The Stone's Journey
But then the stone sinks. Just like that. Can’t skip forever across the pond, no matter how skilled the hand who threw the stone. What can the stone do as it sinks to the bottom of the pond? Adapt. Shift perspective from the thrill of the outer open-air landscape to the muffled, murky waters swirling around the rock’s contours. And then land on the sandy pond bottom—or perhaps muddy, rocky, or plant-covered.
If the rock is also an alchemist, each transition becomes the way to epiphany. What if the rock wasn’t thrown? But took a running leap onto the pond’s surface? Yahoo! Going for the ride!
The rock as spiritual traveler, wanting to experience the full journey, the journey of being the ‘traveler’ through time and space.
I am the stone—always asking myself, Who am I now?
I have a dear friend who often pushes up against himself—fighting the impulse to live off the "old" stories of his life. It seems that our brains want the comfort of the old stories, and I get annoyed with my own thoughts, and sometimes, the spoken-out-loud words of “this is just who I am”.
Inertia? Laziness? Apathy?
Yet, even within my own comfort-seeking, I have been many ‘people’ over my decades. When I scan back to my early twenties into my early thirties, I cringe. Who would I be now if I held tight to who I was back then? Oh, dear.
Luckily, I stammered enough to allow my story to break down, like within the meaning of the Tarot’s Tower card’s carnage. But, if I can let the carnage settle out, all the necessary pieces are right there for the reconstruction. The pieces just got all jumbled up for a bit-- a narrative gone rogue.
In a recent On Being podcast interview between Krista Tippet and Christiana Figueres, the conversation migrated towards Darwin and his theory about “survival of the fittest”. According to Figueres, people mis-interpreted Darwin’s intention. More accurately, she felt, he meant “survival of the fit”.
Those who survive are those who can adapt to the changing environments, both outer, physical ones, and the inner thought environments.
Alchemy? Transformation?
Hanging onto what we have previously identified with becomes the resistance we then must overcome.
Without resistance, the story can stumble, all messy and bruised. Only then can the journey start to self-correct.
Am I only who I was pre-travel? As a traveler?
Poet Lisa Olstein added that “nailing an image down to ‘story’ diminishes what is being offered. Each word, each image, each story, opens like a Pandora’s box away from the pre-determined (my interpretation) storyline.
But why do we choose to share one memory over another? When and to whom? That’s the Pandora’s box right there: the motivations, both pre-meditated, and oblivious. She felt that the story becomes a consumer good for sale, for manipulation--a spectacle to bring attention to the self.
Maybe the story gets shared to find belonging? Create separation? Manipulate an outcome? Find commonality?
She added that ‘Language itself is both haunted and haunting’—histories and embodied experiences invite a relationship between another and the storyteller.
When I first came through Austin in 2014, I found a ride back to the youth hostel where I was staying, from the Broken Spoke dance hall along South Lamar St. I had no vehicle at the time. Already I had learned there was nothing “free”—my fare was to listen to my driver’s story.
And he had a juicy story to tell. It went right to the heart of my own identity as a musician. This is what I shared at the time:
Trained in classical music as a pianist and conductor, my driver/dance partner shares his journey out of poverty and into the making of millions of dollars, as lawyer and commodity broker. He tells me about the stress, the fast pace, the money and how he never looked back to music. He tells me about his wife and kids and the high life in NYC, the economic demises, the loss of millions of dollars. He tells me of a new business venture that will either make him back the millions, or leave him totally broke. The stress now is too much for his wife, he foretold her leaving him, and the damage is too great to repair the deep love he still has for her. Even if the millions come back into the bank account. What I don't find out as we pull into the driveway of the hostel, is why he is in Austin.
I will never know how embellished his tale was, or even if any of it was based in truth. But I listened, and felt, and bought the commodity.
The key is in the sustained act of attention. If distracted, or apathetic, the subtleties of the unfolding tale lose voice. Word choice, inflection, tone all hone the sale price.
One has to be brave enough to stay attuned to the relationship between thought and word within oneself, and spoken word with others. My embedded experiences always haunt me —my own personal Pandora’s box of memories— stories no longer relevant. Are they all a consumer good once archived?
At the reception afterwards, I was approached by a woman who whispered to me how she could feel the wings of Icarus cracking apart, melting, disintegrating. She was totally impressed by my interpretive choice on that last note. I did not want to lie. Instead, all I could mutter to her was how difficult it was to get that last note just right. My inability to sustain the note opened a door of emotional experience for my listener.
And there it was—the edge, the deeper mystery.
A shared spectacle of vulnerability.
And perhaps, I share these stories here and now for that same reason?
The Old Story Morphs into the New
I’ve been coming to Austin since 2014 when I sought out honkytonk dance halls to bring me closer to my love of two-stepping to western swing and country bands.
Like the Broken Spoke, sitting defiantly as a one-story funky dance-dive in the midst of the multi-storied city-growth all around it. Same with the Little Longhorn Saloon on North Burnet Street north of the capital area—an architectural sore thumb in the city’s glitz. Not to mention the weekly chicken-shit bingo taking place there.
At the Longhorn, I first heard longtime artist Rosie Flores and her band perform high energy dance tunes. This was the last time I danced to her music until recently, when she was at a different kind of new-city venue: the Austin Beer Garden Brewery, fondly known here in Austin as ABGB. People drinking craft beers and chomping down pizza slices. A handful of dancers crowding up the small concrete dance floor.
Now with my own personal dance partner, the story changes. I don't need to seek out partners. I can pick and choose who and when and why. As can my sweetie. We dance with each other, with others, and within the moods and complexities of our relationship.
Behind the history of these new-story city-chic venues, in the outlying towns, old dance halls lay dormant until some special event pries open the doors to puckering wooden floors and musty wall boards, uninsulated against the elements.
Transitions take time as my nervous system shifts from the adrenaline of wild adventures to the adrenaline of moving around a large city. Austin is now ranked as the tenth largest city in population in the United States at 964,177 (2021 census). If I can set my mind just right, I can feel my way into the city’s wildness, as I would any other wilderness journey. Like seeking elusive wildlife out in nature, I seek out experiences of the urban-nostalgic, along with the outlying unknown, dance halls and favorite bands.
Since the return to Austin from Colorado, Utah, and Arizona in mid-October, I’ve observed myself against the calendar, waited for the opening, stayed focused on book manuscript process and progress. Hunkered into the tasks at hand, donned the dancin’ boots, decided to bake yummy tarts like the most recent limoncello liquor-infused lemon tart with hand-dipped chocolate-covered graham crackers. I’ve tried to let my story sputter…be messy.
The Whisper leads the Dance
Thanksgiving in solitude amongst the sand granules, sunrises and sunsets, stars twinkling against a blacker sky. Maybe freshly caught jackfish grilling over a charcoal-induced flame for our holiday meal. But this seashore is messy, too, and our evolving stories dance amongst the flotsam, as they should, to un-moor us each from our archival clinging.
Reconstruction if we can find a way to sit, attentive, amongst the shards.
Or the more subtle vibration of a small stone tossed back and forth in the Gulf water’s tidal froth polishing the rough spots into a smoother story.
Alchemy.
Perspective shift stuttering its way into a new story......for now.