Sunday blogs - on unprecedented optimism & patience

This is the first time I've ever written out a blog post first rather than putting it straight into the computer. It allows me to fully digest my thoughts and slow down the pace of my alleged storytelling. It only seems fitting because I not only have a more optimistic post to write than I normally do, but it's one about patience and timing.

I do believe in divine timing to some degree, even if there isn't any concrete proof of its existence. I come to peace with unfavorable situations or lessons learned by accepting them as what was intended by the universe. I wouldn't use this as a tone deaf explanation for, say, the current Taliban occupation in Afghanistan. But it does seem to help when navigating feelings of regret, disappointment, sadness, as a product of your free will and choices. If you do this enough then I feel like it helps carry you to the “other side”. What I mean by this is life constantly shifts and molds under us in unsettling, exciting, sprawling ways. It's all consuming, upsetting, every range of emotion. And it’s only after the fact that we are able to really resonate with the purpose of it all taking place. (We are often glad we learned the lessons we learned). So in the moment, if you don't want the emotional saturation to catch up with you, you let it go as part of that bumpy path that somehow is leading you exactly to where you should be.

I'm experiencing this right now as I'm witnessing gigs being cancelled again and in the process of signing with an agency that told me things won't truly get off the ground until spring or summer 2022. Of course I'm still performing and traveling when and where I can, but it has thinned out from my normal schedule. I'm in the process of prepping for an arranging project and it requires a lot of tedium in the beginning. Transcribe from the album via time stamps, put it in written notation, think about a larger form with certain milestones or landmarks. Assess. Put down pencil. Repeat. So far I've only been able to get one and a half out of five songs arranged. It's at these painstakingly slow parts of the process that I wish I could recruit a college student with too much time on their hands to do the dirty work. And yet, arranging is still so personal, like a kaleidoscope or a puzzle that only I can see, contingent on my instincts as unique as a person's fingerprint. It's not so easy to elect someone to mimic those parts of yourself. This is not a particularly rewarding phase of music work to be in, but it is necessary. So all you can do is wait.

There's a lot of waiting for things to happen. I know they'll happen in due time, but there's something to be said about making the most of a present moment so you don't drive yourself crazy. It seems days are stretched thin with sluggish time for reasons other than music and COVID, too. I had been dabbling in online dating seriously for the first time in attempts to not date another musician on the scene. I had high hopes for someone I had matched with in a sort of “too good to be true” scenario. This individual was tall, gorgeous, former pro athlete, entrepreneur, older than me, checking all the boxes. Of course, I decide to meet up with him and he turns out to be kind of an airhead. The fluttering feeling in the stomach quickly dissipates. Disappointment. I knew the moment I saw him that he wasn't the person for me, which has occurred with every online dating experience I've had so far. And I felt I was starting to run out of both hope and patience. At one time in my life I was so eager to fill my life with a man, even at a very superficial level (i.e. someone who I would not see often or for very long). But I walked away from that night with a weird sinking feeling. Intuition knows. Intuition knows I am far from the right direction.

I was about to meet up with someone else on the app when I decided instead to go support my friends who were playing at a jazz club that night. I wasn't really in the mood for going out but something told me to just do it. It all came with purely platonic intentions to just have fun and hear some beautiful music. I knew it would be a good hang if all of those folks were there. We did have an amazing time, no doubt, and the night proved to be karmic good for my work. I made some new musical connections for possible future gigs and I got called for another gig by a musician I had looked up to for a long time. Hours go on, and there's good energy between a friend of mine who's also a musician and myself. There always was, but it was simply platonic seeming before then. We were being goofy and drunk at the back of the club, hanging more than we normally do, eventually tapering off into our own thing. My friend asks if something is “going on between us”, to which I said no. Until I realized that friends can sometimes perceive energy that you can't.

We spent the night sharing cigarettes and beer and playing shuffleboard until 5am. As much as I was in full drunk mode on a Friday night, I was laughing so hard and feeling like we could talk forever. As I woke up the next day, I felt unusually giddy. I felt feelings I hadn't felt in a long time and I couldn't really explain what they were or what was really going on with me. And then it hit me – this is what a good date should feel like. And we didn't even try to go on a date. It wasn't premeditated, and yet, it was perfect. I didn't even know I could see this person in that way until that day. Sometimes it takes one experience, one moment, to change everything for you. It takes patience, and then it just strikes you from out of nowhere, effortlessly – as if watching the universe's own hand.

It occurred to me that out of my own unbridled urgency and impatience that I had been willing to go to great lengths to justify bad dates because I just wanted to feel something. When I actually did feel something, I realized I hadn't felt much those previous online dates at all.

Will something become of it in the future? Time will tell. I am not trying to project any outcomes or rush into anything with expectations. It certainly hasn't helped me in the past and it won't help me now. Evidently, the universe seems to know what it's doing, and it will continue to surprise you if you let it. I was reminded that I do deserve better, and it does exist for me – and if you're patient enough, you'll have it again.

That day, I deleted the dating app indefinitely. I will wait for what I need, even if it takes everything. What I do know is that I’m headed in the right direction, trudging onward.