I don't speak much, when I'm on the road.
Hours upon hours of open air solitude, lost in the rhythm of hoof beats and the glint of sun off
impossibly sleek hides. A multitude of spanish voices rising and falling from the grooms,
so many different dialects, cadences.
I think alot, even more than when I'm at home. Read between rounds, or play with the dogs that
roam over the showgrounds despite the fact that there's a rule requiring leashes.
When I have too much down time, I slip on my ear phones, set the ipod to shuffle and walk.
I have walked over every inch of the Georgia International Horse Park.
I don't like Georgia.
But I love this horse park.
The first time I came here, I was young, and a little in awe of the fact that I'd be trodding
the same ground that my olympic heroes had.
Of course, now I've met most of those people, so the glitter has worn off them.
But not this place. Even the ground here shines, like stardust in the sand. I forget which
mineral causes that.
I heard Trenchtown Rock for the first time here. At a music festival when I was...15?
I don't remember.
But the first lines of that song washed over me and everything felt right.
One good thing about music,
when it hits you, you feel no pain
I can live like that.
Like this.
Because I've always been a gypsy.
And it's more than just not being able to stay in one place.
It's the fine, wild, cool wind moving your hair off the back of your neck and whispering secrets
in your ears. It's tan lines on your feet and toes that sparkle from the sand 'cause you ditched
your shoes to climb a tree with a stranger.
And then that stranger becomes one of your best friends.
And it's the community, this traveling circus. The people you see, always the same, but never
the same, because people change with the scenery.
It's bonfires and driving around an unknown town past midnight searching for the last
open bar, but not really caring if you find it, because it's an adventure.
It's beer and martinis and margaritas and shots and tequila rose and so, so, so much wine.
It's "just one cigarette" for each of you, and promising not to tell anyone else we slipped.
It's weathered faces that still look young, some miracle of hard work and quiet joy.
It's eyes that tell endless stories, much better than a voice ever could.
It's a song for every situation, music and laughter ribboning through this life, and you're
thinking it's just decoration-
until you realise that music and laughter are this life.
So hit me, hit me with music
And I write the things I cannot say. The tiny observations. The pauses in conversation, a hitch
in breath before you speak. Your frustration with the smallness of the life you're living,
and your fascination with the intricacies such a microcosm can bring.
I write you, when I can't have you near me. Sketch you out in hurried, flowing script on loose
leaf paper and
cafe napkins
and the blank back pages of books.
Hotel bibles, especially.
If you followed the path I've been traveling, you'd find yourself in each hotel room,
affectionately rendered in vibrant prose, then tucked back in the drawer,
for some other lucky wanderer to discover you later.
Perhaps someone already has. Perhaps they adore you, as I do.