I just turned off the am radio oldies station I listen to here in my little pink trailer because the cricket, who lives along the wire fence in the tall grass outside my front door, just woke up and has a song to sing. He needs no mic. He is as loud as a school bell that never stops ringing. I don't know when he catches his breath because that guy never misses a beat. I am here in Lyons tonight back into the arms of the town that refuses to let me go... back in my neighborhood where I belong to no one and everyone just the same. I am alone but never lonely. I am home in my 1959 Kenskill travel trailer... This is the place I feel like I have been trying to get to my whole life. At 40 I have finally found my place and it's not a place I have to share with anyone. I have very full life that I do share with my guy, my dogs ,my friends and my band...but I need a place just for me.
I was born with the wanderlust I always say. Half man, half horse... running wild, shooting arrows. It's in my blood. Don't try and put me out in a fenced pasture because I will kick it down the so I can run to the mountain top to see what's on the other side. So it makes sense that my house has wheels, latches to keep doors from swinging open while in motion, and not too much storage room to keep extra crap that will only slow me down when I've got to move. Where I am I going? What am I looking for? The answer is always the same...I am going where the sound of the wind is louder than a rush hour highway. Where the mourning doves wake me up with the sun rise. Where the smell of skunk and bitter weeds are sweet perfume and where the crickets sing their chiiper tune.
Over the last 5 years, I've been living out of my suitcase...it's called the MLC bag, Maximum Legal Carry-on ... I don't bother to unpack it even when I am at the place that is technically my home. I do my laundry and just repack it every week. My dresser only holds the clothes I never wear and my closet is full off things that seemed like a good idea at the time. Home is my boyfriend's house in Frisco, Colorado. He owns it and I am really lucky to have a place for me and my dogs. We live in the basement as we have a roommate to help pay the mortgage who lives on the floors above... Me and basements...? Um... not a recipe for success. The best part about the basement? It's where the washer and dryer live...and I love doing laundry... the smell of honey flowers on soft, plush towels and the powdery soft way a fresh- off -the- line flannel top sheet feels against my bare skin ... But when I am there and I am there living in the concrete floor basement with him and three dogs ( that often smell like the swampy, wetland, marsh area that is in the back yard ). I am not firing on all my cylinders. I feel like I am drowning. I love my guy and believe in us but the living situation is difficult.Or perhaps, I am difficult. There is no place for quiet when people are walking around in high heals on the cold linoleum above. There is no reflection in pewter concrete that shines in pink cherry blossoms or sea foam waves... No matter how much I vacuum, the carpet is still stained. And I always seem to end up burning up the vacuum belt when I run over the electric cord... No matter how much I clean, the dog hair still creeps into the base board heaters and singes slowly on cold nights. As soon as I get there, I just want to get into bed...under my down comforter and organic Turkish cotton sheets that I got at the Thrift Store for $2 (the workers apparently don't know that these are worth a lot more.) So that's where you'll find me when I am there...in bed under the covers... That's of course after I've OCD-mopped the kitchen floor, taken out the rotting trash, and wiped the counters clean with my blue Pine Sol that just makes it feel better. Or at least smell better... And then when I am in bed, I am tired. No room for guitars. No room even in my mind...
So for the last two years, in between my comings and goings from the basement to playing shows ... I have been splitting my time in a rented 1968 Overlander Air Stream...which has been a sanctuary and a temple of sorts. When I go in there and shut the door behind me... the world I knew before just disappears and out the window on the other side is a quiet world of birds bathing in the river, black squirrels swinging like monkey acrobats from the branches up on the tree top canopy and yellow leaves riding the river like a hobo hops a train... Looking out that picture window feels like I'm spying through a looking glass. That world is intoxicating...a warm opium den of sorts and I womb I never wanted to leave... So it made sense that I would buy my own trailer...that I could call my own...
It was my plan, originally, to get a trailer, tow it up to Frisco and park it in the grassy area next to the house above our bedroom... So I could have a space just for me...where no one could walk on my ceiling, where the sizzling sesame smells of Asian Surprise would not wake me up at 11 at night and where I would be out of ear shot from my guy's constant search for his missing sock ( even though he has many other perfectly fine other pairs to wear.) I would not have to answer to or be annoyed by any one. I would have a door to shut and a world to myself.The older I get the more time I need for being alone and being quiet.
So with the help of my friend who has let me rent his old Airstream for the last couple of years when I visit Lyons occasionally, we found my dream trailer. I had always been drawn to the little vintage trailers I'd see in magazine spreads and dream of finding one of my own and fixing it up in cute kitschy colors... After finding a couple that would have 'done the job' but would not necessarily have been exactly perfect, my guy suggested that I get really clear and to find the exact one I wanted. I knew that I liked the old bumper pulls... the ones with the light birch wood cabinets and paneling and the big louvered windows. I liked the ones I saw with full beds that stayed put and didn't have to be packed away every morning...and the idea of a real bathroom and shower was just the icing on the cake. So in searching Craigslist constantly, my friend found an ad we thought was sure to be spam. It was for a 1959 Kenskill. It had no photo and no phone number... But it had an email address...So we emailed the guy and he gave my friend a very simple description in broken english. I Googled the model and year and found about 4-5 different ones from 1959. All different sizes and layouts but there was one that I fell in love with from the first photo I saw. It was Pink! Pink stove, Pink oven, Pink sink, Pink fridge, Pink shower and Pink booth seats! PINK!PINK! PINK! It had an atomic retro star back splash in the near full size kitchen and cool, faux wood, grey laminate counter tops!!! It was my dream trailer and it was owned by a girl in Austin (naturally)...This one wasn't the one that was for sale here in Colorado but it was the same year. My friend called about the one for sale here in Colorado and pretty much told the guy we'd buy it sight unseen. Since there were several models and sizes, I wasn't sure which one it would be...I had hoped, of course, that it would be the pink one...the others ones in that year were bigger, had kitchens in the back and had brown or yellow appliances...I was keeping my fingers crossed for it to be the pink one!
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| This is the one I saw online and fell in love with! |
I had a show the night my friend was going to buy it...but he said he would bring it by where I was playing on his way back... I could hardly wait...I kept imaging him pulling up across the street while I was playing my songs... I finished the show and packed up my gear before he arrived... I went for a walk down the neighborhood streets that reminded me of the Northern Indiana town I grew up in. And when I walked down the dark ally back towards the venue...There.It.Was!!!!
It was bigger than I imagined... Iit was a little rougher looking that I hoped. I knew that the space in the yard that I had planned for it to go to in Frisco was limited and I wondered if it would fit and what would my guy think of it? It was pretty trashy looking by my guy's standards. I knew with my crazy cleaning skills that I'd have it ship shape in no time. So with a flash light shining in I stepped up inside...and to my sheer delight it was the.exact.same.one.as.the.pink.one.in. Austin! I started screaming! "It's the exact same cabinets! It has the exact pink sink and stove! Oh My God!I can't believe it's the exact same one!!!!' It felt like finally something was going right! I had gotten clear on what I really wanted and the universe delivered! And right then, my life changed for the better. Granted, it was covered in bird poop and years of caked on dirt...but those things didn't even phase me... it was something I could make perfect. And that I did.
I spent this whole summer in between shows and festivals, cleaning it, sewing curtains, reupholstering the benches and filling it with mid century melmac dishes, aluminum tumblers, a vintage ice crusher, a wall mounted can opener, and on and on... It didn't take long until it was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. It is ready for the photo shoot... At least on the inside it is.
I lived in it as I worked on everything while I was visiting...Searching for and finding all sorts of cool things like a brand new RV sized mattress for free on Craigslist that I needed, the exact cherry blossom fabric for the curtains, pink rag rugs and on and on. We found a guy with a yard full of chickens, goats, pigs, dogs and blown up trailers , just prime for the picking, where we got a vintage 3 way fridge, toilet, and random other cool trailer parts like vents, lights and curtain rods ...We ended up painting the avocado green toilet and fridge ballet slipper pink and they now look like they've been waiting their whole life to come out of their drab life and live in the pink!
In living/visiting in the trailer all summer, in my neighborhood, I found a part of me that I had shelved away over 5 years ago... the girl who can turn garbage into gold and do it on a dime. I fell in love with me in the trailer in Lyons so much so that I couldn't imagine taking it up to Frisco... As was my original goal... I started playing my guitar and working on new songs in the pink trailer and found that I felt really creative, calm, and inspired - even happy. Happy? Me? What? Yes. Happy. Me.
So it was always my plan that this fall and winter, I would woodshed myself...take time to just play music...My co producer of my last record and current band mate, has kept saying 'let's start the new album!' and Then one day after I was playing electric guitar in the pink trailer, he and I decided we'd make the new album in it (which by the way, it is called 'The Birdhouse' after the fact that it was covered in bird poop when I got it.) And I knew then that it couldn't come to Frisco, it had to be my place here when I was visiting Lyons...
And this is the part of the story where trailer #3 comes into the story.
Yes trailer number three!
So my friend who is my partner in all things trailers, decided that he wanted to buy a vintage trailer too and that I could fix it up to my liking and take it up to Frisco for as long as I wanted and that the Birdhouse and the Airstream would stay down here in Lyons... AH HA! Perfect!!! So we found a little 1963 bumper pull called a Cardinal that is smaller than The Birdhouse and has a sleeping loft area...It was in a lot better shape than the Kenskill and it looked less trashy from the outside... So now we had 2 trailers to restore! So it goes...I love restoring these trailers so much that I could go into business of restoring and selling them. The little Cardinal, that we call the 'Love Bird' (after the Mourning Doves that live in the trees above me.) is being made to look like a 1963 vintage Fender Reverb Unit... 1963 was the last year Fender used the wheat grill cloth and brown tolex...so since it's got cool, vintage, brown tile, I decided that it would be cute to make it look like a vintage Fender Amp... It originally came with persimmon appliances which weren't ugly but they just weren't aqua or sea foam. So I found an entire set of aqua appliances out of another vintage trailer and we went and got those...and now those are in there...
So it's coming up on fall now and that brings me to the time of the year that I slow down and start feeling the need to nest... write...be creative... and I am so thankful for my trailers that are ready for me to start writing, recording and just being in...
Which brings me to the Real Women Real Songs chapter!
My friend, Cary Cooper, an award winning, song spitting out every other day, reality tv show persona, mother, wife and all around person who makes the world a better place to live in, made up this challenge/ inspiration for her other song writing women friends...called Real Women Read Songs...where all the women in the group would write a song every week (or every other week) and post them on You Tube... I originally got the invite/email this summer and it didn't even register to me that it was an invite to me...I just thought it was something else wonderful Cary was up to, being part of or spearheading...(all of which are true). So I started seeing the Facebook posts and started figuring out that I probably was invited and that I should probably do it. By the time I figured all that out though, the final group was chosen and it was already in motion... With out me. I decided that I would do it anyway...with or with out being official...I would ride on the tail feathers of the women who were paying attention and were brave enough to commit right off the bat. I sent Cary an email and just told her that I was gonna do it on the side and she encouraged me to make an intro video to let people know who I was and to go ahead and post my videos on the Real Women Real Songs Page. So these last 2 days I have spent here in my little trailer making an intro video on my iPhone and posting it to You Tube...
I also spent a day writing a song based on this week's 'prompt' (which is just an idea or theme to which to write from). The first week's prompt was 'Patience'...So I wrote this song 'Doldrums'
And apparently according to this video, I also became a left handed guitar player. (Ha Ha).
I am proud of the song because it is true to me. It sounds like me...It sounds like one of my songs. Many people maybe don't know that I have always thought of myself as a sailor/sailer. I read all those books about circumnavigating the world, being a single hander...It is my dream to have a sail boat and sail the world... When I met my guy, he told me that while not a super experienced sailor, he did know how to sail and also wanted to sail away someday. (He's a Pisces and was born to the water.) Me being all wanderluster just translates to being a born traveler who wants to go everywhere and see everything. I won't go into all the details of the song...but I will just say that it is my story... I haven't actually sailed across the Doldrums...not in this lifetime anyway...but I feel as though I have before, perhaps in another life time and I will again. I am always looking for the pretty water the... blue and the green.
So please pass this blog and videos around to your friends who are song writers and/or fans of song writers or even aspiring song writers...If it wasn't for me being inspired by my friends, I wouldn't have gotten this song... I am not sure if it's a keeper yet or not but that's not even the point...The point is that I am just so grateful for this space to write, create and be me in!!! And I am grateful for a community of girl friends to inspire and support me.
Thanks for reading and/.or watching,
All My Best-
Jami
Doldrums
There are no swells the winds have died
There are no stars to indentify
are we floating on water or sailing on sky
I know what you're thinking with out saying a word
is that Albatross a blessing or a curse?
as the days multiply I'm not so sure
Everything looks insane
walls of black water the sky in flames
lost in the doldrums day after day
I'm looking at you, you're looking at me
you're the blue and I'm the green
i became the sea, it wasn't a dream
you're the only fixed point I know
when the wind blows and the sea foams
I'll dead reckon our way on
Everything looks insane
walls of black water the sky in flames
lost in the doldrums day after day
What time is it? The time is now
It doesn't matter anyhow
Just wait for the green flash as the sun slips down
Everything looks insane
walls of black water the sky in flames
lost in the doldrums day after day
Sept 5-6 2012
Jami Lunde
Lyons, Colo
