Coast to Coast
“Creation’s a confession of a Love that’s just begun.”
It never occurred to me in 1985 when I recorded the Michael Kelly Blanchard song (the title of this week’s Strings Substack) that, at the ripe old age of 86, I would in fact be driving “coast to coast” this January with two of my grandsons on an adventure that, in retrospect, I realize was always a personal bucket-list wish.
Although Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers and I covered a lot of performing mileage in the almost 50 years of our Peter, Paul and Mary career, there is a major difference between the view out of an airplane window and the one immediately in front of you with both hands on the steering wheel of a car . . . especially when travelling through the snowbound mountains and canyons of Utah.
“There’s a movie out the window,” the Blanchard song says. “It’s a western travelogue. / The actors are tough as sinew / The director’s surely God.” And then continuing in my head as if it were the soundtrack for today’s drive, ”There’s cotton on the river / Winter on the peaks / Crescent silver sliver / That’s almost fast asleep.”
Our personal perspective can shift radically as our distance from an object or situation changes. Viewed from the reach of a television screen or a morning headline, the concerns of the world are intellectually challenging but never quite so pressing or needy of our attention as the burst water pipe in the kitchen or the crying child who skinned her knee in the driveway. And so it seems we are called to knit up the space between now and forever, drawing on the experience of yesterday to choose both the means and the direction for our life travels. Small wonder we yearn for surety—particularly when our decisions will affect those we hold most dear.
Through the windshield of the car, I see the interplay of the valleys and heights and can’t help but be reminded of my similar up and down participations in the immensity of this world. Sometimes overwhelmed by circumstance and often tempted to take on the role of victim rather than that of redeemer, I am reminded on this particular drive—carrying two members of a younger generation with me—that Creation is alive and evolving, despite the burdens of misuse we have placed upon her.
Michael’s song concludes with a verse commenting on the hunger of the human heart to be as brilliant as the heavens: “Stars above and stars below / and somewhere in between / We sailing human arrows / prepare to wake the dream.” Remembering the hustle and bustle of retrieving luggage from the airplane’s overhead storage after landing, I sigh at the song’s last few lines: “Rows and rows of stories / Up front and in the rear / Gather up their worries and so quickly disappear / And it comes to my attention / As the day is finally done / Creation's a confession of a Love that's just begun”
Amen.
Vibrations
Michael Kelly Blanchard and his wife Greta were among the first artists to grace the Neworld “henhouse” studio in the ‘70s. And while I was able to introduce the two of them to some of the subtleties of the recording process, the greater value in my mind was personal and came from the experience of hearing his music—both the poetry of his original material and the musicianship demonstrated. A brilliant guitarist, MIchael also played piano on many of the tracks, and by the time the first album Quail was completed, I had become a fervent fan. Small wonder then that I began to include Blanchard tunes in both my solo and trio concerts. “Coast to Coast”, one of those songs is here:
More information on the Blanchards and the Quail Ministry can be found here: https://www.michaelkellyblanchard.com/about/history.htm
Resonance
How has taking a long trip changed your perspective or encouraged you to reflect? Why do you think traveling has those potential benefits?
Reading these lyrics sent my mind and heart on a long-distance drive I'll not be making ever again, from PA to Paducah, in western Kentucky. Two months ago, my 71 year old brother died there (victim of Alzheimer's and diabetes). Seven years before, our dad died at 89 from Alzheimer's. Kurt had been the only one of we four siblings who had close proximity as our dad aged. For more than a dozen years, I made the trek across most of PA, through Ohio and the length of KY to see them both - at least twice a year, if not more. I know those roads all too well, the serious thrum of tires on interstate concrete, spring coming on, summer's heat helping the corn, autumn's colors' distractions. I'm seeing all of that through different eyes, now that I know I'll not see those 500 Miles (plus more). I'll miss them, of course; but I can be on the road in heart and mind with thoughts and feelings too many to count whenever grief and gladness tap me on the shoulder. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to put into words the seemingly lesser travels (no Rockies and their grandeur) that are part of that same Creation. Now I have a song/lyrics to be my companion. Steve Engelhardt, a grateful 60's fan.
In 2022, I had the wonderful experience of traveling the west by car with my son-in-law and two of my three grandsons. We traveled South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Visited some of the most beautiful places in the world. I was blessed by the beauty and grandeur of this magnificent country but more to be companions on this journey with those I love. It was a bucket list trip for me in so many ways; the world looks different when you are part of the picture, the relationship with loved ones is confirmed, and the learning is continuous. The Lord blesses us abundantly, but we sometimes miss the real blessings most important to us.