Happy New Year! It’s almost February, but better late than never. There’s a lot brewing in 2023, so I’ll be posting a monthly reflection along with other little updates and rabbit trails along the way. I don’t necessarily do “resolutions” but I have been in the habit of making goals going into each new year. This year I did NONE of that, but I did come up with a word or phrase to focus on: Look Up. More on that below. -Kyle
Looking Up from Caudill Cabin
I can think of no better way to ring in a new year than to walk in the woods. Earlier this month my dad, brother, and I set out on a remote hike deep in the heart of Doughton Park on the edge of Wilkes and Alleghany counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains to find the sparse Caudill Cabin. It’s believed that this cabin and the holler in which it resides may have been the home of our ancestors in northwest North Carolina.
Since standardized spelling is a more modern convention, it makes sense that these “Caud-ills” could easily become “Caud-les” in a more oral world devoid of yellow pages, spell checks, and google searches. Additionally, this mountain holler spills out into Wilkes and Surry Counties where generations of our family were born and raised. One researcher of the family seems to think the Caudills migrated to the mountains via Tidewater Virginia. My pet theory is that the Caudills migrated to these parts via the Great Wagon Road starting out in New York/New Jersey and continuing through the Shenandoah Valley until they settled in these parts. True or no, I think the migration South through a mountain passage is more interesting than the migration West, but I’m no expert.
The hike to the cabin of our misspelled namesake took some 6 hours (3 hours in one-way) and rose some 1,000 feet in elevation. The trail contained some 20 creek crossings (mostly of the same creek!). The trail to the cabin is not for the faint of heart. Crossing creeks, however, brings out my inner child and I tottered across logs, hopped over rocks, and laughed like a little boy. This is meaning of life!
There have been plenty of studies and books about the human brain in the woods. In nature the brain is more active and attuned to sensory data, more focused, more free. We are wired for the woods. I believe the woods have a healing effect on the human soul. Since that trip through the woods up to the cabin, I have missed the woods dearly and my own mental health has suffered greatly.
I need more woods!
As I type this reflection on those beloved woods, I’m staring down at a screen. My mind wants to look up: at the canopy, at the waterfall, at the source of the birdsong, at the night sky.
I am beginning to think the greatest problem with our world is screens, or at least the proliferation of them. It’s a problem, though, not easy to part with. I type this on a screen, I record songs and videos on a screen, my job involves staring a screen, and then I pump gas on the way home—perhaps a respite from screens—only now nearly every gas station I stop at has screens on the pumps!
Everywhere screens!
The irony of things so hyper-present and overabundant is that they can become invisible. When it’s the sea we’re swimming in, it becomes harder and harder to notice. It’s like the David Foster Wallace graduate address where he begins with a parable about some fishes in the water:
There are these two young fish swimming along an they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning boys, how’s the water?”
And the two fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
I wonder if we, like those little fishes, even see what surrounds us. Do we even notice that we are swimming in screens, so baptized in a world of little lights before our eyes that we miss out on the ancient stars above us each night?
My Luddism, however, remains purer in thought than in practice. Much of the creative work I do depends on screens. I am not trying to “go back” as if that could even be done. Rather, I am trying to “look up” at the human faces before me, dust and divine breaths that we are. I am trying to “look up” at the canopy, the family of trees that our breath depends on. I am trying to “look up” because I sense (my) life depends on it.
“A time to tear down and a time to build…”
Along the trail to Caudill Cabin, my brother and I had a conversation about tearing it all down and rebuilding. What if I scrubbed all my music off digital platforms and then started anew? What really is there to lose? Maybe a little pride? Who really cares?
My friend Scott once shared a story with me about some indigenous tribe in some place I can’t recall that tore everything down once the society got too developed. Burn down the huts. Get rid of the wealth. Then start over. Then when it gets too big again, repeat the process. Even though I can’t remember the name or location of this tribe, it remains a wild and wonderful idea.
Essentially, this idea is at the core of the ancient biblical practices like Sabbath, Jubilee, and gleaning. Rather than letting too much work accumulate, you press pause for a day. Rather than letting too much wealth continue to concentrate in the hands of too few, all debts are erased every 50 years. Rather than harvesting every inch of your fields, you set some aside for the poor, needy, and strangers.
It’s tough to let go of what we have. In the long-run, however, it may be tougher if we don’t let go.
Sometimes a little housecleaning (or even wholesale demolition) opens up new vantage points, and that’s the genius of the older (and almost forgotten) wisdom. I’m sure some of my digital breadcrumbs exist out there, somewhere, but you won’t find my past catalogue (small as it is) on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. It’s still on Bandcamp, but it may not be for long.
Who knows?
You will find more soon though. This past week I sent my track “Lights” to be mastered. It will be my first single and a new start. I was able to pull a lot of friends, new and old, in on this one to make it such a lush and beautiful track. Closer to the release I may share two inspirations for this song, one from a flight back home from post-Katrina mission work in the Gulf of Mexico and and the other from a book suggested by a former professor. I’ve written better songs before and hope to write even better ones in the future, but “Lights” captures much of what I’m about (or seek to be about) artistically, spiritually, etc., and I can’t wait to share it.
What’s it about?
Well, pretty much, it’s a love song about “looking up.”
When my dad, brother, and I arrived at the one-room cabin sharing the same-sounding last name, we couldn’t help but be amazed at the simplicity of it all. I promptly hit my head inside the cabin as the beams are under 6 feet tall. We then signed our names in the guestbook: Greg, Kyle, and Caleb Caudle, Stokes and Surry Counties.
Had we come from here?
My how far we’ve come!
My how far we’ve still got to go!
The Caudill Cabin still stands, but no one lives in that cabin today. It stands both as a memory to the past and as a reminder that all things must pass. The original Caudills moved on after a devastating flood in 1916. Time moved on too. And like time, we had to move on as well, back down the mountain.
I like to think things are still looking up.
Upcoming Shows
February 16th, 2023 - Kyle Caudle (Full Band) with Ryan Johnson at Gas Hill Drinking Room in Winston-Salem, NC - Tickets Available Here
February 18th, 2023 - Kyle Caudle (Full Band) Private Fundraiser Show in King, NC
March 8th, 2023 - Kyle Caudle (Solo) at the Brewer’s Kettle in Kernersville, NC
March 24th, 2023 - Kyle Caudle (Full Band) at Little Brother Brewing in Greensboro, NC
April - May 2023 - Kyle Caudle Artist Residency at Emmaus Way, Durham, NC
So beautiful! Thanks for the heads-up reminder...