Ok everyone - I'm going to post about my weekend. And I'm posting not to brag, but as proof that if you let this crucible experience we've been through open you up and break you out of your old expectations, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!
I'm on a brief tour with my best friend of 30 years who is a professional singer songwriter. As most of you know, I didn't play music much of my life - a couple years of piano lessons when I was a little child and some noodling around on the piano growing up but I was never proficient and pretty much stopped playing once I had kids.
It wasn't until my exH dumped me and turned my world upside down that I took up playing the drums at 53, then added glockenspiel and vibraphone and started playing gigs with my friend.
This weekend we've been in NYC. We played a gig at a small but prestigious club on Friday night. Saturday we saw Bruce Springsteen's Broadway show ( my friend knows his manager). And on Sunday we played one song in a concert in Central Park celebrating Greenwich Village in the 60's. The show was filled with very famous singers and icons from my youth. People I heard on the radio but never in a million years would have thought an ordinary person like myself might ever meet or stand on stage with! Maria Muldaur liked my shirt! I helped Melanie up the stairs and her son wanted to know all about the glockenspiel and vibraphone. John Sebastian shook my hand! I stood next to Jose Feliciano! Marshall Crenshaw loved our performance .
For someone like me who grew up in an ordinary middle class suburb and never knew anybody famous or particularly accomplished growing up (not even any doctors or lawyers in my mostly blue collar surroundings) it was like going to the moon. I'm sure I was the least professional musician on that stage. But I played my parts well in front of an audience of a few thousand. And none of these experiences would have been possible if my ex hadn't left me and turned my world upside down.
There can be silver linings if you let this experience transform you. Once the thing I feared most happened - abandonment - I lost any fear of lesser things. The worst had already happened.
Find yourself again. Take chances. Do things you love. Life has surprises in store for you.
Oh! And I wrote my own parts for this song (usually my friend composes all the parts, but she asked me to come up with something and actually liked what I did! ) . Don't get me wrong - it's just an extremely simple part. But I think I added something and that makes me feel like a real musician!
On a completely different note - just learned that my friend of almost 40 years is receiving a heart transplant right now! He's a devoted husband and father, only 67. He just had his first grandchild a week before he entered the hospital in cardiogenic shock, and has been in the hospital for weeks on a heart pump awaiting a new heart. Please send prayers for a good outcome!
Yeah, you're bragging a little bit - but hey, NOTHING wrong with that. This is very, very cool! You should be very proud of yourself and brag a bit. It's hard for many people to believe but the music community is really not all that un-touchable. It's amazing how you will cross paths with some of these people. It helps to know someone - which I'm guessing you've got some connections but you have to stand on your own and deliver as connections only get you in the door. They would not allow you to keep being there if you were not pulling your weight. Great to see you so excited and you should be! I've been all over the place and done some pretty cool gigs but I've never played in Central Park - AWESOME!
Enjoy the rest of the trip - or was this the end? Mustache guy will be so proud and so thrilled to see you when you return!
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
I have no connections Don - just happened to meet my friend when she was dating my ex-husband's college buddy. SHE has all the connections, and she happened to know the musician who organized this concert. She's not famous but knows and is known by some well known musicians.
