Finally, we were lost. It seemed a thousand years since I had been forced to stand in a line or suffer the honks of an angry horn. Longer still since I had read an email, or even so much as looked at a calendar. Complete, quiet, soul-soothing bliss. We hadn’t realized it, but we had been in the same place for nearly eight weeks!
It was October and the days were shortening. We still wanted to make our way back to the yet-to-be-explored Spain, so we pulled up our tent pegs, shooed the stray cats out from under the Fiat, and quickly worked our way through what remained of Greece.
I had acquired a sincere affection for the country, and leaving was like saying goodbye to an old friend. I loved it, but Greece wasn’t the home I was searching for. It was time to make our way back across the Adriatic, catch up on Italy, and start considering how we were going to spend the winter. Christmas in Morocco, perhaps? We figured we had a few more weeks to travel through Italy and Spain before we would have to decide.
Reinvigorated, we planned on disembarking from the ferry in Bari, Italy, with plans of taking on the rest of Italy and Spain. Unfortunately, my back had other ideas. As I awoke from the rolling night’s sleep aboard the ferry, pain suddenly shot through my entire body. I couldn’t move a single inch without agony. I had struggled with a niggling back for many years, but this was another level of pain. Karen watched as the other passengers poured off the boat, encouraging me to get up, as I had so many times before. It wasn’t happening. I was immobilized. If I was to make it to land, it was going to take a couple of sturdy paramedics and some narcotics to get me there.
In what I can only describe as the misadventures akin to the Keystone Kops, two orange overall-clad Italian boys unsympathetically loaded my shrieking person into a rickety wheelchair and haphazardly toted me through the endless stairwells of the ship and into a rusty white van marked Ambulanza. White-hot pain splintered its way down my legs and up into my skull on what seemed like an interminable journey through every cobblestone street of Bari. I moaned, wishing I knew the Italian for “Drugs please!” In my best broken Italian, I begged for anyone who could speak English only to be replied with a universally understood no, dashing any hopes I had for a quieting opiate.
When we got to the hospital, the medics parked the van and crawled into the back. No mad dash into the ER. They just sat there. One of the young men smiled, fiddled with his fingers and questioned, “Americana?”
“Si,” I gurgled coolly. I wanted drugs, not chitchat. Gimme the hard stuff, I wanted to say. Instead, I got a cigarette. I attempted to smoke it, but such was my discomfort that I could barely lift my hand to my mouth. It smoldered down to the filter, my shaking hand littering ash into the back of the ambulanza, before I was finally taken inside.
Scans, more scans. Dark-haired men in aging white coats rolled me this way and that with enough English to make out the words stay, hospital, and surgery.
It would be nearly five days before I managed to make contact with a doctor who spoke enough English to help me understand that my back had three bulging discs pressing into the nerves that fed into my legs. They insisted that I stay bedridden; offering me little more than ibuprofen to ease the pain, and informed me that surgery was in order. After looking around my dilapidated room and watching the other patients moan through their postsurgical afflictions, I knew there was no way I was going to let this lot cut me open! The resident orthopedic surgeon didn’t exactly inspire confidence when he grimaced, leaned to my ear and whispered “No here. Go America. Is better.”
Yikes!
It was a horrifying experience, but Karen was beside me through every minute of the ordeal. She suffered her own test of physical endurance, spending every night sleeping on the floor next to my bed, determined to help me get back onto my feet. For two long, grueling weeks, she helped as we determined to force movement through my broken body until I was mobile enough to make my emergency flight back home. There would be no Christmas in Morocco. It was back to Nashville for another long winter.
nineteen
I had had enough with the on again, off again, internments in Nashville. As long as the anchor of my house in Kingston Springs kept acting as a safety net for my travel adventures, I would never be released from moving on with my life. Like a mismatched lover who is no good for you, it seemed every time I reached the end of one road, I’d end up coming back in an attempt to start yet another journey.
After making my way through countless cities, countries, and cultures, I had yet to find the new home that I longed for. In between the surgery avoidance tactics of physical therapy and steroid injections meant to remedy my back problems, I decided to cut the cord once and for all. I wanted to make a definitive move to get as far away as geographically possible, officially severing ties with Music City, USA. This time, we downsized what we owned, packed what remained into a shipping container, and made our voyage to Karen’s native country, Australia.
If you’re searching for a truly cathartic experience in your life, try purging your life of the material possessions that encumber you. In preparing for our relocation Down Under, we were limited to the given cubic space of a small shipping container. For me, it proved to be just what the doctor ordered.
In the throes of my own pagan ritual, I set about offloading every last reminder of my musical life by selling all I could on eBay. Had it not been for Karen, I probably would have burned my Kansas Gold Record plaque and chucked my Dove Awards into the Cumberland. Upon her insistence, I left it to Karen to seal them away in boxes and to keep them out of my sight. Just looking at them was enough to send me into a spiral of depression. My life in Nashville was over.
I was unsentimentally relentless. As much as possible needed to go. Along with sofas, cars, and office equipment, I purposed to jettison every guitar I owned, all my recording equipment, and even the trumpet that had so faithfully served as my gateway drug into music. One by one I polished, photographed, and priced my once darling little children, putting them to the auction block in hopes of never being reminded of them and the life they offered.
Karen was aghast.
“Surely you don’t want to do this!” she said, confounded. “Maybe you aren’t going to do Christian music anymore, but this is extreme. You’ve played music your whole life. Giving up on one doesn’t mean you have to throw the babies out with the bathwater.”
I didn’t care. As long as these pieces were around, I felt taunted by the life I had lost. Even going through them now was a pain almost too debilitating to bear.
“They’re just things,” I insisted. “They don’t mean anything special.” I did my best to downplay the significance of the bloodletting.
“Hon, you’ll play again. It’s part of you.” She gently grabbed my arm, looked into my eyes, pleading for me to not go through with it. “I just don’t want you to do something you will regret later.”
“Trust me, I won’t.” I reassured her. “I’m ready to wash my hands of the whole thing.” I was fully convinced that whatever pangs of remorse that were moving through me were those of guilt over the life that I was denying God any access to. I didn’t want to play CCM anymore, and in doing so, reckoned I was in no way honoring God.
The logic played itself out in my twisted mind:
No Christian music, no God.
You don’t serve God, so there is no point to playing music.
To top it off, you’re gay, and that definitely means you’ve fallen.
The thoughts echoed through me, muddled and yet certain. Every time I opened the door to even considering the deep sorrow of how I had come to this place, I was greeted by all the voices of Christian dissent that had written themselves in my psyche. They went on to say:
You are not worthy of singing.
If you dare sing again, God will smite you.
By not using your voice for God, you are ruining the good works for which you were purposed.
&nb
sp; God will not bless the life of a depraved homosexual. You might sing again, but no good will come of it.
God will never allow you to sing again.
I LACKED THE courage and the confidence to test their certainty. No. Getting rid of all this stuff was the only solution. This chapter of my life had surely ended, so carrying it across the globe wasn’t necessary anymore.
Avoid! Purge! Destroy!
Karen had had enough of my shenanigans. “I won’t let you do it!” She stood between me and the instruments like a protector against my evil deeds. “You will play again. I can’t help but believe it. Let’s pack the most valuable guitars and take them to Australia with us. Give time a chance. Later on, if you still feel this strongly, you can sell them there.” She appealed to my appreciation of value: “You’ll get more money for them in Oz if you decide to sell them anyway.”
With that, she took possession of what I seemed to so easily discard. She took the guitars and piled them into corner of all that we aimed to take with us. If it seemed I had given up, she had not. “They are part of you and they’re coming with us.” And that was that. Safely tucked away in their armored cases, they rested, gathering dust, awaiting the day that Karen’s vision might come true.
I HAD VISITED Australia a few times, so landing in Sydney wasn’t altogether unfamiliar. Along the way, I had picked up a few friends and had become a welcome, adopted new member of my partner’s family. After a few months of settling in, my new community had gone back to their daily lives, leaving Karen and I to construct our new world together.
We found our groove on the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney. My new friends set out to initiate me in all things Australian. Backyard barbecues, long hours of casual beer-laden get-togethers, and sport. Lots and lots of sport. Aussie Rules Football, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, competitive swimming, tennis, you name it—if Australia has a national religion, its church is the arena of sport.
I had a lot to learn. Everything here was fresh and alien to me. While everyone spoke English, their accents made conversation challenging. The simplest and most casual conversations were adventures in themselves. Early on, I struggled to understand most of what was being said unless I focused hard, and paid attention to every word that was spoken. I couldn’t half-listen to what people were saying, as I was so accustomed to back in America. The phrasing, sentence structures, and vocabulary were often very different to my Yankee ears. Their charming colloquialisms and lilting dialect often left me brutishly grunting, “What?” At times, I felt as foreign in conversations as I did nestled in the rugged landscape. Everything was different.
A carefree stroll atop Sydney Harbour North Head easily turned into an adventure all its own. At first, I floundered, trying to appreciate the beauty of the many spindly, yet sturdy shrubs Australians call flora. So much more romantic and inspiring a term than just to call these desperate things bushes. There wasn’t a single leaf I could take for granted. It was all so unusual.
Upon closer inspection, I began to see the wonderment unfold. What at first only looked like a barren and godforsaken land started to bloom in front of my eyes when I stopped to notice. Bottle brush trees, with their bright red and yellow succulent flowers, blossomed and came alive, as vibrant black-and-gold honeyeater birds darted and flitted about. Each bird, danced about and through the branches in an effort to get a taste of the delicious, sweet nectar on offer. The wattle trees opened their tiny, pungent flowers and dusted the parched ground beneath with their yellow-green pollen.
Like a curious child, I was exploding with questions: “What bird is that? What is that tree? I want to see a wombat in the wild! Can I feed a kangaroo?” Karen was a city girl and, for the most part, had never been called upon to describe her native land in such detail, but she was more than game to help me out.
“You know what, we should go bush,” she said. Her eyes lit up with a scheme on the brew.
“What are you talking about?” I had become familiar with how Australians referred to its wild nature as bush, but I had yet to understand the true essence of the term. “You mean camping. Okay.” I was naive as to what she was playing it at.
“Not just camping, I mean, let’s really get into the bush. Let’s get a four-wheel drive and take a real adventure. Let’s go bush. Let’s go live rough. Let’s go live in the mountains, the outback. Or, what about a trek through the desert?”
“You’re crazy,” I replied. I didn’t know the first thing about the kind of off-road, sparsely mapped, isolated type of excursion she was suggesting, and neither did she, I was more than happy to point out.
Karen persisted. How hard could it be? All we had to do was educate ourselves about what we didn’t know. We were already mad outdoor enthusiasts and Karen wanted more, urging, “Let’s take it to the next level.”
I had to admit, the allure of Australia’s wild land spoke to me. I had more than enjoyed the mild-mannered exploring we’d already done. We had taken several road trips along the southern, rugged coast of Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. We’d spent a few weekends tucked away in the tamed state parks of New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, but what she was talking about required more skill than merely setting up a camp stove and a tent.
Before I had a chance to entertain the idea, she was plying me with all manner of books, photographs, and maps. This wasn’t just a nifty idea; she was dead serious. More than that, she explained, she had dreamed of the day where one day she could explore all that Australia had to offer.
We had the time. We were still looking for direction. I had established a firm grasp on what life was like for the coastbound inhabitants of Terra Australis, but there was still much to see.
Apprehensive, but willing, I caved, “Lead the way, then.”
We ended up purchasing a used, yet sturdy, Mitsubishi Pajero. Once again, Karen kitted her out, we christened her Mitzi, and began educating ourselves about just how to make use of her.
We signed up for a four-wheel driving course that proved to be frighteningly educational. Growing up on a farm, I’d had my share of driving on dirt roads and fording small, innocuous creeks, and was capable of dealing with flat tires without calling them emergencies, but at no time had I ever faced anything that I would have described as dangerous.
“Where do you girls plan on going?” the teacher inquired to assess what kind of instruction we required.
We had gotten it in our minds to explore the Snowy Mountains. The High Country. Karen was keen to explore the fire trails that wound their way through the peaks and valleys of Australia’s highest mountains. I still reckoned she was wanted the impossible, and our instructor didn’t exactly calm my nerves. He explained what a serious undertaking we were proposing, and that if he didn’t think we were fit for it by the end of our lessons, he wouldn’t hesitate to say so. We needed to graduate his outback driving course before we were cleared to go.
“In the outback, your vehicle is your lifeline,” warned the instructor. He made it sound so serious. “You have to know every inch of your four-wheel drive. You have to know how to be able to put every wheel within millimeters of where you aim it to go. One slip, and you could be dead. Tear up the transmission, and it could be days before you see another soul who can help you. You could slide off a cliff, and you’re as done as a dinner.”
Crikey. What was I getting into?
In the relatively controlled environment of this bloke’s outback adventure track, he proceeded to conduct our trial by fire. We each took our turn, driving Mitzi through radiator-engulfing troughs of black water. We practiced crossing five-foot-deep trenches over bridges made of nothing more than two-wheel-wide planks. Up narrow, rocky trails, down steep, slick embankments. He even schooled us in how to recover our vehicle from getting stuck in various scenarios of sand and mud. He was our off-roading guru, proud and enthusiastic to help us get the most out of Mitzi, but also teaching us about our own pe
rsonal limits as well.
“Never bite off more than you can chew,” he urged us. “If you aren’t prepared to deal with the consequences, then you shouldn’t drive through it. The trip is over if you’re dead. Now, go and have the time of your lives.”
We had graduated!
twenty
There are few places I have visited in this world that have delivered the promised romance and beauty as that of the Australian landscape. By no means have I been everywhere, but I’ve often found that there have been times where I’ve been challenged to share in the same level of awe that the poets who came before meant to inspire. Perhaps there are times when I am too busy or distracted to lose myself to the spirit of transcendence, holding fast to reality that everything is the same. Too often, I have found myself numbed by a predictable world that holds nothing especially sacred or divine. Maybe Australia is, in the end, no different that any other place on the earth, made as it is of the usual stuff—rock, air, dirt and water—but nestled in her arms, I rediscovered spiritual contentment.
One of my favorite books as a young girl was Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain. It is the story of a young boy who runs away from his New York City home and escapes to the solitude of the Catskill Mountains, where he learns how harsh, isolated, and nurturing life in solitude can be. The story resonated so much with my own young life, with my desire to run away from my own childhood troubles, my love of the outdoors, and my kinship with isolation, that I was drawn into his world as if it were my own lived escape.
Waking up in a serene, frost-dusted valley of the Snowy Mountains, I couldn’t help but feel transported into a dream. In the High Country, the nights before winter are crisp and frigid. When the morning sun creeps over the towering ridge, the ice crystals that cover the golden grasses and red gum leaves glisten as they thaw, releasing the sweet, soft fragrance of eucalyptus into the air. Overnight, tucked into a much-relied-upon, state-of-the-art sleeping bag, my joints still would manage to stiffen from the freezing chill. The only remedy would be to force myself up and start a fire with my numb fingers, desperate for a piping hot cup of tea poured straight from the billy.
Facing the Music Page 19