Preparatory Beat

Today, I finished my thesis defense for my Masters in English Literature degree. To celebrate, let's play with a little metaphor. I'm looking back at my life and ahead into my future, and I see it as a great symphony. A large scale work with multiple movements, emotional arcs, crescendos, and climaxes. There's a loosely cohesive collection of sweet little lullabies, love songs, elegies and requiems, heartbreak ballads, endless dance beats, awkward karaoke, full on orchestras. A little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.

There are beautiful melodies with harmonies, sharps, and flats sprinkled throughout. My symphony has been beautiful. Sometimes sad. Comfortably constant. Always composed. Then - suddenly - there was an extended "rest".

Just silence.

I learned to enjoy that interlude of solitude. It is interesting to see what sounds have been emerging when nobody else is influencing what I hear. It is a little more....unpredictable. Funky, bold, fluid, sometimes a little weird. It sounds more like - jazz? Life is about to get more....improvised. Less about getting it "right", more about keeping it interesting. I have my jazz hands ready.

Follow along as I move to a new "venue" - from Las Vegas to New York City - and figure out how to play all these new instruments as a one-man band - with no sheet music or musical talent whatsoever.