THE 2020 METAPHOR - PART III

III.

The return to the stage was familial and significant with certainty that I held a space of pride unique only to myself. Of the few hundred watching from the backside balconies of the DoubleTree Hotel, and dozens of personnel, organizers, technicians, crew members and bandmates - I was given a long anticipated collaboration between my beloved wife and the only other woman to occupy a space in my heart reserved for my two blood sisters. The unassuming pairing of Belle Plaine and Jess Moskaluke was anything but. We were all flaunted over by coordinators and promoters and I was lucky enough to be included in the mix, beaming in my role of support. Yet somehow, returning home up the street a heaviness set in like the evening was a visitation dream from a loved one. Melanie and I analyzed until four o’clock in the morning - everything we longed for in the lives we had committed to. We leaned into our gratitude and slept until 11.

If Krugofest taunted the festival longing then our one-off performance in Vernon, BC, remaining through all uncertainties, teased the road. It hardly made financial sense to drive half-way across the country for an acoustic vineyard performance but we did so with enthusiasm. We allotted a week to confront the world beyond our city limit, a refusal to be further hindered by a pandemic. A pit-stop in Calgary complete with “have you been safe, we’ve been safe” heads ups. Days on the move and nights in the van. A substantial amount of new material to finally sus-out in front of a sprawling audience distanced off into the apple trees - stern direction to not visit tables among other intelligible guidelines. A performance without personal interaction and appreciation robs intimacy - nothing short of a sensual disappointment. It’s why we do what we do. Again, Melanie and I felt guilt as we packed the gear, unsatiated. We took the following day to float. A scorching Okanagan sun, a hidden glacial lake, a cooler of fruit, books, weed and each other - it was baptismal. We putzied home and I prepared for an early harvest.

In opposition of spending all waking moments in Melanie’s line of sight our autumn was to be spent apart. I headed back to the family farm in Kennedy, pulled the combines out of storage and hammered the barley crop. An unregulated sleeping pattern and prolonged sitting reminiscent of fall touring. This, for the first in five years, not wandering down into The Appalachia, our serendipitous second home. However, for the first time since the previous summer’s touring I was completely fulfilled with the work. If I wasn’t in total flow with the machinery, I was maintaining or problem solving. A new philosophy with my brother and sister succeeding the family operation had low levels of pressure and tension...undoubtedly contributed to by the news that Clyde’s radiation treatments were a success. Never to wish our struggle on any family operation but nothing could give perspective like it. 15 hour days filled with abundance and gratitude.

As a long time listener of talk radio, its programming had become poisonous by manipulating the hurt that rural communities were feeling leading into the upcoming provincial election. Conscious word usage and destructive narratives were feeding an unsettled population and an increasing amount of lunacy was being accepted under their boasting of Saskatchewan’s smartest listener - a title which I had connected with. Advertisement space was lude as a water system company promised to remove the orange from your panties or some vile low level scripting as such. Callers were given air time with their hatred not only encouraged but amplified with one building off the other and filling up hours of division. It was sickening. I had the wherewithal to reject its attempt at entertainment and if not sit in silence, better choose the aggression I would lend my attention to. I fell deep into the catalogues of Jedi Mind Tricks, Kendrick Lamar, Tribe Called Quest, Run The Jewels and Wu-Tang. Inspired by the fearlessness, intelligence and freedom in lyric. When my nephews joined me for their daily ride-along I introduced them to the genius of Roger Miller.

Attuning to the vibration and hum of such a Herculean piece of equipment was transcendental and at 5 miles per hour, void of distraction, harvest is spiritual. With machinery operating in its ultimate efficiency it makes music; the rhythm of a header, the hush of the straw, the pitch of the belts, the bass of the engine, the syncopation of the thrash. The harmonic peacefulness naturally gave way to invocation and eventually synchronicity and connection. In one of many phone conversations with my friend Chris Henderson, I felt an immediate pang where my daily water intake was in need of expulsion. I disengaged the combine’s pickup, committed to a return phone call and hopped to the ground. I immediately recognized the shape of a rock amid the stubble at my feet as I had scoured the ground for one since my childhood, its oblong rendering and grooved centre. As I picked it up I time traveled and struck a connection to ground which it laid, the ancient tool forcing a profound sense of who I was, who I was not and a responsibility to examine. Considering leaving it where it lay, my heart gave insight that I was given a gift and I vocally accepted.

Melanie’s six week solitude and continuing home repair was transferred back to me. I returned to Regina and she left for a month-long stay in Ottawa and Pembroke, spelled in to give care after a heart-breaking accident. Her best friend slipped off a trail, down a waterfall, and airlifted to Ottawa. Her recovery as a paraplegic and still in the hospital. Melanie flew east to do whatever she could do to provide support.

In all its distress, I took advantage of the extended period alone by implementing a writing regiment and further working the self-discipline. With a couple months of notes I was also engaged in our political landscape and fired out a lyrical statement by putting new teeth to “Where Have All My Horses Gone?” Packaging it as the first release in a digital concept series titled Intersessions. The fearlessness embodied in my harvest playlist and discovery of the grooved maul was transformative. I voted in the provincial and municipal elections and returned back to the farm to finish up fall fieldwork before the snow came, disking under dry sloughs and concentrating on my role as an uncle.

I welcomed Melanie home with only a few odd tasks remaining in the completion of our home while mixed messages and election pandering saw Saskatchewan’s deadliest COVID numbers to date. Wishing to escape the remainder of the year without drama, we were not spared as “patriots” and “freedom fighters” marched up the street entitled in their dogma, racism, conspiracy and misinformation to continually piss on the graves of loving and hard-working Saskatchewan people, not to mention their affront to an exhausted force of frontline workers. The Saskatchewan country music community already acquainted with one of the organizers of the rallies as he approached many of us in all our vulnerabilities as a talent agent with a Nashville producer hook-up, access to direct major label pitching, an unparalleled belief in our community, his contact having a price tag in the thousands. He was smooth with the right words to individuals like myself desperate for advancement. Having just been taken for almost $10,000 in a much similar manner from a Toronto radio promoter, I was already humiliated into declining the next shot at the big time. The Toronto radio promoter’s untimely end came as he was struck by a tractor-trailer on Ontario’s 401 while, ironically, in need of assistance.

As the holidays approached our home was completed. Our small splurge on bathroom wall tile installed in a herringbone pattern was once justified by an expected busy touring schedule, my conservative shortcoming of spending the money before it’s in the bank. Nonetheless, I sink into a new bathtub and am calm in my surroundings. The kitchen had hardwood under the three layers of linoleum and we benefited from a cabinet hook-up from a close friend in the industry. Little rewards. We spent Christmas away from my family and adhered to visitation guidelines by getting Grandma Laila, still living alone in Tisdale, all to ourselves. Just the three of us for five days of reading, eating Lefse, setting puzzles, word games, rummy and rest. We kissed Grandma and returned to Regina.

2021 will be. We are in the midst of an exponential growth of technology, crumbling political deficiencies, unbalanced opportunity, a raging pandemic, all giving way to a complete restructuring of our daily survival. Everyone affected to different capacities yet all relevant in their effect on the world. Every action from every individual able to completely shift swaths of events in one decision. Never a greater time to recognize your own genius, your own individuality, your own force. The hurt is transformative, the unsettled is destined, the moment is passing. We are all enough with the opening of our eyes in the morning and however another day plays out, worthy simply by existing.

Another New Year in the house. No show. Charcuterie and Pixar’s Soul. We FaceTimed my nephews, all wild in their personalities - Clyde, growing his hair out, its new curly softness, him wanting it short on the sides, kinda long on the top and really long at the back.

I say it outloud, how lucky we are, in the presence of a five year old who is already a legend.

THE END

Thank you everybody for taking the time to read this reflection. I did an update on Instagram that further digs into my vision for the coming bit and where I will be putting my energies. In short, I will be experimenting with longer form prose, my INTERSESSIONS digital music series, and a handful of other initiatives developed to assist in the business model shift. The most helpful actions anyone can take right now is to leave a comment and subscribe at the link below or at the top of the page.

You have my gratitude as I look forward to delivering the change I want to see on this crooked old earth.

BLAKE