Monday, June 27, 2011

Send Me On My Way -- A Challenge

Who was the first person who brought you out of yourself?  Who appreciated and encouraged your goofiness, your creativity, or who loved the parts of you that you found scary and tried to hide?  For me that person was the guy who worked for Capitol from my Weird Al story yesterday.

When we met in our early twenties my life was humming along as it does.  I had a decent job and a fiancee that I bickered with frequently; I figured it was me and I just needed to surrender whatever big thoughts I had about how my life should be.  D challenged that.  He was on a spiritual quest of sorts and wanted to share the joy of what he was discovering with everyone he knew.  We hung out a lot (I've never bonded so strongly with a coworker) and laughed a lot.  He got me in ways that other people looked at me sideways about.  He never advised me to do a particular thing but he did encourage me to think about my own heart's desire.  When I decided that I'd had enough of my fiancee and surrendering my dreams and moved three thousand miles away to a city I'd never been to and where I knew one person he cheered the loudest.  "It'll work out.  You'll see," he told me.  It did and it was the best move I ever made. 

Who was that person for you?  Have you thanked them?  Do it -- be it a prayer for their soul or a phone call or a blog post, do it.  I first heard today's song with D in Oakland at a Michael Gablicki acoustic set, though someone did join him on pennywhistle for this.  It still feels like a blessing.


If the video isn't responding you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMabBGydC0

3 comments:

  1. Absolutely no one. My family didn't care. I was in drama club, my parents never attended a single performance. I was notional merit scholar, their reaction was "huh." *flip newspaper page* My graduation dinner was delayed because my brother could not make it and the next day when my friends were late getting me back in time, my family went out for my graduation diner without me.

    And my friends considered me to be there to cheer their achievements, not my own. One "best friend" would become quite irate if I got more attention then she did.

    So yeah, I developed in a vacuum. I took a couple creative writing courses. The first one my professor was not terribly encouraging, but the responses I got from the student reviews were good. The second, the instructor was very impressed and offered to help me find and agent, but I have not had any work I feel worthy of publication yet.

    But no cheerleaders, that's just not my journey in life.

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  2. This is a great song; thanks for the tip.

    This is a hard question, because I've been blessed that good people found me at bad times since I was a kid really. I was thinking it was probably my high school piano teacher; but then I think about the elementary school teacher who said I had to have piano lessons and found a way for me to receive free instruction.

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  3. @Kip -- Keep plugging away, you'll get there. It's awesome that your instructor recognizes your talent!

    @Kurbiss -- Rusted Root are HIGHLY addictive. And go your teachers!

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Thanks for commenting!