Memorial Day Weekend

Hello,

Well it is a beautiful Saturday today, and I am having one of my first Saturday's off in a very long time. It feels so good to be able to spend a weekend day at home. Last night I played with the Steel Band in St. Clair, MI. for a high school dance. We were outside under a tent and the weather was perfect. It was the first gig with them since I got back from India, so I spent most of our talking time, (which is usually on the set up, breaks, and tear down) telling stories and talking about the trip. I don't think I am getting any better at explaining what I saw over there. The more time that passes, the more general and universal my commentary is. It is almost like trying to talk to someone about a movie, eventually you just want to say "you've just got to see it for yourself", and be done with it. I love the interest though. I think we all need to give and take from each other's experiences as often as we can. After awhile though, the things you talk about become stale audio snipets that just repeat a fresh idea from the past. When this happens, I think we stop passing our experience along, and just start shoveling information. The difference is in the way the listener percieves what you are telling them. Lately it has been hard for me to talk 'freshly' about the India trip. Now that I have come to this point, I am glad that I took so many pictures, and wrote stuff down. I wanted to take some pictures of the steel band last night and then come home and post them, but I had to use the camera batteries for my recorder. The recording turned out quiet and muddy, but it was still good enough for us to listen to as we packed up. Sometimes I take for granted my recording habits. I forget that some of the the people I play with don't get to hear themselves very often. It was fun to hear the reactions of the bandmembers as they listened back. I don't think there is any greater teacher than to have a mirror in front of yourself, figuratively speaking. I believe that we all have the ability to understand what it is we want to do. The challenge comes in doing it with a self awareness that transcends ego, vanity, and blatent, stale repetition. Wow, I feel like I am all over the place today. Does any of this make sense? I don't know....I'll read it later and find out.

Thanks for reading,

John