Night.

We sit atop the truck and talk but we don't talk much. Deer ghost just far enough away as to not wake Moose, the dog, who lies beside the front wheel. His ears twitch in semi-sleep. The moon is in hiding, giving light to all those worlds that exist behind it. Billions of lights amongst that red mist which spears the spine of the sky, your side, my side, past and present, now and forever.

We pass the cigarette back and forth.

So many things disappear as smoke.

I have learned that.

Earth.

There is dust in the air as we walk. Dust which kicks and eddies up off the chalk dry field and settles on your skin, your hair, your teeth. There's been no rain for almost ten years now. None to speak of anyhow. There is dust in  his voice as he speaks, saying -

My father grabs me by the arm as he lay in the bed. And he was still real strong, though he was pushing ninety. I was crying though I couldn't help it. Crying even when my wife came back in the room and daddy was screaming at me, screaming - you got to do this son, you got to do what I tell ya, bring me that gun, bring me that gun - and was all I could do to tell my daddy, no, I can't do it. I can't do it. And I had to walk out that room and have all them doctors and what not see me cry with my woman wiping my face and my daddy screaming for me to bring his gun...

The dog comes close. We stop walking and everything is still.

...he died next day though it wasn't of his own hand like he want to. And I swear that's the last time I cry and I won't never cry again.

I turn to look but he stares straight ahead.

I see a long, hard desert in his eyes and I know his words to be true.

4.

We catch a bus from the airport, back 600 years into the Old Town, where all the beauties are collected together in a square dedicated to Freedom. 

Beauty of face, beauty of architecture, beauty of heart and beauty of soul. I stroll in this place and I laugh and wave to the family that dust the streets with memories. 

Tallin, Estonia is another home. These friends another family. We drink beer. The sun does not sink below the horizon. I stand up high on a cliff face with a thousand year old stone fence as guardian, and stare out over the Baltic Sea towards what is still to come, but it is no surprise that here I am content. And yet, what true journey man is ever blessed with bliss, settled upon the word content. I say goodbye in the square, my friends close their eyes when I speak of where I am going. They thank me, I thank them.

In the morning, Sam and I walk slow toward the dock, a languid parting with this beautiful, aged city. We travel over the sea, in a box built of lights, shopping, queues and ovine chatter which crescendos down the corridors of the ferry as a Momentus tide, as though the very beigeness of all aboard, is enough to keep us afloat upon these cobalt plains.

And initially, this is my impression of Helsinki. Land in mass of writhing trolleys, ages of elbows which muscle and need, sun baked fanaticism to be one in front and potato people baking in a glass oven on a snail pace highway into the city centre - I am thrown, this chapter all grey, steaming and jagged stares though just as all is dizzy and fit we find our tradition, the first beer in a new city, and we drink to leaving this place with a different impression than This we have found upon arrival.

There must be something here.

Our text arrives.
We trolley off.

 A host with most gracious handshake and grin, my first Fin, who laughs at the pressure and yet can give stories out like candy cane, as my ears act like children, greedily gobbling them up and yet always hungry for more. And then, as he talks, he moulds this city around us. I the observer, desperate to see how he does this, am too lost in the beauty he creates to follow his words, his hands, but in the course of a few minutes walking, he has turned these brackish steel streets into a forest fantasy the equal of which I have barely seen. This land a land beyond a billion lands, over the reaches and into The Heavens we have travelled to sit beside and admire this mirror of the gods, the surface broken only by the dance of a single white swan and the sky seduced by the face of The Sun herself to turning a roguish pink as the fir trees release their evening aroma and all the animals look at me with knowing Narnian eyes. 

Here in the city - this great, wild surprise.

2.

How is this possible? I recall the tram to work, the stone faced hypnosis of the tired mass, the dreaming. Or do I? Perhaps I no longer recall these things. Here in my kitchen in Oslo. I will make coffee now. And eat caramelised cheese on dark Norwegian bread. Outside the rare cloud shifts position as if to stretch itself after an afternoon nap. The unceasing sun is not weary of its tireless shift. At 3am he will barely disappear, shading the night in pink, iced with scattered stars. Soft noises rise from the street. A truck passes apologetically. Everything is illuminated by the magic of the journey. It is Thursday afternoon, 3pm, and I am free to nothing. Though I will play guitar.

Days ago, Monday Morning, I woke on the grass, breathing the fragrant air of Dresden, East Germany. I was surrounded by friends. Our candles had burned themselves as we slept. The rug was as grassy as my hair. We all laughed. Monday Morning. Collecting our things we danced down the street to where was parked a green and white van. We climbed in. Once a police van it was now a haven. We rolled a joint. Someone filmed us. Guitar, violin, singing, the magic of the night here in the morning. We could barely say a word to each other. So we played and played and played. Monday Morning. At lunchtime we giggled home. Coffee. More music. The violinist and I devoted friends for life, such was the joy we found in the music. I will find her and she will play on the record. Here in Dresden.

Tears when we leave. Tears and fists over hearts and looks in our eyes and a jasmine memory sure to last. The Mayor of Neustadt insists we share a final coffee with him in his rooftop apartment and I listen to his histories as I hold dear the warm cup and look at the rooftops below. Such magic here. Deserted buildings garnished with graffiti and held together by the rapturous embrace of ivy vines, desperate to drag their new love into the ground, down, down, down, to cement the passing of time. We say goodbye. Goodbye. I stare quietly out the window as we drive. The Swiss girl next to me tells stories of lakes and parties and friends and plans and pasts and I do not tire of listening though I do so passively and let the road hypnosis take me.

Home base, Berlin. One night. Another wanderer, another wayward breed to sit beside and share stories. Another member of this Gypsy Family. How very true it is. We smile. Ten seconds and we are brothers. That's the feeling of The Road. My Road. I do not pretend to own any other than my own.

Sun, fast, snap, wake, coffee, croissant, airport. Over the Baltic and into Oslo. My other brother, the mentor, meets us at the train station. And we cook and laugh, three souls at the sublime serendipity of it all. A beer. Trails and strings that reach around the world and tie us all together, him to her to me to a friend to a city to a moment and back again. The world contracts around us and we drink whiskey to celebrate. There are shows to play here before we head further north. Deeper in. Estonia, Finland, Sweden...and beyond. A life now. A true, traveller's life. A dream come true.

And Elizabeth is coming. To Berlin. In three weeks.

I cannot wait to share this freedom.

1.

There's so much room to breathe here in Berlin. I didn't expect that. It's like Paris, but without the weight and peacoque expectation of beauty. There's an emptiness which exists as a perfect palette upon which to create. The streets are quiet. People move almost as ghosts, as though to draw attention would be to break the spell. I roll a cigarette and stand on the balcony and I can see beautiful apartment buildings hunched beside post-war brutalist blocks and everything just fits. I can hear birds singing at dusk.

This is my life now. I will never turn back. I have a background in normality. As normal as all that ever was. Tomorrow the travelling, the playing, the work, the joy of walking my own path begins. I clean the blood off the guitar, caked and black from last week's goodbye. I make hand made CDs to sell as I go. I stay home, happy to be alone, drinking tea and quiet. I drink the quiet. I can't remember the last time I did that. I sit by myself, happy in a room with tall ceilings and a high lamp, though I am never alone these days. A happy thought synched with the buzzing of my phone. Oh, hello. Not long. I'm on my way. Just got to go through Europe to get there.

Life has sure taken a turn. I have begun to learn the Art of Happiness.

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold onto the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
Let go of the shore, and push off and into the river,
Keep our eyes open, and our head above the water.
See who is in there with you and Celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all ourselves.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner
And in celebration.

We are the one's we've been waiting for.

I'm joined by Loneliness
who gives me
the usual -
pot shots
of savage self
reflection
but
I just can't
seem to swallow it
these days

so I
read my book
listen to Tweedy
lay for a time on my bed just gazing at the ceiling
I
drink whisky with my friend
and
play my guitar
as
my cat climbs all over me
and I just

Believe,

I s'pose.

I just believe.