It’s been a day of close cows.
This afternoon, three black and white cows bedded down outside the front gate like a bunch of cats. Earlier in the day, I was sitting in a rickshaw, waiting for the driver, when the vehicle rocked a bit.
Earthquake? No. Just a half dozen oxen moseying past a little closely. I got home as several monkeys were simultaneously marauding the garbage and fighting with some street dogs.
Two months into my trip and I’m that much more immersed in Mysore and it’s mix of livestock-in-the-yard, wild and cosmopolitan community and overall yogic urbanity. Practice, chai, papaya, rehearsals (usually on the roof), lessons (the Indian scale sinks in deeper), lunch (thali or?), coconut, repeat, with some writing, napping, and performances thrown in.
My feet are rarely really clean from walking on dusty roads, good hair days are likewise few and far between, I’m alternately happy and cranky/impatient with my practice. Overall, I’m in a state of suspended contentment, in a different sense of time. Thankful.
Deborah Crooks (www.DeborahCrooks.com) is a writer, performing songwriter and recording artist based in San Francisco whose lyric driven and soul-wise music has drawn comparison to Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Natalie Merchant.
Singing about faith, love and loss, her lyrics are honed by a lifetime of writing and world travel while her music draws on folk, rock, Americana and the blues. She released her first EP “5 Acres” in 2003 produced by Roberta Donnay, which caught the attention of Rocker Girl Magazine, selecting it for the RockerGirl Discoveries Cd. In 2007, she teamed up with local producer Ben Bernstein to complete “Turn It All Red” Ep, followed by 2008’s “Adding Water to the Ashes” CD, and a second full-length CD “2010. She’s currently working on a third CD to be released in 2013.
Deborah’s many performance credits include an appearance at the 2006 Millennium Music Conference, the RockerGirl Magazine Music Convention, IndieGrrl, at several of the Annual Invasion of the GoGirls at SXSW in Austin, TX, the Harmony Festival and 2009’s California Music Fest, MacWorld 2010, Far West Fest and many other venues and events. She toured the Northwest as part “Indie Abundance Music, Money & Mindfulness” (2009) with two other Bay Area artists, and followed up with “The Great Idea Tour of the Southwest in March 2010 with Jean Mazzei.
