The Morning, Brilliant Blue

Issue #10 - Spring Showers Issue

In this issue, scroll on down to:

• Hummingbird Lessons

• When Mikes Were King

• Strange Oily Thing - a poem

• Best Time to Write

• A Perk for Paid Subscribers

• About the Perk System on Substack

• How Much I Loved the Movie - A Complete Unknown

• The Value of Stillness and Peace in These Times

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Hummingbird Lessons

IT’S BEEN A COOL SPRING IN THE NORTHWEST. Not a single hot day in May yet. Cold enough for a jacket and long pants most days — which I’m not complaining about. I love a cold springtime because that means blossoms last weeks longer.

I’d just gotten some coffee and was sitting outside The Red Cup Cafe when I saw a man looking at something on the ground at a nearby building. He was using a broom to move something in what seemed from my seat to be a delicate fashion. I actually sensed that it was a little bird and went over to see.

It was a beautiful young hummingbird lying on the damp stone. I couldn’t tell if it was alive, so I leaned closer. I crouched down very low and finally saw just a twitch of movement. I ran to my place and got a tiny box and the soft corduroy pocket I’d intentionally torn off of a new shirt a few days before. I guess I knew there was a reason to save that soft pocket material. I came running back and as delicately as I could, I cupped her and placed her inside the box, nestled into the soft cloth. I knew I had to keep her warm, in the brisk wind, she’d have gotten hypothermia on the cold damp ground. As a rule, if a six foot tall man is cold, a tiny little fledgling bird is likely freezing.

I wasn’t yet quite sure what I would do, I only knew I had to keep her warm and maybe she’d be okay in a little while. I let the man who had found her know that I would take care of her. I’ve cupped quite a few tiny sparrows and chickadees over the years who had knocked themselves out on a window. Most of them, after a little while in my cupped hands, eventually come to and fly away. The thing is, you’ve got to get them off the ground where they are easy prey for everything. And you’ve got to try to keep them warm. And it doesn’t hurt to whisper encouragement. “You can DO it!”

I went back to my table with my box of bird tucked up inside my jacket. I sat down and cupped my hands close for warmth and watched her for signs. She was blinking intermittently and I could see her delicate breathing. I can’t remember how I got word to the staff of the Red Cup but Parker came running out to see the emergency. She was at the same time hilarious and tremendously tender in her concern. I asked her for a spoon with a tiny bit of sugar water. I’ve done that with hummingbirds before and sometimes it works.

It was very difficult to get the water into position for the little wounded creature to be able to drink. But I remembered doing this once with a heat-stroked hummingbird in Laguna Beach. I had laid her on a picnic table in the shade and then made a tiny pool of sugar water so that her delicate flute was actually touching it. That bird took about ten minutes to come to. When she drank and perked up and flew away, it felt like such a miracle.

I managed to keep this tiny hummingbird’s beak in the water. Nothing though. No tell-tale little ripples. In fact, she was tucked in smaller now, blinking less, and I was thinking this little one was probably not going to make it. But I held her anyway, cupping my palms close for warmth. After a while I looked closer and saw the tiniest hint of ripples in the spoon. I was thrilled. That meant she was drinking and was probably coming back around. Hydration and energy were on the way.

When she became alert, she sat upright, her tiny feet grabbing the edge of the box. I held very still, not wanting to startle her. Then about ten seconds later she took her first flight — about ten feet to a bed of flowers. She rested there to regain her compass. Then, a minute later she fluttered easily twenty feet away to a glorious Rhododendron bush in full purple blossom.

It was just so wonderful to me that I hadn’t been too late. In so many instances in life, we are too late for what matters. And with such a delicate creature as a hummingbird, knocked out and abandoned on the cold wet ground, so many other things could have happened. As it turned out, I think she’ll be humming around the garden all summer and maybe longer. With birds, so light and feathery and delicate, you sense the fragility, the tiniest space between living or not — and you can’t help but feel that in your own precarious miracle of life. Maybe that was her gift to me. Ha! And I thought I was doing the saving. ~ Michael Tomlinson

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When Mikes Were King

WHEN I WAS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN THE 1960s, Mikes ruled! This photo demonstrates the reaction elicited any time a teacher dared to call out the name, “Mike” in my 4th grade arithmetic class. There were eleven of us. I’m just layin’ it out there for all you little precious Brandons and Justins and Jasons and Brodys and Brysons. Even you Xanders. Back when Hershey's kisses and Bic pens were new and Charlie Brown and Snoopy were all the rage, MIKE WAS KING!

There were some big advantages to being named Mike. For instance, whenever a little runny nosed kid went squealing to tell Miss Puptent, “Mikie ate my lunch roll ‘cause he said it smelt real good ‘n he couldn’t help it!” Well, the lineup was massive. If you stood at one end and looked along the length of us, you could just make out the curve of the earth. Also, no one ever misunderstood my name. People didn’t say, “what’s your name, little fella?” and then go “Huh?” when I said, “Mike!”

In my case though, the last name got some seriously conflicted vowels and consonants stacked up against each other. I never understood why it was hard. First there is Tom. Who can’t spell Tom? Then there is Lin. Lin ain’t hard at all either. And of course, Son. So how, when put all together, did my senior year homeroom teacher go the whole year during roll call calling me “Tumbleton!”? To which I eventually gave up and answered “Yo!” I’m serious as a broke off tooth on picture day. I think he thought he was taking me down a peg. Or maybe the fact that he was a football coach who hated teaching and ain’t never learnt much from no books was the reason.

Somewhere around my mid-twenties, I decided that a successful songwriter can’t be called Mike. Much like the rest of you Mikes out there, I sought the distinction of going by the more elegant Michael. It really did feel kind of good to be a singer/songwriter named Michael. Though I never rowed no boat ashore in Amarillo, Texas.

To this day though, it is not unusual at all for me to introduce myself to someone, shake hands and say, “Hi, I’m Michael.” To which the response is — and I’m not kidding you — “which do you prefer, Mike or Michael?” Wouldn’t I have led with what I prefer? Anyway, it’s only men who ask this. I believe it’s an attempt at male bonding. “If we can keep this to one syllable, I’ll better be able to talk to you when I’m drunk.”

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy a little light-hearted, non-political human interest story about the original Mikes of the world and how in twenty years we’ll be headin’ to extinction so all the little Kaydons and Stetsons will have some room. ~ Michael Tomlinson (aka Mike Tumbleton)

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Strange Oily Thing ~ a poem

I KNEW NOT WHAT STRANGE OILY THING
Came hurtling fast on waxy wings
Which turned my pedaling reverie
To spastic twitch and wild careen

It struck me brisk on sunny cheek
And made me reel and swat and shriek
I blindly wiped its oily smear
From cheek and nose and flapping ear

An ugly crash and tumble I
Must sure avoid with all my might!
But how to keep my wheel steadfast
When slathered cross my face was that

So ghastly thing all guts and tar
Which chose me of all riders far
And near and rolling through the wood
To festoon with its insect blood

At last I slowed my pace to stop
And check my face for airborne slop
I wiped with haste and back of hand
So much dark slime I could not stand

“Oh Ick!” and “Ooh!” and “Yeccchhh!” I cried
As riders passed me horrified
My visage ruined for human eye
My face now some sad turdy pie

I looked for shiny surface clear
To reflect back what I most feared
But not one rider slowed for me
No shiny fender lent to see

Then I recalled my telephone
With camera and tinkle tone
I snapped a pic and dared to peek
My God! is that my tarnished cheek?

Lo, there it was swiped full across
My face, the guts of giant moth
And near my mouth and nose and eye
Spare parts of that poor butterfly

I wished that I had tried to veer
Before it smacked my nose and ear
But off was I in dreams surreal
That happens often when I wheel

I hope it did not suffer much
The moth I mean, which made a muss
Of my damp, tan and shiny cheek
She landed hard and sprung a leak
~Michael Tomlinson

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Best Time to Write

SOMETIMES THE BEST TIME TO WRITE is when you think you have nothing in mind. Ah! How clever to wait until the brain is empty before you try to sneak in a little bit of typing! “I only hope I can write some brilliant stuff before my brain finds out!”

I know that sounds a little silly, but what we think the mind wants to write, is not necessarily what your inner voice and awareness is interested in showing you. Most of what we write is not really for other people. It’s for us, the writer. I write stories all the time that I do not post. They were exercise or they were for something I needed, perhaps no one else did.

We want to MAKE people like what we write — and that’s how we lose them. Much as with cooking and how people love to eat the things you love cooking the most. Most often, they like to read what you Love to write. There are a few exceptions — mainly people who love writing about Philips Screwdrivers or Thumbless Gloves. Those are awful books.

But what if you just begin? You let flow words and phrases almost as if your fingers were inventing them. And then maybe some of them make sense to you. And then that greatest of all things might happen — you care about something in it. You are interested in what is happening and curious to see what might evolve. It’s my favorite way to write and I’m doing it right now. Have been for three paragraphs now. Whee!

I knew I wanted to write about writing. I knew I wanted to write about not knowing what you’re going to write, but I had no idea how to go about it. But here is the thing; practices which call on the quiet parts of ourselves can be exciting. Writing and meditating have so much in common — and they both lead to discoveries. Watching words seem to come out of your fingers is thrilling. And what is most moving is the gradual revelation that your life really is rich in experience and insights.

You are as unlimited as anyone in imagination. And there is value in what you write. Of course you’ll write some things that don’t feel interesting or moving. So does every writer (except the Thumbless Glove guy). But most of the time you’ll find that these things you write before you think you know what you’re doing are themselves a part of the wonderful. To write of a tempestuous storm after telling of a long and dull winter can be a thousand times more effective than if you’d been writing of storms all along.

I can say something about every person reading this; Your essence is alive in what you write. Call it a Soul Print. A fingerprint but of the soul. The way words form in you is like no other. But even more important, your very existence is completely unique and when you are open and willing, your own writing can display the wonder of who you are.

Riddle me this Batman; How is it possible when you’re book hunting in a store and you just pick one up, read maybe the first few sentences and somehow know you want to read it? How do you like someone’s voice through printed ink on a page? Through all a book goes through, the writing, the rewriting, the editing, proofing, the deciding of fonts and laying out and printing? How does the writer’s essence remain in those words printed on that page? You read the first paragraph and realize that you like how she sounds and you buy the book. I have marveled at this my whole life. All I know is that I love when it happens.

I can think of no other practice that will reveal more of who you are, what you feel, what you think and imagine, than for you to write. I do it every day and I highly recommend that you give it a try. Do it with confidence. You’re not doing it for anyone else — yet. Only for you. And there is no one to compare you to.

I love sharing ways you can go within, ways you can see your own brilliance and character and begin to play with the ways you see and feel Life. What I’ve written here is not perfect. I would write it differently tomorrow. But that doesn’t matter, because I know that you know I mean to remind you of your own gifts which are genuine and worthwhile. I wish for you this beautiful experience that can reveal to you that your own life bears endless stories and feelings worth sharing. Please write. ~ Michael Tomlinson

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A Perk for Paid Subscribers ~ Two evening online events

Michael Tomlinson Performance at Telluride Bluegrass Fest - Summer 1990 Online event Tuesday, June 17 at 6pm Westcoast ~ Hosted by Michael Tomlinson

(Current PAID Subscribers and Subscribers who upgrade to paid by June 15 will receive their Zoom link the day before the event by email.)

This is the first of two events I will present on Zoom this summer for paid subscribers. Half of the ten songs from my 1990 Telluride Concert will be played on video — and I get to accompany you, fill in between songs with backstory, hilarious happenings with my friends and soulful sharing about what happened in those days and what it has meant to me to sing these songs for you all these years.

Imagine that there is a day from your life 35 years ago that you’ve always recalled lovingly. One you’ve told stories about for years because it was a day you spent with your best friends on a great adventure with 10,000 people. Fun things happened, scary things happened, wild things happened. You were young! You were healthy! You were luckier than you even knew!

NOW, just add this one other factor — 35 years after that day you’ve told stories about so many times, someone sends you a professional video recording of yourself that you had not known was in existence. That happened to me. And get this; I wasn’t at first even sure I wanted it. I don’t like to be filmed in concert. I don’t like anything that takes my mind off of being present with the audience. I don’t like the panic that can happen when you forget some lyrics or miss some chords and your mind leaves the audience and goes immediately to the errors in your song which is being recorded!

And also, I recalled my performance before 10,000 people as too hurried and jittery. That had been part of my story telling for over 30 years. I was nervous and played and sang too fast - is how I remembered it. But what the heck? It was 35 years ago and so what if I had turned into a yappy clown onstage?

He sent it to me. I watched it, spellbound. What??? It was a fantastic concert! Ten songs that I played and sang well! I couldn’t believe how well I sang and played. I was blown away, not that it was perfect, but that something from so long ago inspired me today. I think for most of us, if someone shows footage of you doing anything 35 years ago, you might possibly wince and wish you could still DO that. That is part of what astonished me; with practice I can still sing and play all those songs! Seeing the video inspired me to keep going! It just made me want to keep writing great songs and to find a way to play concerts again.

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About the Perk System on Substack

I have been sending you my letter, The Morning, Brilliant Blue, since last fall. I love sharing my writing and I love that many of you read it — or at least parts of it. I’ve been writing stories on FB for 18 years. But Substack is meant to be a new income stream as well. Thousands of writers have found it to be a welcome supplement to their livelihood. It’s not there yet for me but I believe it can become that. Also, I see it as a possible way to keep recording and performing concerts. At a time when every songwriter’s complete catalog of songs and albums is now free to stream, there is no more income from those many beautiful records I’ve written and recorded. Just .003 cents per stream, IF Spotify/Amazon/Apple actually keep track and send a check.

I began by sending this letter free to all 6000+ people on my mailing list. So far, even though they could read it for free, about 60 people have committed to an annual paid subscription of $10 a month for my stories, essays, insights, humor, photos, songs and videos I include in it. I’m really pleased to have your support, but I realize I have to make it worth something special for you. So this is how I start to do that.

For those who are free subscribers, I hope you understand that for this to work, I have to offer my paid subscribers some special experiences if I hope they will stay with me and in fact, for my subscribership to grow. If it grows as I imagine it, it is the source I will make use of to record my next album and do more concerts and events for everyone.

I just wanted you all to understand that I love that you read what I send you — whether you are paying or not. It’s an honor that you would want to read any of my stories or listen to my songs. This new series of perks is how I encourage and thank those who have reached a little deeper to help me. I thank you all.

Your friend in the wind, Michael Tomlinson

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How Much I Loved the Movie ~ A Complete Unknown

WHEN I WAS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN MY EARLY TEENS, I saw a garage sale one Saturday morning and remembered that I had 25 cents in my pocket. “So Hey!” I thought. “I’M a potential consumer too!” I wandered around several tables, picked up a couple of interesting items and put them back. Partly, I was training in how to appear to be a discerning shopper. Hmm. How long would a grown man hold that pocket knife, open it and close it, before thoughtfully setting it back down? I think I got it about right. And in a few minutes I was glad that I hadn’t spent money on it, because just as I was about to leave I saw something more interesting.

There was a box with several 45 rpm records! Hey Now! I flipped through them, nothing I wanted. Then on the bottom was an artist whose name I wasn’t aware of, but I just happened to see the song title, “Lay Lady Lay.” Wait! Is this the guy I’ve been hearing sing, “Lay Lady Lay, Lay across my big brass bed. . . Why wait any longer for the one you love — when he’s standing in front of you?“ Hay-ull Yesss! It cost a dime and I flipped that coin out as if I was a millionaire used to spending frivolous cash on random purchases.

Walking home, I read the name on the cover. Bob Dylan. Which I pronounced Bob Die-Lan. I was not aware that he was the one singing, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Or that he’d written the Byrd’s fantastic “Mr. Tambourine Man.” I just knew that the sultry “Lay Lady Lay” had a fantastic melody and put me right where I’d like to be with a lady someday. I went right home and put my adult purchase on the stereo. Wow!

Lay Lady Lay had a quality about it that didn’t remind me of anything else I’d ever heard. Since I was the tiniest child I had loved melodies. Didn’t know why certain ones were magical but they got my attention like comic books and BB guns stole other kids’ attention. I listened to Lay Lady Lay constantly that day before it occurred to me to see what was on the other side of my first Bob Die-Lan record.

Okay, before I get to that, I just have to tell you that I watched the movie, A Complete Unknown, a few days ago and was rocked by the phenomenon of young Bob Dylan in the early ‘60s. It’s a fantastically well done movie. Even if the acting and movie making hadn’t been as good as it is, to hear the young Dylan's words sung again, as if we were hearing them for the first time, was heart opening to me. They gave me hope again, 60 years after they were first sung. I needed this reminder that it still matters for songs to come from human experience and imagination - and not through A.I. I was bowled over by the depth of brilliance and love and vitality that came through Dylan.

The movie left me inspired, wanting to pick up my guitar and write. I always have songs in progress, but I’m being honest when I tell you that it’s not nearly as easy or exciting these days to write songs so many years after the time that I had radio stations and audiences waiting impatiently for my next release. Now it has to be all about my personal desire to write. Can I be as immersed and satisfied in these times? Sometimes I can. Nothing will ever be like our young days, but I do still love the feeling of writing a song I really love. Watching that young man in the movie write such brilliantly imaginative songs made me want to go deeper and allow my imagination to ring free.

The movie also renewed my gratitude to Bob and so many other artists of the ‘60s who changed the world. They truly did. Their songs reflected the times, whether war protests or grief over assassinations or the changing ways women and men and our relationships were evolving — or the astonishing ways psychedelia and psychedelic drugs affected the expansiveness of the world.

Speaking of which, seeing the pressures on Dylan to stay stuck in the moment where people first fell in love with him was overwhelming. People of all ages wanted him THIS way. But he wouldn’t box himself in. What happened for so many artists in the ‘60s and beyond was that drugs and alcohol became the answer, the remedy. We forget that those artists did not have forerunners to learn from. Young artists today at least know going in that they need help along the way, that substances will kill them. Drug overdoses were mostly new in the ‘60s — and we saw so many fall in a short span of time. I marvel that Bob Dylan survived it. He wasn’t even part of a band — sharing the pain and impossible pressure among partners. It was just him. And somehow he survived and is still writing and playing in his 80s!

I have immense respect and gratitude for Bob. And I love that a really good movie, not overly precious, gimmicky or judgmental, was made that gave us a taste of what some of the moments of his early years were like. What a reminder of how powerfully influential he was to so many artists. There are hundreds of famous artists and bands who were greatly influenced by Dylan — and proud to openly say so. They shaped their look and music and personalities to reflect him. We have a lot to thank him for, though he would never want that. Bob Dylan is the only Nobel Prize in Literature Winner who is a songwriter! And he did not show up to receive it. That’s part of why we Love him.

And that B-side to Lay Lady Lay that I bought for a dime? Go listen to Subterranean Homesick Blues, or better yet, watch the video (film) he did for it in 1965. Then tell me whether you think rappers/punk bands/rock bands/folk singers/poets have anything to thank him for. He was so far ahead of his time that it feels like he birthed a new genre in that song. And as I mentioned, that 45 was my first official adult purchase, back years before I ever even imagined that I’d become a songwriter too. That Bob Die-Lan got to us all. ~ Michael Tomlinson

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The Value of Stillness and Peace in These Times

Every Thursday evening I host a small gathering on Zoom. It’s called Breathing Into Your Life and that’s what we do. There is nothing difficult, there is nothing that would make you feel awkward or ill at ease. In all my years of retreats, private workshops, gatherings of all kinds, first in mind is that I want people to feel welcome and never pressured to do anything at all. In fact, it is my intention to always meet you where you are.

In our gatherings we do breathe, I do sing a song, we talk. Meaning that I usually have things to say and then I ask if anyone has something they wish to share. Usually, out of a dozen or so people, three may speak. Everyone is welcome and no one is pressured.

We then do about a 20 minute musical spoken word meditation, where wind or surf, and natural elements carry music and blowing leaves and wind chimes and my voice through a soft accompaniment which invites you to quiet your mind gradually. It’s not unusual to notice every single person there looks kind of dazed and soft by the end. Then we all leave. So simple, yet it’s been alive nearly five years now.

You are invited to join us and I hope you will. Registrations are available one week at a time on my website for the upcoming Thursday. It’s all so easy. And this can be a huge part of your getting more fluidly through the changes and pressures in our changing world.

My life continues to be better because of these practices and I believe you’ll find your own gifts if you bring these into your life. I hope you do. ~ Michael Tomlinson

Register for Breathing Into Your Life at www.michaeltomlinson.com

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