refresh and god bless

Man, it's been a month since I've sat still and written a word.  It hasn't been for lack of things to say, but rather sheer absence of down time.  It's been a busy (and awesome) month, to say the least.  But, I'm grateful for a quiet moment to sit here while the banana bread I'm making for Eric McConnell rises.  It smells amazing in here.

So, after several weeks that included producing the vocals on my brother's new album, having two dear friends come to visit the Fort from Boston and working on songs for a new record that I'm a part of with some dudes... My thoughts for tonight are on the chances we give others as well as ourselves.  Let's hope I can mold these ideas into something you can bite into.  Sometimes my mind feels like it's just a series of bright colors and melodies, and the articulation of such can be tricky.  First, let me say that I'm filled with peace and gratitude right now.  I'm aware of how beautiful life can be these days, and it's helping me to shine new light on some otherwise dark areas.

I once had a friendship for twenty years.  I held the relationship in impossibly high regard, as it had weathered all kinds of tests, both physical and emotional.  Sometimes I think I worked harder on the presentation of the friendship than I did on the connection itself, but that's all behind me now.  It ended some years ago, leaving me with a pile of unanswered questions that I sift through from time to time, hoping for new insight.  It does come, slowly but surely.  Once in a while I hear something awful about myself that they've said and all of the old, bad feelings come flooding back.  You see, the worst thing that happened to me in that dynamic was that I felt like I never got to grow up to the other person.  Not literally of course, but figuratively.  Who I was at age fifteen was who they held me to being, all the way up to thirty-two.  It just didn't work.  The best that I can do today is forgive us both and keep my own mouth shut.  Hurtful behavior plus hurtful behavior doesn't equal forward movement; it equals further damage.  A wise person once said to me, "Don't be sorry, be different."  This is me being different.

I think we have a filing system, as a society.  We have labels that we apply to people we know (and don't know) that make it easier for us to navigate life.  In my community of fellow musicians, I hear it all the time, particularly the negative files:

•  "Oh, he's not even there for any of the records he supposedly produces."

• "If you want a grumpy, indifferent engineer who won't give you any feedback - he's your guy."

• "Nobody ever works with him twice."

Mind you, every single one of those statements has been made in my presence a multitude of times by people who have never worked with the folks they're talking about.  They're going on hearsay, or gossip.  They're going on insecurity and therefore judgment.  They're going on fear.

In family settings, these character assignments are present as well.  Someone is always The Mess, while another is the Overbearing Over-Achiever.  And don't forget about One-Who-Is-Blind-To-All-Bad, and the popular Overly-Honest.  I've been called a number of these things, and have done the same in turn.  We get used to the roles we all play, and just ramble through life believing our own titles.  Well, I invite you all to look again.  Look at your loved ones.  Look at yourselves.  Look at who you all are today and celebrate the new information, if the situation calls for it.  Some people will be in the same place that they were the last time you checked, but not everyone.  That super uptight cousin of yours might have spent the last five years doing yoga and learning how to let things roll off of her back a bit better.  Your brother may have learned how to talk to you about who he is and what he's about.  Your kid might be working on their stuff in a twelve-step program.  Who knows.  All I'm saying is that there's a whole lot of life out there, and it forces us to grow, sometimes in spectacular directions.  By closing the book on the possibility of change in others, we say that we also can't be expected to improve on who we are.  And we can.  We do.

With some lighted road behind me, I see now that I've likely disappointed as many people as have disappointed me.  That's a sobering realization, particularly after thirty years of thinking I was the only one who ever sustained injuries in the wreckage.  It also helps me to understand that I'm just a traveler on the path, and not out on my own, as I so often feel.  Everyone's doing the best they can with what they know.  As we learn, we do better. 

Here are five things that have always been true about me, since nearly birth:

1. I love Michael McDonald.
2. I don't love the Beatles.
3. I believe in the existence of vampires.
4. I cry every single time I see Kermit sing the' Rainbow Connection' in the Muppet Movie.
5. Instrumental fusion jazz makes my brain short out.

And here are five new truths about me, from the last year or so:

1. I still don't know my way around Nashville very well, after three and a half years.
2. I love Car Talk on NPR.  LOVE.
3. I'm going to move to Los Angeles next June.
4. I really enjoy editing in ProTools.
5. I like those spicy pepper flakes on my pizza.  I've seen people use them for years and never knew what I was missing.

See?  In big and small ways I'm evolving, even though I may never care (ever) about the Beatles.  I truly hope that I'm given second chances when I blow my first ones, and aim to be the kind of person who can grant that to someone else.  It's always rewarding when I do.  Once in a while I get to experience a whole new side of someone I love, and it's usually because I've let go of their title and just allowed myself to hear what they're saying in the moment.

(And, for the record, I'm absolutely dying to work with all of the guys that I listed by way of their respective reputations above.  I ain't scared.)

Thanks for listening,

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