December 19, 1997

Every practice has its own fundamentals that are the basis for higher aspirations. That's where I started. What I found out is that great things shaped by even the most divine dreams won't meet their intention unless what goes on inside of them is done in the same spirit.

At least not right away...

In the mean time, I've seen many of the great souls from my recent past do amazing things, write great tomes, go on grand adventures, or otherwise do their part to create other bundles of the future.

I share those aspirations, and I dwelled on whether any of them would come to life in a place that never seems to strive to anything larger than it's image of itself.

So, one night I asked that Thing that one asks these things to whether I might be missing a train.

When I awoke the next morning, my brain was flooded with music. Not like a little tune that sticks in one's head for the day. This was like someone had plugged a huge amplifier into my head.

Torn was playing the guitar. Not anything he had done recently, but something from long ago, with Mr. Garbarek.

There was another torrent gushing into my mind, and as soon as I stood up and walked around a bit, I knew that the answer I had been inquiring after had come to me. For the name of that wonderous tune filling my head was "Mission: To Be Where I Am."

In the days and weeks that followed, I started getting calls from long unheard from friends in far away places. They came one right after another. It was like watching a parade. They all called for their own reasons, but together seemed to ask, "How are you?".

March 23, 1998, at the Media Union.

I'm well...     ..and, I'm here.

Do you think I know what I'm doing?
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it's writing,
or the ball can guess where it's going next.