Keith
“cooking soup with stale words and fresh meanings; it tastes
so good.”
I also lost a very good friend over the weekend, Keith of
“Dia and Keith” who we often went to dances all over the state with (you can
check out my facebook page about it). Very tragic; sudden death and will leave
a huge hole in our lives, and, of course, Dia’s. I had two bizarre and related things happen
over the weekend; I got to the show down at Highlands and was walking in the
street and saw the guy who set the show up and he said that someone had knocked
over my “fragile culture waltz” piece (that was in the EXEX show) and knocked
the dancers off and they broke! and he didn’t know quite what to do so I said I
would take care of it (the reception was, literally, a few minutes from then
and get it back on the piece. The odd
thing is that it broke right above where the hands are joined for the two
dancers (two arms) and a leg broke off of the man. After Keith died I could not avoid the fact
that their dancing life together was gone and shattered, that their lives had
in fact proved to be fragile and that Keith had also had a damaged leg a week
ago! Then, to top that off; I am not
sure exactly when he died up at the ski basin (on the mountain overlooking both
Santa Fe and Las Vegas), but at about that time I was setting up all of my
musical equipment and had just put my book of lyrics onto a music stand and had
bungied it down pretty well, when, all of a sudden, a microblast of air hit the
stand and completely yanked out dozens of pages of my book and cast them to the
street and against the screen wall nearby.
I got them all back, but that wind was no ordinary wind, like the
butterfly who flapped his wings, sort of thing.......amazing life we lead, even
if these are just coincidences, they send shivers up my spine as I contemplate
the tightness of our lives, thoughts and images and experiences.
North, south, east , west
Rebuilding
‘Yea, we used to have family picnics over here, cause we
lived up north past Silver City, raising livestock and scratching out a living,
getting beat up because we were white, but that was ok; its just the way it was;
we would get on the boulder, run up to the brink, plant our
feet, throw open our arms for that last balance, and make a little screech, , Erhh!,grinning,
like we put on the brakes just in time.’
So Keith and I did it a half century later, like those giddy boys he described,
grinning from ear to ear, scampering around in childish ecstacy. No more little cowboy shirts , boots and hat;
traded in for a cool panama, some shorts and a pair of sandals; boots are for
dancing only; for this re-invented cowboy who knew that the rancher wore the
simple hat; had nothing to prove. But
boyish fun is universal and will not be
stopped. So my brother Keith was up on
the slopes of the Sangre de Cristos, reinventing himself again as a retired man
skiing and became a part of the mountain.
Now, at the time I was in Las Vegas pouring cast iron and playing music
for us, then going over and pouring metal; the windy spirit of profound change
came and his spirit roared off the mountain and became a microburst that blew
my book of lyrics and the bungee that held it down and cast the pages
everywhere; re-shuffled the deck and I
realized the lyrics were gone that Saturday; the music died as fate turned the
page on us; no cheat sheet; gotta persevere beyond that microburst. And the cast iron sculpture entitled Fragile
Culture Waltz in the art gallery nearby was crashed to the floor earlier; breaking
the clasped hands of the dancing couple above their wrists; we rushed to a hardware store and got some
epoxy and I managed to glue them together before the big reception. And his broken leg was repaired too. We all know that a glue job cannot really
replace the solid cast iron that is created by shattering old radiators and such,
melting them down (with some old man singing faked lyrics to old Leadbelly bues) and casting them into a mold. Yes, the glue cracks show, but it seemed to be the right
thing to do; re-make somehow; fake it till we re-make it. I
learned about Keith’s death at 11 that night and I was unable to have a
reaction; my feelings were locked up tight and it was disturbing to be like
that; I realized I would have to re-invent my
locked emotions and accept the
truth somehow; the fun we love just died.
I broke down sobbing the next morning as I watched a clip of him letting
er rip to Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys down south last year. I thought about how how we four, like the main
characters in a compass rose, travelled all about in that Cadillac, having so
much fun for so many years, arriving, Keith parking, then polishing the floors,
thinking; is it really ok to have this much fun; it’s not a sin? Being with Dia and Keith was so much
fun! I remember Keith coming twice to
take my odd painted assortment of plywoods
and particle boards and help piece them together onto shimmed up rough sawn
one-by-six cull wood, destined for a Pecos
woodpile; $1 a board, screwing them down in the hot sun, Keith smiling and
movin boards like he was at his best friend’s
birthday party and there to have a good time. He was reliving his past as a lumberjack and also knew there was a dance at the end of this
or-deal and that a floor with bounce and some smoothness was a good thing. I hope we find ways to pick up the shattered
pieces, re-melt them, perhaps use spit and bubble gum for a while, sweat in the
hot sun, pick up the lyrics that were cast onto the street and get back up on our
horses or cadillacs and ride like the wind towards our own brinks, with our own
grins beneath our own cool hats; not sinning again as we reconstruct our new adventures, in peace. I want to trust
that a sunset is the promise of a sunrise next day, somehow.
As a final note, we
saw Dia and Keith last Thursday; we were just getting ready to leave ‘cause
Belle was getting tired and in walked Keith and Dia and they sat down with us
and we stayed and danced and talked till the Buffalo Nickel stopped playing. We shared the same sort of time that was now
common for us; just being friends and wanting to be there with each other. Some profound talk was exchanged about how
much Keith appreciated having Dia to “keep him
along a good life path”, for instance.
It was special and they invited us to go the next night, too, for Bill
Hearne, but I was super busy that night and we opted out, sadly. What I really wanted to say was that I was
telling someone a few days ago that I go down to the draw, the creek bed whenever
I am getting ready to do something important or I need guidance….and I am never
let down by the experience. This morning
I walked all the way to above the falls, looking for signs of water in this
drought. I noticed that the watercress
patch that I had planted near the creek, in a spring 20 years ago was gone; finito;
no signs of green, no trickles of water.
I thought about what I should do next; go back to Chimayo and get
another bunch after the drought breaks, just forget it and go on with my life,
what. I don’t have the answer. The other thing that occurred to me because
of all the rocks down there, that there are different kinds of rocks, some that
you could carve a cool basin out of with the right tools and some that we call
huecos; they are natural bowls that catch water and share freely with the
animals and humans after the rains; they are not the kind of thing you can
just say, “I think I will go find a
hueco today”, like saying “I will go
find a metate today”. Well Keith was
like a creekbed hueco; naturally
sculpted, generous and beautiful and very hard to find and you are always
amazed and glad when you do see one, because you are in the presence of
greatness. As one other final note, I wanted to mention
that Keith pointed out a very cool framed quote on the way to the bathroom of
one of their favorite restaurants in Silver City the last time we were
there. Of course we were treated like
royalty once they saw Keith and Dia but what he pointed out was the piece on
the wall that said,
thanks
