Local Flavor: Coldland & New Year & Techno-Woes

It's funny -- we've lived up here a long time but I'd never had a reason to go over Route 17 from Waitsfield to Bristol before. I was picking up some Craigslist-find maple bunk beds on Sunday near Waterbury and on the way back wanted to do some shopping over in Middlebury, so I punched in the quickest route and this is what I got to see. It was a good 15 degrees cooler in this gap and so the trees were frosted for miles in every direction. I had no idea that there was such a pretty spot right off of routes I normally take. Skiers can now roll their eyes at me.

Friday was effectively the end of my couple-weeks-off. I wasn't open but outside pressure meant it felt like I was! Folks were in all day grabbing things and gossiping about guitars -- good times. Saturday was the first official day back and it really felt like normal. It was "quick-turn-around" fretwork and setups all day long while my friend Todd spruced-up an old '60s Harmony mandolin for our mutual friend Susie on the "second bench."

After this posts, I'll be getting back to a lot of swamped emails and phonecalls, too. I have to admit that I simply unplugged all break and probably drove everyone crazy. I was really worn-out by the end of last year, though, so it felt great to just space-out and pretend there was nothing to worry about in this coldest season.

What'd I do with the time? I read comics (well, these days they call them graphic novels) with the kids, watched a bunch of sci-fi shows, actually played music at home and not just demos for instruments, played with the kids, threw a lot of snowballs (we also played "tiger" -- a slightly-terrifying variation of tag and hide-n-seek outdoors), built a lot of Legos, recorded an album (more on that later in the week), and did a lot of not particularly anything.

The last part's really important because our state religion of Work & Productivity seems to be marching-on in its quest to completely merge life and work. My friend Jim and I were talking about this the other day as we both run our own one-person worlds. When you're self-employed, it's hard to say no to folks -- especially if you're the type of person who wants to help others. We're both trying to figure-out how to say no more effectively this year -- not in a negative way, but in a positive way that allows us to make folks whole.

The above shot is for a pair of Mainers -- you ice-pattern-loving-devils, you. A couple days later this whole stream iced-over in layers of this spiderwebbed ice to the point where I could walk on it and look through three or four layers of the stuff.

The kids continue to do distance-learning at home and I'm trying to juggle the technology needs of the house. As they get older the devices get used for more things -- the family iPad Pro (which was actually mostly used as a second biz "computer" for video and media) is now in continual use either with the kids drawing on it constantly (they're doing some wild stuff), school, kiddo emails and messaging, games, and the like.

I think it's time to finally invest in a second one that's purely for business use and the only reason I mention it is because I'm thinking it would be useful to mount it in the workshop and tie it to a second cell account so I finally have a dedicated business line you all can call, text, and video-chat me over while I'm working. I think it's time to get modern. More and more, customers are attempting to text and initiate video on the landline and I don't think I can continue to hide-out under a rock forever.

Moss Glen Falls is now iced-up thoroughly, but here's a snap above from when it was just starting to thicken-up.

I'm also always in love with the moss-covered edges of the falls as seen below. In-person the color and depth is richer, but I figured I might as well try to snag some of the feel.

So, how about this New Year, huh? I just get back from a break where I'm trying my hardest not to pay attention to the world around me and then most everyone I talk to is deep in feelings of anger, frustration, bewilderment, and angst no matter what side of politics and culture they're on. I try to maintain the shop as a place of withdrawal from the world where music is the focus, but you can't force a world out from your doors forever.

What do I think about folks storming our seat of government? It wasn't unexpected -- though of course it's idiotic, dangerous, and against the basic democratic values of our country. I honestly did not have much emotion about it because I've been expecting some variation on it for ages. Haven't we all? How can someone get angry at a boiling pot spilling-over? The pot didn't turn the heat up -- the cooks did.

When you read enough history, nothing is really unexpected because the patterns repeat over and over. I guess that makes me a bit of a cold fish, but I would rather spend my energy trying to get at the cause rather than get angry about the symptoms. We have a culture based around reacting to symptoms and a media system that exploits it so that it can make money. Reacting instead of analyzing is what lends power to those who would exploit you. Please don't slap an -ist to my point of view, here. This is just common sense. The loudest voice in the room usually wants something from you -- not the other way around.

I've spent an hour, now, writing and rewriting the two paragraphs above, trying to narrow my point of view on this because we are all living through this and asking one another about how we feel about it. I have friends and customers from all walks of life and political perspectives.

I live in a town small enough that we all have to work and live together to survive as a community. I don't think about whether such-and-such shop is owned by folks who are of such-and-such political party before I give them my business. We try not to hold our different perspectives against one another and, for the most part, we seem to continue to coexist and make productive changes in our community. We help one another because -- who doesn't need help? The dialogue is open because it needs to be open. Do we get angry with one another over time? Sure. Do we sometimes not interact for a while? Sure. Does it mean I stop being friendly because our opinions are at odds? Absolutely not. I refuse to see another person as less because they do not share my views. Instead I would rather try to understand their position if I can.

I think we all need to take a step away from party lines and news barrages and take a breath before we simply react. We need to think.

I've lately been reading (and listening) a lot about recent archaeological discoveries -- something I'm always fascinated about. Advanced cultures go back farther and farther every time we learn something new or develop new technology to better peel-back the environments that ancient sites are situated in. These cultures rise and fall -- rinse and repeat. Sometimes knowledge is lost for long periods. It's actually rather sad that we've only gotten to the place we're currently at so late in the game.

The precariousness of life is always obvious, though, in the fact that many of these cultures vanish quickly and without much warning. They can last hundreds or thousands of years and then simply dry-up. Sometimes it's because of war or political change. Often it's because of famine or lands gone-foul linked to changing climate. These are societies that lasted far longer than ours has been around.

My point is: let's stop pretending we're so different and focus on the larger issues at hand so that when we actually have massive changes forced on us by external means that are actual, non-invented problems, we see one another as allies.