Flashback: March 17, 2008

Dateline: Monday March 17, 2008
London, England (Heathrow airport)

Sitting in the terminal building waiting for boarding of flight AA105 to JFK International in New York City. I’ve decided that nowhere can you get a decent cup of coffee in London. No-one quite knows how to make a great cappuccino and the ones that you do buy never seem to be full cups. You always seem to get a cup that is only two thirds to three quarters full.

Got to Heathrow in good time. Uneventful flight to New York. Watched All The Presidents Men and some British film with Billie Piper in it.

Getting through US Customs and Border Protection was no problem, except that it took so long – close to an hour. Each index finger was scanned and a photo of my face was also taken, and added to their huge database of foreign visitors.

By the time I got through Customs and to the baggage carousel to pick my luggage up, it was sitting on the floor with a bunch of others that had simply been off-loaded by (presumably) baggage handlers, and left there for anyone to pick up and walk away with. At least it hadn’t been destroyed in a controlled explosion by paranoid, security conscious staff!

It took another half hour before I could finally get a cab to the YMCA. I waited, not because there were no taxis, but because the queue was so long. Welcome to New York. I told the taxi driver where I wanted to go, and he seemed to be making good progress getting there by the quickest, most direct route – until he got lost in a warren of narrow, traffic laden streets close to my destination. The driver knew the general location of Greenpoint, the Brooklyn suburb the YMCA is located in, but that was all. He kept stopping to ask the locals where the actual YMCA was, but most of them had no idea themselves.

Thankfully, I had printed out a Google map of the area surrounding the YMCA, with just enough information on it for me to help the driver find the building. Once we were on Manhattan Avenue, the main road we needed to be on, and heading in the right direction, I was able to guide him to Meserole Avenue, the street the ‘Y’ was on. If I hadn’t printed that page out, we might still be driving around looking for the place!

I thought it quite ironic that having just arrived in New York for the first time, it was I who actually found the way for the taxi driver.

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Three Days - Three Songs

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
After six and a half weeks in London and New York, it was time to get out and see some country: Trees and meadows, lakes and rivers, mountain peaks and open skies – that sort of thing.

So today I boarded a Greyhound bus and came to Lake Placid in upstate New York. As the journey progressed I began to make notes of the things that caught my attention: buildings, trees, the names of the towns we passed through, that type of thing. I was doing this as an 'Aide-mémoire'*.

Between Albany (the state capital), and Lake Placid, completely unexpectedly, I began to write a song. The words just oozed out of my subconscious onto the notepad, and before I knew it, I had my first completed song on this vacation.

Looks Pretty Good To Me

© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

I left New York City far behind,

I had lakes, and woods, and peace in mind.

So Lake Placid sure sounded mighty fine,

And it looks pretty good to me.

I headed into the Adirondacks,

With its weatherboard homes and its lakeside shacks.

A ragged Old Glory waving out the back,

And it looks pretty good to me.

Chorus

And it looks like America,

As far as the eye can see.

It looks like America,

And it looks pretty good to me.

And it felt pretty good to be finally writing again, let me tell you. I’ve had lots of ideas and nibbles for other songs and snippets over the past six weeks or so, but this is the one. The first one. Strange what a little trip in the country will do to a man.

But there was more to come.

Friday, May 2, 2008
At 7.15am today, I woke up out of a dream with the melody for this song going through my head. As I lay in bed repeating the melody over and over so I wouldn’t forget it, the words began to materialize spontaneously, and I began to write them down. Within a couple of hours, the first draft was complete, and I was beginning to feel delighted with my decision to leave New York for a few days.

Filled With Peace
© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

See the sun over Mirror Lake,
All is peaceful...
Here I am, this is no mistake,
Fills me with peace...

Down the valley a snow goose calls,
All is peaceful...
Bathed in mist as the water falls,
Fills me with peace...

Chorus
Who could have told me?
Let nature enfold me;
Nurture and hold me,
And fill me with peace.

A little sentimental perhaps, but it is a song with a melody that reflects my state of mind: relaxed, happy to be here in Lake Placid, and especially happy to be alive and on vacation in America.

It’s amazing what happens when you stop racing around, and let the brain unwind and the body relax. Sometimes you have to give your body and soul the time and space to stop thinking, planning, organizing, and running – so that it is able to slow down and feedback through the unconscious, thoughts, ideas, and songs you never knew where there. But I still wasn’t done.

Saturday, May 3, 2008
I went for a walk into the centre of Lake Placid this afternoon. Down the end of the main street there is a little park with seats and benches, and lawn running down at a fairly steep angle to the edge of Mirror Lake. There is also a small sound shell where four local musicians were performing some old folk and country standards. They played and sang without amplification, and it seemed to me they were performing just because it was a lovely afternoon and they felt like doing so.

I was sitting in the park having lunch in the late afternoon sun, and watching the world go by. Little kids were running around, and I it occurred to me how easy it would be for one of them to be running down the small hill with such momentum, that they would be unable to stop themselves from falling into the lake, which was not fenced off at all.

I kept wanting to say to several of them, “Stay away from the water”. And the phrase kept returning to my head, over and over. Before too long, I had started writing this song.

Don’t Go Down To The Water
© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

Chorus
Don’t go down to the water,
Stay away from the well.
Keep your eyes off the Taylor boy,
Or we’ll all be goin’ to… Well…

Nobody listens to Papa,
They’re always chidin’ at Ma.
Sittin’ there chewin’ t’bacca,
Nursin’ that ol’ liquor jar.

So she went down to the water,
Took a drink at the well.
Makin’ eyes at the Taylor boy,
An’ the rest – I don’t have to tell.

Again, within a few hours, I had completed my first draft of the song. Since the incidents and ideas that triggered the song, were entirely different from those that triggered the first two, the mood and sentiments expressed in the song were also quite different.

Each song is distinct in its own way, but I am sure that if I had not embarked on this little side trip to Lake Placid, I would never have written any of them.

Maybe the lesson here is, that if you are stuck in a rut, or suffering writer’s block, you need to change the environment you are living in, even if only for a few days.

* 'Aide-mémoire'. The term is used to refer to notes, or memoranda, that are taken in order to jog one's memory later.

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America, America

In six weeks or so, I embark on my first visit to the United States. To say that I am looking forward to it, is an understatement. In many ways I am feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of my American holiday.

Although I am planning a stay of two months, and although that may seem like a long time, I am well aware that I won't even 'scratch the surface' of this vast country during the brief time I will be there.

I have cousins in America I have never met. They are scattered around the country (from New York to Tucson, from Philadelphia to Sacramento), and while I am hoping to catch up with as many of these cousins as I can, I will be devoting at least 28 days of my US stay to the Big Apple - New York. Yes, rather than go on one of those Cook's Tours of the US - you know the type, 10 cities in 10 days - I have decided to spend 28 days in New York, immersing myself as much as possible into the life of that great city.

I hope to spend the remaining 30 days or so, meeting the American side of my family, and trying to see as much of the real America as possible. I'll try to keep you up-to-date via this blog, but don't hold your breath, I may be having too much fun to take time out to update it. But I will try.

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