The Telescope And The Microscope

When we zoom out, and look at it all from a big enough distance in time and space, everything looks small. Tiny. Miniscule.

Our own small lives, from a distance, don’t look any different from those of the most influential people and events on the planet, either now, or through the whole of history. It all looks insignificant.

But if we zoom in close enough everything, absolutely everything, matters. It all impacts something. There are no exceptions.

We need both those perspectives. One to keep us humble and liberate us. And the other to motivate us to take responsibility, and to find meaning in our lives.

It’s always useful to have both The Telescope And The Microscope to hand. Hard, sometimes, to know which one we should be looking through right now though.

And perhaps, sometimes, those of us who are constantly trying to “make sense of it all” need to put them both down.

Sometimes this is enough.

A Place Where Neverland Never Was

I’m happy to be a skeptic. Not easily convinced. Not just believing something because somebody, however eloquent or passionate they may be, tells me it is true.

That is a place many of us come to as adults. We should. It’s a kind of growing up that occurs when we first discover that Santa isn’t real. (I’m so sorry if you had to hear it here for the first time!).

For some people this “growing up” is a sad thing. But we really can’t live in Neverland for ever, even if we should undoubtedly take a child like spirit of adventure, excitement and curiosity into the whole of our adult lives. That doesn’t need to die.

So yeah, skepticism is good.

Cynicism, on the other hand, is a different kettle of spiny fish. On the surface, very similar to skepticism, in reality it is place where even the memories of Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, Rudolph and Father Christmas have faded away. The candle has almost gone out. A Place Where Neverland Never Was. A kindred spirit with Bitter Man.

There is, though, an antidote to the cynicism of the cynic in ourselves and others. It is a patient kindness and a compassionate empathy for the child that might still be in there, fighting to get out and stop Mr Skeptic from “growing up” too much.

Spending time, giving space, observing, playing with, talking to Real Children, is perhaps the best way to cultivate this antidote.

A Big Piece Of Rock

This morning after taking my usual walk along to The Field Of Hope I turned back in the direction of town. Right in front of me, hanging luminous over Campbeltown was a full and extravagant moon, shining bright even as the day began, lit up by the sun creeping up over Davaar Island, now behind me.

The moon is just A Big Piece Of Rock with no life upon it. A chunk that broke off from the larger piece that formed our own Earth billions of years ago. Yet it inspires awe. It governs the tides of our oceans. It acts as a muse for the humble songwriter. It can even give rise to hope.

It brings light to a dark night.

And, in this case, to a cold November morning.

If an inanimate piece of rock can do all of that, then perhaps we shouldn’t focus so much on our own limitations.

Love Has Boundaries

Good boundaries are hard to build. I’m speaking about in our personal lives, but what applies there certainly applies in the big, wide world.

A boundary can be so good it keeps everything out. Everyone. But a boundary that good is suffocating. Because everything and everyone needs to breathe. Otherwise it can’t really be called Life.

But a boundary that lets everything in ain’t a boundary. Or if it lets too much in, it ain’t an effective boundary.

And this is all so important, because everything that matters to us is dependent upon building effective boundaries. Our relationships with each other and in the world. Sometime our own personal sanity, and even our individual and collective survival.

I’ve alway been on the “too welcoming” side of boundary building. I don’t find conflict easy, and historically I haven’t found it easy to say no. This isn’t healthy. It often leads to one kind of collapse or another, in the long run.

Dealing with the boundary issues early on in the process of building anything saves a whole heap of trouble later on. But once the trouble happens, the boundary issues still need to be dealt with.

The truth is Love Has Boundaries.

Comfort Zone

Capo The Shark is lying on my desk.

He’s sulking.I was supposed to take him with me to The Gather last night. But I forgot.

Capo doesn’t get out very often. He’s got sharp teeth, but they don’t get used as much as he’d like. It might have been his chance to shine….well to bite down on the neck of my guitar anyway, and help me shine. Perhaps.

Actually, it turned out that his absence turned into an excuse. For me. There was a wee jam at the end with two fiddles, a bodhran, and….well…no guitar. My guitar was tuned down. I could have tuned it up, but “hey, they’re playing already…I’ll just watch”.

Truth is “jamming” is outside my Comfort Zone. I didn’t come to music by playing with other people, as many, if not most musicians do. I honestly find it very difficult.

But it’s not that I couldn’t. It’s really a case of me learning a few simple bits of guitar theory, and getting on with it. I’ve got the chops really.

My apologies to Capo The Shark. Not just for leaving him behind, but for using him as a cop out.

The Dark Streets

Many years ago I wrote a song called Potatoman, one of my earliest songs, which somehow became locally popular, among some young fellas mainly, and made me feel like a bit of a celeb when I occasionally heard the call “hey, Potatoman” in the streets of Campbeltown.

Occasionally, I hasten to repeat.

Anyway, the song contains super heroes, which always go down well I find. But mainly it was a kind of prayer. The key line being “Please don’t let me end up a bitter man”.

I had become aware at the time of how easy it would be, in my own life, to walk down The Dark Streets of bitterness, and never come back.

I haven’t been called Potatoman for a long time, but still occasionally I find myself poking my head into one of those streets again. They seem to offer the opportunity for vindication, “just” reprisals, and the weird satisfaction of being the martyr.

In reality they are just a bad place to be. They bring suffering, and only suffering, and only to the bitter man, or woman, themselves.

The prayer still stands.

Jenny

Another very windy, rainy day in Campbeltown. Walking along the front earlier I heard a familiar sound in an unfamiliar place.

The wren is the smallest bird in Britain, but quite common. It’s most often seen, though usually first heard, darting round in the shrubbery, and the low bushes and bracken. Sometimes in the trees but usually close to the ground. Places with shelter.

Jenny had decided that the place to sing out loud today was upon a very exposed railing along the seafront, facing into the wind. It was a tiny act of defiance, but impressive none the less.

There was shelter to hand. She later popped down to the sloped sea wall where there were plenty of nooks and crevices. But for a couple of minutes she blasted out her best rattly soprano while I, the sum total of her audience, watched in admiration.

I felt like applauding. I really enjoyed the gig. But I learnt a lesson too:

Don’t wait for perfect conditions - Do it now.

The Weather

I was under the weather yesterday, and spent a lot of the day sleeping. Today I’m in the weather. Almost above it.

And though my head is in the clouds, you know what I mean sunshine.

So you’ve got to give it to The Weather - it positively rains down idioms and metaphors upon the humble speakers and writers among us.

Sometimes, we hardly need to do a thing .

A Gap To Be Filled

There’s A Gap To Be Filled somewhere.

-The colouring in book.
-The lull in the conversation.
-The longer wait than expected at the bus station.
-The quiet car journey.
-The few minutes before going to work.
-The misunderstanding
-The silent part of the song.

Or is there?

The Sort Of Things We Do

I think I might have mentioned a fiddler called Jill from Glasgow who ended up playing along with me to my songs at a recent open mic.

Anyway, yesterday, after a bit of time spent working out the logistics over the previous days, I drove for over an hour just to have a jam with her. Ineke, and my son and daughter-in-law who are visiting, came along for the ride. Bout of travel sickness for somebody in the car on the way. Long and winding roads in these here parts.

But the location for our rendezvous was a caravan with a great view of the ocean and the islands beyond. Lovely. And so nice to meet Jill again, who already feels like a friend, despite the brief contact.

And I got to play the song I wrote for, and sang at, my son and daughter in law’s wedding. When Starlight Comes To Stay. But this time with a fiddle accompaniment. Which undoubtedly made things better.

Tharushi cried. Again. Which is always a good sign in these circumstances. And better than puking up.

This is The Sort Of Things We Do. Musicians anyway. Maybe you too.

What’s The World Coming To?

Here is a song lyric from my week away. It’s an upbeat downbeat song.

What’s The World Coming To?

You’d like to think
Maybe you think
That one and one is two
But when you’ve been around a while
You get a different point of view
You start to wonder
Yes you wonder
What’s The World Coming To

Life’s not a puzzle
In a book
With the answer’s in the back
I’d take a peak, if I could
To make up for the brains I lack
I wonder
Yes I wonder
What’s the world coming to

I’d like to see how it all ends
I hope we’ll still be friends
In the end

You get a feeling
Sometimes inside
That things aren’t what they seem
It’s just a feeling, and you don’t really know
What it might mean
You’re only human
You start to wonder
What’s the world coming to

I’d like to see how it all ends
I hope we’ll still be friends
In the end

I lie and watch the dragons
In the clouds
Breathing fire
I can’t decide if they’re going to attack         
Or maybe they’re just happy to see us

You’d like to think
Maybe you think
That we can work it out
We do what we can
You take my hand
Pour faith into my doubt
We’re only human
Can’t help wondering
What’s the world coming to

We’re only human
Can’t help wondering
What’s the world coming to

Now Is The Time To Sing

Yesterday, the blackbird was singing beautifully from the top of an impressive stone cross, among many impressive stone crosses in Campbeltown Graveyard -

“In loving memory of Malcolm Mclaren, died 1901”.

But the singing blackbird, serenading one hundred and twenty two years of loving memory, is alive. Malcolm is deid. And I doubt anyone is remembering him at all now, lovingly or otherwise.

It’s the way of things. It makes today hold more significance.

Now Is The Time To Sing.

Rhubarb And Custard

And yet…continuing on from yesterday…as much as there is everything in the present moment to fulfil us, and is in fact all there really is, how do we move forward, or in fact do anything, without some kind of drive or motivation to push us.

Why not go and spend seventeen years meditating in a cave (like some people actually do!) and ignore the wider world. If it’s all here, right now, why not?

It’s a paradox. Which is another word for saying: “Um, haven’t worked that one out yet”. Paradoxes might in fact be impossible to work out. Maybe they just exist. Like Yin and Yang, Breathing In and Breathing Out, and ….um…Rhubarb and Custard.

Mostly we ignore paradoxes, because they blow our minds.

But they are the edge of the knife where life might well be at its most potent. Don’t know about you, but I’d like to live a potent life.

I suspect that could be the hardest challenge we could ever have.

And the easiest.

Flipping paradoxes. They’re everywhere you look.

No Guarantees

We all know that there is no guarantee of success. In the field of music if that is our thing. Or any other area of ambition.

This is true even if we have a clear idea of what “success” might look like for us. Even if we set realistic goals. No Guarantees.

This makes the steps along the way to that distant goal even more important. Do we enjoy them in themselves? Or could we learn to?

In fact to learn to find contentment and purpose in the steps we are taking right now is perhaps, itself, the ultimate goal. Though it can all sometimes feel a little bit like unravelling the onion and finding that there is nothing in the middle when we arrive.

But that is simply not true. This very moment our conscious minds, and the senses that supply them, are full to the brim with things to notice, to enjoy, or to learn from. If that is “all” there is, it’s still quite wonderful.

And that remains true even if the first thing we notice is our tendency to be never quite satisfied with all the things we could be noticing, enjoying and learning from right now. And the additional tendency to be distracted by the weird internal conversations and battles we seem to have with ourselves.

We’re alive. And we’re conscious. Frickin’ amazing.

Fifteen Minutes In Manchester

I thought I might have left my headphones at the Premier Inn in Manchester the week before, so Gary dropped me off there yesterday, before I caught my bus to Glasgow.

The young lad at reception was very friendly and chatty, as somebody else went to look. He said he’d forgotten his headphones too, when he’d recently stayed at Premier In in Scotland to climb mountain. My ears pricked up.

Me - ”Oh, which hills were climbing. I live in Scotland and do a bit of that myself”
Young Fella “It was Snowdon”
Me - “You mean Wales”
Young fella - “Oh yeah. My geography’s rubbish.”

And I got my headphones. Result.

On the way to the bus station, I got a bit confused. I asked a young lady passing by if she knew the way. She started explaining and then said “Just come with me, I’m heading in roughly that direction” and took me nearly there.

Kindness is everywhere.

Needed a pee at the bus station. But I didn’t have the required twenty pee. A cleaning lady was walking away and I asked if there was a way of getting in. She came back and used her key. After going through I nearly went in the Ladies by mistake. Quick as a flash she said “That’ll cost ya a pound”.

Fifteen Minutes In Manchester and three exchanges which all put a smile on my face.

In The Distance

The sound of the wind In The Distance is not actually happening in the distance.

It’s happening inside my conscious mind.

The concept of my home, at the moment 400 miles away, is also in my conscious mind.

Everything, far and near, is happening right here. In my own awareness.

I think…the mind is an amazing reality that encompasses the whole universe….therefore I am.

Hidden Universe

We’re approaching the end of our songwriting week. Lots of new songs written, both individually and together. It’s been a complete pleasure, as always.

One of the songwriting friends in our band of troubadours has recently released an album in digital format.

Darren Jones is a big man and a lovely fella from the valleys of Wales where we are right now. He combines in his songwriting great observational and sensitive singer-songwriter material, together with huge, hook heavy, rock steady, adult anthems.

He has recently released an album, available in all the usual digital outlets, that somehow combines brilliantly both of these songwriting personas into a fantastically produced collection. Some of the songs were co-writes with other in our group. I’m just gutted that on this occasion I didn’t manage to get myself into the credits.

Despite that obvious oversight on Darren’s part, I highly recommend a listen to Hidden Universe. You can listen to the whole album on Spotify here and purchase the digital version here.

Fortunately I’ve managed to write with Darren this week, so here’s to the next, EVEN better album mate!

A Little Bit Crazy

It was a late one last night. Not as late as the late one’s of old. But still late for me in my present stage of decomposition.

It’s nice to blast away the routines and patterns of daily life occasionally. And just go A Little Bit Crazy. It’s such a privilege to have good friends to do that with too.

I don’t want to burden you with another tale of how grateful I am for….well….so many things. Never the less, I am.

But the funny thing is, there were always great quantities of things to be grateful for. I was just not very good at seeing them in the past. Gratefulness is such a great attitude to develop.

Songs Gone To Seed

On Monday, driving on the way down through Wales, we came upon a most unusual sight. In the middle of the valleys, in the middle of Wales, miles from anywhere, appeared a big field full of Range Rovers gone to seed. Weird.

That scene inevitably found its way into a song. Of which, over the years, our group has written many hundreds together. Many of them, including some real crackers, have got lost to memory over the course of time. That inevitably happens, unless one of us takes a song, and keeps it alive in some way.

Maybe one day though, we will be driving through the middle of the valleys, in the middle of Wales, and happen upon a field full of Songs Gone To Seed.

Who knows? We might even be able to start the engines on one or two of them.

What We’re Here For

Here below do lie one of the song lyrics I have made with my own fair hands over this very week of songwriting, friendship, alcohol, and mayem (though not necessarily in that order) at which I am presently in the process of being on. Ahem.

This one is a reflection on watching our parents growing old and changing, and how that is itself a reflection on our own changing and growing old. Deep, man!

What We’re Here For

Today I’m gonna see
Somebody that I’ve never seen before
But I know who you will be
You will be beautiful I’m sure
You’re everything to me
And it really doesn’t matter
What we’re here for

Today I’m gonna hold
The whole world in my hands
It’s never felt so cold
A fear that I don’t understand
You’re everything to me
And it really doesn’t matter
What we’re here for

Now you’re so old
Seen so many strange happenings
Can’t control
Anything that’s happening
Now

Look it’s beautiful
This blood red sky                                 
Pierces my heart to the core
Take my hand
Let’s drink it in
The glory of it all

Today I’m gonna be
Somebody that I’ve never been before
Your touch has set me free
I just want to see more
And though the autumn leaves
Are falling from the tree
You’re everything to me
And it really doesn’t matter
What we’re here for
What we’re here for
What we’re here for