Missing peace

I'm a lucky guy. Anyone can see how fortunate I am. There is plenty of food on my table. There's art on the walls. I'm in my own home. I am surrounded by friends, who are wonderful, supportive and talented people. I have the love of my daughter and my lady to keep me glad. We celebrate the birthday of my cat, for heaven's sakes. I've got it good.

Of course we all know being well fed and well loved doesn't make a person happy. But in my opinion, any complaint I make is a direct insult to the 99% of the world's population who are plainly worse off than me. If I can't be happy with what I have, I suspect there's no hope for happiness anywhere. So I work at it, and the results are good.

Good is good. Good may even be as good as it gets, at least for a householder with commitments and responsibilities and goals and aspirations. There's a reason why shamans live alone, and monks and nuns live in cloistered poverty. It's hard to bring your spirit to the next level with earthly things weighing you down. I understand that. I can bear the weight, I think.

I suspect I'm always on the path, even when I think I'm staggering around off in the bushes somewhere. I'm at peace with my journey for the most part. I'd like to achieve enlightenment, to raise my consciousness (or rid myself of its nagging chatter) and to become some kind of integrated being. The only trouble is I can't see how I would do that without turning my back on the world.

And so I muddle along, the man who has everything, relatively content to defer my shot at perfection so I can get a few things done in the real world: Grubby, gritty reality. So be it. And I put on a happy face, and I feel happy.

Today my troubles amount only to this: I have misplaced the picture I took of Terry Fox, running up the yellow line along the middle of Highway 17. I've told the story and sung the song, so many times and with all my heart, and now it seems the picture has gone.

I'm trying to understand this, to accept it, to let go. And I do, almost. I just call it my missing peace...

Being better

Anyone who's been following my recent posts knows that I've been shedding my skin. In fact, thinking about it now, I realize I've been writing about being in the midst of a big transition for probably a year or more.

So it hardly makes sense at this point to consider any new perspective I may come up with, the definitive word on where I'm headed. As a friend of mine once wisely pointed out, "Dave means what he says when he says it," and you can figure out the implications of that without my help.

But I will say this: I'm going to become a better person, I really am. It's actually becoming a huge priority for me right now. To quote Bruce Springsteen, "man, I'm just tired and bored with my self." The two biggest challenges in my musical endeavours: exhaustion, and my damned boring self.

When I hit the road again as a musician, I was almost laughably modest about it. I recorded Evergreen in front of about 11 people, and I spent just about the whole night with my eyes closed, shyly singing my songs and stringing them togther with heartfelt little true tales that I felt deeply about.

That was only the second solo show I'd done in five years. I took to the stage again at age 31 because I wanted to honour the gift of my songs, not to be a rock star. I wanted to make a contibution to the understanding of the Canadian experience, and indeed the human experience, on the basis of the richly varied life I've been so fortunate to enjoy. I wanted to let my own little light shine.

But not on myself! That was really important, and it needs to be number one again, because I'm worried I'm becoming all about me. And frankly, me doesn't deserve all the attention. See, in this business, even though I'm not particularly well-known, I've learned that I can still become a big jerk, because even if not many other people are thinking about me, I'm thinking about (and promoting) myself all the time - whether I'm making my new poster or picking the perfect t-shirt to wear on stage. Or writing in this publicly visible diary, for that matter.

Note to self: The world doesn't need another small-time guy who's all about himself. Sing your songs, tell your tales and your truth, and get on with being better.

I listened to myself

Yesterday I did something I had been putting off doing for about 4 months: actually listening to the final master of "Roll Away" in its entirety, just one time for safety's sake before actually sending it out for production.

I put headphones on and laid down on the couch. Lightfoot the Cat came and sat on my chest. And I listened to the 16 tunes that took me a year and a half to record in four different old wooden buildings across Ontario and Nova Scotia - the ones that got picked for this final part of the journey. The sun set and the Christmas lights came on outside, and I listened to myself.

As a photographer, all my work was always about laying stuff bare. I learned to appreciate the lines in people's faces and the jagged edges of broken windows and the way that old paint peels.

That's what it's like to listen to myself now. I don't know why I am the way I am. But I have to accept that I'm like that, because I'm now 35 and there doesn't seem to be any going back.

I'm rough. I have jagged edges. I have lines in my face and I sometimes feel that I'm spending my life peeling away like old paint. And it seems the best my thinking self can do is to watch and to listen and to somehow appreciate what I'm doing when I do it without thinking.

My imperfection is my gift. It's an imperfect gift, but it's all I've got. I'm hoping that maybe by being honestly imperfect, I can somehow find a form of perfection that a human being can handle.

That's what I heard, when I listened to myself.