I have been listening to the blues a lot lately. It’s music I’ve always enjoyed to a degree, but with a greater interest over the past months than I have for decades, if ever.

This is pure, honest music with several distinct avenues, and history is full of amazing artists who have shaped what we listen to now.

It’s music I need to hear more of. It is music I need to know more about.

Lately I’ve been listening to one musician in particular, a songwriter I was drawn to when I heard a tune off his first album in 1992 on MTV. At that time, I had no idea I’d be craving to hear more of his music, almost 30 years later, as I am right now.

Chris Whitley was the real deal, with the sweetest voice, who played the guitar as naturally as he breathed. It wasn’t accomplished ‘guitar-god’ musicianship, authentic rhythmic picking and strumming. The man knew his way around a National steel guitar. At times with a shade of alt rock, Whitley played the blues, and you feel it as you would Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, or Robert Johnson.

It’s that natural.

Lyrically, the skinny Texan paints a landscape of hardship and humanity like few songwriters of his generation can, or have.

I’ve been digging this dead man’s blues.

Whitley, sadly, died of lung cancer in 2005 at the age of 45.

There are more than a dozen albums to his credit from a 25-year career, and I’ve been trying to find them.

I lost my copy (and lament the loss) of the Living With The Law, the compact disc I purchased in ’92. That album earned the man two Billboard top forty entries, and it was, easily, his most commercially-success effort. He was respected by so many musicians, and mourned by many more after his passing.

I picked up his second album, Din of Ecstasy somewhere in my travels this year, and I lucked out in finding a copy of Terra Incognita last week. I’ve been searching the bins, regularly, at Dead Dog Records, and Sonic Boom, even both locations of Into the Music when I was in Winnipeg a month ago, and I’m on a mission to find as much of his music as I can.

You can find a significant body of his work on You Tube, even a few complete albums, but I, as a semi-serious collector, want tangible, tactile recordings; vinyl or compact disc.

Of particular interest are the acoustic albums, but, right now, I’m pleased to find anything.

It’s rare that I would become this fanatical about one particular artist, but Whitley’s music is that good, that original, and that scarce.

after all has been said
there remains far more to know

space
filled with
merely breath

a void

vacancy requires attention

it can hurt
it can heal

there is nothing more to say

silence
is a battle

it can become comfort

a path forward
will move in either direction

what guides you
what haunts you
shimmering light or silken shadows

do you hear the unspoken

forgiveness

do you care to know details
after all has been said

 

 

© 2019 j.g. lewis

Love is more
than an emotion, greater
than a virtue. In fact, love encompasses all virtues,
                                                              and then more.

Whether romantic, affectionate, or familial,
love is a state of mind, shared in kind, and available,
should you choose to accept.

                            Love takes courage.
Love requires pride, and friendship.

Its truthfulness is not always clear, but
it cannot be deceitful.
                                         That is not love.

Not even close.

Love defies definition, resists calculation;
how much, how little, how strong, how
short-lived is the love you hold, or have?

                                                Or have had?

It is not ‘till death do you part,
not always, not surely, not really.

Love’s magnificence is never clear;
it can blind, it can grieve,
given in quantities often larger than it is received.

This is what makes it love.

You cannot keep track of the moments
where love shows its presence, but
you can savour each drop which passes to your being.

You can choose to love, or
you can be indifferent, but where love resides,
                                   there is not room for hate.

Love one another; begin there.

Everything else will fall into place.

This is love.
That is grace.

© 2019 j.g.lewis

“Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is
someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak
until there is someone there who can understand what we are
saying, in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.”
                                                                  -Alain De Botton

Undetermined hesitancy,
well past procrastination, yet far less than wasting time.
Waiting is less a function and more of a state.
It is not stillness; for that to occur the mind must settle, not
impervious, but free to allow thoughts in. And out.
Then become silence.
We, then, are waiting, knowing time will tick on anyway.
If we can stop even for a moment, to simply breathe,
we can find perspective.
It is searching for something meaningful
from something meaningless.
We seek further meaning,
knowing our lives are deeper than our pockets.
We understand there is greater nutrition in a shared meal,
that Friday will arrive each week, and a bicycle and a car
each have a purpose.
We wait; believing home has nothing to do with boundaries.
For our past to catch up with our ever-present worry, for
today to be the gift we were told it would be,
the future must unfold as it should.
In searching for this equilibrium,
have we become stuck in the balance?
Our mind is occupied.
Waiting.
We know there are people, who miss us as we miss them,
and we wait in one space thinking that one person may find us.
Waiting may be a reminder
they are not coming.
As we wait, we attempt to determine if
our response is an action, or a reaction.
We know inaction.

 

© 2019 j.g. lewis

 

Gratitude flows two ways. It must.

For gratitude to be gratitude, it has to be given, as it is accepted; free of conditions; without demand; without expectations.

As an exchange, there needs be, at its most crucial point, equality. Both the giver and the receiver should, even if only for a moment, bask in the state of grace allowed, and furthered by, the humane act of giving.

Gratitude is ‘you are welcome’ as much as it is ‘thank you’.

Sadly, and often, in this give-and-take society, there is an imbalance of power. The provision of aid or assistance is viewed as strength, with the acceptance, or receiver, as weak. Charity — a worthy and necessary act  — is boastfully promoted and endorsed. The ‘look at me’ or ‘look at us’ attitude removes the true shine from an otherwise generous act as it makes the giver more important than the need.

It’s pretty ugly out there. We, as humans, have continued to allow this to happen. Captains of industry, politicians, plumbers, and the powers that preach have continually deceived us. We have almost become pre-conditioned to accepting this conditioned eye-for-an-eye type of attitude of gratitude.

It should not be more difficult to understand, as it is to accept, gratitude.

We need to help each other, more. The spirit of giving should be fostered among us, but we end up asking too many questions. Even if just by questioning where any form of gratitude flows, we are suspicious. We look for ulterior motives and hidden reasons.

How do we get past the doubt, or the disingenuous, to not only show our thankfulness, but share the act and purpose bestowed upon us?

We, perhaps, need to be more thankful of what we’ve got and more gratified in how we share our place and purpose.

Indeed, as with the adage ‘the hand that gives is the hand that gathers meaning’, it must be more than exhibiting kindness towards others as a means of benefiting the self. We need to recognize the profound connection of the hand that gives and the hand that receives.

The benefits are shared, are equal, and are needed. There is a deeper meaning in not only accepting selflessly, but in giving graciously.

© 2019 j.g. lewis