8:35 on a Sunday morning, got my usual six or so hours of sleep, woke up, did the puzzle along with a glass of iced coffee, now there's an hour or so to check in and see if there's anything of interest happening within. At 10am, I'll be at the WOW HALL (Community Center for the Performing Arts) for a two hour 'ecstatic dance' event that happens every week. It's our little movement church thing that we do in community, and a great way to spend Sunday mornings. But that's then, and this is now, or is it? I realize that I have lost a bit of the mojo for going inside and revealing (reviling?) what I find there. I could think of lots of reasons why. Maybe I don't like what I see and would rather try and forget about it. Maybe it's none of your fucking business (he said with a chuckle). Maybe I'm feeling a little frustrated with the fact that the stuff that seemed so important a few months ago (great new songs, great insights etc) are just things in the rear-view mirror that don't have a lot of staying power. Maybe the word 'maybe' is a rhetorical device that I'm using to reveal myself anyway. Ho ho ho. That made me smile.
Yesterday there were all of these public music events happening and I wasn't too interested. Face it, I'm much more concerned with my own musical pursuits (such as they are) (he said with a slight put down) than with what other people are doing. In truth, the highlight of the day was the hour I spent at the piano going through a 'show tunes' song book I got from the library. I poked through it, looking to add stuff to the repertoire (I quite often spell that word wrong, my first impulse is to write reportoire, like it's a report of some kind). Let's pause for just a second and look up the word. Thank you senor Google.
So there I am poring through the book and I picked out the following two songs to spend some time with: 'Cabaret' and 'There's No Business Like Show Business'. They're both GREAT SONGS, they deal with similar subject matter, and they use some musical tricks that keep them out of reach of non-schooled musicians. And I sat at the piano, my housemate was out at a show, so I felt free to sing both songs at the top of my lungs while working out the chord changes. I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction by getting new sounds in the old bag of tricks. It's kind of like magic. I get to sit there, practice a bit, apply my brain and body to the task and voila, here's a song that sounds great, that feels great, that lifts the spirit.
It's not a nostalgia thing, finding comfort in the familiar, at least I don't think it's that. It's more a sense of excitement about rhythm and harmony and craft, and it turns me on. It touches in to mathematics, athletics, puzzles and artistry, so I can see why it makes me as happy as it does. And then I'm singing and I'm sure that some scientific types have discovered that singing provides all sorts of benefits to the brain and body. I'm not familiar with the research, have no interest in that line of inquiry, but I know it to be true.
And this is why I get a lot of pleasure from going to the senior centers and getting the old folks singing and smiling. I have a steady twice a month gig at a place nearby where I play on the 5th floor, to folks who need quite a bit of help. They're all in wheelchairs, and there is a lot of diminished mental stuff going on as well. The piano is on the far side of the room, so I just grab the guitar and put myself in a central location and start singing along. Often times, there will be people who don't speak, but then a song will grab them and they'll start singing, like a memory that got triggered and a synapse that fired. Feels like God's work to give pleasure to folks who could really use it. I'd do it for nothing (but the $50 comes in handy, truth be told)
Other than the music, I seem to be in a holding pattern, but you know, that's OK too. I'm still trying to adhere to my 'less judgment and loathing, more gratitude and joy' mantra, and I do believe that it's working on some level. I've been relatively at peace the past couple of weeks, and even aware of some options when I start to go down the judgment highway. It's like, 'hang on there, Rich, this is what it's about, can you short circuit the familiar route and find another way?' So far, pretty good...
But maybe that taking it easy on myself is the reason for my lack of poignancy in the blog lately. Perhaps I'm giving myself an excuse to not delve more deeply into what's going on. That could be true, and if so, .... oh well.... Maybe just let it be for awhile. Yeah maybe
