That which the locusts have destroyed will be restored unto you – Ezekiel

Music excavates heaven – Balzac

Labor Day 2007, Resurrection Tattoo, Austin TX

The only other time I've seen the underbelly of a tattoo parlor was five years ago in Woodstock, NY … a year of adventure and passage. I'd found a dime store charm labeled OM, and not reading sanskrit myself I took it on faith the translation was legit. It was going to be my first tattoo and I knew where I wanted it. What I didn't know was it was going to hurt like a mother. Cary chatted up the guy tattooing her, while across the room I cried as the fingers of my right hand twitched from the pain of the needle. I traced it with my pupils; the vowel containing all other vowels started to bleed as it took shape on the inside of my wrist.

A few weeks later I ran into Tom Kimmel, and when I told him about it, he showed me a different OM strung around his neck: That's not OM, Tom … this is. So great … I got myself a freaking tattoo and now I didn't even know what it was – at least not until a month later back home in MD when I asked my Dad, who without a cautionary word said: It's OM son, only a different script. Whew!

This has been a month of awakening for me. The kind of sunrise I've seen only once before in my life, and Colorado was the setting both then and now. I'd played the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest in '92 and '94, got my picture in Billboard Magazine, and every weekend there would be some kind of mention of me in the Washington Post. Heady stuff for a guy who'd just quit his job, giving himself 5 years to see if he could make it. I never thought it would end. But it did.

Ten years later in 2002 my return to the Folks Fest was less than auspicious. I had an incredibly difficult time being anonymous, and I had no one to talk to about it. I wanted it back, all of it, and I tried really hard. That steep fall from grace hurt more than my tattoo, and I wasn't ready to stop hurting. But this summer was different. Cary was in the song contest so I decided to go back one more time. I wasn't booked to play but I didn't really care anymore.

I found myself in a circle with Michael Lille, Cary, Melanie Hirsch, and Tim Burlingame. Without planning to, the five of us wrote a song called Thinking About It. Craig Ferguson (the director of the festival) dropped by, really dug the song, and made me feel good by remembering my first album with great enthusiasm: Incoming produced by Mark Heard.

I'd arranged a day gig for myself during the week while Cary went to song school (the contest was Friday). Every morning I drove in to Denver to work on a new recording for my cousin Rekha. She's an intimidating jazz pianist/vocalist and our plan was to record in her living room. Within a few seconds of hearing the piano though, I knew it wouldn't work – the pedal was too loud, like an out of time kick drum in the middle of those sensuous chords that she plays so well. She went looking for other pianos, not knowing if any would fit the bill, but within an hour she'd rounded up a beautiful Steinway in a big hall at the Denver Art Museum that we'd be welcome to for a day, and an $180,000 Bosendorfer in a recital hall at the piano shop around the corner. Talk about karma!

As we were recording I marveled at Rekha's ability to improvise, to solo in the middle of songs without skipping beats or falling apart – the way I always do in front of a crowd. I asked her how she did it, how her fingers could jitterbug so confidently across the black and whites. She said she didn't feel like she was taking chances, just playing the way she would at home stomping on the keys for hours, days, months on end. She'd just dial it back a notch or two on stage, and it felt great. That's what I wanted to do.

Each day I'd return in the evening to our huddle of tents backstage of the festival, looking to write another song – enjoying the anonymity, enjoying the circle of friends, and good strong medicine too. I wrote with Cary, Amy Speace, and Jagoda (with whom I've just recorded a live album). But the real reason we were there was Cary in the contest. I'd come back to a different reality every day: she was focused on her guitar playing, but I was hoping she'd be able to understand what I had to learn the hard way: it's not ever about the guitar – it's always about the song.

Checking messages in Denver on Thursday, I heard Cary's voice sobbing on the phone, and I was about to tell Rekha I needed to go when I realized they were tears all right, but tears of gratitude. I don't want to steal Cary's thunder you should read her blog, but this story has become big for me too. In a class with Mary Gauthier, people related how they were feeling – unable to accomplish goals, to finish songs, to write with meaning, or incapable of playing the way they wanted to. Cary told Mary she was freaking out about having to play guitar for herself at the contest.

Here are the words that reverberate in my bones: "No, you're not here for this. You're not here to win a contest and you're not here to play the guitar. You are here to sing the song that only you can sing. The song that someone in the audience needs to hear."

The song only you can sing … I felt like I just went ten rounds with Muhammad Ali. How far had I strayed? How many times have I taken the stage trying to prove something to somebody, trying to sing a song that's grown old only because I know it will sell CDs? How many times have I tried to convince myself I'm still that guy who stepped on the stage at Kerrville in '93 not caring whether he won the damn New Folk Contest or not? How codified had my life become? How frozen am I by the fear of disappointment – the fear of how powerful I really am, the fear of improvisation, the fear of dancing that keeps me from falling, but that also keeps me from flying. I am officially a pillar of salt.

Earlier in August I was in Boston at Fox Run mixing my album with Jagoda. Neale Eckstein is my Pro-Tools guru and I jumped at the chance to work with him. I ran across a poem I'd read before: The Invitation (by Oriah Mountain Dreamer) is deceptive, you don't feel the impact for a while. The first time I read it I thought it was psycho-babble. But this time one line reached out and grabbed me: I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. Oh my god! If ever there were words written for me … could I have the courage to do what I felt to be true, even though it engendered conflict? I started to realize then how I trap myself, how I keep myself in a box to feel safe and to avoid difficult situations.

Mary Gauthier's' words ring in my ears like tinitis. I can't get that sound out of my head, nor do I want to. I can't get Oriah out either. Along with The Journey by Mary Oliver, and Last Night as I was Dreaming by Antonio Machado, they have become my holy scripture. And if that is the lyric dearest friends, the melody is Darrel Scott.

Outside of seeing Shawn Colvin for the first time (giving me the courage to quit my job at 30) I have never seen something so musically powerful. He sat down alone with his guitar, unaffected by his surroundings and played from such a deep well – going for every note in his throat and his fingers. It was as if Aretha jumped into the arms of Stravinsky on the dance floor of William Blake. No jokes, no set list, no galley of guitar effects, no pregnant pauses for the expected laughter following a punch line. Just songs, not even my kind of songs, but simply the best solo performance I've ever, ever seen – improvising, feeling, singing, playing his goddam heart out.

I told Michael Lille that Darrel's set was the only one I really wanted to catch. We sat together on the front row and as soon as Darrel started to play, involuntary streams raced down to the collar of my kurtha. The same tears as when a church choir starts to wail, when Ruthie Foster sings, when Aunty Diana died, when I was leaving Crystal, and when I was falling in love again. Midway through the set, Michael reached into his bag and put on his sunglasses, and I couldn't help feeling I knew why. Sharing that moment with him is something I will always treasure. We have a special bond, the both of us – the accident of birth: April 11, 1958.

The universe was showing me the way out of my box. I ran into Darrel Scott backstage still with tears in my eyes and I mumbled the words you changed my life. I'm sure he thinks I'm an idiot.

Over the years I've written some of my favorite songs with Michael including Gitanjali, from a book of poems by Tagore. It's actually two Bengali words put together: Git which means song, and Anjali meaning offering or gift. Tagore won the Nobel prize for this collection after Yeats fell in love with it, and brought this Indian Michaelangelo to England in the roaring 20's. That song became the soundtrack to my down time these past few weeks. And even though I had very little time to myself, I heard it enough to try Tie a Yellow Ribbon for a change to get Gitanjali out of my head. It didn't work.

Cary did so well in the contest, she sang more powerfully than I've ever heard her, she held her own on the guitar, and if songwriting was more than one third of the judges' equation I think she might have won. But she was grateful for the lesson learned, her songs touched hundreds if not thousands of people, and she shone like a full moon – light where there is supposed to be darkness. I was so proud of her performance. And I am even prouder of her journey.

That evening (after Darrel's set and Cary's contest) I had an appointment to write with Dave Crossland, one of my all time favorite writers who by coincidence had never co-written with anyone, ever. He joked over the week that he was saving himself for me. Now I don't know about you, but for me that's a lot of pressure. I thought to myself: What if it isn't good for him? He may never want to do it again.

So we sat down by the cold river on the skirt of the festival and talked for a few hours. Eventually we found our center, pondering being in the music biz for ages now, and how it feels not to have achieved the superstar status of our contemporaries; watching young yet deserving acts take our place on the stages we used to play. What an impossible feeling that is to voice without sounding bitter!

Cary gave us a line to start from: You look like the picture I saw when you were laughing. We took it from there. It's not very often you see unmitigated joy on someone's face, but I saw in Dave's my own reflection – I had received an incredible series of gifts that all felt connected, and this song was part of that unfolding. Here's the first verse and chorus:

How many times have you stood alone and wondered
Are you really good enough?
How could you meet all the expectations knowing
That you were only faking it?

But you look like a picture I saw when you were laughing
When everything was coming true
You look like the painting I always saw inside
I always saw inside of you


It was time to go back home. I immediately dove into producing again. Nancy Jephcote from Martha's Vineyard came in for a couple of weeks, and she brought her Lowden guitar. I used to play a Lowden, the love of my life (you might have seen it on the cover of The Way of the World). It was stolen out of my car in Chicago 12 years ago and I've played my Breedlove ever since. I was into it for sure, but deep down I pined for my truest love. In Colorado Michael Lille asked me if I'd be interested in his Lowden if he ever moved to a trailer in the Yucatan (I said sure man, not knowing how I'd pay him), but playing Nancy's confirmed it – I had to have one.

This weekend past I taught a guitar workshop at Kerrville's Wine and Music Festival with Tena Moyer and Jack Williams. We started at 10 AM sharp Friday morning. The three of us met an hour earlier and during the course of our planning I discovered that Jack had his Martin guitar for over thirty years, and until recently only had the one axe til Ronny Cox gave him another D35 just like it. Must be nice I said – and Tena piped in that if anything ever happened to her, I was to get her ten gazillion dollar Ryan guitar. Now I've never wished for the untimely death of anyone before. I don't really wish that now either, but I was flattered by the impossibility and honored that Tena thought of me.

Our workshop was at the newly remodeled Threadgill theater. Students were milling around playing guitars, one playing a Lowden … I said to no one in particular: I love my Breedlove, but that's the guitar I was meant to play. Nobody at the ranch knew if the workshop was going fly but soon Jack, Tena, and I settled into a groove repeating the mantra – it's not about the guitar. A curious sentiment considering everybody just ponied up $100 each for a guitar workshop. But our honesty paid off with honesty back, there was nervous laughter, there were tears, and a lot of affirmation lazily rising up to the rafters of the gleaming tin roof.

We wrapped up the workshop Saturday morning, and as we were saying goodbye a friend taking the workshop (by request unnamed) said she had something for me, but she didn't have it with her. We exchanged addresses and numbers even though she said it was too big to mail. A few minutes later she came back to tell me what it was: a Lowden guitar, just like the one I never got a chance to say goodbye to in Chicago. She left me with a quote: Music excavates heaven.

I was speechless.

Words cannot describe what it's like to finally see God. I mean I've heard about her, but now I know what she looks like. Cary and I left for Austin that afternoon, without the Lowden, but with chests heaving in gratitude. And even though it was an amazing gift, it wasn't really about the guitar. It was about the song inside me. We made plans to meet in Johnson City to pick up the guitar the next day, then drove to Ann Bloch's in Buda for the rest of the weekend. That night at song circle around her fire pit with Andy Corwin, Kristin DeWitt, Stephen Taylor and Jackie Gaston, I told everyone my story but it just didn't come out right.

Heading to the Silver K Diner on Sunday I remarked emphatically to Cary, Ann, and Sunshine: Today, I believe. We sat down at a table next to Guy Forsythe, his girlfriend and 5-month old daughter, and Michael Shea. And before you know it, God walked in with my new Lowden. I handed it to Guy and when I heard him play I knew my life had changed. My unnamed friend shared a scripture with us: That which the locusts have destroyed will be returned to you. She said restoration was the word she wanted me to hear, and along with the Lowden handed me a Cool Pick® and an amulet of Mary.

We finished our key lime pie and hopped in Ann's Subaru back to Buda. Cary and I had talked about getting new tattoos for a while and on the drive back we decided the time was right. I looked around for images of restoration, Chinese symbols and Sanskrit translations but nothing was feeling like a permanent addition to my aging body. But when Gitanjali started playing in my head again, I knew it had to be. Ann and Cary convinced me it should be in my own writing, so I took out a Sharpie and wrote it out about 25 times before settling on the first one, the only one that was unconscious (and therefore trustworthy).

AJ, our tattoo artist, is decorated neck to ankles in tats, black hair with a patch of shaved blonde in back, and 5 piercings I could see. A scary look to be sure, but one you definitely want in a guy with an autoclaved needle and permanent ink. He tried to convince me I wanted my tattoo elsewhere, positioned in a way for others to read, and so I told him the story – a condensed version. He understood and proceeded to shave the hair on the inside of my left forearm. I want to see it when I played my new guitar to remind me of the gift I had been given at birth, that I lost, and that was now returning to me. I want to say the word gitanjali before singing the song only I can sing. (apologies for getting all Deepak Chopra on you)

I remembered Miriam who danced with all the other women after crossing the Red Sea leaving behind 80 years of slavery. I thought about King David who danced naked in front of everyone when the Ark of the Covenant was returned. I conjured up the three Mary's swaying like The Three Graces hanging on my studio wall (which Robin Harrel made for me). I pictured sitting with Michael Lille watching Darrel Scott, and I replayed Cary singing on the Rocky Mountain stage like I've never heard her before, as the needle pierced my skin tracing my own handwriting. I never grimaced. I wanted to but Ann was watching me like a hawk trying to determine if she'd ever get one herself.

There's Vaseline and Saran Wrap on top of my new tattoo where my hair used to be. Underneath it says gitanjali just like I could have written it with a Sharpie on my skin. Why didn't I just do that? Too late. It's permanent – just as it should be, like a prison tattoo. If I could dance I'd go out right now and shake my booty. But I can't – most musicians can't. That's been getting to me lately, an unexpected point of shame.

I've named my guitar Shanthama. I'm going to take my time learning how to dance with her.


Namaste' TPR

July 30.

Just a few minutes ago Caroline premiered her new dance move at a truck stop just over the Mississippi on the Arkansas side of Memphis. IPod attached to her ears by those ubiquitous white umbilical cords, she danced as if no one was watching – and I'd like to say it was the second coming of Alvin Ailey. Luckily for us it was even more entertaining – sort of like a stork doing the jitterbug. Cary, Kate and I pondered through fits of exhausted laughter whether she was more Elaine or Kramer. Kate being Lindy Hearne's daughter who nannied for us while Cary taught with me at The Young Writer's Workshops (my summer home at UVA in Charlottesville, VA for the last eight years).

Hannah is wired beyond belief, and now she's jealous too. She tried to trump Caroline with her own signature move – and even though it was more swan / less stork, it didn't work this time. The girls haven't been to bed before midnight lately (that's going to change really soon) and they're doing remarkabely well on the trip, but I think we've all hit the wall. If hysterical laughter is verse one then just plain hysterics is the second. Guess that's what happens when you put all this estrogen in a confined space for a scenic trip cross-country, it was just a matter of time. What was I thinking?

It's 10:23 PM Central, and we'll get home to Dallas maybe by 5 AM, and if I have my way we're not stopping before then. Cary's driving the MLU, which in recent months has taken on the appearance of a hippie van, gear piled up to the roof in the back, peace and love bumper stickers plastered all over the back doors, and less than a square foot of window for the driver to see through her rear view. She drives like she writes: Ferociously – Dorothy Parker on uppers. I'm too tired to tamp my feet down on those passenger brake pedals, but I do have Progressive on speed dial just in case.

Several weeks ago we got the news that Cary got in the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival song contest. As difficult as Kerrville is to get into, this is even harder – over 900 entries, with only 10 chosen to perform for the contest, a Pulitzer for songwriters if you will. Cary is one of the chosen, that's her karma – I sometimes wonder if she was Mother Theresa in her past life. In this life I can tell you she's certainly the Diva of Becky Court. But I digress: come August 17 about mid-day Mountain Time would you send up a good word? I know she's my wife and all but still I've never known anyone who's worked harder at her craft, or anyone who's grown as much artistically over the last several years.

I'm going to tell you a secret: It's intimidating to be around her as a songwriter – she's so good that sometimes I feel small by comparison. I mean I wallow in the English language like I'm wading through molasses, like I'm drowning in the shadow of Tom Kimmel and Pierce, and she throws out lyrics that read like perfect stars on top of perfect Christmas trees. That's one of my crosses. One of hers is playing guitar, and now she has to play for herself in the contest. She's been working hard at that too and, true to her form, I know she's going to do fine.

Last week at the tail end of the workshop I recorded and mixed 37 songs of my students in 4 days, and on Thursday night gave them each 2 CDs with all their songs on them as they received their diplomas. My teaching assistants Ben Johnson and Emily Henry told me those songs were blasting out of students' suites until the wee hours of Friday morning, and it filled me with pride – the kind of feeling I don't get anywhere else, doing anything else. It's knowing you've done your best, worked your hardest, given your all, and made at least a little difference in a few young people's lives. How could I give that up?

Earlier this year Cary and I talked about this being my last year at Young Writers. But we both came away from teaching this summer re-learning what we already knew: How it feeds our artistic souls, how much we get energized by being in that creative environment, and how completely it frames the rest of the year for us. So we're not leaving yet, we're going back – and we hope that it becomes an even bigger part of our girls lives too.

Hannah already talks about herself as a songwriter, and she really is. One day I'm going to record her song "Lucky Penny" so you can all hear it. Last summer she helped me Cary write "Angel Wings" with Cary: http://myspace.com/tomprasadarao. You can hear singing the descant part on the outro, a melody and lyric she came up with herself. Caroline wants to try her hand at playwriting, and even though she didn't sit in on any classes this summer, I think she'll be really good at it when she does – her short stories are chock full of the kind of unexpected details I can see working on stage or screen.

My ex and I used to joke about how we'd have buttonned down neo-cons for children. And though she and I weren't blessed with children, having 2 stepdaughters now with Cary makes me grateful that our lifestyle – although not abundant with material things – exposes them to things I never even knew existed until I was in my 30's. I hope that one day they'll look back at all the places they've been, all the cool people they've interacted with, and all the songs they've sung to realize how special it was. But how could they know? It's a life unencumbered by the corsets Cary and I used to wear. They'll never know the flip side: the rules, the dos and donts, the hellfire and damnation, the odious requirements of organized religion. And I'm glad they won't. I'm doing my job here too.

So it's with a certain sense of accomplishment that I return home. I can't wait to get my studio working again. This weekend I go to Boston to mix an album I recorded with Jagoda – my percussionist soul mate. We'll be mixing at Fox Run Studios, and I'll finally get a chance to work with Pro-Tools guru Neale Eckstein. I did manage to finish the mixes to Lauren LaPointe's and Erik Balkey's new albums this summer, and later on in August I'll be recording my cousin Rekha in Denver, then recording my friend Nancy Jephcoate from Martha's Vineyard. Early September I'll start work on Nick Annis' new CD in South Florida.

At some point, I need to start on another CD for Cary too. "Yellow" with such great songs [and great production, ha!] is a hard album to follow, but if anyone can do it she can. And later I've promised myself to start working on that Indian album I keep talking about. Hold me to that will you?

Cary and I've been away from home for over seven weeks. I miss our bed. It's going to feel so good when I lay my head down early tomorrow morning. I want to go downstairs in the morning and make my own cup of coffee, I want to veg out for a few days, be decadent, watch ESPN and catch up on Big Love. I don't even know who's president anymore (wishful thinking). Eventually I'll catch up with the world reading the editorials from the Washington Post – my paper of record.

So … that will last a few days, then I'll be ready for the next chapter. My life is a twisted path and right now in the middle of nowhere Arkansas I'm grateful for every step.

Namaste' TPR

OK, I'm new to this myspace thing.

My wife's an old pro. She's been laughing her ass off at me over the last several days. Now she knows what it feels like to lose your partner to Al Gore's cyberworld ... I gotta get a life.

I've been listening to Ray LaMontagne. Wow. Soulful, sensual, takes his time, says beautiful things, doesn't need a hammer to show you he's got nails. One of the coolest albums I've heard in a long time.

Have you ever read Mary Oliver? It's hard to pick a favorite poem, but one that resonates so much with me these days is Why I Wake Early. Get the book though, you're going to want to take it with you everywhere you go, like I've done for the last half year.

Cary and I've been busy. That's why you haven't heard much from us. Getting married, buying a house, painting (ugh), teaching songwriting all over the country this summer, and getting the girls back to school doesn't leave much time for anything else except for the gigs and the travelling -- and all that trying to keep your head above water stuff. That's why Mary Oliver means so much to me -- she's my church, my way of getting in touch with who god was supposed to be.

My cousin Joy passed away this year, I mourn her, and I mourn Rachel Bissex more than ever. I talk to her when the moon's out and bright. It feels like she's smiling down on me. I'm sure I was thinking about Rachel's song "Royal Blues" on my most recent song ...

I ended up writing Angel Wings with Cary and our daughter Hannah Kate. I'm so proud of her. I wish I could be her -- to be so young, and confident, and capable. I'd bet a big pile of money she's going to be big 10 years from now. And if I play my cards right, I may even get to produce her debut CD.

But it's now now, and I do have a life. And it's good ...

"It's comin on Christmas" my old girl Lucy died (me and Crystal's yellow lab) and so I say farewell.
"It's comin on Christmas" next Tuesday we can stop the madness that is the Bush administration.
"It's comin on Christmas" I can hear Joni singing, and my river is my life. I'm rowing. I'm happy.

Namaste - Tom