Clouds

Say the sky is a great canvas, for truly it is. God is the painter. Where rain clouds are mere acrylic, snow clouds are gouache. The former is black and white, but the latter has an elegant complexity that is immeasurable. 

Life is metaphorically identical to a grand cloud. It can only be appreciated from a distance, both for beauty of form, and for understanding of meaning.

Ten Miles from the Magic

I stepped out of the car into the thirty-two-degree wind, plugged in to the music of Blue Highway. Its mood was slightly tense and almost martial. I pull my bicycle out of the car, not knowing how many more miles she has left in her before her pedal shaft locks up. I put her together dutifully and pull up the seat, locking it into place. The moment I begin into the stiff air, the music changes to a calm repose, and I get that rush of motion along with the distinct impression that things are perfectly okay. It doesn't take many pushes on those pedals to get my allotment of inspiration. I pass a deforested field to the right, quickly overtaken by red-brown growth. The sky is blue. A half-moon hangs only slightly above the denuded treeline. I marvel, as I have done many times before, over the indestructibility of beauty. It is the daytime in what would be expected to be the dullest place in South Carolina, but here is this ethereal scene. There is always the sky, and in the south, there is always the comradery of the warm sun, no matter how the north wind may rage.
As the music changes from a country-hall-dance violin in its playfulness to a contemplative shimmering introduction to The Seventh Angel, I am caught, as are the pines, between my eyes and the half-overcast sunlight. It is captivating. These winter pines caught between me and my southern sun, vivified by the muse coming from the headphones got me thinking I should pair my bicycle rides with music more often.

Why Bluegrass?

The answer to this question is simple:

It is the sound of the Blue Ridge Mountains

Now since that response wouldn't make for a very good post, allow me to expound. I've given the immense background -- the 'how' (which was far longer than I had intended) -- now here's the 'why'

I feel bluegrass is a reflection of my soul. It is simple, playful, and demonstrates the brighter, braver side of human nature. Even when the lyrics are sad, the music is happy. It is also the most ambrosial of musics when the tempo slows. After having listened to a lot of jazz, with its beautiful color palate of chords and scales, turning to bluegrass has been refreshingly simple. Its not what notes you play, its how you play them. It matters most the spiritual energy you put into what you play or sing. It comes out as clear as any language of the tongue. One thing I've noticed about the singing through listening to bluegrass is about how the notes are filtered through all the singer's years and joys and sorrows. The stretching sadness. You can hear the miles in their voice. The longer the road, the more powerful it comes out. Its all about how it sounds, how it feels. The sheer variance of instrument tones is something so special too.

I say, give me banjo or give me death. The banjo, the one-instrument musical army, is the five-string harp along with the Gabriel's trump that is the train horn. It is the icy wind blowing through the lonesome pine on the high ridge. It is the old jailbird walking into the setting sun. The dobro is the yearning outcry of the adventurous soul. It is also the romancer. It is the very voice of angels. But it is also the darkest tone of bluegrass. The mandolin, on the other hand, is the light-hearted hobo whistling down the road. It is the hard blizzard. The mandolin is the happy ending, it is also innocent love's beginnings. The fiddle is the processional waltz. It is even the never-ending train, both engine and whistle. It is the fire.

Banjo is spring. Fiddle is the summer. Dobro is autumn. Mandolin is the winter. The upright bass is the mountain. The guitar is the road.

And while the people in the bright city drink and talk idly, the river below rolls forever by.. 
"And the river rolls on like an endless ribbon, and the sunshine glistens on the rocks below. He can hear her voice in the rippling water sayin' 'please be home before the cold winds blow'"
~ Blue Highway

How?

The easterly hills of the southern Appalachia is where my life of wanderlust began. Think Rosman, Brevard, and finally the entire Asheville land. I wasn't born there, but I got there as soon I could. I did not get there all at once either. First came Salem, Carolina. I wasn't even aware of the great stretches that lay out of sight to the north of the Cherokee Foothills as I sped west from Traveler's Rest, the high reaches above veiled by the night fog. From my first morning in Salem creek -- wading in, tasting the water, not even thinking of the mountains (that were SO close!) from which it came -- I knew I wanted more. Cleaner, purer, from a greater altitude. But not yet.
Next came Lake Jocassee, the clearest water in South Carolina. The lake was beautiful and blue along with the small mountains that contained it. Still I did not imagine my mountains. I had lived in this state my entire life. I never knew of rivers and lakes such as this. The most I had seen is black-water of the Pee-Dee and sediment-laden dinge-water of Charleston harbor. All this time, how wearily my soul must have been searching for my body: Wandering the empty vales of the lower Blue Ridge Mountains, spending blustery nights atop Balsam Range, adding its howls of thousands of other lost souls of the wind, winding up and down the Parkway hitching rides countless times, wondering while overlooking the gentle foothills from NC-281.
After a few days of Lake Jocassee, my soul beckoned. It called me up SC-130. When I hit Whitewater Falls just beyond the border, I thought I knew why. I walked further up the state road past the falls, and climbed down a hill and sat by the river under the bridge. While walking back to the car, I caught sight of a clearing of trees. I just sat there and pleasantly contemplated the scene. The impression was unmistakable: You will come back to this spot. I would not see it again until three seasons later. I woke up to the morning horizon outlined in red behind the pines where I was, camping near the head of a trail that leads to the same waterfall. A mile up the road my body and soul found each other. I walked up to the small clearing of trees, and held this same view, but it was softened with the coolest purple and red airs. It felt like home. I felt a gentle warm emotion that the land is all for my joy, that I've known it all along.
With the afternoon came Brevard. I was charmed with the city, mountains seemingly tall from the viewpoint of the valley town. It was a precursor to Asheville. I then turned on the radio and heard bluegrass, and continued to hear it during my drive into Hendersonville. From that point on, the memories of the mountains and the sound of bluegrass banjo pinging my ears like the cold wind were swirled together. All I need to do is listen to that old lonesome music, and I'm back in the Blue Ridge.