Stay Warm
In high school, I was in a very cool band. We were The Wombat 7. Our favorite songs were Build Me Up Buttercup and Jack Johnson’s Flake. I still remember the first time my brother played the steel drum for that song, it was magic. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt with a smile on it that matched his spirit exactly.
That was the peak of my music career, but it seems not the end. I went on to work as a researcher, an instructor, a therapist, and a programmer. And then last August, I picked up my guitar again.1
I signed up for guitar and voice classes. I loved the old familiar feeling of going back to school in the Fall.
I met so many others on the same path, and we truly had a joyful time. Some students wished to start a career in music, for some it was nurturing a hobby. And some were just following an impulse of self-discovery.
One student didn’t believe she could sing. She shared that when she opens her mouth and tries to sing, no sound comes out. If she could sing, she would sing “In My Life” by The Beatles. My heart leapt at the beauty of that intention. Our teacher just smiled and gently guided her in making new sounds and then singing.2 A few weeks later, she sang it for us. She shared not just her beautiful voice, but part of her story. She wondered if it was even possible and she had the courage to find out.
On another occasion, I sang “Lost Boy” with some dear friends during a class break. We sang about finding a family and I sang through tears.
I started singing on the bus. I’m sorry if I was terrible, but no one ever asked me to stop. It’s just more fun to sing where people can hear you. I try to send the message that we all deserve to have fun. That it is good to show your joy or your pain. Or at least you shouldn’t feel like you need to hide it.3 It might be a trick of my mind but I seem to notice people having more fun, in their own ways. More likely to talk to the people around them. Sometimes we need something unexpected to get us unstuck.4
There was quite some time, before all this, when I didn’t leave my home at all. In the midst of that darkness, I heard a voice singing from out in the hall of my building. It made me want to go outside for the first time in a very long time. That is the power of music. It can shine light through darkness, to a place where you didn’t think light could even reach.5
One thing led to another and now I find myself singing out on the street and in parks. I’m not big on singing in bars, I hate singing over the sound of a television. Some places treat music like it is valuable and some don’t, and I don’t feel like rolling the dice when that big beautiful Colorado sky is just waiting for me.6
It is nice when people give me tips, I’ll find out whether that will allow this work to be sustainable. But they give me something more important, and that is why I am out there: the feedback, the advice, and the smiles. I need more smiles in my life, I think we all do. I appreciate every one.
I am guided by those smiles and other acts of kindness. On the days where I am too distracted to notice that there is something wrong with my sound or my heart is out of tune, people are less likely to look my way. And I think sometimes people see that I am unsteady and they wish to pick me up. A smile is like wind in my sail. It keeps me going. To where, I don't know, but the journey has been so valuable.
And your reactions to what I write is just like that too. I notice every heart, I read every email. I know of just a handful of dear friends and family who read it, and that is who I write to, along with you, Dear Person. All your encouragement has been so important. Life is a strange and wonderful path and there’s no one I’d rather walk next to. ⛵
It was after I went to a picnic and someone told me I have beautiful eyes. I went home and played guitar until 2am. 😂
Roy Willy at Swallow Hill, sign up for class!
It is so common for people to believe they don’t deserve to have fun, or they don’t have permission to have fun, or that others will somehow see it negatively. Joy is beautiful and good and something that we all need. It can be shared so easily and mean so much. It spreads in mysterious ways. A shared moment of joy echos around each person and creature, to be shared and shared again, maybe in a different form, maybe with other people, maybe with other kinds of life, across time, across space, maybe intentionally, maybe because we just don’t feel like holding it back.
Emotion is just another language, one that has been around longer than people. And something must fill that space: Awkwardness, boredom, fear, joy, compassion. It travels through us and between us like a wave, it is greater than us but we are part of it and we influence it. Emotions can be shared because a part of our brain replays the emotions we perceive. We experience some version of the feeling we observe in another. Why not support the feelings in others you wish to experience yourself?
Maybe I just provide cover, hard to be weirder than the guy singing to himself on the bus.
That was an angel singing in my hall. Angels don’t just flutter above us.
I like the idea that anyone can come hear me out there, the street is the one place where everyone is welcome. I wish there were nicer places to say that about but the street can be nice if we make it that way, and that’s my work.