You know, I have such a huge tendency--imagining I'm not alone here--to remember things in greater extremes than they might actually have happened. I wonder if it's a particular thing of memory, like how hearing is really mostly about picking up the peaks of the sound waves & how vision is really an imagined synthesis of the two distinct visual perceptions from each eye.
I mean maybe there's some sort of biological need to remember things impressionistically instead of with precision. Imagine how many more times it would take to learn fire burns if it were not for the distinct impression it's first burn leaves imprinted on the mind. In most cases, the candle flame got our finger too hot too quickly to even burn, or at least burn badly. For most, that was enough to make staring at the seductive flame the more rewarding activity. Ultimately what I'm getting to is: faulty memory is perhaps an important means of survival.
Whatever the case, I feel a bit like that about Friday night's gig at the National Underground. It was a successful show: well-attended, well-appreciated, and well-performed. It wasn't outstanding on any of those levels but it was a professional New York gig. Nonetheless, as time passes and my memories of the experience become more peaked, I remember the scheduling hassles, the sound issues, the sound man issues, the 20 minutes waiting under the hot lights in front of an expectant/impatient crowd for the sound and the sound man issues to resolve.
All resolved & my memory is of a relaxed experience playing a successful show. I had fun even with all the hassles before & during the performance itself. I remember mostly that I somehow remained disassociated or disconnected to the dramas going on around me. Even in the middle of a song where my guitar suddenly cut out or my vocals disappeared, I can remember feeling so completely in the middle of my own present moment--getting from one bar to the next in a song I know like the back of my hand--I wasn't even really phased by the bumps, my shock absorbers made them barely noticeable to me in the cabin. An airplane ride is another interesting analogy since it seems quite out-of-body in my memory, quite a 30,000 ft. perspective kind-of-thing.
You will all please excuse my excessiveness with qualifiers in this recounting. Even though above I went to the lengths I did to explain what I believe to be tendencies for memory to be extreme, I must also admit I do not trust it blindly.
When still, when pushed deeper into my memory of the show, I can remember moments where I slightly lost the connection, where my gaze lost its intensity. I can also remember thinking I was noticing how I'd slipped as well. At the same time, I can also remember moments when I connected w supporters in the crowd--Bri Arden, Hilary Greer, Mike Visceglia to name three--while in the flow & perceiving it all as if in slow motion. I could see glimpses of what the Wachowski brothers popularized w Neo in The Matrix movies, though it is a concept I'm long intimate with from my Zen, Chinese, & Japanese studies.
There is a hyper-reality, a capital R one. To see it requires the presence of stillness of mind in enough successive present moments to register in memory.
Playing in a band w the likes of Billy (www.myspace.com/billymasters), Dan (danweiss.net), Lee (www.myspace.com/leenadel), and Rich (www.myspace.com/richmercurio) is a blessèd opportunity that requires such presence of mind from me. It is a learning experience I am always eager to have. I will always strive to increase the incidence of moments where I am so present and aware. Those moments are beautiful and we will experience them together while eb performs. I'm extremely grateful to have the above four as guides and companions on this spiritual journey to get back to where we are already, the present moment.
this is what I am doing. we are every boy.
more soon. be well all.
eb
