The Fifth Lie

I am not a musician. What I do is just a hobby, something done for recreation. I can hardly even justify the time I use; it would be better if I could play an instrument that didn't require so much physical skill so I did not have to waste time on it every day...
LIE

Throughout December, I stayed away from the trumpet. I was actually doing okay. I thought I would just pick-it-up again later, when I really deserved to spare the time. It was the first of three months on this visa and I could not have anticipated the place I would find myself by month three. I have resumed playing and brought myself close to the levels I maintained before I left for my mission, give or take a little.

When I left for college, I dropped my practice habits. Music was not central to my career path anymore, even though I wanted it to be. I was not good enough; I could not be the superlative trumpet player when I could not even make the school of music so I did not want to be a trumpet player anymore at all. I almost chuckle to know how I started playing again: an alcove under a bridge beckoned me! It should come as no surprise that I play in a limestone cave these days-- and love it.

...though I miss those Michigan rivers, both the Red Cedar and the Grand. I wish that the neighbor had not complained about me. Part of me wants the roof-top, again...

The judge says I missed my chance. Does that not just figure? The judge in me says I missed my chance to be relevant as a musician and so I should go be relevant at something else--and I inevitably fail at the other thing because my soul is too drained.

The victim says I suck. The victim in me knows all the ways I suck at any particular moment. I think I mostly shed the victim right after some girl from Muskegon stomped on my heart. "I don't give a ____ what I sound like. I FEEL like ____ and this is all that seems to work..."

Truth: First of all, I don't suck. Let's just get that out of the way. Give me long enough, I will play by ear. Hand me piano music, I can transpose it on sight. When no one is looking, I improvise a little. My tone and expression improve with age, even if my tongue is slower. I never was one of those machine-gun tongued, high-screeching players. I used to want to be one. I can play "The Nearness of You" soft and a little fuzzy~ that suits my purposes much better.

But all of that is beside the point because music is a part of my total being. I was given this gift to help me process emotions. I do not need to justify taking time to play any more than I would to write or exercise.

Not much more needs to be said: I AM a musician. Even the other musicians in the Zoughbi compound say so. ...we jam, baby...

Mother Knows Best

Dear Ma,

You know that the feminists love it when I call you ‘Ma’. I am speaking to the God who appeared to me in the vision just before my grandmother died, the woman who plucked me onto her magic carpet from the blackness of space when I floated too far. That was one year ago today. I can hardly absorb that You may have known my path then. The way I saw You holding my sister reminded me of what Jesus said just as he entered Jerusalem: “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How I long to gather you under me like a mother hen gathers her chicks...” I’m almost there.

But I still don’t "get" You all the time. As I was settling down to write about the challenge of thinking in shekels instead of dollars, I scanned my iTunes list for some groove-support. I had the urge to listen to a song I would not normally, “One More Day” by Diamond Rio. It has the familiar warmth of sing-able love songs and okay instrumentation: guitar, piano, mandolin, soft percussion.

The day the person who gave me that track left, I was so far into her black & white world that I couldn’t help but be Rick Blaine in her “Casa Blanca” moment, telling her to go as she disappeared. There could not be even one more day. I loved that film. I also loved “The Wedding Singer”, where Robby Hart jumps on the plane and steals Julia from her douche-bag fiancé. When I have the choice, I want to be Robby Hart. This time, the woman drove into the sunset and disappeared (many know this story~ it's a really great ending!)

What felt like an amputation was actually a final cadence—resolved, poetically. I’m happier in this life. Why would you draw my attention there, when I am past regret? Yet, there is something resonant in the chorus: “One more day. One more time. One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied... but then again, I know what it would do: leave me wishing, still, for one more day with you.”

...but I had no time to contemplate sunsets. It was night in Bethlehem, just then, when Mr. Zoughbi called and invited me to join him at a wedding reception. Just as a reminder, You had sent me to Palestine. Ten minutes later, I was walking into a ballroom at the community center. A multitude of Arab people were clapping their hands, dancing and raising the roof in celebration. The guys basket-tossed the groom and then the couple more or less crowd surfed. In the background, a Palestinian DJ rotated through an endless collection of songs with heavy back-beats beneath traditional Arab vocals, pipes and strings. It was overwhelming...

“This is Arab music!” said Zoughbi with pride, “You can dance, if you want!”

I watched for what felt like a long time, trying to decipher the cultural secret to not embarrassing myself. I love dancing the same way I love soccer—I do what comes naturally and have little technical training. Here, I would also be the strange white person who showed-up in jeans. Then that voice started talking to me—the one that says things like:

“If you don’t improvise something, then you have nothing to play at all...”

“Look at the male Israeli guard—he doesn’t want to be here any more than you do...”

“At worst, everybody will think you love gay-people and, c’mon, you do love gay people...”

“Shake the meth-head’s hand and introduce yourself~ that will disarm him.”

This time it said “You’re a token white-guy sitting at the table, too; your soul will be better for dancing.” I continued to watch for a few minutes longer, remembering how disappointed I had been at cousin Beth’s wedding because there had been no dancing at the reception. Even more, I hated to miss Pat’s wedding~ my ‘twin’ cousin, born the day before me.

“I love weddings,” I said to Zoughbi, “I had to miss my cousin’s wedding...”

I finished my beer and headed to the dance floor. I forgot all my ‘moves’ from high school... thank goodness! I watched the people around me, in ties and dresses like any other wedding, moving to this strange, catchy music. I felt a tingle come over me—I liked the music. Even better, they seemed to dance on the same principles I did—just move with the beats and don't worry! One young fella looked like he was trying to make headway with a girl. Little children were bouncing on their parents’ shoulders. People were joining hands and going in circles, or clapping and stamping their feet. Ma, that’s when I think You whispered to me, “Taste and see all the parts of you I made for other places and people...”

You had taken me back to that state of mind, when I just wanted a little certainty—just one more day like ‘those days’. It was like running into a wraith of myself, some version that was never meant to be—living alone in Grand Rapids, slowly metabolizing inertia. As I joined the celebration of lives coming together, I came into myself again in the uncanniness: strobe lights, photographers, kids running around tables and... Arab techno, people smoking apples through water-pipes and a cake-cutting ceremony that involved a sword (sword!). I was full of good food and I could hardly stop laughing and smiling at all the people ‘getting down’ to the music. I don’t know how the Muslim residents do weddings but the Christians know how to party.

“You will see many more weddings like this, in my family,” said Zoughbi, when I returned again. It was so wonderful, Ma, to be in the midst of people who relish life lived with the throttle up.

When I thought I was ready to just watch again, a lyric grabbed my attention—in English:

“I had... the time of my li-ife... and I owe it all to you-uuuuu.”

It was a cheesy techno version of the song but I danced as I have not in years; I really was having the time of my life and I owe it all to You. Like I told Plainfield and Constantine United Methodist Churches, “There is something greater than believing in yourself—which is believing in God’s vision for you!”

The temptation is to say that I have left Diamond Rio and the warmth of love songs behind. Ma, I give you more credit than that. Nothing will be wasted. You would not let me settle and miss the possibilities that were here for me. I wanted so badly to create what my parents never had that I was in a hurry to put together that life of contentment before You had given me all of these new gifts. As I said when I retitled this blog, You are a God who sees in Rainbow colors, who wouldn’t leave me saying “play it again Sam” but saying “I just want to grow old with you.”

The biggest difference of all, though, is that You have become the number one woman in my life. And I have to say, You are one hell of a woman to make so many women that I admire—like my Grandmother who passed away or
...someone else, out there.