Present ( VII )

      I´ve just been trying to remember my conversation with Richard on the night I discovered a new flavour and he made up a new name for me. We´d also shared some secrets and even a couple of surprises like when I told him I´d decided to miss Monterey because just the possibility of being allowed down into the basement was a much bigger thing for me than going to the festival.

      Afterwards, I´ve just been flicking through Dylan´s brown notebook again, re-reading my reflections from the beginning of this journey on losses and goodbyes which the passage of time has woven into a story at times resembling a landscape in ruins. I say to myself there would be something undignified about avoiding the place one writes at. But equally it would be disloyal to let dust dull the gleam of a shared treasure.

      I am lazily tapping out that last sentence – one needs to measure the precise calibre of adjectives as lethal as these- when my computer screen announces that an email has just come in. Sometimes, whatever it is that we call providence comes disguised as half a dozen words:

                            „Bob Dylan on Tour : Upcoming Dates“

      I check tour dates and locations, smiling widely now till I realise I´ve been looking out of the window for quite some time. On the other side is the locked door of the garage, and beyond, the caravan that used to shine in the evening sun round the back of Big Pink in the summer of 67.

      I force my gaze back to the screen to look through my files for Lo And Behold! I put on my headphones, turn up the volume ... And then I also count up to thirty.