Found

I've been losing things. My favorite metal water bottle, the one that cost an arm and a leg and refused to dent, no matter how many times I dropped it. Two months' worth of my gratitude sidebar. My place in the music.

It's easy to lose track of where you are, especially when where you are keeps changing. I'm on my fifth state in 10 days. I've developed a profound appreciation for the nuances of hotel breakfasts (don't eat the eggs). Hotel art is revealed to be a cavernous netherworld of creative endeavor in which the intentions of the artists seem both pleasant and unspeakable, like knitting sweaters out of puppies' ears.

WHY DO I DO THIS? Why do I accept the days and days of exhaustion, terror, displacement, and alienation that come with making music? Why don't I just stick to my day job; why do I keep on hacking at that privet hedge of notes? For years, I tried to divine how I felt about playing music, dowsing for my emotions every couple of minutes like a person desperate for water. Finally it hit me: I hate it. Can't stand it. Ugh.

It's a gift, when I play: a big, fat, bowed, bedizened present from me to me, from my heart to whatever sliver of self listens, heedless, for the cue.