So many roads to ease my soul

I am really going to town here - two posts in the morning (the previous one says 12-30, but I did almost all of it today) - but I am in this wicked sleep pattern now where I wake up after 6 hours and can't get back to sleep. I am due for a major crash, but thankfully the weekend is here and our house hasn't washed away in the rain, not yet anyways.

I tried various titles for this blog, but stuck with this one - one of my favorite GD songs ever. Of course, with all the driving I do, I experience a lot of literal roads, but it goes much deeper than that for me.

I was there to see the first time the Dead performed it live at the Oakland Coliseum - I want to say it was early 1992 but I am not a date encyclopedia the way BL is. When I read the actual real life interpretation of the song lyrics I was a bit disappointed - apparently it deliberately references a bunch of quotes from old songs (as in KC Moan, Ain't that a Shame)as a tribute to old classic blues musicians like Lead Belly. So again - forget about what Hunter was trying to do when he wrote (I initially typed "road") it, what I care about is MY identification with the song.

I heard some fans outside in line once saying it was the ultimate addiction recovery song and I think that is true. BL provided me a CD version where Garcia makes it a point to say "heal my soul" instead of "ease my soul" at the end where he repeats it over and over, Van Morrison style as pointed out in a song review. To me that is what the song is about - healing. There is a lot of pain that is addressed in the song at various points, but the idea of So Many Roads to me is that there are many ways to try to heal one's pain. There is the path of destructive addiction, unfortunately, the path Garcia ultimately took that contributed to his own demise. We can try to medicate in unhealthy ways, through addictive drugs, alcohol, unhealthy sexual relationships, or we can do it in more positive and beneficial ways - through prayer, self-affirmation, art, productivity, and reflection. The idea to me of a numerous amount of roads is that you aren't restricted to one. If one road is blocked off, another one is always available. It may seem like an addictive path is the only way to provide relief, but give it time and when you can finally break free from it - if possible - and I believe it is - something else can step up to takes its place that is better for you. I have seen it happen with me many times and I have been lucky. It always seems to take on a supernatural quality (like the way these 6's and 9's are popping up all over the place) but everything points to it when the time is right to walk away. There is always an avenue available which is healthy and positive, as compared to the self-destructive addictive path. "If you don't, who else will" as the song says - it is something we all have to first decide before we can make it happen, and nobody else can do it for us, but they can be supportive of us when we do make that leap.

At the end of the song he mentions beautiful images "where the ice blue roses grow, along those roads of gold and silver snow" - and these to me are images of the spirit, the life force that runs through us all - the place where ultimately we can turn to when life is painful and old wounds are surfacing, a place where we can heal, experience love, joy, and inspiration - a place where all the pain and suffering and life can be set aside, where we can feel like it was all worth it after all and life really was worth living, even if it did not seem like it at times. That portion is in the last verse, and follows more of the painful feelings of lonliness mentioned earlier. It is the light at the end of the tunnel - again something that really hits home with me.