Exit, Phase One: Refocus

It's easy to be distracted when there is so much to do. Then, suddenly, something happens that helps to filter the chaos and highlight what matters most. Thanks, Earl.

Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs featuring Mother Maybelle Carter & the Foggy Mountain Boys:
The Homestead on the Farm

 

Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs: Earl's Breakdown

RIP Earl Scruggs (6 January 1924 – 28 March 2012)

Exit, Phase One: Firsts & Lasts

Before pulling up the stakes and moving to new pastures it is compulsory to reflect on the past three and a half years. This weekend offered a quick and quiet look of what has come and is now gone.

This weekend Henry played his first piano recital.

His performance was short and sweet and altogether perfect.

Bee Gees: With the Sun in My Eyes

The previous day Hank skied his last day of the season.

There might have been 20 other people skiing Champex-Lac, many of whom, I imagine, were skiing their last day as well. It was altogether perfect as well.

Yo La Tengo: Last Days of Disco

Two songs to celebrate firsts and lasts. Two songs about love and relationships and how awkward it is trying to manage them both. I don't really dance much, but this time I did. I was glad that I did this time.

 

Exit, Phase One

To quote the Fantastic Mr. Fox ripping off some J.R.R. Tolkein quote: And so it begins.

Phase One of the Great European Migration starts in about nine days. Because there is nothing else happening inside my head worth writing about besides thoughts of leaving, scrapping together the rest of the ski season, and how everything and anything will or will not work itself out in the end, I will attempt to document as much as possible the planning, preparation, and execution of the move with sights and sounds. In times of need music is my panacea.

Phase One commences with a classic picture from a different phase in the not-so-distant past and a newer song about going, going, going, going far away. None of this is happening. And so it begins.

Hess Is More: Go Go Go Go