These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain
A well-deserved recap.
I took off of work on Friday to go play in Corning, NY. I decided to take a bus there, and Lindsay and I would just drive back to Brooklyn the following morning.
The subways were all messed up in Brooklyn on Friday, so it took me forever to get to the Port Authority. I made it to my bus about 5 minutes before it left, but that was fine.
The bus ride was beautiful, and being so high up, it made the trip I've done so many times seem like brand new. I saw the Susquehanna River like never before; the way it winds and bends around the Appalachia, with the rapids, the white water acting as a mirror to the droopy, low hanging clouds that always seem to resemble a cartoon character I grew up watching. The shallowness of the river was starkly constrasted to the ferocity and depth of the rapids, all bordering the other and minding their own business. Life passes through each, and I spectate. The Delaware Water Gap is striking, the way the mountains, with their up-ended sedimentary rock, cut swathes into the water, so it seems. The truth is, the water has cut the swathes into the mountain, but I digress. I longed to pull over, hop over the rail, and take root amongst the trees and jump in the shallow water. To feel wet sand, and be unable to get rid of it from between my toes for the next three days or so. But that would not be this trip.
I missed my connecting bus from Binghampton to Elmira because of some heavy construction on I-81 going into Binghampton. I began to panic, and had to find a way there in time to play. I had to take a cab to Elmira, costing me (well, at the time, my mother) $120. I arrived in Corning 20 minutes before I was supposed to start. An otherwise beautiful, touching day was completely up-ended by the huge financial hit and anxiety that was missing the connecting bus. My sister and mother came out though, and their presence was wonderful, even if they kept to the back of the venue for the most part. Scott played with me, and that too made me calm down. He was very even-keeled, and such a great help. Deb and everyone at the bar were incredible, as always. Lindsay showed up right as I was about to play, and it certainly raised my spirits. Still, I felt really frustrated by the day, not being able to see Brandon very long, putting my mother and sister in a huge inconvenience and frustrating them, and putting me in the dreaded position of playing immediately following a long road trip. It was not going to go well, I thought.
We started playing, and the bar was otherwise non-responsive. They didn't seem too into it, and while I know I was playing well, it seemed like I wasn't "touching" the people the way I usually can. My back ached like no other, I was sweating terribly, and my leg was bleeding from scraping against something. It was not going well, and it was just another thing contributing to a shitty evening. On top of that, after the expensive cab ride, I was only going to break even from the show, something I've been really trying to avoid lately.
At the end of my first set, a group of about 10 people came in, ranging from a woman about my age, all the way to two elder women. They all had green on, with green party hats and necklaces, very much like St. Paddy's Day. When they came in, I played some Irish music, and they all perked up and started dancing. One of the younger women came up on stage and started singing with me, and everyone else was drunk and swaying back and forth. After the song finished, she pulled me close and began whispering in my ear. She said "listen hon, we're all here tonight for our two aunts, _____ and _____." [editor's note: I forgot the names, but that's not the point] "They both have cancer and are not doing well, and we decided to take them both out as a family and show them a great time...would you mind playing a song for them?" I immediately agreed, and a sense of what tonight was about began to seep into my head. I played song after song for them, not taking a break, and they all kept dancing, even the elder aunts, as if they were all 16 again. They would scream, shout, clap, and do all the things we all do when music takes hold of us. Smiles, laughs, drinks.
I started to play "Mrs. Robinson", and the family kept on dancing. When I got to the part of "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? / Our nation turns its lowly eyes to you" I noticed one of the aunts, now dancing with her much younger nephews or cousins, stop dancing altogether. She stood there and reached out both arms to the boys on either side of them, and pulled them in as tight as she could. The boys danced through this gesture, and brought themselves in closer to her, and a moment was had. It was not lost on me, and when I saw that one small thing, I started to weep. I immediately turned my eyes towards my mother, now standing at the bar, and she saw it too. My eyebrows raised, my forehead crunched, and it was as if a Mack Truck hit me. Family. In it's most tangible form. Family.
I know knew why I had been put through the ringer trying to get to Corning. I could not possibly have profited monetarily from something like that. The lessons of the evening would have been completely overlooked if I kept thinking about the tremendous payday I was going to get. No, instead God (or whatever you wish to call it, fortune, luck, fate, etc) placed me there to experience that and learn from that. I had been careless with my family as of late, and when chips were down, I am always there for them, but I had been terribly inconsistent. Missing calls, leaving cards and gifts at home when I promised to bring them, fighting or mal-treating them, and ultimately expecting them to bend-over-backwards to dig me out of either a self-imposed mess or being dealt a bad hand by life. It's not fair to them, and I owe them much more than I could ever give them in times of crisis. My family had been through enough in the past few weeks, and I should not be another stressor for them. My music seems to always make them happy, but I feel that should not be enough on my end. It's just a shame that it took something like that hug to jolt my mindset, and make me see how selfish I really can be. It's not the way to live a life, the way to treat people you genuinely love. I have to do better.
The show finished without incident, and the family tipped me $40 dollars for helping make their night out a good one. I gave it to Scott for all his help, reluctant as he was to take it.
Lindsay and I spent the night in the hotel provided by the bar owners. It was wonderful, a suite with kitchen, living room, and huge bedroom. The bed was comfortable and welcomed. I was so dehydrated from playing that my body frightened me with the signs it was displaying. I won't go into it on here, but I was worried for awhile. I fell asleep a wiser man watching Family Guy with Lindsay.
The next day we ate and drove back to Brooklyn. The trip was nice, and I got to hear all about the work Lindsay is doing in the greenhouse in Fredonia. She works with Dr. Titus, a man I enjoyed having as a teacher, and she really knows her stuff well. She is so bright, and so sharp, it is welcoming to speak in depth about things like native plant life in Chautauqua County, or the way non-native species such as Japanese Knotwood invades and smothers species throughout the region. It's fascinating stuff, but you have to love it.
She got her first dose of New York, and sadly, it really rattled her. She was dreading driving home as soon as we got there, and I sensed she never really was in the moment while we were in Manhattan, looking around to see things the way I would. It was too bad, and when we got home we both felt ill. We ended up staying in, and she planned on leaving the next day to return upstate. I'll be seeing her on Friday though when I go home, so not all is lost.
We watched almost the entire Live Earth concert, chock-full-of flubs and missed notes, interesting collaborations, and a wonderful message about helping to reverse the climate change and our global footprints. Global warming, and I have done extensive reading and listening as part of my biology coursework and as a concerned human, is a very real and grave concern, and is not a product of normal weather fluctuations that occur throughout history. There is now indesputable evidence that is a general consensus from the scientific world, from the physicists, chemists, biologists that I have encountered in my college years. Across the board, the knowledge (not a "belief" anymore) is that Earth is getting too hot, too fast, and too much CO2 is being generated. We must try to curb this before we permanently hurt the world of the many generations to come. We musn't be the cause of our own demise.
Lindsay left on Sunday, and I played a show. The show went well, and that's about it. Nothing truly insightful about any of it.
Family. Trials and faith. Sense of togetherness. Unity. Knowledge. Happiness. Struggle+Family=Ability. Love.
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