Dark Road Diary, Part 58: Fallow

I’m at the door of a greenroom somewhere, in the midst of remembering the first gig of this tour six months earlier.

“It’s amazing,” I say, “to be on this side of all the Nights. Time surely passes.” 
I’m tucking the wires of my earbuds behind my ears while Jenkinson reaches behind his back to turn up the monitor pack clipped to his belt.
“Time IS passing,” he says, nudging my statement towards a clearing and bringing us into the moment. We walk out to the microphones.

There would be a couple more Nights, a few more strange beds, a few more airports, a few more rental counters, a bout of Covid on top of jet lag, then the final Night, and then…nothing. Or the illusion of nothing.

Aware of the extraordinary privilege of doing that we get to do for a couple hours behind the mics, we commit/submit to repetition—play/sleep/wake/travel/play/sleep/wake. Somewhere in the dullness of the repetition, the extraordinary becomes ordinary.  At face value, tour dates on a calendar come across innocent and above suspicion, even comforting, but they conceal consequences of the days in between and the months before, and the weeks after, riddled with details, pratfalls, pitfalls and immeasurable impact. Impact on the body, the planet, family, the helpers, the bank account, the nervous system…especially the nervous system, which can take only so many cycles of torquing and uncoiling before it becomes flayed, frayed, and played out.  So, somewhere along the sine wave of the doing and undoing of each Night we have quiet conversation, both of us on our bellies, commando crawling to the edge of ending. Or pausing. Or ending.

“It’s more like ‘fallow’,” I say. “You’re a farmer. You get it.”
He nods in agreement, but doesn’t say anything, letting the image be, I suppose:

a plowed field
muted hues of brown, gold, and grey
an act of will, denying the gratification of planting and harvesting in favour of recovery and regeneration.

The soil broken, but not not seeded.

gh
December 26, 2023, Guelph