It was approximately 15 years ago that I felt I’d lost my passion for playing music.
It’s pretty much that simple.
I no longer wanted to play professionally and to be honest I had a tough time convincing many people of my said intentions. I prayed that God would somehow intervene and
place the passion back into my life but for unknown reasons
He had a very different plan for me.
It was around that time that I began writing and in my heart, I embraced it from a purely creative standpoint saying ‘goodbye’ to the musical interlude in my life.
It just felt right at the time.
This post, however, is not about writing but the fact that something happened today that made me intrinsically understand that I haven’t lost my passion for music after all.
It’s just been delicately moved to a very private place.

I was telling someone a story about a night many years ago when I was still gigging.
Looking for something to do on my break, I found a dark and empty function room that was quiet (unlike the loud, shitty disco music they were playing on my break).
In the middle of the room there was a candle of a spotlight shining down on an object that I came to discover was a small grand piano. I sat down and played a few favorite chord changes and my mouth unconsciously uttered the words: Oh, My, God.
This was not your basic grand piano.
This was something special.
This was a Twilight Zone moment.
I looked around for a solitary ‘signpost up ahead’ and just began playing.
I became unaware of time and space and the spinning world I was currently sitting upon.
I was ‘in the creative zone’ while on a 20 minute break from my gig.
After the band finished and everyone was ready to go home, I began heading back into the club.

“Where the hell are you going?” the guitar player asked.

“Back to play that piano,” I said.

“You’re nuts, man. It’s two o’ clock in the morning.”

In I went and sat down.
And I played.
And played.
I was lost somewhere between heaven and the belt of Orion.
My heart was almost breaking the sound was so beautiful.
I remember thinking, ‘this must be how God sounds’.
I had no idea what time it was when a voice from the shadows shattered my musical reverie.

“Hey, kid . . . You sound great but I gotta close up. You hungry?”

He sent me home with a huge container of hummus and a bag of fresh Syrian bread.
I felt blessed in so many ways that night.
And damn, I love Lebanese food.

In telling the story today something unexpected happened: I had goose bumps all over my arms.
My passion for music hadn’t died at all it’s grown deeper.
I’m a bit surprised at just how deep.
If you’re curious about what kind of piano I played, it was a Steinway M, in rosewood.
I should have known.
God must have created the damn piano . . .

My interview with Moe is up an running at the Nook and though I’m not 100% satisfied with it (no fault of Moe’s, mind you) I think you’ll see a different side of me. I think.

The story of me and Moe is quite interesting; it’s serendipity of the highest order.
It began when I was at Blogger, my tadpole blogging stage.
I met some very interesting people back then: Evyl, Carnealian and Snotsucker; these are friends I am obviously still in touch with today.
But I wanted to drive more traffic to my blog so I signed up at BlogExplosion.
BE is very basic in the way that it works: you surf random blogs and get random visits in return.
Some people leave comments, most don’t.
I’m a bit fuzzy on how it happened but one day I found a comment on an insignificant post that said, ” very nice site, love the background and the totally irrelevant pic. With all the blogs I’ve seen I think a cat pic is mandatory at some point!! I’m not stealing your button, but I’m blogrolling you.”
I don’t think I even knew that the hell getting blogrolled was at that point but I liked the fact that someone was doing it to me.
She signed her name, “Debambam”.
Hmmm . . . I liked the Flintstones. A good sign.
I visited Debambam’s site and came to find out that her name was Kelly and she was from Australia.
Yeah, how cool is that? An Aussie blogrolling your fanny. Coolbeans.
In my mind, I heard an Aussie accent whenever I read one of her comments.
She was intelligent, witty, compassionate and a wonderful addition to my blogroll.
It was around that time that I noticed something strange in my Sitemeter stat page.
Someone was spending an inordinate amount of time reading everything on my blog.
And they were from Australia.
I had an incredible amount of info at my fingertips thanks to Sitemeter and it astounded me.
I emailed Kelly and asked if she was hitting my blog.
She knew nothing about it and said it definitely wasn’t her.
Hmm . . . Very mysterious.
It was on THIS POST
that I was first introduced to Maureen.
The comment was signed by “anonymum” with no URL.
(no URL, how frickin’ weird is that? An internet without Moe? I don’t frickin’ think so!)
I knew who she was because of the amount of time I used to spend at Kelly’s blog.
I’m thinking, “Kell’s Mum is visiting me. How cool is that?”
Long story short, I found out who my Australian “lurker” was (MOE!) ultimately making what has turned out to be a very sincere and honest friendship. (with not only Moe but her husband Mark, a new and absolutely bloody wonderful mate of mine)
Maureen and I are much like brother and sister (ironic that my twin sister’s name is Maureen).
In many ways, whether she knows it or not, she has inspired me in my writing and has become the kind of long distance friend that some people can only dream about.
I consider her (and Mark, and Kelly, Tony and Zoe!) to be close to family.

Maureen? My heart thanks you for the many smiles since we first met. (and the vegemite)
You know my heart. Maybe that’s enough.
As far as the above, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Now head over to the Nook and rip me a new one.
Lord knows, I probably deserve it.
Check out my day in the warm Australian sun . . .
maybe someday . . .

I am currently reading two books: “Book of Shadows” by James Reese and “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” by Alice Munro.
I always have several in the backpack.
The count was three as of earlier this evening before I finished
“When God Winks” by SQuire Rushnell, a belated birthday gift from my sister
(actually, wicked belated ).
WGW is a book that explores the deeper meaning of coincidence in our lives.

God Wink ; a personal signal or message, directly from a higher power, usually, but not always, in the form of a coincidence

My sister bought it for me simply because she and I are intensely familiar with God Winks.
There’s this.
Or this.
Or this.

The book goes on to explain that these instances of coincidence (or serendipity, if you like that better) are signposts from the heavens that we’re on the right track; cosmic signals that we are not alone.
I’ve had many “winks” in my lifetime.

A few years after I began writing, I entered a contest at Writer’s Digest.
Ten people could win $100 in WD writing books and a year’s subscription to Writer’s Market, a WD site that helps find a home for that oh, so lonely priceless manuscript.

Months passed and I forgot all about the contest BUT I was still writing.
I remember sitting at the computer one day and staring at the damned blinking cursor thinking, “What the hell am I doing? I can’t write. This is stupid.”
Feeling disgusted and totally unoriginal, I closed Word and checked my email.
Spam.
Spam.
Spam.
Word of the Day.
Spam.
Writer’s Digest.
Writer’s Digest?
Hmmm.
I opened the email and started yelling.
I won.
Ask my wife. I NEVER WIN ANYTHING. Truth.
A wink to be sure.
And hey, I’m still writing, right?
Now I pass the pen to you guys. I love coincidence and I love winks.
Tell me about one.
Come on, now. You have at least one if you really think about it.
I know for a fact that Kelly and Maureen have had a few.
Hell, Annie, too.
How about it guys?
One wink for the gipper? (I’m trying to say that with an Aussie accent)
~m

Ps. Sis, the book was bloody brilliant. I could have written it myself . . .

Walking to South Station tonight, I noticed the elaborate and somewhat intricate weaving of people on the streets of Boston.
Sometimes my walk seems perfectly timed as I pass pedestrians in an orchestrated sort of dance, just missing bumping into someone while neon pedestrian lights go white and I walk across the streets unscathed.

Chance?

Maybe . . .

Something happened last night that I have no reasonable explanation for.
It’s quite simple but it went something like this:

I began thinking about this particular song and went to YouTube to see if I could at least find the video, which I did.
As I listened, I thought of one special person that I had to send this song to.
There was a reason for this intense feeling but it’s a long story, and not for tonight.
I thought about opening my ITunes and buying the song and sending it on but decided it was too damn late to start futzing around with my Nano.
But I did check my Gmail and was surprised to see an an email from a dear friend of mine and in the title it said, “Here you go ~m”.
Curious, I opened the email to find the song I’d just been listening to attached to the email in an ITunes format.
Goosebumps, blessed goosebumps.
There was no logical reason for me to receive this email but there it was. Go figure.
It was an ultra-heavy dose of serendipity, possibly chance but I smiled as I dragged the tune into my ITunes folder.
The story gets more interesting though.
I sent the song sailing over the waves of the internet to a soul that I knew it would appreciate it.
Turns out the song was desperately needed and right on time.
The chain of events that made this happen made me realize that many stories have already been written.
And I felt so blessed and happy to be included in this one.
For Lent (yes, it’s Lent for us Catlicks), I have given up nothing but I have vowed to get on my knees on a nightly basis and pray.
My prayers tonight go out for my friend Gerry and his nephew, Brandon.
Have a serene weekend, folks . . .
See all of you next week.

~m

ps. the candle in the post is for Brandon.
Today was his birthday. Sleep in sweet peace, young man
and to the special lady that has sees the Southern Cross at night