Chicken-Fried Thunderstorms

This looks familiar, vaguely familiar,
Almost unreal, yet, it's too soon to feel yet.
Close to my soul, and yet so far away.
I'm going to go back there someday.
Sun rises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls.
Is that a song there, and do I belong there?
I've never been there, but I know the way.
I'm going to go back there someday.
Come and go with me, it's more fun to share,
We'll both be completely at home in midair.
We're flyin', not walkin', on featherless wings.
We can hold onto love like invisible strings.
There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met.
Part heaven, part space, or have I found my place?
You can just visit, but I plan to stay.
I'm going to go back there someday.
I'm going to go back there someday.

Got back from Texas on Wednesday night. The airport was quiet - it was around 1 AM, and the bleary-eyed travelers shuffled in relative silence through the muted grays of the airport. The flight from Hobby, split into two two-hour chunks around Atlanta, had passed quickly. J.K. Rowling's gift for spellbinding kept me entranced for all but the few minutes spent gnoshing on biscuits and cran-apple juice, and the time passed quickly under her able fingers.

Unlike last time, I didn't return from Texas with a fresh layer of skin exposed to the air. Last time, well, I came back a different person. Raw. Vulnerable. Acting out. There were no trips to Galveston this time, no tearful expressions of frustration, no drinking binges. Cigarettes smoked were counted with single digits, not by the pack, and though there were a couple heads banged against a railing, it was short, fleeting, something we needed to work out of our system before we could just be.

It was just, well, good. The whole time. And it got better as it went along, became more real, more tangible, harder to leave.

It's hard to write about Jeffrey and Emily without being unbearably corny. My actual feelings would more closely resemble Hallmark cards, and so in the interest of your sanity, dear Reader, I will spare you the mushy stuff. You wouldn't believe me anyway.

My trip to Texas started on the previous Friday. I went to Dallas to visit Brian Holland, one of the world's greatest piano players, and proceeded to have three of the coolest days in recorded history. Brian is 35, but our age difference felt more like one year as opposed to eleven, and we spent the first night I was there munching on Boneless Buffalo Wings at Chili's (what can be considered the "Theme Food" of the trip - I must have consumed something like 25 of them over the course of the week) and playing pool. I know! Pool! And he and his roommate were really good, and I nearly beat both of them. I came within one shot both times.

Apparently I am a shark. I think it explains a lot.

Saturday was spent at the piano. I don't think I've laughed harder in my life than with Brian on Saturday. We were just really, really good at cracking each other up. After watching "Airplane" on his massive HDTV (I'd never seen the movie! "You just want me to have an abortion..." omg HILARIOUS) we surfed YouTube for three hours, watching videos of piano god Dick Hyman and making stupid, hysterical jokes about his name. I mean come on. Dick. Hyman. It writes itself. We merely chiseled. Smoothed out the buttocks. The joke was already in the stone.

Sunday was spent at the piano, too. It was kind of like being in the room with Hemingway and watching him write, only without the self-loathing and more uses of the word "said." I am a decent piano player. Brian is a god. Just hearing him play would have been worth the trip. The fact that I left with ideas and music and the drive to get better, not to mention with a new friend, was really icing on what proved to be a fabulous slice of cake. Can't wait to see him again.

He dropped me at Dallas-Love Field, and I caught a plane down to Houston. Jeffrey and Emily were waiting for me down at baggage claim, and I felt like a little kid at how excited I was to be seeing them again. I took measured steps so as not to belie the fact that I wanted to run. The past six months blurred and melted, and there they were, together, watching little bags go around the carousel. Emily saw me first and came running, and within minutes we were riding in Jeffrey's car, Rowdy the Audi, thoroughly hugged out.

The next couple of days were a delight. If I could turn that sentence into a cake, it would weigh 400 pounds. I got to see Vicky again after a far-too-brief introduction seven years ago. I think we've set a land-record for number of meaningful words exchanged between people who only met for three hours. And I finally got to meet her partner Dan, about whom I heard wonderful things, all of which he lived up to. Dan has a room in their house that would melt just about any Star Wars fan. I seriously tried to swear fealty when I saw the Stormtrooper with the shield and the lightsaber. Omigod.

You're probably wondering, "That's all? That's all he's going to write?" You see, last time I was there, I came back needing to put all of my experience into words. I needed to have it out in front of me where I could my paws in it, move it around, hold it up under different light. This time, though, I want to hold the moments close, keep them warm and safe. Some of it just doesn't make sense when you put it on the page, and that's okay. It's safe with me. Suffice it to say, the "Muppet Movie" is one of the most beautiful, true films ever made. Life is a movie. Make your own ending.

Can't wait to go back. In every sense of those five-and-a-half words, I. Cannot. Wait.

So many new adventures coming. Much, much to tell, dear Reader. We will watch a thunderstorm pass overhead, admire its swirling blackness, and know that it's alright not to go inside the house.

Until then, I remain,
Your Martin