Jazz, Birds and Spring Fever

I got to see my good friend Paul play in Raleigh this weekend.  His trio is tight as tight.  The venue was on Hillsboro St. right off of the main rail artery, which was a nice compliment.  The music stands on its own with grit and stature, but I felt like a new level of legitimacy was bought between the coffee and jazz and occasional rumble and horn blast.  After all, this is music for the city, shoulder-to-shoulder mornings and evenings, the fluttering of progress, the buck and chill of a hardscrabble American metropolitan hulk.  Raleigh doesn't quite fit the bill for setting, but I appreciated Amtrak's weighing in on the matter.

I also thought of hummingbirds.  Long segue, I know, but leap with me... (Jazz, Charlie Parker, birds, hummingbirds) Last summer a pair of them spent the days dive bombing each other and dogfighting over feeder rights.  I remembered holding one as I was releasing it from being trapped in the garage.  It was as light as paper, brave, staring me in the eye, and gripping a finger tightly.  Just a whisper of a body, but what a heart!  I felt like I was holding an oversized electron, vibrating even in its stillness.  I was and still am fascinated.  The weather turned warm recently and now I think of hummingbirds.  Hummingbirds and motorcycles.

It took five hours in the car coming back from Raleigh today.  When I left, I had decided against riding the motorcycle in favor of bringing a stack of books that I didn't even look at while I was there.  Who am I kidding?  So, I spent five hours looking at other people on motorcycles, none as lovely as mine. I must have lost track of my priorities somewhere...  So, I'm going to spend as much of this week on two wheels as possible to redeem myself.

I'm also starting to get a pretty bad case of wanderlust.  A trip to Australia is just around the corner, but that is another post.