Fuzzy showed up at 9:30 on his portable car phone. It’s rare to see him without it, except when the signal drops on a bend or a bridge. During those times, he lets out a frustrated “dambdamb damnit!” He runs his entire taxi operation from his car he apologetically explains, “I’m the driver, dispatcher, and accountant for this whole taxi enterprise. But that also means I can do anything I want!” he said “I even pick up hitchhikers from time to time.” He parked under the shoe tree where, he insisted, the reception was best. Plugging one ear and closing his eyes, Fuzzy booked his next client before driving us into town.

Eureka Springs is certainly unique. Almost every store offers weddings—The Tattoo Parlor doubles as a marriage parlor, and The Cigar Shop wants to marry you and gift your new husband a free stogie. We walked by an “Old Time Photo” studio that, unsurprisingly, also functioned as a wedding parlor. Their window was full of framed photos —newlyweds dressed in 19th-century hooker and gangster garb sporting new rings and casual attitudes toward marriage. It seemed, in Eureka Springs, people were getting hitched just for the fun of it, or for the perks like a free sepia picture or cigar. Walking by the Tattoo/Marriage Parlor, I couldn’t help but point out the irony of permanent inkings juxtaposed against loosely tied knotings of matrimony. Ravenous, we looked around for a place to eat that wouldn’t unintentionally turn into a wedding ceremony.

A woman passing by stopped us. “My husband and I loved your show last night,” she said, beaming through thick glasses and a Southern accent. Suddenly, we were celebrities. People were coming up to us, complimenting our performance. “I heard your show last night was great,” said a man poking his head out from his barbershop. “I love your voice,” said a teenage girl walking by with her friends. And it struck Soucy and I at the same time —a thousand people in attendance at our gig the night before meant we’d played in front of more than ½ the population of Eureka Springs.

Just as we were about to give up on lunch, a small-hipped, wide-eyed brunett woman ushered us into her café, “Mud Street,” for a bite assuring us she wouldn’t marry us and insisting she feed us a free meal, She’d loved our show. Everyone stared and whispered as we walked in. Lisa sat us down and poured out two piping hot cups of coffee. The steam curled up in cat tail-like rings around our chins. Exaggeratedly, I widened my eyes at Chris so as not to be overheard and said, “Remind me to move to Eureka Springs for a week if I ever need to feel famous.”

Drunk on town people’s love, we wandered up the street after our free meal, to the arts fair. Face painters glued glitter on children’s bright eyes and cheeks, drum makers showcased their instruments, and dancers in mirrored Indian skirts spun to the drone of a a sea of didgeridoos. Bubbles floated through the crowds, dodging feet and children’s eager hands. Chefs in stained aprons flipped steaming meat which sizzled and hissed and surrounded us in plumes of sweet-smelling sausage and bell pepper. Astrologers offered tarro readings, and half the people who passed grabbed our arms to say, “We loved the show last night.” Eureka Springs felt like the backdrop of a fairytale. I could have swam in that velvety joyous environment all day but Chris and I had a show to prepare for.

We showed up punctually, guitars in hand at The Old Ballroom. But the sceen was chaotic. The stage manager hadn’t showed up, and the sound man, arriving late, admitted when he got there, “I’ve never worked with this sort of board before.” When we took the stage, he proceeded to send blood-curdling shrieks of feedback through the room and people clutched their ears and stared around at each other uncomfortably. After the third shriek, I pushed the mic stand away, unplugged my guitar, and addressed the obvious. “OK,” I said, “I came to sing for you, not to have equipment scream at you so If you don’t mind, let’s all bring our chairs up close to the stage. I’m gonna do this one acoustic.” From then on the night turned around. The sound man got drunk, and the audience, no longer in danger of being deafened, appreciated the rest of the show.

Back at the Land-O-Nod, Chris and I opted out of returning to town to see “Rice and Beans,” a band led by a pretty Asian keyboardist. Instead, we put on green mud masks, opened a bag of chips, a gourd of salsa, and a bottle of red wine. I unwrapped two plastic cups from the bathroom sink, and Soucy poured generous servings. We switched on Wild Discovery—something about tornadoes—and settled into our “honeymooner’s suite,” king-sized bed. Before long, the room was a mess. I kept dropping dollops of salsa on the colorful comforter, and Chris spilled a full cup of wine on the carpet. In a panic, he stripped down to his underwear and socks and danced around in circles doing a make shift chacha atop a wet towel in an attempt to remove the stain. I laughed until I choked because he looked so ridiculous in his cracking green clay mask, undies, and pulled-up black socks. He laughed too.

The next morning, Fuzzy brought us to the airport. He carried our luggage all the way to our gate, and hooked us up with free massages right there at the terminal (courtesy of a therapist who happened to be one of his drivers). But, though he was no doubt the best taxi driver we’d ever had, he refused to take our money. “I don’t need it,” he said, strutting away like a cowboy. He turned one last time on the descending escalator to wave and smile goodbye. See you next time, Fuzzy. See you next time, good buddy.

Wrapped in a green flannel Patagonia jacket, I futilely clenched my abdominal muscles against the cold. My front porch was quiet in the dark, chilly morning. To distract myself from the chattering of my teeth, I played a game, counting down how many seconds it would take Delucchi and Soucy to turn onto my street. Each of my prediction was wrong. I left my guitar on the porch and went inside to top off my coffee. Chris Soucy and I were booked to fly east alone to play the Ozark Folk Festival. No rhythm section, no Delucchi, and no clear idea of what to expect from Arkansas, aside from southern heat and fields of blond wheat. Our 6 a.m. flight out of Denver meant a 4 a.m. wake-up call. By the grace of God, Delucchi, the angel he is, volunteered to drive us to the airport Just as I was sure Delucchi had overslept and was dialing his number, I heard his voice call from outside, “Sally Taylor, Paging Sally Taylor, Please come to the white courtesy van.”

When we arrived in Arkansas, a skinny cat with a cardboard sign and a dirty chauffeur’s cap was waiting for us. He said his name was Fuzzy and he’d be our driver this week. Fuzzy was aptly named. His hair bunched and bucked like a rearing bronco trying to separate itself from his scalp. He wore blue jeans and a blue shirt and walked with bowed legs that looked like parentheses attached by a belt. I liked him immediately.

American Airlines had given me a hard time about carrying on my guitar and, as I’d feared, sent my poor instrument on a wild ride. The brown leather case was stripped like it had a run-in with a bear and the “fragile” sticker they assured me would protect my precious cargo, was mangled like something someone tried, unsuccessfully, to remove from the bottom of their shoe. Luckily, upon examination, the instrument itself was unharmed. Sarcastically, I peeled the fragile sticker off my guitar case and pasted it on my chest with a frown before jumping into Fuzzy’s rusty van.

We were booked at the Land-o-nod Inn and scheduled for a sound check at five but first, Fuzzy wanted to give us a tour of his town. Our first stop was The Shoe Tree on Highway 187. “Once a woman threw her husband out of the house and in a fit of anger he threw one of his shoes in the air and got it caught up in that tree.” Fuzzy had no doubt told the story a hundred times and gave it to us as though it was his first, “As time went on, more and more shoes showed up in the tree until it became a thing of pride for the town of Eureka Springs. Now, local kids take their old sneakers, draw their initials on them, tie the laces together, and try to heave them onto the highest branch for posterity.” But as often as shoes fall up, they fall down. “People, fallen on hard times, come to The Shoe Tree for their sneakers. They fall like ripe fruit from the branches and I do mean ripe!” He laughed.

He drove us through winding mountainous green roads into sunny Eureka Springs. The town was a color explosion. Rainbow murals met every view. Artists in tie-dyed shirts worked on tie-dyed easels off Main Street. “This town used to hold 20,000 people in the late 1800s. Now there’s only 1,900 folks living here,” he said, waving out the window to one of the 1,900. “People moved here around the turn of the century because the water was said to have magical healing properties, and there were all sorts of miraculous recoveries documented by those who bathed here. Turns out, the water they were soaking in was radioactive; still is today. But people with cancer and some other diseases were benefiting from the radiation,” he laughed. “After a fire burned the town down, most people left. Now it’s mostly a tourist town. A hippie tourist town,” he added, pointing and waving to the mayor, a man in his 40s ‘Beau,’ with a long mane of black hair tied back in an elastic who’d later insist on getting us stoned after the show.

I had no idea we were one of only three headlining acts for the festival until I was backstage checking out the merch. I was looking at the back of a shirt, squinting at the artists’ names in the fine print. “I guess we didn’t make the schwag,” I announced to Soucy, who in turn said, “What are you talking about? You’re the third name down there in huge bold print underneath Leon Russell and John McEuen from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.” “What?!?!?!” I felt honored and humbled.

That night we opened for Leon, who put on a great and soulful show. He looked like a miniature snow-capped mountain. I must admit I felt a little nervous about playing by myself before the sold-out audience. But, as they say, “What doesn’t kill you”… and actually, once I got out there, the butterflies tucked themselves into cocoons and went to sleep. Soucy and I had a blast. The night was wet but it didn’t rain. Mist flies bounced off tin awnings and into the oncoming car headlights. After getting stoned with the town mayor, Fuzzy drove us back to the Land-o-nod.

Eric Erdman agreed to drive up from Mobile to snuggle me for a night in Tennessee. Did I mention the road gets lonely especially surrounded by bandmates who are also lonely? It’s a relief to wake up in Eric’s arms in a private room of my own and with a greatly improved mood, I call down to someone named Mark at room service to order “Seven continental breakfasts please.” I want to surprise the band with breakfast and bonus checks. While we wait for Mark, Eric and I sit around in bathrobes, singing in harmony to radio hits he strums on his Taylor guitar. When two carts of continental breakfasts arrive, Eric and I push them together through the 17th-floor hallway to the elevator. I don’t bother changing out of my oversized t-shirt and rainbow socks or removing the football-like black mascara from under my eyes. “We’re only going up 6 floors,” I retort when Eric suggests I put on some pants.

But apparently, you need a room key to access floors above floor 22 which I did not know and so instead of going up we’re redirected to the lobby. There, a suit-wearing businessman joins us. We smile. He scowels. I try, unsuccessfully, to hide my legs behind the white tablecloth. When he exits on the 22nd floor we follow him with our trays and I call Delucchi from the courtesy phone. “We’re stuck on the 22nd floor,” I whisper into the receiver while Eric cracks up behind his hands and people stare. When Delucchi fetches us he falls on the ground when doors open to reveal my vagabond ragged ponytail and rainbow socks. “Come on up,” he smiles compassionately.

The humidity is relentless when we arrive in Nashville. The hot, stagnant, air sinks into my bones as though I hadn’t any skin to protect me. We load in and meet the owners of 3rd and Lindsly who tell us the first 1/2 of our set will be broadcast live on a station called “Lightning 100” and that we should have a good show, as though it’s a demand, not an insight. We’re just glad it’s the last of the tour and I find my mind 1/2 way to Kansas already, as I try to engage in vague, detached conversations with people in the club.

We get food. Brian, who can’t, or just won’t, eat cheese and specifies this to the waiter, nonetheless, gets cheese on each and every course of his meal and frustratedly returns them for their proper preparation with a scoff.

My best friend from Boulder, Kate who now sadly, for me, lives in Nashville, shows up early and lifts our spirits bringing my mind back, temporarily, from Kansas for some much-needed girl chat in the walk-in/guitar closet/green room/hospitality the venue has provided. There’s a mirror on 2 of the three walls with some bald bulbs overhead that I constantly bump into while trying to change into a maroon top and black pants. Kate giggles and trys on my new Maybelline “Mauve Magic” lipstick.

There hasn’t been anywhere to shower since we left North Carolina 3 days ago and my hair is taking on a very dry, rat nest-like quality but the boys tell me I look all right (they’re the best) and we go on and straight into the radio show.

“No curse words,” they say, specifying…NO FUCK, SHIT, ASS or ASSHOLES but somehow I keep managing to fuck shit up and the radio DJ’s lips purse at each of my infringements. Nashville, what a place. It’s full of boots and business and tiny dogs with bandanas around their necks, and pancake make-up that looks like it would be painful to take off and might require a chisel. The air is seasoned with acoustic music with slide guitars and shooting stars and smoke filled bars with denim lights left on all night.

“I’m just assuming there’s no one in the record business out there in the audience,” I joke into the mic. Half the hands in the room go up. “Good,” I say “This next one is about people in the record industry. It’s called Strangest of Strangers.” The night flows with me poking fun at the audience, who eventually turn their crossed arms into hugs.

The rain holds out just in time to drench us at load out. I talk to a guy about a possible PBS special and a songwriter about touring logistics. I change back into jeans and sneakers in the mirrored closet and collect the measly $25 bucks the venue gives me for the gig. I leave out back door into oven-like, post-rain heat. Delucchi is hanging out of the back of the van rearangeing instruments to accommodate Brian’s departure in the morning to meet up with The Freedy Jones Band in Chicago to finish out their dates. He made good on his promise to me to prioritize my tour over theirs and though there were some gigs I had to cancel, I can’t overemphasize my gratitude he kept his commitment to finish this tour with me. I know most likely he’ll be moving on after this. I know it’s the last time we’ll crate “Fat Amy,” his red drum case, into Moby’s trunk and I pat the side of it with deliberate affection.

I’m not looking forward to finding a new drummer to replace Brian and recognize the moment as the end of a chapter. What better way to commemorate it than with him passing the torch? The last to drink the skunky Budweiser mascot “Skunk Buddy,” Brian needs to ritualistically pass it to me, the latest recipient. It is time for me to take the plunge and drink the hot, disgusting, cooler rat of a beer and I swallow hard.

Tiny flints of rain pass like ferries between us in the yellow street light. Delucchi films as Brian, holding the very angry beer, asks me to acknowledge I’ve made the biggest blunder this tour “I have,” I admit, and to accept the brown labeled award as my prize. “I do,” I say ceremonially. I take it, open it, smell it and swig. It tastes beer-ish but also like red meat and wound up fists. I drink it like a pro though and don’t spit it out the way those before me have (wimps).

Someone woke me up with a mommy’s touch. The subtle rubbing and gentle rocking of a loving hand was caressing my back and I lay silent, semi-conscious, floating a single layer above the surface of my dreams, enjoying the loving call to a new and glorious day.

Like most days, I had no idea where I was. Usually, when I wake up I go through a checklist:

1. “Am I alone?”
2. “Am I safe?”
3. “Where am I?” This is when I start a process of elimination. I consider all the places I could be until I settle on the most likely option (I am often wrong). Next, I move on to other, less important questions for example: “What time is it?” “What day?” “What’s the weather?” “Did I bookmark before I fell asleep?” etc.

Today, after confirming questions 1. Answer: No. and 2. Answer: Most likely Yes, I relinquished the rest of the list and gave into the possibility that I might be everywhere and nowhere and it didn’t even matter as long as the tender motherly back rub continued. Eventually, I cracked my eyes open and placed their blurred, sleepy gaze on some wildflowers in a vase, limply gesturing an innocent scent in my direction. Their pastel yellow, purple, and green blurred across the whiteness of an adjacent pillow cover. A mug of coffee sat on a nightstand. From its lip, steaming phantoms danced through the autumnal chill of the room. The back rubbing continued. Had my mommy flown out to visit me on the road? Excitedly I rolled over on my back to find Soucy was the source of my early morning massage. Soucy had brought me flowers, a coffee, and a motherly touch and in the childlike state I was in, I reached my arms up into the sky, where he appeared to be hovering, and I embraced him as the rest of the boys, in unison, shouted: “Kiss ass!”

I shucked peanuts and drank yerba mate tea on our ride from North Carolina to Atlanta. The Variety Playhouse was just as it had been on our last loop around the country 3 months ago. We were opening for Christine Lavin who couldn’t have been sweeter or funnier.

Someone named Karen who insisted she was a friend of Marji’s (from the Walden School) talked her way backstage. She’d been reading the Road Journals and showered us with “inside joke” gifts. She gave Soucy a teddy bear dressed up as a bee (for his Bee Dance back in Media, PA) and she gave me a stuffed skunk (Knowing that I’ll be the recipient of Skunk Buddy at the end of this tour.

The show was sort of unmemorable. We left at 10 to grab Mexican food up the block. The night was warm and windy. As we approached the restaurant, a painfully drunk man with a wig that read as road kill, stopped us.

“I’m trying to get to the next town over and now I… now I… I’m not asking for a ride, I’m not a hitchhiker,” he slurred, “I just need .68 cents. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t reallllly need it.”

Delucchi fished in his cargo shorts pocket and offered the man a buck before ushering us through the restaurant doors. The man was there as we came out and approached us again with the same appeal:

“I’m trying to get to the next town over and now I… now I… I’m not asking for a ride, I’m not a hitchhiker. I just need .68–”

“Hey man, we just gave you a buck an hour ago,” Delucchi said.
“Oh Oh Oh…was that you?” He secured the road kill wig with one hand and stumbled off apologizing.

His crazy energy added a new neon to the damp air and I felt overly aware of being a woman in a city. Conscious of the way my sweater gripped my breast and the grip with which I held my purse. With a shutter, I held myself in like a hermit crab sensing danger. There was something sad and empty and yet invigorating about Atlanta at night. As we strolled back to Moby, I watched a mother stick her young daughter’s hand under her armpit to light a cigarette. I saw a fat shirtless man wince inside a tattoo parlor whose doors stood open like a yawn to the night. I smelled asorbital and honey and hard liquor. I heard cats me-yowl like ghosts down alleys with flickering lights and overflowing trash bins. I’m not a city person. I’m just not.

Chris Soucy got in the van trying to avoid the hurricane and clipped his heel on the door in the process. He slid into the front bench with a sigh, his Cuba book crooked under his right arm. The Cuba book arrived at the hotel one day. It came in the mail from New York all dog-eared and underlined– a gift from the girl he’d “entertained” in NYC and had subsequently invited him to join her for a romantic Cuban getaway. He’s grown rather fond of holding the book up for us, pointing to the cover and, with amplified diction, saying “KUBAH,” the way he imagined locals might pronounce it. Then, after a pregnant pause, after our laughter has died down, he follows it up with, “Are we there yet?”

In his left hand, Soucy had a white, plastic bag tied in a tight knot at the top, and was, like him, rather drenched in weather. “I’ve got presents for you guys,” he said in a particularly high-pitched sing-songy voice. Excitedly we turned to him as he wrangled the knot made from the plastic handles. “Sally…” he handed me a slick Johnny Taylor CD Titled “Stop half loving these women!” I insisted we listen to it first, before the James Brown that Soucy gifted Delucchi, before the Morris Day he gave Kenny, and before Brian’s Funkadelic. It proved a great CD (not my dad, for anyone who read the Detroit entree, but a great CD).

I was nervous because the day outside was tumultuous, to put it mildly. Trees heaved and thrusted and shed their limbs like Bacchus’s Maenads. They warned of Hurricane Floyd’s impending arrival. Delucchi, who grew up in San Francisco and consequently, had never been in a hurricane in his life, was trying to persuade me to calm down.

“You’re overacting Sal,” he tisked as he drove us headlong into what the Weather Channel was calling a “tornado path.” As we were leaving the hotel, the TV showed our exact route as the one not to travel. But Delucch was adamant about making the show and disregarded newly fallen branches in our lane. Nervously I knit, determined not to look out the window. The black, heavy wool I used to make a new hat, became symbolic of the weather outside. I’m sure that it’s not smart to drive in a hurricane.

As we neared Richmond, I begged Delucchi to pull off on the exit to check Floyd’s status before we got any closer to Virginia’s shoreline. The streets were desolate downtown and most windows were boarded. Streetlights hung at 45-degree angles in the wind and almost all the shops were shut. We stopped at a pizza place for a slice and watched Floyd eat cars and homes on the TV over the kitchen. My stomach churned.

Despite my whining, Delucchi was unwilling to call the venue to cancel our imminent show. But he agreed to let the storm die down for an hour before we got back on the road. Brian suggested we ride it out in a drum shop that appeared to have its lights on. “Ghana,” turned out to be less of a drum shop than a religious, African voodoo market offering incense, perfume, jewelry, voodoo dolls (complete with pins) and, candles blessed by a witch doctor. Under every shelf, a sign read, “Touch =’s Buy.” I bought a little bottle of a scent called “Love Drops” and some unblessed candles in long cylindrical glass jars. One was called “run devil run,” another “the fast money blessing.”

When we arrived at the venue, it was in a strip mall. There was no electricity and the vibe was eerie. Despite the hurricane, people were lined up, waiting for us, with cameras in hand. They asked if they could get a picture with me, and I knew then, how the show had been promoted: “The Famous Daughter Of…” I stood pleasantly in front of their flashes, feeling like the bearded lady, the circus freak, the novelty item on sale for $3.99 in the tourist store, as people took my picture having never heard me sing a single note.

I was really dehydrated. I sat in a booth with my rainbow socks on, knitting in the dark, humming and drinking water which tasted really funky. 3 glasses in, a waiter approached and told me not to drink the water on account of it being contaminated due to flooding.

The show was sold out and it went down pretty smoothly considering it started without electricity on a generator. We just made fun of ourselves and played our hearts out and drank sewer water and danced as people called up requests: “You got a Friend” and “You’re so Vain.” “I don’t know how to play those,” I said.

Most of the people we met were really nice. They bought CDs and hung out, offering their advice and homes and alternative ways to get to North Carolina tomorrow. Of course, we had more GLOMS than usual that hung around too long and too late and stuck like gum to the bottom of our shoes.

After driving through the storm to get to the gig, the venue, at the end of the night, refused to pay us the $150 they’d booked us for (time to look for a new booking agent). we left with a bad taste in our mouths. But the storm cleared and the electricity came back on by the time we checked into our hotel. In the room, I proudly held up my finished “storm hat” for the boys to admire. I think I’ll give this one to Delucchi.

Sleep was delicious. It sank into my bones and melted the lines across my forehead into the smoothness of chilled milk.

A snap shot from the van enroute to Williamsberg, VA: Soucy’s making teeth sucking noises. His feet are dangling over the back of my seat and into my face (hummmmm, smells good). Kenny and Chris are rocking out to Stevie Wonder in the front eating fried chicken.

I’m shuckin peanuts and Brian is working in his new digital organizer, the Sharp Wizard OZ-590A

“I love you guys.” I say spontaneously, and without looking up they sigh sarcastically: “What did we do?” They know how much I love them and respect them, and how grateful I am to be on this adventure with them.

It was raining the morning when we woke up in DC for our Metro gig. I felt the extra weight from atmospheric pressure bearing down on my eye lids as I found my way to the bathroom in an empty room. I didn’t feel like trecking into the rain, into the van to retrieve a proper outfit from my overstuffed bag so I made an outfit from my bandmates abandoned PJs scattered around the room.

With knee-high rainbow socks, green camouflage flip flops, a red-armed gray baseball shirt, and a pair of bright yellow shorts, I knocked on our second room door. The boys burst out laughing at me. I was both delighted by their scandalize reaction and too tired to change so I went for coffee, to the Post Office and eventually, to The Metro in my outlandish attire. The pinstripe straight, buttoned up DC populace treated me like some sort of exotic zoo animal let loose in the city. Some pointed me out to their friends with disgust and distain and others broke out in hysterical laughter.

I was half toying with the idea of playing the show in my eccentric ensemble—mostly out of laziness but also because I stongly believe that laughter scares ego and a performance without ego is always a good show. But when Nimi Alisbah, my high school roommate, saw me she said “NO SAL, you cannot wear that on stage.” She’d brought tons of friends to the show and was adamant I make a good impression.

Grabbing my hand, she carted me off to the backstage area—just a walkway really, with some stickers on walls, coils of speaker cable, guitars on stands, guitars in cases, and a raw bulb that burned with a hiss. I turned an orange milk crate over and sat down on it leaning into my bag. I changed into a tank and some jeans (but I kept my rainbow socks on). Nimi approved and the show went stunningly well. We were the headliner on a roster with 5 acts. The rain didn’t keep people home and I realized, staring out into the crowd, just how lucky I was to be doing what I love— living my dream, making a living (ish), traveling with some of my best friends in the world.

After the show the rain started back up in earnest. In the hallway of a green room I slipped back into my quirky outfit and rolled my half-zipped suitcase back to the van. I was asleep, open mouth snoring, before Moby’s tires even hit the onramp.

Soucy woke me with coffee in bed. ‘How thoughtful,’ I thought, but when I thanked him and told him he shouldn’t have he said “I did it out of fear, I’m scared of you without coffee.”

I took a shower, the first in three days, since Boston (yes, that’s gross) and my skin felt sore and itchy from the waxy hotel soap. I put on the new red skirt and shirt I got at Urban Outfitters on Newbury Street in Boston and sought out Chris’s approval: “That’s very scholastic,” he beamed.

I could hear him on the phone with the girl he’d “hung out with” (code for snogged) in NYC as I dried my hair in the bathroom. She asked him to go to Cuba with her in November and I delighted in listening in on his signature, Soucy-esque, phrased response. Chris starts sentences fast like someone in a speed reading competition and then, nearing punctuation, he slows w a y d o w n . . . like a bungee jumper. I love it very much.

The kids were assembled on the lawn when we arrived at The Walden school and the sun was bright and warm. The music teacher set us up under a tree with a mini sound system and amplifier. I looked into the crowd as Chris hit the first few chords of “Happy Now,” and felt as though I were playing to a tiny, majestic sea of angels.

After a couple of songs, as on our first visit to The Walden School, I explained that music is like painting with words and melody. I asked the kids to close their eyes and tell me how they’d paint the next song. Looking down to see what was on our set next, I was distressed to discover it was “Red Room,” a song about a night I once spent waiting in a green room, to kiss a bartender. Oops?!?! But I sang it anyway, all the time watching those little people with their eyes clenched shut as though the daylight might distract from their inner artwork. “kissed a boy I hardly knew…left him sitting in the blue….lay me down lay me down lay me down….” I sang, self-consciously, worried I was a corruptive influence on those little souls with my semi-raunchy song.

To my great joy and relief, when I asked them to tell me what they’d envisioned, they said “My cousin, because she was just born and she is little.” And “A girl in a room who is tired.” One little guy came up to the mic and charmed everyone by saying “That song reminds me of my brother’s girlfriend Brittany Spears.” And ran away. I was so delighted and impressed with their creativity. They were reacting not just to the lyrics but to the way the song made them feel.

Kids get music on a whole different level! Their worlds, unrestricted by lines or the need to make sense, are full of unadulterated poetry. How beautiful and freeing it must be, I thought, to see a bird and not just think, “feather” and “wing” and “beak” and “twerp” but instead, the poetry and spirit of that thing which flies and moves by the same restless ghosts that tussle our hair, button our jackets, and fold the ocean over itself again and again.

I asked the kids to describe a Christmas tree for me: “A tree with life on it,” said one boy. “A porcupine,” said another. I wanted to stay all day and ask them to teach me what I’d forgotten—how to see without the borders and cages of the language my eyes have learned to speak fluently.

I asked anyone who wanted to dance to the next song to come up and stand next to me. I ended up enveloped in little ones. They stood so close that I could barely reach the mic. One tiny boy with black straight hair and green shorts was hugging onto mic stand so that it swayed, making it very difficult to sing and I loved it. I was 1/2 way through “For Kim,” with all those beautiful kids at hip height around me, holding onto my legs and fingers and dancing when Soucy started getting harassed by a yellow jacket.

Chris is allergic to bees. When I started hearing guitar fowls, I looked over to find Soucy doing what we now refer to as “The Bee Dance” which consists of rapid head thrusts, bursting, spastic runs with sudden, stand-still stops, and reverse spins. That bee was on him like white on rice and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the lavender oil Chris insisted I apply to his wrists before the show.

Despite myself, I started laughing at Soucy who refused, or was too distracted, to stop playing but was also incapable of hitting the right chords. I felt badly until I saw Kenny, also in hysterics, chasing him with a video camera. Amid all the hysteria, my mic stopped working, which didn’t really matter because, by that point, I was laughing so hard that drool was leaking out of my mouth and the kids were laughing, pointing, and drooling too.

When Soucy finally evaded the bee, we tried to resume but couldn’t get the mic back on. It turns out, the electricity in the school had gone out for some (bee unrelated) reason. Bee-cause I was in such a blissful laughter-induced state, I grabbed Chris, and the kids and led them all out onto the sunny field and sang to them acoustically while twirling them around in a tremendous circle barefoot and laughing. The little boys teased each other as they came up to me pointing at their classmates, “He wants to dance with you,” they’d say and the little girls all fought for the room inside my hand which could only fit about 6.

Bri put tambourines in Delucchi and Kenny’s hands and they joined in the act. The joy and the ecstatic, unconditional love I felt from these light and glorious tiny angels is hard to describe. They surrounded me as though I were a tree limb they wanted to perch upon and they yelled up to me, arms swinging yelling “Group hug, group hug.”

Oh, I can’t explain it without tears it was so beautiful and extraordinary for me to be wrapped up in clouds of them. Sadly, as the song ended I told them, bowing down to them, in all their magnificence, “It’s time for us to leave now.” They screamed “WE DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE, WE DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE,” and “WE WANT TO STAY WITH YOU. WE WANT TO STAY WITH YOU!” I’ve never felt so happy in my entire life.

After that they swarmed me like Soucy’s bee, asking me to autograph whatever they had on hand: Tomboy Bride CDs their parents had bought, posters, lined school paper, the T-shirts on their backs, a tortilla chip, and a flower petal. Then, all of a sudden, it was the end of the day for these little knee highs. The school bell rang and yellow, chuckling busses came to swallow them up. Up the stairs, they flew, waving from the back windows as the bee-like busses rolled away.

I was on cloud nine.