Three Days (June 1, 2009)

Zelda is lying next to me. On a feather bed that's kinda yucky 'cause she's been leaking for a while. Not that we care; we just wanna be close together.

We're here, side-by-side. Her asleep. Me watching her ribs slowly rise and fall; legs occasionally kicking as she dreams of chasing bunnies and chipmunks. Not that I know what she dreams. As well as I know Zelda, I can only wonder what she's dreaming of...

...as she moves closer to her dreams, every minute, every moment of the next few days.
And I know Zelda dreams, of all sorts of things, of a life that is full and rich and filled with people who recognized her spirit and her heart.

And so as she has lived, so she shall find the skies.

On the road, two last stadum shows: watching the people cheer, feeling the energy, the vibrations on the stage. Lots of friends from scattered places, Ali flying in from Martha's Vineyard to say good-bye; Steven Charles Hurst and his lovely wife Shaye coming to the Louisville Stadium to take pictures and share the love.

Maybe that's what's greatest about Zelda: the love. And the curiousity. And the will.
Even now more happy to be "on the road," that she doesn't want to leace the car.
"Where are we going? What will we do? How fast will be drive? Can we hear the Stones? the Crows? Aunt Patty? (Loveless, who she adores above all)"

Her last road-trip crowned by a night at Louisville's Seelbach Hotel on crisp white sheets in a fluffy bed with a big window. The place where Gatsby met Daisy... like some bluegrass version of Benmont Tench's ode to Sarasota's Don Cesar Hotel, "Why Don't You Quit Leaving Me Alone?"

How appropriate, for the girl named Zelda Fitzgerald Spaniel Gleason...
for the girl Wailer Drummer Zeb said, "Zelda is Jah Love" of...
the girl who is a Chanel collar, a teeny backstage laminate, a very Hermes looking bandana AND a pink skull & crossbones collar that let's people know her only friends are pirates...

It is hard to do the right thing. But I think it's easier than watching them suffer.
Or so i tell myself, watching her slumber. Always the sleep of Spaniels, nothing like it... so peaceful, so gracious, to tranquil yet so deep.

Zelda isn't going anywhere. Not really. She will always be right here in my heart.
She will always be the light in my window when I'm trying to get home...