I Love This Lifestyle

This morning I stood at the stoplight waiting to cross the flood of traffic that washes through downtown Jefferson City's highway 50 at 7:30 AM. People in a hurry, people back to the routine of daily life after a weekend honoring our vets, or at least, a weekend with an excuse to let their hair down and likely put a drink in their hand. These were people on a schedule, people with big important things to do. Workers chasing the dollar - their security blanket in life. Mothers taking their children to school...or to play dates, or to the doctor, or wherever it is they needed to go.

It was another great moment of revelation to me as I stood there, waiting for the pixelated white walking man to signal it was safe to cross. I realized just how different my life was compared to the people in their fiberglass and metal missiles that projected them to their destination. I thought about how the morning began. For them, there was likely the buzz of an alarm clock - the angry sound of an unwanted visitor forcing itself into their slumber. Maybe they had a cell phone tone, which, even though may have been a welcome tune in the past, a favorite song perhaps, inevitably becomes a beast of burden when you have to wake up to it every day. In their groggy stupor, after likely hitting snooze a time or two, they stumble out of their comfortable, dry, warm bed to face the day.

Women "put on their faces," and dress in cute attire, or perhaps formal skirts and blouses. They spend their time dolling themselves up, as society has taught them to do. They make sure they're clean, make sure their fragrance is appealing, ensure they have the appropriate amount of professionalism and feminism. Men maybe put on their business suits, shave, shower, and head for the door. Perhaps they carry laptops and cell phones - their indubitable necessities to stay connected with the world, or so they think. Women and men, mothers and children, husbands and wives, all pile into their motorized chariots, fill the cabin with modern age vibrations, and hustle off to join throngs of other people going about capitalist business as usual.

I, on the other hand, experienced quite a different morning. Just before daylight, I heard the sound of a multitude of birds singing from their roost, fluttering about, getting a jump on the day before most people are even awake. The sounds of nature (and perhaps a car or two) were my early morning wake-up. It was a little chilly. After you have laid on the hard, clumped up ground enough times it actually becomes oddly comfortable - but most would say it is as uncomfortable as it gets. I opened my eyes to the hiking trail below me viewed from my perch beneath an overpass...and gazed out at the stream rushing with water from last night's rain. My blanket is dirty and covered in straw, a nice bedding out in the wild. I'm dirty also, and have only one pair of extra clothes that I alternate between. I look at my bag, which has hygiene items and a few odds and ends, and I look at my guitar, my beloved Sweet Pea, and I smile.

That's right, I smile. A legitimately happy, care-free, welling up from within and can hardly contain it stupified grin. I've got $1.00 to my name. However, I've already made many new friends in Jefferson City. Like Brenda and Jim from the Redtail Lounge, who enthusiastically have invited me back to play music any time I want. They even let me sleep at the lounge the night before last, and take Sweet Pea on nights that I get tired of carrying her. Jenny and Tracy of The Mission have invited me to open for an act in the near future - a paid gig! Can you imagine?! And let's not forget Farmer's Market on Saturday's, which I happened upon while ambling around Jefferson City one day. Isabelle was gracious enough to encourage me to come back and fill the market place with good vibes.

And that's what it is about to me. It is about freedom in obscurity. To be a stranger to the normal and dear friend to the unique, the ubiquitous...the chaos. It's about stopping and playing music for a man who is down on his luck, and seeing the smile cross his face that moments ago bore the creases of sorrow. It's about taking the little money that I have and giving it to the woman who was pregnant with twins (7 months along), who had lost her job because of her pregnancy, and her husband had been laid off - it's about giving her $10 to get lunch. It's about befriending the homeless vet that the state had screwed out of disability - a man obviously disabled from the way he walked, a man who had a heart attack, a 58 year old hero to this country that most people probably view with disdain as he ambles down the street, sweat dripping off of him because at his age and in his health he cannot handle the heat. It's about giving him my last $5 so he has gas to get to where he needs to go. It's about putting positive energy into the universe, it's about what the Buddhists refer to as Bodhisattva and Karma, it's about aligning myself with where I should have been going all along.

I love this lifestyle.