Sand in hair / Millie girl / Laguna Beach, CA.
Time THOUGHT, warping back to the year 2012.
Touring / traveling at that time in my life felt completely logical / normal / sustainable . Regularly scheduled departures and arrivals to and from my home in Utah were the ways of what I truly believed were the “artist’s path”. The lady who had been sharing living space with me, seemingly ok with my erratic choice of “career,“ granted me freedom to explore the ins and outs of my constantly swelling and shrinking views on life, via musical endeavor. My direction / life, felt balanced, or at least a semblance of “balance”. All of this changed when the forces of life brought the strands of makeup from both me and my lover together in a beautiful array of cellular fusion. Our boy Oliver was to be birthed and like that life shifted.
Fast forward to November 28th-2017. I packed my car with a guitar, two bikes, microphones, papers, a typewriter and an urgent desire to create songs from nothingness. I drove myself to Las Vegas where I picked up Mr. Jordan Clark from the airport and we headed South-West to the land of the LAGOON. Mr. David Helfrich welcomed us with the warmest heart that I ever did experience, as we pulled into the gated community, located somewhere in Laguna Beach, California, we saw the sun set and felt fearless for the task. At first there was little talk of song-writing, the conversation was safe and bounced from theme to theme until dinner was over. As the dishes got loaded into the washer we talked of intention and locational purpose. The goal, as explained by David, who had initially dreamt up the idea of traveling to California for the SOLE purpose of song writing, was to try and write 2-3 songs during our 6 day stint of “surf-style” living. The schedule was easy, simple, freeing;
- Rise when you rise
- Write when you feel inspired
- Explore the city
- Enjoy your moment
- Write when you feel anything
- Sleep when you are tired
And like that we started our journey into the ethereal quest of creating something from nothing.
I have been writing songs for 12 years, but never had I set out with such a retreat to the land of writing, and solely that. With the directions laid before us of how we were to go about the day, albeit loosely, we began writing. I can’t pretend that the songs fell in our laps, and that there was not hard work, long moments of brain squeezing struggle for lyric, or melodic structure, but as the sixth day came to a close we put a nail in the 16th song of the inspiringly productive week. I had never written that many songs in that short of time, and felt elated, grounded and tired.
Helfrich Homestead / Retreat To Write / Songs.
Hello, Old Friend / Song.
Light In The Darkness / Song
The next day both Jordan and I’s families flew in to spend three days in the sun lit sky of Laguna beach. The sand castles were built and destroyed, the street tacos and hotel room service-delivered pizzas were consumed, and I felt rejuvenated.
Babes in BeachLand, CA.
Afternoon Street Tacos / Millie Girl.
Jordan / FAT bikes / Working Wonderfully.
Saturday morning came crashing through the windshield of our car as we headed north toward our home state. We stopped in Las Vegas to see my parents. As we sat in the decadently decorated living room of my parents “new” abode (Since retirement in 2016) we quickly realized that we were too tired OR too unwilling to continue our journey north to Willamette MTN. We conversed with the two statutes of my existence until my Mother had to be off for the sake of her students, she is a piano teacher.
I suggested, to Emma, that we take bikes to the foot of the Red Rock loop and cycle it together. She, being the supportive and adventurous woman that she is, obliged. We parked our car at 3:42 pm at the base of the loop and started to pedal our way in. The air was brisk on our skin but the golden rays of the sun warmed us and kept us at a comfortable temperature. We reached the peak of the loop at 4:23 pm, I took a quick photo of Emma as I noticed that the sun was already beginning her crouch, sinking behind the Nevadian Mountains.
My Bird / Red Rock Canyon / Bird Flipper
“Well, no more photos, your phone just died. I hope ya won’t need to take any more on the way down.” I laughed quietly as I packed the battery-less mini computer into the back pocket of my backpack. The ride down the loop was approximately 9 miles and the air had already dropped since we started our biking, I expressed concern to Emma about the temperature, and told her we better get going. At about a mile into our return down the loop my hands were feeling the strain of the frigid air, feeling in my extremities was quickly disappearing. The sun was dropping quicker than I had anticipated, I turned to Emma,
“Once that sun drops behind the ridge it is going to get really cold…
I am happy to race up ahead, get the car, park the car at the bottom of the loop (it was about 2 miles from the exit), grab your coat and gloves and race back up the loop to bring you some warmth.”
She agreed to the proposition and I raced up ahead, as quickly as my legs would carry me, to the bottom of the loop. As I was exiting onto the main drag that would lead me to the car I couldn’t feel my hands, a realization quickly followed that Emma too was feeling the temperature drop and that time was of the essence. I got to the car and fumbled for my keys, my hands were not working in conjunction with my brain’s demands, I couldn’t get my fingers to properly grasp the key to insert it into the key slot. I blew on my hands and then persuaded them to play nicely, and I was in. I was chattering when I parked the car at the bottom of the loop. Quickly as my body could muster I grabbed a coat for Emma, gloves and started up the Red Rock loop, backwards. The loop is a one way and I was NOT traveling with traffic, my lack of bike light was causing drivers to swerve around me, barely keeping me in the game of the living. At this point there was next to no sunlight left, just a soft glow, fading quickly behind the eastern ridge.
“EMMA! EMMA!” I screamed up ahead of me, hoping there would be some sort of distant response. By this point I was losing my calm and panic was seizing my composure. I had biked back up the loop 3 miles and there was no sign of her. My options, at this point, were few, either continue up the loop looking for her with next to no light, and eventually NO LIGHT, or… turn around, and race up and around the loop with the car, in hopes that she is somewhere off the shoulder. Neither of these options were of much comfort, but I opted for the first.
I raced back down the road and pulled the car back onto the main drag toward the entrance of the Red Rock park, near the place where we had parked initially. As I passed the area where we had parked I noticed a white CRV, lights on, stationary. The car began to honk. Could it be? Had Emma found a ride, with her bike, down the loop? I pulled to the shoulder, and like an angel from the heavens Emma came racing around to the passenger side of the car, teeth chattering and face frozen, but relieved.
I haven’t felt fear like that in a long time.
With the whip of the wind our reality can escape, distort, dissolve.
I am grateful for this wicked ride, this weird turnpike, this insane existence,
Surely to disappear,
Joshua F. James
Originally posted on Tumblr