Espers II



Last Saturday I woke up, tired eyed and groggy.

I prepared and mentally psyched myself up for the day of work ahead.

Fast forward 30 minutes.

I am on the bus, we are being sluggishly dragged around the corner of Stone Way and 40th,

and it hits me.

The dazzling sunlight. The rich orange and gold of just-turned fall.

Skeletal trees are sillhouetted before I-5.

I am struck dumb. I am half-awake, and cast forth into a dreamlike state as Espers rises in my ears, growing to a swelling birth of lilting meloncholy magic.

Picture this.

A woman of ages past walks with purpose through mist filled woods.

She gently and deftly stems nettles to dry, and use in her remedies.

She is a witch, a healer.

A baby kicks in her womb.

This link extends to me, because even though I am not a mother, I have one.

And even though we are estranged, her shadow is always behind me, whispering, calling me back.

I am guided when I brew my nettle tea.

Memories in my blood, women in my instincts.

Their intuition floods my veins, hidden in my cells.

They whisper, they call me back.

Espers sings this to me. Music that sends me back to the state of marveling at the mystery of the world, and my life as a woman. What does it say to you?

These songs are rich and frail, they are distant and painful.

They are visceral, but only for a moment, as those poetic thoughts escape, like dreams, like water in your hands.

There are shades of Nick Drake in the guitar. Pentangle and Fotheringay echo, ghostlike in the melodies.

There are even moments of hellish drugged bliss, the heaven of Led Zep,

but only in the mists, the cliffs to climb, the views of mountaintops, jagged peaks, and forests.

Espers is Greg Weeks, Meg Baird, Otto Hauser, Brooke Stietinsons, Helena Espvall and Chris Smith.

They hail from Philly. If they ever come Seattle way, I will be front row at their gigs.

They're addictive, they spin beauty and magic.

This is the kind of music I seach for, and usually give up trying to find.

It was quite by chance that the album I'd bypassed all this time came to play in our stereo.

An accident. Or fate.

You choose.