After 35 years of bars and restaurants - five hours a night, seven nights a week - my friend Jack stepped away in favor of listening rooms. The money was nowhere as good but the air was clear and people came to hear his music rather than drink and smoke and chatter. It was a risky move but at 70, he looks back and smiles. I think there may be an analogy of some kind here.
We spend our lives in bars and restaurants, working and learning and worrying and chasing the paycheck. We often don't make much progress, arriving at an end point which is suspiciously like the beginning only with less time. We call it a journey not a destination and we look back and can't help but wonder where it all went - the money, the time, the youth - the friends and lovers we met and discarded, the good times we miss and the bad ones we try not to remember. Maybe if we'd had less smoke and noise and less clutter, we'd have fewer regrets.
People sit quietly in listening rooms. They tend not to cough and shift in their seats and whisper and get antsy for things to move along or end. They're not interested in picking up the pace just to get nowhere in a hurry. I've seen them close their eyes and almost drift off in music. They're here for the story, for the experience, for what will be a sweet memory.
You can always take the easy way
The road that many choose
You can always wander in the haze
Never mind what you would lose
You can always follow the whims of this world
But what will it mean in the hereafter?
Jack Williams
No comments:
Post a Comment