be teaching through what my time spent here has been.

//

“You have to reject one expression of yourself to get to another, and in between you’re nothing.” -Paul Hewson. This is crucial.

July 17 – Maize, Kansas

Watch his animosity change to zeal, cynicism to idealism. Teach by the way you live, by the way you breathe and by the way of everything that comes after. Left foot, right foot, show them the way. Nine days ago;

//

You need to stop waiting

To believe that every step you take

Is bringing you closer

To what you’ve been after all along

//

Lots of work to be done here.

July 22 – Texas

Eleven o’clock

Still one hundred degrees

Gas station parking lot

Ashes and afterglow of

Whatever burns these days

Fenced off, smoked out

Cicadoidea walks along

Another highway tonight

August 1 – I-81

I sat on the steps of the bus where the sunlight left me a photograph without anyone to take it, looking off to the mountains. They look not too different from home although we’re not as close as I’d like to be. It feels the same though. We’re in Pennsylvania, just on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe it’s the way the clouds from here or something in the air that tells me it’s close to the end of another journey. My memory recalled a glimpse of it just before this–commanded me to pick up the pen, which I am thankful for. It seems that I’ve had some difficulty writing this summer.

//

Traveling alone. That’s where my memory took me. The loneliness after this. I wish that when the season ends, they could all go off with each other to where they’ll be going, keep on fighting for each other with each other. But one reality is that some of them will never see each other again. The best thing to do is the only that that they can do–hold the memories close, don’t let them go… this time, this space.

//

Where does it all go?

Where does this go?

Years of devotion end

With one last step,

One last walk.

August 7 – Indianapolis, Indiana – Tuesday

What stillness now to find as we near the end of this winding road, the closing of this season and another step forward, whatever ground beneath my feet…

//

What to say, in understanding this may be my bow out. “I’m going to take a moment tonight to sort of have my last say–a lot of people will be in soon, that are a lot more important than me–have a lot more important things to say than me, or can at least articulate their messages in a way that might be more clear. I’m going to be candid in this, I’m not sure what to say, but I feel this, I feel this. It’s been a winding road, yeah? Twists and turns and challenges of all sorts. The road is going to continue to wind. After this season, after many seasons, our roads are going to continue to wind. I have personally taken a lot away from this season, I have learned a lot about this organization because of you, and about this time because of you. Thank you. These summers will continue to teach us. Appreciate the face value of this summer now–the people around you, this time… I do believe that as times goes on, you will continue to learn from this experience…” 

August 8 – Indianapolis, Indiana

There’s something in the way “August 8” starts to cut like a knife, or the way returning to places we’ve been remind us of pieces of our old selves. What happens when we run face first into our old ghosts, our old souls. The feeling in my stomach… I am remembering now, that long road home; not where we’re going but where we’re leaving. That long, long ride, that first night alone, that moment when you wake up in the morning, and bittersweet open your eyes so far away from the world you came from, the world that may now have only been a dream. Your guts hollowed out and…

//

“What do I do now with that empty space…”

//

So now these last moments in these last days, these last hours where… god, just the way the light falls across his face, just here is enough, just here in this room. This space… this space.

August 8, 2018 – Indianapolis, Indiana

Letter to KC Perkins

I wish it were possible to write in the rain… I was sitting out there under a tree feeling the storm come in… watching those little blades of grass dance with each other, with the trees, with the clouds. It’s cleansing. Paper gets wet, ink would run – maybe someday I should try.

//

I’m sitting in a stairwell now. Nick comes in and out to look outside; concerned if he made the right call or not, so worried what others would think of him if the storm dissipated before it got to us that they’d say, “Nick doesn’t know what he’s doing.” The rain comes. It pours. He made the right call. His heart and mind are in the right place. He is good for this drum corps. It’s funny how as soon as the season is over, rain is good again and weather is just weather. It took me some time after aging out to appreciate the rain as I had when I was younger. The activity makes you hate it. I loved rain before I marched. I remember sitting on my back porch in those summers watching the storms come in… those slow quiet summers.

//

Nick’s back… he opens the door again – the storm, it’s so loud outside! He looks, comes back to sit at the bottom of the stairs, and few seconds later, the door shuts, and it’s quiet again. The scratch of this pen on paper. He smells the cigarette on me I suppose. It blends in with these three month worn sandals, the scent of any place I may have stepped this summer. None of these smells are good per se, but we know them well. It’s familiar… a part of this culture, this old old stream. “Per se” – “by or in itself or themselves; intrinsically”. There’s something to that. Maybe the name of a book or something someday.

//

We’re staying in dorms – not as customary. But while walking from the tree back top the dorm just then in the beginning of this letter, I thought to write to you. I have enjoyed these long weeks. It was a challenge that only seemed right for where I’ve been in life since January. There has been a great deal of value learned in the lessons of… what I’ve been calling the lowest rungs of work in this activity – and in those rungs where I’ve searched for Quality… in hopes that maybe if I can find it down here in these gutters – if I can find joy and peace and content and drive and motivation and art and ugliness and beauty and some sort of space between it all… I can find it in all other places. From here to those those cheering crowds, that city with golden towers.

//

I am excited to some day teach, to write, to design. To wear my shirt and tie on Friday night, to wish them all well, or “until next time”. The words “August 8” cut into me like a knife. The start of a long cut at least. “August 8” “August 9” “August 10” “August 11” “August 12” “August 13” “August 14” …

//

I know the long journey home – and again, not where we are going, but where we are leaving. The long long ride, that first night alone, that cavernous space growing inside you so much larger than yourself, you could just fall into it… that first morning you open your eyes in your old bed wondering if it had all been only a dream.

//

So now these last days, these last hours when – god just look at the way the light falls across his face, just listen to the sound of her melody. “Just here” is enough. What stillness now to find as we near another end of a long winding road, picking some up, losing some along the way as we journey on and on and on, forward, backward, anywhere, everywhere, one step at a time, left, right, left, right, breathe in and breathe out, the closing of another season. On and on. Look at them now… I look at them. You should see them. Yes, their shell is a little different now – a little darker, a little more toned. The way they stand, the way they hold themselves. Beyond, what is inside. What’s in there. Who they are…closer to being realized.

Aug 12 – Indianapolis, Indiana - Russell, Pennsylvania

Again, and in a new sense, what I wrote eighty five days ago, “not where I’m going, but where I’ve left.” Our final hour spent dreaming up the future, the next season; our change in role to continue on in our purpose, eager. I swear there is momentum amid the sort of cultural and identity crisis we’d been fighting through this summer.

//

Gustavo and I get out of the car, wave to David as he drives on, to marry Catherine (today, actually, in my reflection). He and Nick will have had an Irish goodbye then… it’s almost absurd the way these things end. But I close my eyes, and I see the two of them in front of me, I see the three of us riding that last empty bus together…

//

“The words ‘August 8’ cut into me like a knife – the start of a long cut at least. ‘August 8’ ‘August 9’ ‘August 10’ ‘August 11’ ‘August 12’ ‘August 13’ ‘August 14’… I know that long journey home – and again, not where we are going, but where we’re leaving. That long long ride, that first night alone, that cavernous space growing inside so much larger than your self you could just fall into it. That first morning you open your eyes to see your old room while lying in your old bed, just wondering if it had all been a dream, because it’s been too good to be true, to have even been real.” But it was real. This was real. These seasons end so eagerly…

//

Where does it all go? I’m back at the same question I was turning over in spring training. Where does this all go? The faces, the names, the stories, the effort, the bus breakdowns, the food deliveries, every single incredible detail of the show, of this groups very functioning, how to pack the trucks, the millions of moving parts, all we’ve remembered, all we’ve already forgotten, forty seven drum corps, a miraculous caravan, a culture… my culture.

//

Where does this all go? Out into the world. Into everything they touch, changing it. Experience of a lifetime absorbed in the human fabric of a culture. Yes, this vanishes, but not without a trace!

//

This feeling of separation across the board is so special to the people of this culture; welcome it, such a crucial part of this experience that connects us and keeps us connected. All those thousands of long journeys home.

Aug 13 - Russell, Pennsylvania

“He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said,” and home is relatively unchanging. Last night I found that everything is, for the most part, right where I put it last–and myself, again sitting at the edge of this garden, a soft grey sky morning now, old coffee cup in hand, old guitar, old notebook, and–no, there is too a sense of something new, a sense that something is different.

//

The garden is full, and I recognize at last the quiet change found in what were once the budding seeds of April, and their journey as they took root and weathered in a summer of sunshine and of rain, into tremendous revelation. Have our last three months not been any different? From a great distance, Rob’s words come echoing back to me. “Grow where you are planted.” 

//

And so, another season has come to an end, and I to another beginning. What is this? Time to take care of myself again, time to let myself be cared for, work is still to come, good work is never finished, but for now, just this soft grey sky morning.

Aug 14 - Russell, Pennsylvania

Where does it all go? I’m back at the same question I was turning over in spring training. Where does this all go? The effort, so much understanding, so much feeling, so much knowing…now un-know. Un-know the details, un-know the way to pack the trucks, the subsets, the dynamics, every second, un-know every second…

//

It goes out into the world, out into nothing. Just to be found again, in another 9 months.

//

Forty seven corps get to take their culture out into the world, watch as they share, watch as they struggle to be understood, watch as they pick up those pieces, watch as they are greeted by their family and friends and dogs and boyfriends and girlfriends and watch everyone look to them so proud. Watch them go on to lead the world, watch them never give up.

Aug 17- Russell, Pennsylvania

The work was simple. Think long term, make fixes that will last, roll up your sleeves and just get it done, because somebody has to and you’re not going to spend your summer waiting. Find quality in the lowest rungs of work; find peace, find happiness, find content, find art, find beauty and ugliness, and everything in between. Find it way down there in the gutters where you’re grimy and sweaty and covered in shards of aluminum, and slabs of greace, find it down there and you’ll find it everywhere else. What a bittersweet joy this week has been reflecting on the last three months, and what thankful times ahead there will be as I continue on learning from this season.

//

From my heart and soul, thank you; Chris, Dann, David, Catherine Nick, Gustavo, Kyle, Jeff, Chad, James, Nick, Andrew, Kim, Michael, Nicole, Gabby, Maddee, Tony, Tiffany, Vi, Cheryl, Jon, Tina, James, Joe, Suzanne, Richard, Richard, Jersey, Bill, Robert, Bill, Mike, Rob, Tokiko, Rachel, Sean, Sean, Sean, Nathan, Alex, Scott, Doug, Mark, Mark, James, Ryan, Andrew, Hunter, Josh, Dallas, James, Dick Jo, Eric, KCP, Jacob, DJ, Dan, Victor, William, Homer, Jay, Nathan, Ted, Cody, Casey, Jules, Brian, Chris, BZ, Baraboo, Matt, Justin, Justin, Andi, Danielle, Emily, Erik, Emma, Aly, Zach, Anna, Paul, Taylor, Noah, Kaitie, Rocko, Kaitie, Ilja, Hijlco, Michelle, Landon, Jack, Duane, Kent, Morgan, Hailey, Josh, Jason, Andrew, Derek, John, Luis, Alex, Connor, Tyler, Preston, Adam, Noah, Paul, Nathan, Brett, Jimmy, Caleb, Ian, Jacoby, Sean, Sebastian, Joe, Gabe, Christian, Perry, Matt, Ethan, Luke, Tristan, Jared, Jaden, Leo, Josh, Megan, Mikal, Tony, Dymex, Andrew, Alex, Justin, Sam, Michael, Braden, JD, Oscar, Michael, Trey, Luke, Luis, Mark, Zach, Kasey, Daniel, Tomer, Carson, Elijah, Brandon, Tanner, Shori, Robert, David, Joseph, Drew, Chad, Andres, Bret, Jackson, Sander, Aaron, Edwin, Kyle, Sam, Dale, Davis, Martin, Sho, Hunter, Eli, Kobie, Austin, Zach, Yutaro, Josh Brandon, Lucas, Enrique, Kiefer, Isaac, Alex, Ashwin, Dan, Noy, Alex, Sam, Matt, John, Zach, Erick, Andrew, Patrick, Markell, Sean, Cooper, Isaac, Gabe, Israel, Kevin, Giovani, Mike, Luis, Jaylen, Darren, William, Eric, Jesus, Mac, Connor, Ryan, Dee, Josh, Bryton, Harold, Ryan, Ryan, Peyton, Dylan, Phillip, Keegan, Carlos, David, Andrew, Jackson, Jake, Sebastian, Sam, Jon, Clay, Sam, Orien, Jake, Jeff, Charles, Charlee, Ryan, Jordan, John, Ben, Tyler Jackson, Matt, Justin, Reed, Tyrus, Austin, Tristan, Conner, Derek, Brady, David, and anyone I might have missed that was genuine, non-pretending, incredible, and helped me get through this summer. Thank you thank you thank you. A little poem that I was introduced to at the beginning of the season that made me think of you every step of the way;

//

“The road seen, then not seen, the hillside

hiding then revealing the way you should take,

the road dropping away from you as if leaving you

to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,

when you thought you would fall,

and the way forward always in the end

the way that you followed, the way that carried you

into your future, that brought you to this place,

no matter that it sometimes took your promise from you,

no matter that it had to break your heart along the way:

the sense of having walked from far inside yourself

out into the revelation, to have risked yourself

for something that seemed to stand both inside you

and far beyond you, that called you back

to the only road in the end you could follow, walking

as you did, in your rags of love and speaking in the voice

that by night became a prayer for safe arrival,

so that one day you realized that what you wanted

had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place

you had lived in before you began,

and that every step along the way, you had carried

the heart and the mind and the promise

that first set you off and drew you on and that you were

more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way

than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach:

as if, all along, you had thought the end point might be a city

with golden towers, and cheering crowds,

and turning the corner at what you thought was the end

of the road, you found just a simple reflection,

and a clear revelation beneath the face looking back

and beneath it another invitation, all in one glimpse:

like a person and a place you had sought forever,

like a broad field of freedom that beckoned you beyond;

like another life, and the road still stretching on.”

-Santiago by David Whyte from Pilgrim