Last week I canoed over the edge of the world into a sunset that had set the horizon on fire. I was cremated, of course. Which is to say, the ashes of my soul mingled with the dust of the cosmos for a couple of hours while I canoed into a starless night and a grand adventure. My journey took me up usually impassable canals, scraping over boulders and sliding under half-fallen trees deep into reed beds that finally dead-ended in a spooky emptiness. Sometimes you need to be lost, if only to keep from being found by the routines of life.
Who am I kidding? Routines have never found me. Adventure is a state of mind (not a state of where you are and what you’re doing). Hope your state of mind is as free. The elements are always there at your doorstep: poetry, motion, beauty, wit & wisdom. If it was in you at any time in your life to find them, you can come back to that. And if it wasn’t in you – well… the good news is you’ll probably never miss them. Pick your habitat.
The weeds of August have turned my favorite canoeing spots into the Sargasso Sea. One mighty lunge of the paddle and the canoe forges forward three feet and stops dead. Help! I need someone in the bow to lend a…paddle. No experience necessary.
Each day seems like a stroke of lightning lately, galvanizing my imagination and stoking my soul…and, alas, gone in a flash. But music still plays large on my stage – T-saxing at Weaver Lake and Elm Creek, talking with people, listening to stuff (luv Zooey Deschanels She & Him). Also writing a lot all over the map. And biking, hiking, and hanging out/on/in. I’m always in motion to somewhere, but the world seems to keep up as if I bring it with me. Maybe that's the best part. It's like an Old-Time Radio show format where guests keep dropping by, only the setting is always changing. Everyone seems so interesting, revealing and dynamic. And if they aren't, it's because I fail to dig it out of them.
My August column over on StorytellersUnplugged explores that and then continues the recent Dominican Republic adventure that brought in so much mail last month -- thank you very much. Here's the link: http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2010/08/16/thomas-sullivan-a-red-shirt-molasses-in-a-feathered-world-the-other-side-of-the-wall/
Doc Foto is back with another scurrilous attack on me in one of the photos below. Don't know where he got the mop for my head, but the pistol should be pointed at my temple. Doc Foto is Mark Manrique, folk singer and brilliant wit. We sort of adopted each other when he was an 11-year old swimmer looking for a coach and I was a 17-year old swimmer, never imagining that we would become lifelong friends. He and his wife Karen are coming to visit in September, and Mark and I will jam on guitar and sax for a few days. The conversation will be high maintenance and the laughs nonstop. Please note another photo below of my beautiful daughter Colleen and first grandson Seamus James. The other five pix are all from the Dominican Republic as follows: one of Christopher Columbus and Sully discovering a mosquito; Sully & Melke at work site shoveling cement for a church school floor; some students who sang and danced for us posing with me; the iron gate to the “tarantula badlands” mentioned in the column at the StorytellersUnplugged link above; and two small brothers from Villa Esfuerzo (children take notable care of each other down there).
Write me at mn333mn@earthlink.net to have a Sullygram/photos sent to you each month if you are reading this on a mirror site, and feel free to follow me on Twitter at this link anytime: http://twitter.com/thomassullivan . Samples of recent Tweets: “When you truly understand the motive of an act that goes against you, there’s usually very little to forgive.” And “A woman is pretty thru her prime, & if she finds a soulmate to give that to she becomes beautiful. Anything less just dies a slow death.” Your thoughts are welcome, your attention valued.
Thomas
“Sully” Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com
http://twitter.com/thomassullivan
