There are days during winter, where it only feels of winter. Cold, death, and a few leaves on the ground. That’s all, maybe a hint of fall but mostly winter. It’s what I see now as I look out the window in Oklahoma, home for the holidays, with summer seeming preposterous: winter has come.
Still, soon enough, spring warmth will flitter come late February, then be dashed away by a cold front. Undaunted, spring returns, lingers, and sparks hope of flowering and green. With enough time, spring gains momentum, leaving winter second fiddle most days. Then, one day in April, you know winter is over. No more frosted rooftops in the morning. No furnace smells. Spring is here to stay, and dares you to believe… in summer.
My life has its own seasonality: harvests, barrenness, sprouts, and growth. This personal winter had been hard to shake. But decisively, a moment arrived, where I knew there was no need to keep the faucets dripping.
It happened three months ago.
Late September, my wife and I were walking the Santa Barbara streets after dinner, glancing up at the Arlington Theatre’s marquee, and saw that Charley Crockett was coming to town. I’d seen him once, way back in the med school depths and hadn’t shook the vibe. Country, jazz, and bluegrass influences, the man delivers a Texas melody that could dougie a two-by-four. My trips back to OKC always missed his tour schedule, but here was an opportunity in Santa Barbara of all places. After a city block of pleading, my wife was in, and there we were, two weeks later, in our dusted off cowboy boots ready for the show.
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The first half of the set was great; we knew a few songs, sipped beers to the beat, and settled into the painted auditorium. Being a Sunday night, the audience needed a warming up, and Charley seemed to understand. This wasn’t the time or place to go big off the top. He let it build, adding a well-time log on the fire as the night went. And then it all changed, with one song, Trinity River.
I was on my feet, both of us dancing, the only two people in our section, but then a few more souls got enchanted. Soon rows were ascending in waves, then our section was up, grooving.
Charley was swaying, orchestrating, belting, meditating, and being; we were watching a man do what he was meant to do.
For years, I’d witness this kinda thing and be scared shitless to full incapacitation; an amateur gawking at a professional, putting an idol on a pedestal. Now, I saw a guy, just another human, who had worked the craft, put in serial bets on passion over years of sacrifice, and earned the ability be himself. I wanted that life. And knew right then, I was going to die trying to get it.
There are moments in life when you can feel a future version of yourself, a glimpse, right in the middle of the present, and that glimpse can be all you need to make a bet. That night, I left having the stake required to make the bet.
We exited the theatre into a crisp autumn night but still cloaked in that post-concert high. I was given a glimpse into a future version of myself, that I could feel. The page had turned.
In a moment, a season of my own gained enough momentum and supplanted the previous, and I knew it wasn’t coming back. I sung Trinity River all the way home:
Damp scent of evening hung everywhere
And gamblers turn they cards
Drinkin’ on that whiskey hard
The damp scent of evening flows all through my head
I had the sweetest dream
I was floatin’ in the river dead
Four days later, I put in my resignation.
