Living the Bohemian Life

Play me!

Over the past 9 months I've been living a very different life than I have for the past 13 years or so.  I'm not teaching or Working For Jesus at the moment (the nickname we in the business give to a church gig).  I'm just concertizing.  I have been incredibly fortunate over the past year to have whisked myself all around the country and all over the globe to play concerts and teach masterclasses.  I've been to some exotic places that I may never get to see again, met wonderful people and been exposed to some pretty fascinating cultures.  

It's been bitchin.  

But at the same time, it has been difficult to adjust to life without "The Job".  Ah, yes, "The Job".  It fills your days (and nights), keeps the brain going, pays the bills, and gives shape and rhythm to your life.  In many ways, it defines you - but not in a bad way.  It's hard to be a musician and not be "defined" by what you do.  Music, once you let it in, becomes part of your soul in a most permanent way.  It completes you in a way that is almost impossible to define, impossible to quantify.  And who would want to try?  Sometimes we just have to accept these "gifts" for what they are and not spend so much time analyzing them.  But changing my lifestyle has not been an easy journey, and I most likely will change it again in some way in the near future.  After all, that's what life is all about.  Change.  

I used to enjoy getting up every morning, getting "dressed up" as some would call it (just normal work clothes for me), and going in to the office.  Now, most of my days have very little structure for the most part. I have things to do, work to accomplish, music to learn, etc., but the timetable for the most part is completely my own.  It is both freeing and terrifying.  I think I was always one of those kids who could play with wild abandon as long as the playground was surrounded by a fence.  Give me a wide open field, and suddenly the world feels a lot more, I don't know, suspicious.   

It's amazing how we can find happiness in the midst of mess.  If you were to visit the first floor of my house right now, you'd wonder how anyone could possibly stay sane and spend so much time here.  Every stitch of furniture and "stuff" from the dining room has been moved into the living room so I could strip the wallpaper, repair plaster, and paint.  The dining room table is now sitting in front of the fireplace with all the "good" dishes and wine glasses sitting on top of it.  The beautiful, floor-to-ceiling hutch we bought off our neighbors down the street years ago now sits in two pieces in front of the dining room table in front of the fireplace.  Dining room chairs are all over the place.  Pictures, plants, candles, smaller furniture, and other "decorations" litter the room in any available spot that doesn't block the pathway from the hallway into the kitchen to the couch and then to the television.  Hey - we have priorities.  Until today, getting to the piano would have taken a few lessons from your favorite Cirque de Soleil gymnast.  It's a freaking disaster area.  And yet, today I had a rehearsal at the house with a young, very talented oboe player in high school who also plays with the Cleveland Youth Orchestra.  Half hour before the rehearsal I had been sanding plaster.  A quick change of clothes later and we were bubbling along with a Vivaldi Oboe Concerto in the midst of a mess, with an episode of Star Trek:The Next Generation paused on the television in the background.  

And you know what?  I loved it.  

The house feels cozy and lived in.  Life happens here - it's not a museum.  Creativity is born around here somewhere - perhaps in some clear spot underneath a piece of furniture somewhere.  What caused this sudden euphoria?  Maybe it's the wonderful chill in the autumn air - my favorite season.  Maybe it's the promise of a colorful world in a few weeks.  Who knows.  But let's not kid ourselves - this "mess" is going to get old in about, oh, another 3 minutes.  While I love to thrive around creative clutter, the thought of a sleek, roomy, living space where I can do cartwheels in the middle of the room is equally as enticing.  And the promise of the biting cold of winter, well, there had just better be enough brandy in the liquor cabinet to add to my hot chocolate when that white monstrosity starts falling from the sky.  

But for today, I'm enjoying the mess.  It is far more interesting that the artificial clean I usually try to impose upon it.  And who wants to live an uninteresting life?  

Live out loud, people!