10-2-01, Sunday Journal, 597 words
On Being a Man
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
Robert Johnson tells of
hearing an old American Indian teacher say, "When a man is firm inside and
gentle without, he is a healer. When he is hard outside and soft inside, he is
useless."
The truth is that most
men are a mixture of all this. At times we are gentle inside and outside and at
other times we are hard in our actions when our heart is like Jello, quivering
in fear or in a spasm of overwhelming love.
My own father gave me a
lesson or two along these lines. He was as tough as nails at times in his words
and actions but when you caught him just right, he was putty in your hands. He'd
lecture me about how "a man has got to pert near bust a hamstring to
accomplish anything in this life and nobody's gonna give you anything," but
when I learned a few simple chords on a guitar, he smiled all the way to a
music store where he bought me a Martin guitar – the most expensive brand.
When I think back on him
and his life, the gentle times are the most memorable. He was so good in his
heart that even when he was mad you'd end up thinking about how good he was.
When his mother was dying, he was firm inside and stayed by her side til the
end. Then he came home, laid his head in Mama's lap, and sobbed so hard I almost
died just watching it from another room. I knew any man who loved his mother
that much was pure Love Jello.
What a man needs is
balance. Knowing when he can be Love Jello and when he must be firm inside and
calm outside. The balanced man is a little of all the things the old Indian
teacher talked about.
HUMORING
SONGS
Songs come to you, put a
little leash around your neck, and force you to walk around with them. They
won't turn you loose until they are satisfied with what you have made of them.
And days or even years later, they'll make you change a little something about
them. Tom Horner calls this "tweaking the song" but it's more like the
song tweaking you until it likes the way it is.
A new song will wake you
in the middle of the night and say, "I go like this." When you try to
go back to sleep it will pull on the leash until you wake up and write it down.
It flies into your gourd and perches there on the song pole until you give it
your full attention.
So you just follow your
songs around. Once you give them any thought you cannot withdraw your thought
from them. They're like a little child in a store, "Hey, I wanta go over
here...now take me over there...Can I have this? This sure would sound good on me."
What can you do? Humor
them. That's all.
Someday I want to write a
book about each of my songs. Where they came from. How they tracked me down.
What they meant to me at the time and how that meaning has changed over the
years we have lived together. For, make no mistake, songs will change you.
I'd better shut up
because I'm wanting to tell you about one of the little rascals who has
got a leash around my neck right now. Guess I might as well finish this and go
write the little *&*!^&*! bossy thing!
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