Two decades ago I was settling into a new job located in high desert after a four-month stint performing as a singer songwriter recently laid off from the fabulous dot-com job I had chased a year earlier to the front range of the Rocky Mountains. I had thoroughly enjoyed the dot-com job which lasted all of eight months before the company lost its funding sources–as a lot of them did during the bust–and I had enjoyed even more roaming along the front range and higher into the Rockies to the west performing for tips and CD sales.
That experience had spurred inspiration to write a song about it all which won a songwriters contest where I was asked to perform it before a large audience at the Silverton Jubilee in the southwestern quadrant of the state. I had traveled and backpacked and luxuriated in hotels of that region for years while on vacation from the dreadful times spent living in various toxic cities and it felt like a turning point in life. Being honored as a performing musician there was a delightful experience I doubt I'll ever forget and I decided then and there to never stop playing and composing and writing songs simply because it was very fun.
So far so good. In retirement making music continues to be as enjoyable as it ever has been. And as irritating as being burned out of house and home by my own government is, it's not nearly as irritating as it could have been without the art and craft of musicmaking to sooth mind and body. Taking a route over Stony Pass out of Silverton after performing at the annual Jubilee (which has long since ceased to happen for some reason I cannot fathom) the view just beyond the pass was incredibly wild and comforting, instilling deep, abiding peace.
