Zeus

In the Spring of 2014, I returned to Ashland after about a three year tour around the country performing in many homes to small groups of neighbors and friends from the West Coast to the East Coast, Northeast to Deep South and plenty in the Midwestern part of the country. 

This process stripped me down to the bone emotionally. There was a point a couple of years into it that I realized I was telling people I was “on tour”, which I was, but I was also without a home, and I felt it, big time. There were a few people who granted me longer stays in their homes, or in structures on their property. But the truth was I could never make much more than what it would take to get to my next stop. I was doing little concerts where I performed my original music on my cello with backup tracks I had composed and also sharing poetry I had memorized from Rumi, William Stafford, Mary Oliver, Kabir, Naomi Shihab Nye and some of my own. Each poem had its own little soundtrack, a journey in music through the journey of the poem. The effect was mesmerizing. It was mesmerizing to me and it also created a great intimacy with the people in the audience so it was a constant relearning for me that poetry and music can land deeply inside people and move them in unexpected ways. 

But it was also, somehow, heartbreaking. I was often hosted in the home of the person who had hosted the concert, and felt connected in a beautiful way, that we had shared something unforgettable. Then I would pack up all my gear once again, put it all in my van and head down the road, sometimes eight hours to my next destination. And repeat that process. In three years, I did more than 200 concerts. 

There were reasons why I thought I might be able to keep going and many more reasons that began to pile up that let me know I had to land again. I had to have a home. And there were various considerations for where that would be. I felt like a free agent and that I might be able to make a home anywhere, but this wasn’t true at all. I had effectively become a kind of mystical troubadour and there are no ready and waiting jobs for such people, almost anywhere. 

I did not expect, actually, to return to Ashland, the little town I had left three years earlier. I carry various prejudices around with me, almost like grudges, and I had already come up against the power structure in Ashland and found these people to be profoundly unimaginative. One of the qualities I least respect, but perhaps the exact quality one needs to run a town. 

But I exist in my own little world and I do not necessarily perceive all things in an omniscient sort of way, even if I may think I do on occasion. 

However all that may have been, I had a good friend I could stay with in Ashland for a short time on my way to Portland, where I thought I would be able to make a home. The circumstances for my stay in Portland changed one day as I was actually on the road to that destination and I simply turned around and returned to Ashland as the closest beachhead I could find to land.

And then, so many things happened very quickly, all as if planned. 

I came to the park, where I had played for two seasons three years before. I said a prayer, as one does, to ask for a sign, that playing there in the park could be a way I could sustain myself. 

On that particular afternoon a college choir, a group of young singers, happened along where I was playing in the last hour of their field trip to Ashland. Within a very short time, almost by silent communication,  they stood in front of me on the benches and the stone wall and sang Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah” as I played it. Then one by one they shook my hand and told me it was a very good thing I was doing and I should keep doing it. 

I would have been a fool - I was a fool but not that foolish - to ignore that sign. It was exactly what I needed to become devoted to an almost daily ritual of playing. 

In those days, I may have played as many as six days a week. I may have played for two hours. I may have played for three hours. I was both desperate for money and desperate to share the one thing I knew how to do that would both satisfy myself for its beauty and could see myself satisfying others. Direct spiritual and emotional satisfaction.

Then, I met L, a singularly attractive woman with dark eyes that resonated with the deep feelings I was expressing as I played.  I thought she meant, when she introduced herself, that her name was Elle. But no, she had legally changed her name to the letter L, which is one of the most novel and superb choices, I think, that anyone could make. It says so much about her, how on point it is, and also the letter that begins “luscious” and “love” and “ learning”. All of those qualities were about to become part of my “life”. 

There is another story I will tell on these pages about how we actually began to get together, but this story is about Zeus, my electric bike. 

In those days, when I would come into the park, I had a big red flatbed dolly that I carried all my gear into the park on: my cello, a little battery powered amp, a stool, a laptop, a music stand. This made a huge clatter of noise as I made my way into the park. It was also very cumbersome because my van had to be parked and could be there only for two hours. I wasn't always done by then. 

Also, the van was close to useless by this time. It had so many mechanical problems, it had become much more of a liability than an advantage. I sold it for $200.

Now I was without transportation, living up a hill with L, carrying my gear down the hill on this dolly and back up at the end of my session in the park, like Sisyphus. Almost impossible to do every day. 

L’s son Gabriel came to town for a visit. He was a bike mechanic. He suggested looking for a cargo bike, ideally, an electric cargo bike. L had a friend who was a bonafide philanthropist, a woman who helped the world in dozens of ways as a matter of her daily life. We all went together to the only shop in town that sold electric bikes. It was quite a new thing at the time. 

The man, Jerry, who had opened this shop, in his own visionary way, showed me a Yuba Mundo cargo bike. He had me test ride it with my cello on it. He showed me how I could strap the cello onto the bike. It worked. It was amazing. This philanthropist lady, Lucy, bought the bike for me. It was a big investment. There was something about me and what I was doing and L and who she was that made this possible. It was, after the college choir, and meeting L, the third big miracle I had encountered since I landed in Ashland. 

I named the bike “Zeus”. Obviously.

After about three years it became clear that the company that made the electronics and battery for the bike was going out of business. Jerry said I needed to replace the whole electrical system. It was about a $1200 job. I think I got donations for a large part of that. When he got done he said he would never try doing that again. It wasn’t easy. But Zeus was better than ever with that fix. Zeus went so fast now I needed a new suspension fork so it wouldn’t be such a hard ride over the bumps at upwards of twenty miles an hour. I got that. I took care of the bike, got a new seat, new pedals, eventually a new battery. 

It has been a full ten years I’ve been riding this bike. It is my only form of transportation besides walking. If I have gigs out of town, I have to get a ride, or take a Lyft. I add to the price of a gig so I can pay somebody to drive me. 

I feel like I haven’t been able to stop for ten years to study to get my license again, which expired eight years ago, or to take the road test, which I would have to do, and I have never had the money to buy a car even if I were to drive again. I work all the time, it seems like. Time off is quite rare. 

It is an odd fact of my life that to make my life work I have had a form of transportation that can easily navigate this little town, that I can roll right into the park to play, that I only have to pay for the upkeep of that, no insurance.  Otherwise, I can get around either with L or get a ride with a friend. 

As I write about it, it sounds handicapped, a strange choice, but on the other hand, like many things in my life, it has been a pure joy, to be able to get around in this way. So easily. So smooth. So free. 

About a week ago, Zeus started making a crazy whirring sound, something like a motorcycle. I took the bike to the shop that is nearest to me, Piccadilly. Jerry is gone now and Brendan and Gus have replaced him at a new shop full of beautiful new electric bikes. 

Brendan looked at Zeus, while I had some coffee and a blueberry muffin at Noble. It is right next door, almost, to my favorite coffee shop. I got a text from him saying the hub motor and the rear wheel need to be replaced, probably a $500 job. Five hundred dollars I don’t have.

Because L and I have recently moved closer to town, I can walk to get groceries. It is winter time now. I don’t need to go to the park to play. The one thing I had to work out is how to keep doing my workouts, which I do at the Y. To be precise, I do two workouts a week at the Y, which is about a 35 minute walk away, and one at home with kettlebells. All these workouts are programmed by my friend Nathan, who runs a crossfit gym called Iron Haven, that is also about a 30 minute walk away. Nathan sends me a spreadsheet every week and I do everything on that spreadsheet, deadlifts, bench presses, probably thirty different moves, all told. I’ve been doing that for over two years now and it has been just about the best thing I have ever done. All of me feels better when I work out. And I am stronger than at any time in my life. 

What is the solution to Zeus, and what is my immediate solution to the lack of transportation? My immediate solution to the workout problem was to ask Nathan to program three kettlebell workouts each week, for now. I can do them at home. Everywhere else I can get to walking. 

The solution to Zeus is a decision about whether to keep Zeus, put the money in, and see how much longer I can extend the life of this ride that has been so magnificent for me over the years, or, whether to try to wrap my mind around finding about $4000 to buy a new bike that would be adequate to the tasks I have for it. 

It is early December. I have enough money to get through this month. I have a game plan, but I don’t know if it will work. I will tell you my game plan in my next post. This is all very strange. Many people will think I am crazy. I am pretty crazy. I made a lot of progress today on my musical portrait, which will have Sisyphus in the name.