Coalescing

Summer is in full swing, hot and heavy. The air hangs humid over Boston. ACs hum and rattle in the windows. The hose drips, water pooling on the hot driveway sending up wisps of steam. Chimney swifts dart across the patches of sky between the trees and roofs, catching flying insects. The city breathes in and out. It is the time of year when the creep of green in the undergrowth has slowed in anticipation of the fall. Goldenrod is already blooming.

Life has been full -- and busy. It has been an unfurling, an unwinding, and an unravelling. New and evolving friendships, new responsibilities at work, the first quarter of my 28th year. Toni and I are moving in September to a one bedroom on the other side of Davis Square. We signed the lease last week. Much has been in flux, and it has been hard to keep track of all the threads - work, family, friends, home.

Still, I have been making the most of the summer months. I have spent time with bodies of water -- the Atlantic, the Mystic Lakes, the Mystic River. For the Fourth of July, I gathered with family at Bear Island on Lake Winnipesaukee. We swam from the dock, took the boat out tubing, and drank cold beer in the afternoons. We walked to the mail dock to meet the U.S. Mail Boat Sophie C., and ran around with new little cousins, a next generation up at the island.

I spent the weekend after in Southwestern Vermont for a good friend's birthday. We walked two miles to an old sugar house in the Merck Forest & Farmland Center. We waded in the creek, cooked kebabs over the fire, played Spanish-suited cards - cups, coins, swords, and clubs - and went jumping at the quarry in town during a cloudburst. 

Later in July, I went back to Bear with a group of friends for more of the same - cards, good food, swimming...the works. This weekend, I am off to Los Angeles to help record the next Edward Glen record and to spend some time outside of New England for a change.

I am hoping for a coalescing. I have a few new songs percolating, about growing up, facing anxiety, looking for grounding and meaning. I have been lucky enough to get to play some of them live over the past year or so. With any luck, they will come together into an album soon. I have been itching to start recording again, and I got some new equipment for my birthday. I'd like to start in the fall.

For now I am taking it day by day, taking more photos, spending time with loved ones, playing when I can. I'll leave you with the lyrics of my newest:

In the depths of my dreams, there's a place that I once knew
A long, lonely way from my heart
And I'm longing to be there when this living is through
I can just about see it through the dark

Oh, Massachusetts, where I'm longing to be
Oh, that's where I go every time I fall asleep

My hair is growing longer, it's splitting at the ends
I should cut it, but I can't seem to find the time
Tryna manage all my money, tryna keep up with my friends
Tryna process every thought that's on my mind

But it's been five long years since I got this job
Where the time's gone I don't know
And it don't feel like home, I need something more
Just a little piece of you to call my own

Oh Massachusetts, where I'm longing to be
Oh, that's where I go every time I fall asleep

Oh Massachusetts, where I'm longing to be
Oh there's a place I know where the boardwalk crosses the creek
Underneath the willow tree
I can see it in my dreams
Every time I fall asleep