Sun and snow are arguing over which one of them gets to wallpaper the sky outside my window as I write this. Shafts of sunlight like alabaster pillars suspend the heavens while phantom snowflakes tango hither and yon in the air, elusive as spots on a leopard flickering through underbrush. The odd visual is like a cosmic glitter ball rotating above the dance floor of Earth. In what other phenomenon could you witness the silver rush of snowflakes as silhouettes?
In
a few minutes I will be out in it, face raised to be washed by liquid diamonds
melting on my brow and shimmering on my lashes. You can’t find water more holy
to be baptized in than liquid diamonds. But then, maybe it’s common across the
Universe. I read recently of a planet where it may be raining liquid rubies and
sapphires! That’s one of the theories to explain the way light is flickering
over its surface and is supported by spectrum analysis. Too crazy? Maybe. But
the other explanation is that the light is bouncing off alien mega-structures
above the planet. Talk about a planetary glitter ball. I’ll go with melted
rubies and sapphires!
Snow and light are two reasons I
love January. Another reason is because January is traditionally about
beginnings. It’s even named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings who has
two faces so that he can look to the future and the past at the same time. So
where does that leave the present? Used to bother me because January has some
of the most important dates of my life in it. Hated to think of them as
two-faced. So then I thought that if Janus is the gateway god, the portal, the
bridge, the doorway, then maybe that allows him to transition the best of the
past into the magic of the future, which makes the present…THE BEST OF TWO
WORLDS!
That’s my wish for you in the new year. So where did the stroke of midnight find you at the beginning of 2017? Under the mistletoe, asleep, contemplating New Year’s resolutions, buzzed at a party? Last time I went to a New Year’s party I said, “Punch, anyone?” and I spent the next 20 mins unconscious. Bwahaha! Old Bob Hope joke. Notice I said at the beginning of 2017. If you think of it as the end of 2016, maybe you are living in the past.
And speaking of the past, apologies to those who read my columns on Storytellers Unplugged. Format changes have again wiped out the archives. As of a couple days before the new year all perma-links result in a 404 error. Shepherded by David Wilson, the site is an invaluable record of a lot of writers and currently serves as an archive of my ongoing columns, so hopefully it will come back up.
Meanwhile, this month’s Sullygram photos are below, as follows: #1-5 skinny skiing at 40 below zero chill factors, one night which is seductively beautiful and safe if one takes precautions; #6 moi with Colorado State scholar and friend Hannah the Swan; #7-12 a stunning misty morning at Crow-Hassan; #13 my lad’s rescue dog Hazel, who insists on occupying my lap whenever I watch a movie in Burnsville; #14-15 yeah…can’t let this anniversary go by without a couple of photos of Eagle Glenn Frey and me backstage somewhere. We shared a private friendship for over a quarter century, and it just doesn’t feel like he’s really gone.
Must close with this…
I miss you, Glenn. January 18th will be one year since you strolled into the shadows, leaving “a hole in the world” for fans, family and friends and effectively ending the legendary run of the Eagles. Funny how destiny didn’t throw a couple of Detroit boys together until we had wandered all over the globe separately. Same thing happened when I wrote a book for a famous mountain climber after the Everest disaster. It turned out we had played Little League baseball against each other as 12-year-olds in Bay City, Michigan. Destiny. Sounds corny, but with some people you feel it, know it. A couple billion people knew it was a touch of destiny when they heard your music with the Eagles. I’ve listened to it in a whisper-quiet stadium with tens of thousands of people holding their breath for every intimate nuance coming out of the speakers, and I’ve heard you sing me a song across a table, and it’s the same. You resonate something in the core of everyone’s soul. Do you remember a night when we had eaten at some restaurant either in Michigan or Minnesota and had gone back to the darkened corridors of an arena where you had just sung for a packed house? We suddenly realized we had to go in different directions, and we strolled apart, then turned to face each other. We were just silhouettes faintly lit by lights from the street. Neither of us spoke, but we knew we were fading from each other’s lives again for an unspecified time. No words needed, because the pause said, “See you down the road, amigo.” I treasure that. Thanks for all of it, my brother muse. The friendship, the laughs and the music that breathes forever though you’ve strolled again into the shadows. See you down the road….
