“You don’t throw a whole life away just ’cause it’s banged up a little.”
That quote from the book and movie ‘Seabiscuit’ seems profoundly true only when you’ve lived a little and learned a bit about the grace required to truly love a human being. Not on a singular, individual plane – everyone can do that; it’s not a stretch to find at least one person to love in this world. I’m talking on a universal level – a love for humanity, for the whole lot of humans, even the ones who seem the least lovable. It’s hard to love all our fellow humans on that general level, and the ones who are banged up tend to be the ones who are left to fend for themselves, human nature not being remarkably gracious these days.
That’s not the way I intended this post to go, but sometimes a quote takes you places you don’t intend or expect, and in my lived experience it’s better to allow those nudges to guide you, especially when you’re not quite sure what to say or do. And in a way, it does come back to the fringe element of being a cowboy that spurred this post and the jacket as featured here, because kindness and compassion seem to be in the minority right now, at least judging from the actions of those who hold power… for the moment.
Choosing to live on the fringe of society, on that edge area of what’s acceptable, is the choice of many a cowboy. It’s not a choice made in service of being so seemingly contrary for the sake of being contrary, but rather for the purpose of the cowboy being true to himself. Existing on the fringe is something many of us feel at one point or another, particularly if you’re a member of a minority group of some kind. Being ever in danger of slipping outside the tried and traditional builds a kind of fortitude – a certain courage and power that those who have never skirted the edge can know.
The power of the fringe element.
Stepping outside what society expects you to do.
Forging your own path even when it differs from everything and everyone you’ve ever known.
Standing alone at those times when no one else is brave enough to stand with you.
Work hard, play harder – such is the mantra of certain cowboys, the ones who go for the gusto in every situation, pushing life to the limit at every turn. They take each day as if it’s their last, and partake of all the joys, pleasures, dangers, risks, and sufferings that any day has in its arsenal. In their passion for making the most of the moment, cowboys throw caution mostly to the wind – then ride that wind like a wild bird of prey – honing in on targets and striking with remarkable alacrity and precision. When their work of a day is done, they let loose and release long into the night. As it’s Friday, this scandalous song from Dixon Dallas gives us the sort of delicious romp that any cowboy would be glad to come upon.
Down in the holler, I was lookin’ for love Somethin’ I can find just to fix me up Been a little minute since I had me a time I only got one thing, on my mind Then a thick and juicy cutie started walkin’ my way I said, “Hey, good lookin’, come and make my day“
He was poundin’ me hard ’til the sun came up Huffin’ and a-puffin’ and-a takin’ it rough We made a lotta lovin’ with a little bit of pain Bangin’ that booty, while I’m yellin’ his name Chokin’ and a-strokin’ ’til I’m tired and sore I’m gaggin’ on it, daddy got me beggin’ for more
He said he had to go to work, I wasn’t ready to stop I went down to the river, I was scopin’ the spot I met a tall tan hunk with a look in his eyes And he winked and I’m thinkin’, “That’ll do just fine” Then he pulled me in the woods and got me out my boots He looked me up and down and said, “You sure are cute”
He was poundin’ me hard ’til the sun came up Huffin’ and a-puffin’ and-a takin’ it rough We made a lotta lovin’ with a little bit of pain Bangin’ that booty, while I’m yellin’ his name Chokin’ and a-strokin’ ’til I’m tired and sore I’m gaggin’ on it, daddy got me beggin’ for more He left me with a kiss, I headed out to the bar Drinkin’ and a-laughin’, dancin’ under the stars A tasty lookin’ snack came and took my hand He said, “Hey there, baby, let me be your man” I thought about it, then I said, “Hell, why not?” We stumbled out the door, I guess I’ll give it a shot
Cowboys don’t always name or label the fun they have – they simply have it. That’s an ideal lesson for a Virgo like myself to learn – sometimes the best things in life cannot be planned or plotted – they simply happen if you let them happen. The older I get, the better I am about letting go, even when no one else thinks I can. In the past I might have bothered to correct them – now, it’s enough to let them be in the wrong and allow myself the truth in which to revel. All right, enough semi-serious shit for a Friday night post. Come back tomorrow for the fringe, if you know what I mean…
He was poundin’ me hard ’til the sun came up Huffin’ and a-puffin’ and-a takin’ it rough We made a lotta lovin’ with a little bit of pain Poppin’ that bussy like bang bang bang He was poundin’ me hard ’til the sun came up Huffin’ and a-puffin’ and-a takin’ it rough We made a lotta lovin’ with a little bit of pain Bangin’ that booty, while I’m yellin’ his name Chokin’ and a-strokin’ ’til I’m tired and sore I’m gaggin’ on it, daddy got me beggin’ for more
Cowboys have their fair share of heartbreak, providing plenty of fodder for songs that speak to the human experience. Some songs manage to combine the saddest of predicaments with the most joyful of tunes. That juxtaposition still thrills me, even when the thrill is gone. Check out this dastardly ditty by Sweet Megg, and then check out the rest of her repertoire – it goes wonderfully well with this Fall of the Cowboy.
Oh why did I trust you I’m losing my mind I should have seen through you I must have been blind
I tried to be honest I tried to be true But what good did it do me I’m bluer than blue
You left me to worry You let me do pain But still I’m not sorry You know I’d do it again
It’s giving the same sort of gleefully-woeful lost love song vibe as some of Patsy Cline’s seminal work. Singing through the heartbreak is how the cowboy heals their wounds – well, maybe not singing so much as listening and hearing after the fall. And for those of us who have fallen before, no matter how long ago it might have been, a song and its primal attempt to reconcile what happened will always tug at the heart.
I told you I loved you What good did it do When you’re on my mind dear I’m bluer than blue
I weep on my pillow Then I walk the floor I worry my heart out Then worry some more
When you have a blue day or night, just hearing that someone else has gone through it, and put it to song and musical contemplation, eases the burden a bit – the way a shared heaviness disperses slightly when more people take up the weight. One of the most comforting thoughts on earth: we’re all in this together. The mess, the sadness, the loveliness…
It’s driving me crazy This memory of you I’ve got to forget you I’m bluer than blue
A close friend recently asked me if this cowboy look and theme was a phase, and if it would be done in a few weeks or months – and I knew exactly what she meant. It was a question I’d already posed loosely in my mind, but had shut out as soon as it required some deeper thought, so when she asked I was slightly flummoxed, being without a ready answer. I genuinely don’t know, and it’s been rattling my brain ever since my niece looked me up and down and asked how long ‘this’ was going to last. (My response to her had been to gesture over her entire ensemble – Sunday morning pajamas and ridiculous slippers – and ask, “How long is THAT going to last?” prompting a giggle from my brother.) These kids are slow to learn.
For all my varying interests, shifting looks and reinventions, there’s always been something authentically Alan to each of them, some kernel of underlying truth to every image or project. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. The cowboy motif speaks to me on such a deeper level, and somehow the clothes and boots and hats make me feel more like myself than sequins and feathers at the moment. That said, even I wonder how much is just a mask and character behind which to hide and figure out my next move in private.
The cowboy represents the wilder side of me that has been trying to get out since I was a scared kid – and at 51, perhaps far later than others, I finally feel free enough to let him loose. It’s one step closer to reconciling my inner-self with the outer image that has been leading the charge all these years. That it is the cowboy doing all of this now has me slightly conflicted, at least until I see how much of this lasts – it seems to be integrating into my life in very natural and easy ways, even as people act surprised and incredulous and slightly suspicious.
I can dispatch the cowboy to do my work but it’s still somehow me doing the work. My hats and boots don’t feel like a pose – they feel like an extension of myself – more so than many of the outlandish outfits I’ve worn over the years. Will this last beyond the fall and winter? We’ll see when we get beyond the fall and winter…
A broken, battered gate barely keeps the cows in and the humans out. Straddling fences is a cowboy skill; living on the borders, existing in the in-between, dwelling on the blurry lines – cowboys know how to navigate the messy spaces that most people avoid. Humans want the world to be organized and structured – we make sense of our place in it based on a certain order. Whether these areas are arbitrary doesn’t matter; order is order, whether natural or not. We make it all up as we go along anyway.
For those who dwell on the edge, for those who live on the fringe, the idea of order is silly at best, crippling at worst, and rarely a helpful method of moving through life. Nature has its own order, and there’s enough of it to not need much more. A cowboy gets this. A cowboy understands. A cowboy knows that when you try to put human messiness into a fenced-in pen, only ruin can result. Without the freedom to roam, we walk in our own piss and shit, trapped with our excrement, reduced to the animals that maybe we will only ever be. Being lonely is just another term for being trapped. Finding freedom is a cowboy’s way of avoiding a lonesome sort of love.
Most of the days that change your life begin the same way that any other day would begin: absent of any knowledge that the day will change your life. On this one I woke to the cry of a hawk, screeching right above our house in the earliest light. It had no business being that loud this early, and on the Lord’s day no less. Now I’m sounding like Ma, who would have been upset at the noise. It woke me right before she would have done the same if she hadn’t heard me moving about the room. I hated the noise of it, the boards that creaked and groaned differently depending on sky, weather, season and, seemingly, mood. As it was, Ma merely yelled up the stairs to get moving for mass.
My bed, which I’d outgrown more than a few years ago, was a lumpy pile of rusty springs, pushed into the corner of the room, which had dirty white walls, and a pale wooden floor that was once a white-washed nightmare to keep as pristine as Ma insisted. When I turned eighteen, I told her I would no longer keep it that way, and she didn’t bother to argue. It felt like I grew up that day, because when I said it, it wasn’t defiant or argumentative – it simply… was. A declarative and gentle statement, its gentleness the source of its power. What I would not argue or challenge in any way was Sunday mass and Sunday dinner. Both were implacably non-negotiable. She’d have thrown me out, and while that was not always not tempting, I had a bigger plan that relied on my lasting at home until it was too late to do anything else.
When we returned home after mass, the sun was already high, the day was hot, and the store was warming too quickly to be comfortable much longer. We were closed on Sundays, and that was not just for the public. Ma took ‘day of rest’ strangely seriously, refusing to let us do much of anything other than read, which was the only joy I didn’t feel the need to hide, as it was a rare instance of my taste dovetailing with Ma’s earnest belief in furthering my education. She enjoyed reading, and I understood that her plain, rough way of talking wasn’t due to lack of vocabulary, but a calculating maneuver to sound less intelligent and more like everyone else. That everyone included Pa. His estimation of her was high enough that he wouldn’t have minded, but maybe that was because he had never been actually faced with it. They danced the way most parents dance – as both example and warning for their children – and in awkwardly treacherous imbalance. For them it worked, though they didn’t outwardly display it. My parents spoke in silent accord, their language neither very physical nor verbal, but like their faith, somehow unwavering. They were sure of each other, and so I was sure of them.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t leaving. A twenty-year old guy either needs to settle down and find a wife to help run his life, or ride out as a cowboy and find himself. Ma and Pa had only one path laid out for me, and now that I’d graduated to cashier I was halfway there. I knew it was time. If it didn’t happen this year, it wouldn’t happen. I’d already learned enough from the cowboys, and still had one more spring and summer to learn from another – the last cowboy who would teach me something before I became one myself.
The dining room doubled as our library, two of the longer walls were lined with bookshelves that a friend of Grandpa’s had helped build before Pa was ever born. There was dust and wax and the grime of three generations on some of the books there, and Ma was always adding to the collection, quicker than I could read them, even on Sunday, when there was nothing else to do. She tried selling some in the store, but realized soon that there still wasn’t a market for it – one book would suffice to be passed around the small town, so she basically started a bit of a library and I got to reap the rewards of a well-read youth, whatever they were. Ma seemed to hold more promise in that than me – I only understood that I loved reading, loved words, loved how they opened up a place in my head that hinted at something more, at worlds only I could create. When I discovered poetry, I knew – well, I dared to hope – that one day I would be a cowboy poet. The first part in getting there was the cowboy part – the poetry I would work on later; I figured I’d need a few years of cowboying to get enough life experience to write a proper poem.
Ma was padding quietly but actively about the kitchen, pots and pans making an occasional din of dull bells, the only kind of music she’d allow in the house on Sundays. I sat down at the dining room table – a favorite place to read, especially on winter days, when an oddly-placed fireplace lit up the corner, blackening the surrounding walls and lending a cavernous aspect to the room. Along with the candles that Ma always had burning on the table, the fireplace and its scent of ashes, fainter in the spring and summer, gave the space a cozy aspect missing from the starkness of the rest of the house. The bookshelves closed us in further, and I would always find delight when humans cloistered themselves into smaller spaces as if to make sense of the world on a smaller scale. Interspersed with the books were various objects that Ma had collected over the years – gifts from customers and friends, hand-made vases and pots, dried bundles of herbs and strawflowers, baskets woven by one of Ma’s closest friends (who was also my favorite for how she doted on me) and other pieces of insignificant wreckage – the collection of a woman well-liked, well-respected, and somehow not very well-known. I mean that not in the sense of being known generally by the community – everyone knew Ma and Pa – but in the aspect that few knew her well. Even Pa and me felt like we fell into that sometimes, like we didn’t know her, could never know her, and neither of us understood how or what to ask to change it.
She came out of the kitchen in a silent rush, placing a fresh loaf of bread atop a wooden tray and covering it with a wrinkled piece of linen.
“The Beasley Boy is coming to dinner tonight,” she said in a hushed tone that I took as reverence. “But it will be late – Mrs. B said he works until sunset, and the ride here will get him in around 8. I’ve a big lunch for you and Pa to hold you over. Sounds like a pain for the Beasleys – cowboys shouldn’t eat that late. But she said he was a good one. Didn’t want to get in the way.” Ma looked in my direction as she spoke and it felt like she was waiting for me to say something.
“Do I have to wait and have dinner with everyone?” I ventured, sure it was not what she wanted to hear. A tilt of her head was the answer, and I pulled the bread in my direction to start filling up. She pulled it back.
“Lunch is almost ready, then I want you to sweep up the floors. The afternoon is yours.” I learned how to end a conversation from Ma, who never let anything dangle unsaid or unclear. When our lunch was done, she and Pa disappeared into the kitchen and backyard, while I took advantage of the free afternoon and headed out the front door once my sweeping was done. The edge of the desert was where I spent most of my time, and April was one of the best months to be there – the ocotillo was leafing out, the cacti were in bloom, and other wildflowers danced and dropped their heads depending on rainfall and relief. The world was awakening again, and a new cowboy was in town – the happy sign of summer just ahead, even if that meant heat and dust and discomfort. It was quiet here, just outside of town, the sun beating down and quelling any living thing that might attempt a ruckus, including people, and I stayed to soak it in because this was as bearable as it was going to be until fall. When the ocotillo lost its latest coat of leaves, it would be time to stay in the shade. I listened to a bird pecking at a cactus, my ears on alert for any warning rattles; snakes didn’t scare me, but I didn’t want to step on one. Pa told a story of someone he knew who died from a bite, and it was one of the most terrifying tales I’d ever heard, mostly because Pa rarely told stories, and for him to do that meant it scared some part of himself that he never did reveal; my father told more in silence that he ever could in words.
When I got back to the house, Ma asked if I would help Pa out in the casita. We didn’t use it for living quarters, as it was just the three of us, but I’d considered asking to move into it a couple of years ago. After sensing Ma’s reluctance, and in service of my own plans, I didn’t press it, so it remained a space for extra storage, and there was always something that needed rearranging or fixing. Pa was outside the front, banging on a wooden box and splintering its cover just as I approached.
“Leve, grab that end and just drag it. Another shipment of Ma’s books. Heavier than flour and even sugar,” he said with a snort, which was his way of laughing. “No room for them in the house or store even. Not until spring is done.” Pa spoke in clipped phrases. We filled in the rest. It made him sound brusque to any stranger; I envied how he won people over in spite of that, though when I look back that was how most people in my hometown talked. “You met the new cowboy yet? The Beasley Boy?” Pa asked.
“Not officially,” I said. “He passed by the store last week I think but didn’t stop. Only one this year?”
“Sounds like it.” Pa paused in the doorway, the late afternoon sun showing the first signs of age near his mouth, lines etched by laughter, because Pa laughed more than either me or Ma when others were around, though that wasn’t much; we let him do our laughing for us sometimes in public, and were no less happy for it. At home, he was more stern, often telling me it was his job as my father to toughen me up. His mouth was strangely drawn now, taut like he had something more to say. “You’ve been handling the store,” he said. “On your own. The register. The day’s receipts. Reconciling. Ma said it’s been good.” He looked away from my gaze and into the last of the day’s sun. “Learned quicker than me,” and he laughed, the way I knew him to be with others. “You’re pretty much there. You are.” It was more than he’d said in the entire previous week; I sensed he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t – only lumbered back into the house after a quick furtive look in my direction, one that I caught, and one that he saw I caught, leaving me quizzically wondering at his words, the economy of them deceptively stark. It didn’t change the fact that I was leaving.
Back in the house, the last of the day’s sunlight came in through the second story windows. As Ma and Pa bustled about the kitchen, barely whispering to keep things moving, I bounded upstairs, took my shirt off and bounced a little too loudly onto the bed, instantly cringing at a scream that used to come, but wouldn’t tonight. Settling back on a thin and worn pillow, I allowed my eyes to close, the metallic clicking of a pot lid over boiling water and the squeaking of the oven door drifted upstairs and filled the house with a drone that inspired sleeping. I was on the verge of falling when the clicking of a horse and Pa’s welcoming call to tie him up back pulled me awake. My eyes adjusted to the darkness around me, and the sliver of the hallway light peeping through the uneven bottom of the unlocked door.
Sunday silence suddenly broken in startling form by the booming “Hello!” of a man I’d never met. The voices of my parents carried as well, in the very best manner of their store demeanor, higher in pitch, more interested, maybe more interesting, until you realized it was all a show. This season’s Cowboy stood in the entry way, asking if he should take off his boots. He passed the first test, and Ma said he didn’t need to bother. (She only wanted them to ask.) When I heard them shuffle into the dining room, I started my descent downstairs before anyone had to yell.
Only the Cowboy looked at me as I stood in the doorway.
A black mantle extended from his shoulders like a cape as he galloped across the highway and further into the night. A cowboy hat of midnight black looked like an empty hole hovering around the top of his head, taking in all light with stiff curves of wool that somehow defied flight itself. He was there for a second and then he was gone, the only proof of his passing: a cloud of dust that was already settling and pretending it had never happened. He was a mystery that way, and one was never sure if he was even real. The sound was of a horse, if a horse’s hooves had been made of feathers and beating furiously against the air. A horse and bird combined then, with all the power and might and grace intrinsic to each. If you’ve ever seen slow-motion clips of a horse at full-gallop or the way a bird of prey takes to the sky, you know the power of which I write.
An old cowboy went ridin’ out one dark and windy day Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way When all at once a mighty herd of red eyed steers he saw A plowin’ through the ragged skies and up a cloudy draw
Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky He saw the riders coming hard… and he heard their mournful cry
Was our rider coming or going? Was he traveling for purpose or was the purpose the traveling? Suspended in the air, even when galloping across the ground, is a state of flight one can preserve with the bending of time and perspective. One need not be some Marvel superhero or comic book man of make-believe to so defy the laws of physics and science and possibility – one need only refine and expand upon the imagination. We all have the potential and ability to fly like our ghost rider.
Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred, their shirts all soaked with sweat They’re ridin’ hard to catch that herd but they ‘ain’t caught ’em yet ‘Cause they’ve got to ride forever in the range up in the sky On horses snorting fire as they ride hard, hear them cry
He leans forward, angling and undulating in sickening rhythm – a strange dance atop the sinewy muscle of a sleek black horse that might as well be the night itself, writhing and wrangling motion out of thin air. They take to the sky, but maybe it just looks that way because most of us choose to never leave the ground. There is always a choice, even when there isn’t. Not choosing is a choice, and one of the most telling.
Yippie i ay Yippie i oh Ghost riders in Ghost riders in the sky
The road appeared seemingly by magic just as the sun was going down – one of those rare moments when the universe conspires to bestow a fleeting gift of beauty for your eyes only. A brush with the sublime then, as occasionally happens, and somehow always when I’m alone. Attempting to capture it in pictures is only ever partially successful – you cannot feel the wind or the sun, you cannot smell the leaves or the air, you cannot become part of this fall day – you can only sense it, and then it is a mere approximation of the enormity of the feeling. The feeling of fall. The feeling of an ending.
I am just a cowboy lonesome on the trail Lord, I’m just thinking about a certain female The nights we spent together riding on the range Looking back it seems so strange
The road looks tempting. It disappears into the light and we all, well most of us, want to follow the light – but it is the dying light of a day, the end of a cycle, while the promise of night is less a promise and more of a threat. Foreboding, it leads one on in dangerously seductive tones, flattery of beauty and dangling delight. Night, barely dented by moonlight or starlight or candlelight, looms ahead – right about where the road leads off from what the human eye can see.
Roll me over and turn me around Let me keep spinning ’til I hit the ground Roll me over and let me go Riding in the rodeo
A road leading into the woods is often enticing that way, and for some souls the idea of night is a draw as well, provided they can guarantee their safety, that it’s only a passing thrill and imaginary danger – the way we seek out scary movies or amusement park rides. Danger with a safety net – exciting, thrilling, but never life-altering. I’ve played with such imagined dangers and lived in such entertaining fears. It’s a cop-out for real risks like telling the truth and being completely honest all the time. We humans require our petty distractions, our silly and shy objects to keep our eyes off the real horrors of the world. The older I get, the more difficult it becomes to shut out those horrors. They wind their way back to you, they show up on the most benign of roads.
I was took in Texas I did not know her name Lord, all these southern girls seem the same Down below the border in a town in Mexico I got my job busting broncs for the rodeo
A cowboy faces those fears head-on, because honesty and integrity are part of the cowboy code, skewed and strange though such a code may seem. It bends and morphs into a different moral plane, one not bound by societal terms or social pressure, one not contained by law or restriction. It’s a trip into the night, where clear lines and boundaries cannot as easily be seen, where the road becomes something you have to feel, a ride of instinct and intuition. The very worst sort of road for those who like to know where they are going.
Roll me over and turn me around Let me keep spinning ’til I hit the ground Roll me over and let me go Running free with the buffalo Here I go!
Roll me over and I’ll turn around And I’ll move my fingers Up and down/ Up and down
It’s OK amigo, just let me go Riding in the rodeo
Roll me over and turn me around Let me keep spinning ’til I hit the ground Roll me over and let me go Riding in the rodeo
Cowboy walks away; cowboy walks into; cowboy walks back. Cowboy walks between shadow and light, day and night, meekness and might. Cowboy walks with freedom, the only constraint being whatever heartstrings he allows to be plucked. Cowboy walks…
Roll me over and set me free The cowboy’s life is the life for me
Country music has been ripe for saddling up with all sorts of double-entendres and multi-layered meanings in its lyrics and presentation, and this old-school classic by Merle Haggard gets a wild re-reading with today’s terminology and meanings. This cowboy era is heavy on gay-coded moments and not-so-subtle irony, getting cheeky revamps and slutty new spins (as evidenced in a bare-assed post like this).
There ain’t no ridin’ bareback anymore Ain’t no taking chances like before You don’t agree with me you’re out the door Honey, there ain’t no ridin’ bareback anymore
While the music and the tune is decidedly tongue-in-cheek, it also speaks to a deeper meaning of something more complex for the cowboy who finds himself growing older and, ideally, wiser. I read this as the lessons of life taking their toll on someone who once thrashed about wildly, throwing caution to the wind and riding without protection or deliberation – in other words, the cowboy who’s experienced his youth to its fullest, as the luckiest among us often do. If you can’t act young when you’re young, then you’ve missed out. Cowboys don’t usually miss out on their youth – but that kind of living does exact a price. You see it in the eyes of an older cowboy, you see it in the lines of his face or the measure of his gait. You see it in a smile that doesn’t come quite as readily as it once did – and when it does you detect the slightest pull of sadness.
Here our cowboy claims he’s still up to ridin’ every night, but it’s not going to be the same carefree bareback way it was before – those days are done, and if you’re looking for someone to take those kind of chances, he’s going to show you the door. I can appreciate everything about that – the notion that such brash living has gone by, as well as the idea of being so sure and certain of your own self that the wishes and whims of another aren’t going to change your mind or switch your stance. All are indicative of the cowboy life.
I’m still up to ridin’ every night All you got to do is hold me tight And I ain’t seen a saddle in so long But I ain’t no ridin’ bareback anymore
There ain’t no ridin’ bareback anymore Ain’t no taking chances like before And if you don’t agree with me it’s out the door Honey, there ain’t no ridin’ bareback anymore
The cost of being a cowboy is slightly different for everyone. Some wouldn’t consider it a cost at all – content and merry to ride through life without long-term care or concern, happy to connect with people along the way without making any binding or committed promises, and perfectly satisfied with being alone should that be the result of their choices and lifestyle. (Not everyone is willing to put up with someone who only wants to roam.)
Wildcat Kelly, lookin’ mighty pale Was standing by the sherrif’s side And when the sherrif said “I’m sending you to jail” Wildcat raised his head and cried
For those who desire the cowboy’s freedom, and seemingly-carefree lifestyle, they would be wise to dwell and deliberate on what that means for the long haul – because a cowboy’s career isn’t typically made to last that long. The physical exertion runs down and ruins the body faster than an office job ever could – and the mental and emotional strain for those who aren’t cowboys in their hearts can be equally debilitating. To do all that just for a taste of freedom, to live life defiantly alone, should it come to that, are choices that come with consequences. A true cowboy won’t mind, or even think of it that way. For the rest of us flirting with the cowboy life, these are things to consider. And for anyone remotely toying with the idea of falling in love with a cowboy, good luck. The heart of a cowboy is pure – and at its core all it wants is freedom without fences.
Wildcat Kelly, back again in town Was standing by his sweetheart’s side And when his sweetheart said “come on, let’s settle down” Wildcat raised his head and cried
“Meet the new cowboy?” came the question for the third time that day.
Shaking my head with an amused grin, I told the customer only Ma had officially met him.
“Seem nice?”
“She said so,” I proclaimed, a little more boastful than intended, “Said he was dusty but knew enough to stock up on soap. Not all the cowboys bother.”
The customer moved away without smiling. I wasn’t sure I’d made a joke, so no wonder she wasn’t convinced.
It was Monday, and the Cowboy hadn’t shown for dinner yet. They usually came by on Sunday afternoons, and Ma had made a little extra fuss for it, even if she pretended she wasn’t. She was adamant about Sundays being for rest, but she still went out of her way to make a big Sunday dinner. It was harder to get my head around such stuff when I was a kid; now I accepted the contradictions because it was easier that way. It felt like growing up was all about accepting things that didn’t make sense, and learning not to question them unless you wanted trouble.
When the Cowboy didn’t show for dinner, we eased into the evening with a little less tension – Ma having a second beer and Pa undoing his belt before he even got up from the table. I was not-so-secretly relieved as well; as much as I wanted to learn from the stranger, I wanted to do so out in the wild, where it mattered – not at the dinner table, and definitely not in front of my parents. They were already suspicious of my reluctance to take over the store, and Ma could suss out an interest of mine no matter how deeply I tried to conceal it. By the time she burped out the ending to her second can, she’d almost forgotten about the Cowboy, until she eyed the extra plate on the counter as she was cleaning up. I watched her put it back into the cupboard as Pa shoved back from the table.
That night it was nice enough to leave the window open to my bedroom. The moon was overhead somewhere – I couldn’t quite see it, but I saw its light, the way it illuminated the backyard and the stretch of power lines, undulating and sagging between their tall wooden poles. The stars blanketed the dark sky – the promised storm had never materialized, not yet at least, and the night was clear. Coyote cries sometimes pierced the quiet, but on this night they were still and silent. April anticipation hung in the air – the promise of spring fulfilled, and yet somehow not quite complete. I was old enough to feel the longing for something that spring inspired, even if I couldn’t quite figure out what it was that I wanted. If you asked me, and no one ever did, I might say I wanted to be a cowboy. With my bedroom door closed, and the window open to the stars and the sky, I let my heart whisper it to the night.
At quite a distance out of town, the Beasleys’ bunkhouse glowed with the light of a single candle. Stepping out onto the porch, the Cowboy walked a few steps into the moonlight, his naked form and shadowed contours looking more animal-like than human. He took in the whole sky, with its stars and moon, and listened for a message on the wind – a wind that never came.
Freedom is the main goal of any tried and true cowboy. It’s the reason they risk so much, stepping so far away from the easier paths that other roads might have offered. Freedom to be exactly who they want to be, to be bound only to the land, the animals, and the cowboy code. There is nobility in that – some danger too – for a cowboy to choose the cowboy’s life requires a certain sacrifice of comforts that most people aren’t willing to give up. But the reward… ahh, the reward… can you even begin to put a price tag on the reward of freedom?
Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees Send me off forever but I ask you please Don’t fence me in
Are there ways to operate within this quest for freedom that allow for interpersonal relationships, and maybe even romance? Of course there are – and perhaps I’ve been too broad in the strokes that I’ve used to paint this fall of the cowboy. The core of the cowboy essence, however, remains the same – and one of the main tenets of that is independence and solitude, standing alone and riding off into the sunset and being completely ok with making your way on your own. Most of the time all a cowboy needs is a horse and a horizon.
Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle Underneath the western skies On my cayuse, let me wander over yonder Till I see the mountains rise
I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses Can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences Don’t fence me in
That loose sense of belonging to someone or something, of being bound and tied to another person or place, chafes at the cowboy’s sense of freedom. They erect fences for livestock; they would sooner die than be fenced in themselves. Watch as they gallop off into the distance – watch when they are given an open expanse and an afternoon off: they are movement and freedom and exultation in one.
Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle Underneath the western skies On my cayuse, let me wander over yonder Till I see the mountains rise
It is a glorious thing to see, the way a cowboy revels in their freedom – and the beauty is often in what we do not see, in the price it exacts, the shortened life it leaves after years of harder living. Who’s to say it’s not the way life should be? Why are we preserving ourselves with restrictions and diets and healthy living when thrilling at the pleasures at hand is so easy and feels so good? Why live a longer but unhappy life when you can have an ecstatic shorter one? Maybe this is one reason the cowboys are so often so Zen-like: they have this all figured out.
I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses Can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences Don’t fence me in
Some songs strike at the very heart we try so hard to protect, hitting right through the one chink in the armor you worried about – the hole you were so right to worry about – and in some way you have to wonder if the heart didn’t want for it to happen, like it knew it wouldn’t be complete without breaking, as if that was the very purpose of a heart. Is a life complete without surviving a heartbreak? If not, I’ve no worries – my life is woefully whole in that respect, with several heartbreaks still somehow mending – and it’s always the unrequited heartbreaks that hurt the most – those moments of unexplored could-have-beens that never quite got off the ground, that perished before they gave each other a chance. There’s something sadder about the bud that never blooms.
And time washes clean Love’s wounds unseen That’s what someone told me But I don’t know what it means ‘Cause I’ve done everything I know To try and make you mine And I think I’m gonna love you For a long, long time
This song may very well provide the soundtrack to my entire past of torturous romantic escapades – that it has arrived all these years later to help make sense of those doomed moments touches me in a way that is as surprising as the tears that suddenly rolled down my cheeks in the dimming of this day.
Contrary to likely-popular belief – and it’s ok if you thought it too because it totally tracks – I’m not one for self-pity. No, my pride was too great for that – my tears before tonight were for all the boys who missed out on what I would have been to them. Yeah, that’s right, I got it like that – my pride was such that I mourned for them not seeing how good I could be – how good we could be together – and a bit was for selfishness too, because love makes us selfish and ruthless and cruel, thinking we’d miss out on something that would change the world.
Caught in my fears Blinking back the tears I can’t say you hurt me When you never let me near
Maybe those boys were just wise to me, wise to my failings, wise to my pride – maybe they knew the day would come when I’d bore and tire of them, when I’d realize how much better I was than them – because you can say that when it’s true, when no one else has come along to thrill because you’re the most thrilling and interesting person in any room you’ve ever inhabited. Wise to this sort of insufferable hubris, to the ridiculous inability to fathom how someone could not want to be with me. Yeah, I got it like that…
And I never drew One response from you All the while you fell All over girls you never knew
Oh how I used to cry for those boys – the ones I thought were worthy, the ones I obsessed over, the ones who seemed interesting and thrilling and beautiful in their own right – I cried over them and gave them all the power. There weren’t that many – less than I could count on two hands – and perhaps they were more special than everyone else. They each occupied a precious portion of my life, and I gave them that space willingly – because I knew even back then that it was my nature to love and love and love, no matter the return, no matter the cost, no matter the price and no matter the pain.
‘Cause I’ve done everything I know To try and make you mine And I think it’s going to hurt me For a long, long time
Where was this song then? Perhaps it’s best that it wasn’t around, considering the way it’s already wrecking me at such a distant vantage point. How strange the way an arrow will arrive years and decades after the fact and somehow find its way to pierce the heart at its most vulnerable point. My tears are no longer for all those silly boys – they fall for one singular young man who could be the singer of this song. I see him all these years later as I watch from a place of safety and warmth and relative accomplishment, with hopefully a little more wisdom than I had when I glimpsed him from the mirrors and subway windows and glasshouse panes of my youth. Back then I was too close to him to see his worth, to see his love.
Wait for the day You’ll go away Knowing that you warned me Of the price I’d have to pay
And life’s full of flaws Who knows the cause? Living in the memory Of a love that never was
I weep for him now, more than he ever wept for himself, because of all that he didn’t know, and all that he didn’t realize he was giving up in service of another. I weep because I wouldn’t change anything for him, for the fact that going through it all made him into the person I am today. I’m sorry that it had to be that way, but not at all sorry for how it all turned out. If that required some heartbreak, if that needed some fool for a catalyst that impelled him to greater heights, then it was worth it. And it’s worth crying for too.
I’ve done everything I know To try and change your mind And I think that’s going to hurt me For a long, long time ‘Cause I’ve done everything I know To try and make you mine And I think I’m gonna love you For a long, long time
I admire a cowboy’s resilience in that respect. Most people hesitate, waiting to get up again, tentatively evaluating the wisdom of doing the very thing that got them knocked to the ground in the first place. Cowboys don’t wait around for wisdom. Cowboys don’t wait around for much.
If there’s one thing a cowboy does consistently well, it’s getting on with it.
Such is the way of the world You can never know Just where to put all your faith And how will it grow
Lately I’ve found myself on the ground, intentionally dwelling there and letting my body sink into the floor. Gravity is glorious when you learn to just give in to it. So much easier that way, so exhausting to fight what the world wants us to do. And so much easier to rise from the ground than a higher elevation. Maybe that’s something cowboys just intrinsically know, something they feel. It might not be something you can learn or be taught – it’s possible you either have the instinct to rise or you don’t.
Such is the passage of time Too fast to fold Suddenly swallowed by signs Low and behold
I meditate while sitting in the lotus position, low to the ground. When I’m done, I’ll lie down, flat against the floor, letting myself simply melt into the surface. A literal grounding of self when my head is somewhere up in the clouds. There are times when I’m not meditating that I’ll find my way to the middle of the room, sit down and look at it from the lowest vantage point, because it gives a better perspective on the world. To be so small to not see above a coffee table or plant stand – perhaps this is why some children have such wisdom. Their whole world is right there, and everything that goes over their heads simply doesn’t matter.
Gonna rise up Find my direction magnetically Gonna rise up Throw down my ace in the hole
A cowboy retains a sort of childlike wonder at the world. Some might call that stunted, others immature. I maintain that it is wisdom – wisdom laced with folly perhaps, but it’s the wisdom that matters, even if it’s just a grain. A small bit of wisdom coupled with a hefty dose of wonder is a wonderful way to rise.
Cowboy ambivalence is that sort of mood that overtakes you like a fever – and it doesn’t only afflict the cowboy. Cowboys do seem more susceptible to it, however, having some sort of special access to things that others don’t – same thing that sets apart poets and temptresses. Artists and songwriters and sculptors are different in a similar way – anyone who feels slightly removed from the mass of human experience – those people who do what they’re supposed to do, laugh at the right moments, cry on cue, and go through life without ever truly wondering what it’s all about – they merely accept and make the best of it. I’ve often wondered if that is the true key to happiness – just giving in and not challenging or questioning or doubting. A blind sort of faith – willful ignorance, or a deliberate refusal to see anything other…
You know you shook me baby You shook me all night long I said you know you shook me baby Oh, you shook me all night long Ah, you know you kept on shakin’ me darlin’ Till you done messed up my happy home
More than perhaps anyone else, a cowboy lives for the moment. It is their guiding force and their fallibility in one fell, fatal swoop. They ruin their future for the present moment, they wreck their past for the here and now, and they live in the hour at hand in a method of mindfulness that most of us can only occasionally access, and that only if we’re extremely lucky and willing to lose ourselves for a bit. It’s scary to really let go like that. If you’ve never done it, you can’t know the risk involved. The risk or the glory.
You know you moved me baby Just like a hurricane You know you moved me baby You moved me just like a hurricane, uh huh You know you moved me sweetheart Just like a earthquake to the land Oh, sometimes I wonder What my poor family’s gonna do Oh, sometimes, sometimes I wonder What my poor family’s gonna do Oh, you know you, you made me mistreat them honey Ah, oh I’m madly in love with you
You know you shook me, shook me baby You shook me all night long, uh huh I said you shook me, shook me baby Shook me all night long, uh huh Oh yeah, you shook me, shook me baby Shook me all, all, all night long, uh huh
The mood of a cowboy is variable at best. It’s why they operate as cowboys. They go with the flow, whistling on the wind, letting the vibes hit and move them as they arrive. Such a mercurial and malleable existence isn’t one for the stable or stalwart of mind. But oh the heights they sometimes achieve, the loftiness they sometimes reach – the highest of highs that mere mortals tied down by morals and responsibilities and other like chains and locks can never quite attain.
The cowboy knows how to shake.
The cowboy is less skilled at being shook.
It’s one thing to stay atop a bucking bronc intent on throwing you off – it’s quite another to stay atop the heart of another human.
