Author: buddycushman

Back in the days of alcohol, drugs, and beginning to hone the skills necessary for a life of drifting I strolled into the lounge at the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, MA, right on the Commons, to sit and hear and watch Bobby Hebb sing ‘Sunny’ and a bunch of his other songs. I was just a kid.

A number of years before, younger and setting off on that colorful substance path, a sophomore at Cape Cod Community College, I was visited in my shared cottage by a boy named Bob Davis, who showed with pockets of pills – reds, blues, black beauties – so as to help get the show on the road. He also shared with me music new to my ears, and in particular the albums of The Electric Flag.

It has always struck me as good fortune and very cool that I got to sit in a room with the man who wrote and sang ‘Sunny” and hear him sing it right there. And, time flowing in all directions, to have Bob D roll into the West Yarmouth winter rental with a pocket full of Tuinals and turn me on to a different, and for me, more engaging version. Yeah, this very me – terminally hip and chock filled with soul.

Such a song – “Sunny, thank you, thank you, thank you for that smile upon your face.” Like saving the planet.

I’ll tell you – this is me talking to my imaginary friend – having nearly no money has its disadvantages, but not working probably has even greater advantage. Sleepy crud wiped out of the eyes, sit on the cushion, coffees, a zillion books, pens and notebooks, my Pages and comfy clothes and just six steps up into the sweet, clean air of another day as if a birthday present.

I have come to a place where I will live in near-poverty rather than seek and subsequently accept a position of employment that isn’t “Me” today. A position for which I have interviewed the interviewers and determined that this (job) matters, this (job) is worthy, this (job) offers the experience to entirely value this very me, all these June ‘26 present ingredients of me into the cornucopia of what actually goes on – the fulfilling of important destinies – in and for which my very molecules have played some part. Other than that ( very job) I choose to eke out a rather quietly wild life within the (elusive) confines and boundaries of rent, food, and mandatory monthly expenses. As evidence of that possible promise, a couple of weeks ago I typed what follows in quotes, it points toward a place of frolicking for free:

“What if this very space is the whole world, I never step out and from this, everything, other than walking out into the sunshine and day and brilliant emerald green of all but Japanese Maples and Copper Beech, which glow and glow and glow on maybe forever, and so it’s all here in my room and it’s all there in the towering oneness of a Copper Beach. With 10,000 pencils and coloring crayons and all the joyous glee of a six-year all spinning out on the lawn, sneaking through the close-by patch of woods, ‘Hey kid, make sure you cross that fire road with yer eyes wide, wide open. We can’t go and be missing stuff, right?’ And meanwhile every book holds itself up as a high-five, and the phone doesn’t ring other than when it rings, and I can swear folks just don’t know what they’re missing, and, yeah, it’s that thank your lucky stars things, except what’s it mean when no one knows.

“Which is all about I don’t have to leave this basement space to have it all, and it’s only six steps up out into the sunny, thirsty world where – you know by now – I get to have it all.”

You may remember the song ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ from Gil Scott-Heron. Earlier I read a paragraph in the book Jen bought me that hinted at both the song and the reality. It said I will not be invited out with the cool kids anymore. It said I will lose stuff and be alone. It said I will speak in tongues.

It was one of those reading experiences where there’s an abrupt “Bang!” close by, and Dick M steps out from the grave yard and says, “Toldja you’re right where you’re supposed to be.” Who knew, right? I’d live to be 77 and find myself speaking in tongues.

There’s a Warren Zevon song with the lines, “The days slide by. Shoulda done, shoulda done we all sigh.” I feel exactly like that and exactly not like that. Here, this morning, I’m kind of hanging in the so familiar “Don’t know” place.

Ain’t a TV camera in sight.

Son Cameron, grandson Logan, and me, south of Astoria, Warrenton shipwreck.

Me alone in the hotel lobby, so early after a brief sitting and while writing Morning Pages. Columbia River traveler. Washington state over there on the right.

Back in PDX. A boy and his dad.

There’s an out-of-the-blue plan for me to be away tonight and much of the day tomorrow, so I thought I’d share the first weekday post this week a day early. Like a wackadoodle.

Plans have shifted and my son Cameron and grandson Logan are arriving a day early, with a raging rain storm rolling in tonight and especially all day tomorrow. Cameron called and said words to the effect of, “Dad, we are going to arrive mid-morning Sunday and we’ll pick you up and drive right out to Astoria because it’ll be raining all day Monday, and we’ll get a room and stay the night.” Which is the plan as I type this.

“Wonder” isn’t the half of it, getting to see and spend a few sacred hours with my son and grandson. Cruising into Astoria is just the cherry on top.

Below — My art up into Astoria’s Blue Scorcher Cafe, likely 2012 or 2013; My book all about ‘the place’ published 2017.

Late morning, Thursday, Starbucks at 15th and Fremont, I glance up at the next table and see an older gentleman feeding his dog some yogurty substance with the same spoon with which he, the older gentleman, was just eating that yogurt. It makes me happy, really happy, love is all around and all you need is love and goodness and sweetness are just about everywhere when you really look and see.

I waited a minute or two and rather sneakily snapped this picture:

A couple more minutes and I stepped a few steps over and told him I’d seen his kindness and it made me happy. He said to me, “She’s the best dog in the world.”

That’s enough. Right?

But there’s more. Late afternoon, time between the library and Trader Joe’s, I’m on one of what I’ve come to consider as my lazybones ambles through neighborhoods new to me when I come upon one of those presentation plastic/glass-faced boxes in which people display words of wisdom and sometimes political sentiments and most often poetry. This is what I saw:

Yeah. These right here, right now glimpses.

My friend Jen in Oakland sent me a text last week and – well, here it is — “Hey Buddy. How goes it? I’m reading this book right now and had a strong desire to purchase for you. Let me know a good Indy bookstore near you and please allow me to purchase for you to pick up.”

I texted back — “Broadway Books is a women’s owned bookstore 4 blocks from me, which also has 3 of my books on their shelves now. Love to support them. Thanks for thinking of me, Jen.”

Tuesday from Jen — “Hey Buddy. The bookstore called today to say the book is there for you – under your name. Enjoy and if you feel like discussing or dropping photos of passages that are meaningful for you, I’d truly enjoy that. No pressure.”

Yesterday I walked over and picked up the book. I told the two younger women behind the counter they were the Indy bookstore I’d picked. I told them about Jen’s idea for me sending pics of words with which I’d become enchanted, and they were giddy with delight.

I brought the book home and started reading and I texted this passage to Jen — “Our hiding in the dream echoes our hiding from the grief and trauma we don’t know how to tend to.” – “Thanks for the book, Jen. Love you.”

Friends and kindnesses and most enchanting ideas.

Dozens and dozens and dozens of books are scattered through the reading area here in the basement. In piles, all alone, leaning against walls. As patient as me.

For the last number of days – even before the boxes arrived and surely since – I have been scouting the internet for one or two used bookcases to hold these new/old additions to and into my life. No luck so far, most often because I cannot transport and ask for delivery and it just ain’t happening. A few times folks have said if it wasn’t sold by some day down the road they’d deliver, and someone else swooped in.

There’s something amazingly encouraging about all these books, promises of falling through the mirror with Alice, and I’ve noticed my relationship with little libraries I pass on all the walking is different. More about what can I give back. Which is nice, because I’m a believer that little libraries are ongoing signs that hope and generosity are eternal human things. Just like me.

And all my art surprising me all over again. Blank canvas, painted canvas, no canvas, this very canvas. Like this one:

Both my sons called me yesterday. Spenser called when I was out on a long, hot, late-afternoon walk to talk about ‘Goosebumps.’ We talked about ‘Goosebumps.’ Cameron called in between long walks, when I was sitting here in the warehouse formerly known as the basement studio. He called to say that he and my grandson Logan were leaving Montana early this morning making their way towards Los Angeles, via Las Vegas. Cameron has two days of creative film-making just outside LA, and then, he said, they were going up the coast and across state lines and arrive in Portland late afternoon next Monday. It will be the first time I have seen my oldest son in three years. Yeah, goosebumps.

Cameron also said he was thinking of picking me up early from their motel – after spending time together Monday afternoon – and driving out Tuesday to Astoria to spend the day there. To spend the day in Astoria with Cameron and Logan will be beyond words – I’m crazy for Astoria – see my best book, ‘Astoria Strange,’

I’ll just say that unpacking my five-years-away boxes has offered one “oh my head” I totally forgot moments after another. This photo literally buried under books in one of those boxes as evidence. Evidence any day I’m lucky enough to wake to comes to fetch me, again and again. With ‘Goosebumps,’ with goosebumps, and with one of my ever favorites of my long ago Florida boys.

Saturday afternoon, here and there, a heavy feel of magic all about. Shimmering through the afternoon air. After the big payout. Before the arrival of long-ago boxes. Paintings I cannot remember. Storage puzzles, box-cutting joys. Due Sunday.

One more Saturday note. Early Saturday in my Morning Pages – and doesn’t it always fall out from there – a surprise invitation arrived asking me to experience the month of June in an entirely different way. And I said “Yes.” Details hardly matter. If the creek don’t rise and I’m still waking the morning of July 1, nearly all the adventure will have expressed itself right here, day by day.

Sunday morning soundscape – Blue jay screeching as it crosses the street; a xylophone, a guitar, a family laughing out on the sidewalk; the refrigerator working; footsteps and dog paddings above; my heart beating in my left ear; every rock and roll song I’ve ever sung to myself.

The truck arrived from Idaho exactly at 8pm. Kalae and Aaron helped me lug boxes, paintings, bags of clothes, and the heavy wooden table I grew up eating dinners on with my family. I’d certainly forgot about honoring that piece of my history, which I’ve brought from one side of the country and back again over and over. As of this typing it’s leaning against a wall in the landlord’s laundry room. It’s a puzzle to be figured soon.

I remembered, and I’ve been saying, I’d left 25 paintings behind, but leaning on either side of the desk and the 80-year-old wooden sidewalk chest are more than 50. And, deep in one of the boxes I opened last night, a fabulous surprise of a large paper bag filled with my original art greeting cards, including envelopes. More on all that art to follow.

I have an electric feeling about the month of June.