Gliding on starlight spilled from the vaults of heaven is what draws me to the woods on winter’s magic nights. Whenever I ski past the boundary of society, the purity of being truly alone kicks in. Healing peace, serene beauty. I revel in the solitude of a path with no end. Phantom blue trails yield horizon after horizon, like mirrors within mirrors. Crimson Cheetah skis bound to my feet hiss down flumes and snowy sweeps of inner sanctums. I shed the world.

These starlit flights on skis are balm for my soul after nightly drives, but they have vanished in the mid-winter thaw. Soon I will have to chase winter west. Care to come? All ye who have connected to the seasons in part out of curiosity over what I rave about are always welcome to share a trail with me. But whether you physically enter into raw adventures or simply travel philosophically from behind frosted windows, thank you for your feedback. Expression is essential to experiencing life. A rock can exist through winter, but without the capacity to anticipate, share, then savor the aftermath, it remains after all just a rock.

Have received a number of emails/messages asking if I was at the private memorial for Glenn Frey at The Forum in California which has been reported in the media and speculated about on fan blogs. Actually, it was styled as a celebration of Glenn’s life, and I was there. Celebration with music, celebration with stories and laughter, celebration with food – this was life lived large in the key of G(lenn). It was a little surreal, as if all walks of life had suddenly come together, as indeed they had.

No pretenses, no putting on airs, no intrusive media. The invitation said that dress was Glenn Frey standard – “Jeans and a sport coat or a damn fine suit. Players choice!” And the quality of the communication, the music, and the table, as always with Glenn and Cindy Frey, was first-class plus. 

Picture DisneyWorld where the frontiers are all intermingled: one minute you’re chatting with Stevie Wonder, Don Henley or Kareem Abdul Jabbar and 15 minutes later it’s Randy Newman, Cameron Crowe or Paul Shaffer. The musical offerings culminated with a rockin’ finale that included the Eagles past and present, Bob Seger, Paul Stanley of KISS, Jackson Browne, JD Souther, and too many others to remember. But the number that got to me the most was the poignant last performance of “Desperado” – the signature song that brought Glenn and I together in the first place. I’d seen the grim and tragic (it seemed to me) presentation of that musical masterpiece the night before at the Grammys just across town, and it suddenly struck me here at The Forum that this was the last time it would ever be performed with the remaining Eagles. There were the dimmed lights and the empty space where Glenn should have stood, and suddenly with the last fading chord the waves of shock and denial ended and I knew with crushing finality: Glenn was gone. 

It’s called closure, but it’s never that. Acceptance is what it is. Acceptance and celebration, which is what I felt sharing quality time at the Frey house the next day. Accomplished and capable Cindy Frey is a beacon of positive energy and honest emotion, and the younger Freys have left nothing untapped in the gene pool. Taylor’s muse has all the fire and pz-azz of Glenn’s muse, especially in her writing; Deacon can melt the hearts and rock the socks off any audience; and Otis will charm you with his candor and zest for life. America’s future and the Frey legacy are in good hands. Maybe Glenn said it best in one of his last songs, the eerily prophetic It’s Your World Now: 

“It's your world now
Use well the time
Be part of something good
Leave something good behind
The curtain falls
I take my bow
That's how it's meant to be
It's your world now…”

Photos below are as follows: #1 Elm Creek in midwinter thaw; #2 Bjorn Daehli (12 Olympic medal winner and the most legendary Nordic skier of all-time) with my good friend Jan Fredrik-Lockert who flew me to Norway to speak at the House of Literature; #3 Sully and emerging rock star Deacon Frey (Glenn & Cindy’s oldest son); #4-5 a couple of my friends at Elm Creek (#4 Hannah the Swan-Sully and #5 Nick-Sully); #6 that’s Mickey Magic sitting on the end of that log at a place where we consume large quantities of PBJ sandwiches; #7 yeah, another ski accident – but no broken bones; #8 more of Elm Creek’s enchantment; #9-13 some  favorite photos of Glenn… 

And my latest archived StorytellersUnplugged column is “The Lone Arranger,” which shares last month’s Sullygram tribute to Glenn Frey: http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/2016/02/19/thomas-sullivan-the-lone-arranger/#comment-13363

A few inquiries came in asking if the Valentine’s Q&A I replaced last month after Glenn’s passing would be rescheduled, and I appreciate that. Love comes easy in Minnesota. I’ve never seen so many attractive women inside and out. To be honest, my lifelong reflex to a physically beautiful woman has always been an expectation that she will be less than beautiful on the inside. It’s just a natural path for stunner looks to trade off themselves – self-absorbed, demanding, intransigent. Surprise, surprise – hello, Minnesota! So would you let me off with a paragraph or two in place of the Valentine’s Q&A?

The odds of finding that perfect soulmate, while always rare, are better here than anywhere else I’ve ever been. And I’ve written about that experience in my life a few years back in these Sullygrams, so I’ll leave it at that. But it starts with classic limerance. If you’ve ever had someone who can’t stop blushing in your presence, or be breathless, or whose physical triggers are pulled spontaneously at a thought or a touch, you know what I mean. And if that deepens profoundly and grows into discovery after discovery that your unique ways of thinking, values, analyzing, strategies for love, insights and expression are somehow mutual, then you have found your soulmate.

I remember the love of my life making me see that I had substituted numerous contacts every day in the absence of any one close person. In fact, that’s how we met. I was sort of a drive-by conversationalist until six-hour phone calls became a regular part of our relationship. But before that, my days were filled with serial connections with dozens of people. That’s what life had dealt me. It’s a writer thing. You sort of live in isolation, thinking that the only thing you can share is what you catch on the fly as you fill the well each day or in what you write across invisible miles. Or that maybe your gig is oral tradition and you are a couple cultures removed and a few centuries too late. In any case, I’m going to do better with sharing live and in depth from now on. And, in fact, I’m learning to do just that, having spent hundreds of hours in sustained company and in very rewarding conversations with close friends in recent months. Talking face to face is grand (he says as he finishes up another silent Sullygram).