The cafe at the edge of the highway

What did you expect to find when you walked in here?

Look around you.

Does the bar look spanking new? Actually, it's been here a few centuries. It's known a few million tears staining its top. Some conversations have been held over it that have lived on past their time.

On the walls, there's a lot of wood - again, just a few hundred (or thousand) years old. Pictures that tell ancient tales and draw you into their cosy world. Ancient tales that don't seem a day old - why, they might have happened yesterday.

You can get fresh doughnuts and hot coffee; or fill up with sandwiches over soothing tea. If you're famished, there's a feast in back. You're bound to find that just a bite goes a long way here. Food's just the beginning here; there's so much more. There's a piano if you want to put out a tune; a stage for a really laid-back band:) There's time, if you want to work out your song. We're all waiting to hear it, and we can wait forever.

Ernest mans the bar. He's been here since the place started; I can't remember if he ever wasn't there. He's seen a thing or two; have a chat. Nothing really distinctive about Ernest, he's just a regular guy who loves his job (how many have you seen?) He keeps getting better - it's not the service, it's the conversations. It's the meeting of eyes and the connections that draw in and hold. And he's one of the best.

There's Drew at the pool tables. He can crack any code; even wordlessness. Funny thing is, cracking a code just opens up a world instead of coming up against further walls. How does he do it? Doesn't seem worthwhile to find out, I just know that he does. Shoot some pool anyway; it may help.

There's comfy wingbacks and fluffy sofas to the right of the bar; if you like the feeling of putting your feet up and reading stuff...or just napping with a newspaper on your face. You don't have to chat unless you absolutely want to. Maybe someone'll turn up and you'll end up chatting till closing time, which might be never. Funny things happen here. Funny nice.

The place never closes :)

There's a garden out back. There are whispering pines there; as well as a good old garden pond with fish in it and lotuses. Take a stroll; you can't get too far away. No one gets lost here.

***********************************************************************************

Sometimes, I think of the past in here. There was a chap who came in who'd just backed up his car over his two-year old daughter; he hadn't seen her. We'd had to put him to bed for a while before we could do anything at all with him. Then there was a girl who had just set out to kill her parents. And the teenager who had run away from home because he'd found out he was diseased and couldn't bear to tell anyone. And then of course, the chap who was brought in dead; he'd died at our doorstep.

The stories keep coming back; of course there's no forgetting. But the thing that comes back most is the healing. No one leaves here till they're okay; and some have lived in here all their lives. They still are looking for reasons to go back out; some find reasons and leave, and others find ways to help in here while they're still looking for reasons. Still others have no memory of what they came in for, but they feel safe and never think of leaving. Some in here haven't spoken a word for centuries; and we wait......... but no one feels afraid here.

Sometimes (and only sometimes) I stand at the door and watch the highway. It's too fast for anyone. Just one moment of weakness or miscalculation, or the teeny lapse, and you're gone. There's no time out there; the only sounds are of screaming voices, overheated metal whizzing past at the speed of light, and metal clanging against metal. It amazes me that people pass by the cafe and don't come in......they just go straight on.

The edge of the highway is just beyond our walls, a barren, hostile rut of mud and slime. Beyond, there is the great unknown which we've only heard of.....all we know about it is that it exists and it isn't a nice place to be. Ours is the only cafe within miles either way............. and our doors are always open.

Like I said, we never close. There's no 'closing time'.

*************************************************************************************

So come on in. What's your story?

Fire and Rain

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend...
- James Taylor

I remember that I didn't want any friends. I hadn't, in fact, been betrayed by anyone, but I didn't want anyone because no one could possibly have seen what my world was like in those years.

It wasn't a bad world. It was just different. It was unusual. And no one had time or inclination for different and unusual. I do remember that I despaired of anyone being able to know such loneliness. Now and then, when people did connect (briefly), it seemed like dreams had come true; like gentle, healing breeze and the cool riverside. But mostly, it was loneliness. Harsh, cruel, depriving. Here and there, there were brilliant and intricate meadows of eternal flowers. Beautiful children played, their laughter floating eternally through my world. There were brooding young songwriters. And there were brilliant songs that played. The songs were me, and I was them.

I don't know that this world has faded - because I loved to live in it. It was harsh loneliness, but it was beauty beyond compare - filled with children, songs and flowers. Those who lived in it with me, spoke a language that only we knew. Many times, it was wordless because no words could express the depth of loneliness I felt.

Inside me, there was hurt. I didn't know (still don't know to this day) where the hurt came from, where the wound lay. But I didn't want anyone around. I don't know if this is any different today; but I do let people in a lot more now than I did then.

************************************************************************************

Long ago, I resolved I would find out what rock music really was. I had moved through all the lower reaches - acts that my friends then considered legendary. I had heard "Hotel California" and "Stairway to Heaven" in 1988; I had worked out "Child in Time" by 1989.

Something was missing. I felt it keenly. This was not rock music; it was too circumscribed and myopic. I gradually came to see songwriting as the key......and was increasingly drawn to rock that had bits of country music in it. I was headed straight as an arrow towards country-rock, but I didn't know the term then.



Then came Deja Vu, the rock music album that changed my life. I heard it in 1991. Suddenly, it was all about changing the world; and I was reliving Haight-Ashbury in the nineties!!!!!! I remember hating the fact that I was born 2 years too late..... and I did all I could to SOMEHOW call myself a Woodstock child. I read through Philip Norman's Shout! in 1991 and fell in love with The Beatles. I also heard The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" -till today, the best song I have ever heard from "the angry young man". And I was.



Of course "Blowing In The Wind" was an anthem - I caught an exciting glimpse of what "walking on air" was all about, "when you know you have your finger on pulse" and you know you're writing a classic and changing the world. Suddenly, I found I had left behind the congested and myopic walls of my rock music infancy - the herd allegiance to so-called legendary "rock" bands - Led Zepellin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd..... and I was standing on a vast, high mountain top where there was so much freedom, light and air; where the spirits of songs rode free and wild.



In 1990, I heard about this brooding young songwriter (he had been, in 1971, but here I was, twenty years too late) who had checked himself in to a rehab clinic in 1969.....and had written of his experience in "one of rock's most uncompromising songs" - "Fire and Rain". His name was James Taylor.


************************************************************************************

How lonely it must be to battle alone with oneself !!!!! With no dreams but one's own, with no helping hands but one's own. I somehow suspected that James Taylor would put words to my feelings. This, in fact, is how it turned out:

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Susanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just cant remember who to send it to

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

Won't you look down upon me, Jesus,
You've got to help me make a stand
Just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

Been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around
Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things that come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again, now
Thought I'd see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around, now
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you,
Fire and rain, now

In a quiet corner in this lonely world......a lonely boy had connected with another lonely person.....in the words of a song. Maybe nothing really happened. But everything had happened, and I was never the same again. I didn't care that I hadn't a friend in the world - I knew James Taylor had stood where I did, and had come up trumps.

There is an always-present, deep-but-not-intrusive string-chord that begins in the second verse....and stays on almost unchanged through the song. It echoed the weight of loneliness I felt in those years. There is also some iconic drumming with brushes - some crashing cymbals that kind of "anthemize" the whole thing towards the end. Of course, the first thing to capture the attention was James' revolutionary (for me at that time) picking on the guitar.

To this day there hasn't been a song like "Fire and Rain"..... and I've heard the best of the best - you name it. Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, even Guy Clark. I'd say, even Emmylou!!!!!! But James Taylor had brought expressions to feelings I didn't know I'd had. A world had opened up where I could understand what makes "Brown-Eyed Girl" the song it is....and how Jackson Browne could write a song like "The Pretender" that captured the hollow emptiness of an entire generation - the 70's.

Deep greens and blues are the colours I choose,
Won't you let me go down in my dreams......

*************************************************************************************

Today, loneliness is a hallmark for me. But it is not fragility - it is resilience. And it is a tower of strength. When I hear a song, I can instantly connect with the songwriter. I know the muses, I know the language, and I can guess at the person inside that writes the song.

But it was "Fire and Rain" that had propped up a lonely, tired, exhausted little boy and helped him stand.....to face a world where no one knew him.

Fire and Rain........and Jesus.

Dream.....because sometimes, they come true.

Dreams.

Most of the time, they give us no chance either way - they make us think (obsessively, sometimes) of places way beyond us; and having once caught us by the scruff and captured our imagination, they never leave us - they haunt us sweetly. We're caught without a chance either way.

By definition, dreams stretch us. A dream isn't, by definition, easily achievable - if it were, it wouldn't be a dream. For who dreams of what is easily within his reach? I don't know what people mean when they speak of "small dreams". I have none. All my dreams (and I suspect, everyone's) are eternal ones. Seemingly unreachable ones.

If you have a dream, hold on to it with all your heart. Don't let anyone deter you from it. Why do I say this? Because, by definition again, everything within our experience and reach tells us "this is impossible". And we mock ourselves. Sometimes cruel blows fell our dreams. A dream shattered is a tragedy beyond human comprehension (of course, we can discount the "dreams" of the wicked) - one of the greatest consequences is a crushed and broken spirit.

But dreams have a way of coming true - sometimes we work with all that's within us and spend all we have to make them happen; sometimes they just lead us, tripping merrily along, to their blossoming. Not all dreams come true; but don't stop dreaming because of that. In fact, all the more reason to dream!!!! I'd say - dream, because they sometimes come true.

Abhinav Bindra, perhaps, had a dream. Perhaps, in his dream, he even thought of the other few billion of us; perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he just had to prove something to himself. But now the future is forever changed; this will be an eternal reference point for the history of sport in this land of ours.

Whatever Bindra did today, the brightest light in the diamond was that he had held on to his dream with all he was; and walked steadfastly towards it, one faltering step at a time.

Don't ever forsake a dream. You will, in a sense, forsake yourself if you do.........because our dreams never forsake us.