Bahamas January 1, 2017 "Get Near the Drum”

I awoke to sunshine, and to a slight headache because the night before, myself along with the band (Walter Blanding, Shenel Johns, Yasushi Nakamura, and Emmet Cohen) had been out partying the New Year in; and I think I had one too many Dark 'N' Stormys. The cool thing about the lodging arrangement for this gig was that the promoter had Shenel (Vocalist) staying at a hotel on her own, while the guys were all in a house together.  So literally for two days, I felt like I was in a dormitory - it was actually a lot of fun. Despite the fact that we are all world-class traveling jazz musicians that are used to separate and plush 5 star hotel rooms, we all happily obliged to this arrangement because it was different and we all dug the communal vibe.

So, I crawled out of bed, went into the kitchen, and addicted to social media like most of us are in 2017, I went on Instagram. One of my dear friends DMed me saying that I must "go to the Rock Island Bar for a drink - it’s the coolest place on the island." After a few hours, I say to the guys, “Hey, I’m going to this cool bar before dinner, who is joining me?” Yasushi says, he's down, Walter says, “Yeah Man, I am in”.  We called Shenel, who answers the phone half asleep, and says, "I am in, give me 15 min", and Emmet begrudgingly joins.

One important fact about Harbour Island, is that no cars are allowed on the island. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, drives around in a golf cart. So the beautiful thing is that it’s virtually impossible to get a DUI - which during this time of the year is a true blessing.

We all got dressed, suited and booted and we hopped on the golf cart to pick up Shenel. We grabbed Shenel and decided to have dinner before going to the bar. After finishing our first dinner of the New Year, we then headed off to Rock Island Bar. As we pull up to the bar, I immediately started ordering shots of this wonderful aged local Rum for the entire band, and we toasted to a New Year of anticipated greatness for us all.

Then all of a sudden we heard this sound that shook our entire table. It was as if the rhythm of our hearts jumped out our bodies and created this hypnotic rhythm. We looked at each other and said, let’s go. (DOOM, DOOM, DOOM, DOOM) We ran out of the bar and outside where we were met with this beautiful carnival of local musicians playing so passionately.  The sound permeated through all of the rum within us and the drum called out to us, COME! Walter simultaneously screamed, “GET NEAR THE DRUMS"! It was like we jumped into the pool of rhythm, and began this journey of sonic intercourse with each aspect of the drums. We removed our “snobbish Jazz personas” and got inside of this powerful music. We each positioned ourselves near different parts of the band: Yasushi and Emmet got near the lower brass, Walter and Shenel near the bass drum, and I was near the shakers.

Dressed in full carnival gear, the man with the shakers began to march with the intention to hypnotize everyone with his rhythm and power. He succeeded; we were all under his spell. As I got closer, the rhythm of the shakers captivated me, and began to move into my chest, then it moved from my chest to my shoulders, and they began to move. It moved from my shoulders to my hips, and then they too began to move. It extended from my hips to my thighs and finally the rhythm made its way down to my feet which began to march with purpose - I was along for the journey. Wherever the drum wanted us to go, we were going all the way that night.

Near the drum was I, and at that moment, every care in the world completely vanished and the only conversation that was being had, was between my heart and the drum. We went on for over an hour, being led only by the rhythm of the drum. The joy, the sensation and the purpose was so overwhelming to me, for a moment it took me back to my childhood when I first fell in love with drums.

I began to think, what if we as a society got near the drum? What if we let the drum dictate our speech, character and purpose? Letting the pulse of the drum be what we gathered around the news for? What if the drum was the President of the Free World, setting the political agenda for our lives? How much better would we be?The drum is honest, it is decisive, it doesn’t lie, and it has no ulterior motive.

During this musical march I was energized by the drum. And I will forever seek to be, and remain near the drum, because near to the drum is life everlasting!

Divorcing Fear to Love

I am pretty much an open book, and as a result when people are around me, it brings out this quality in them as well. They show up with a mask and full apparel, whereas I come to the table, as one of my friends would exclaim, "emotionally nude”. Some would question how is it possible to be so open when I don’t know a person? I respond by asking, “How is it not possible?” If I don’t know you, I would rather have a full understanding and clarity about who you are so we can better assess what the nature of this connection might be. It takes away my angst, and in my most favorite declaration of all: it keeps me from wasting time. 

Emotionally Nude Fact: I was married almost a decade ago and was divorced very shortly after. To protect myself and my former spouse, I won’t divulge the details, but I will speak very candidly about the after effects of divorce. Often people don’t understand that divorce has rippling effects on the human psyche, emotions, and quite frankly it messes you up internally. Initially, I believed things about love that were so incredibly beautiful pre-divorce. I believed in the transformative possibilities of love. But when I went through my divorce, I not only divorced the person, but I actually divorced my belief in love. I divorced the idea that love could be fulfilling or something that I even wanted anymore.

I think we all have, at a certain point, experienced a serious breakup that became the death of a love, that felt as though it hindered our ability to ever love again, in an uninhibited and brave manner. So what normally happens at this point is, you sit love in the backroom and you tell it never to reappear. Or you tell it, if it appears, it has to look like this or that, and it has to cater to all of your insecurities,  and the labels and lies that you have told yourself, otherwise known as pain, about it!  To further explain: pain ushers itself into our lives, and it becomes our interior decorator, literally and figuratively. Pain begins to design the drapes, wallpaper, countertops, cutlery, and eventually, the architecture of our souls leading the way to build the house of what? more pain. I always have to be careful when I let pain attempt to dress up my future. I try to remind myself of the ramifications of what that outfit will look like to me and the world. 

In my life,I have often mislabeled pain, conveniently. I’ll humor you with the many labels I have created for it: 

Wisdom- Basically I would avoid anything that would require trust again, calling it wisdom. But if I were honest this “wisdom” should have been appropriately labeled as fear. Having been hurt before and fearing to be hurt again, I turned that fear into being cautious of all feelings, calling it Wisdom. 

Smart- I would declare myself smart because of how I made decisions. But I soon realized that brilliance doesn’t have avoidance attached to it. Brilliance is the ability to face problems head on until the true solution becomes present.

Being Proactively Numb- I administered pain onto others to prevent it from being administered to me first, thus making and keeping me numb from both pain and pleasure.

These admissions of my love avoidance tactics after heartbreak help me to be AWAKE, AWARE and HONEST about one truism: I was in pain, friends. You know what else is true? It’s okay to be in pain, as it is one of the by-products of living.

I had an amazing breakthrough a few months ago because I began having some very honest conversations with myself and I literally had an “aha moment”. I realized that I was angry with God because I didn’t understand how he could rule my life, have all of these amazing plans for me that were apparently pre-destined, while allowing me to go through so much pain. I had literally gone through years of blaming myself, and relationships, chemistry, compatibility, timing, seasons, etc., until I actually realized “dude you are in deep pain and the barrier is you”. This helped me figure out where to apply the pressure and clarity in my life, and what had been leading me, fear.

After much prayer, writing, and therapy, I finally was rid of the effects of the pain, and therefore the wound of that pain began to dissolve, dry up, scab and now it’s a scar that I wear with pride. What’s more important, is that the pain no longer leads my life. I no longer see through pain colored lenses. I lead now with trust and faith in a bright future full of love and the commitment to an amazing life that has truly been pre-destined for me. I have divorced fear, to love beautifully, openly and purposefully, knowing that my past mistakes do not have the power to shape and influence my untainted future