An apology of sorts

Me and my big mouth…well, keyboard anyway.

I have to say that I am surprised. Honestly, I had no idea that my words could have an impact in any way. It’s an illusion recently shattered, and the shards are hard to dispose of.

People actually read my blog? And they are affected by it? Hard for me to swallow, considering my relative inability to affect people when I feel like I’m trying very hard to. I suppose that’s what was getting me down, and consequently some stuff I wrote on this blog made the impression that I didn’t have ANY fun playing with Gypsy Bandwagon at Jack of the Wood.

I apologize for this impression. Playing with GB is really a lot of fun. I love being with Lance and Carissa, as well as my wife, Karin (who is in the band too). But the time demands were too much on me two weekends ago, and I let my poor mood affect what I was writing about the band.

I recall that after the Beatles' famous Shea Stadium concert that George Harrison was supposed to have said, “That’s it lads, I’m not a Beatle anymore”. This quote shocked me when I first read it. But one had to wonder why he kept playing with the band for years afterward if that’s what he really felt.

Now, far be it from me to go from saying that my words are insignificant to comparing myself to George Harrison. But then I have gone and done that, haven’t I? Well, only in the sense that I am a human being, capable of saying things I don’t really mean, or never really intended when I am in a vulnerable mood. Any other comparison of Gypsy Bandwagon members to any Beatles will have to be left to future generations. (This is a joke BTW, I expect future people to say, "Gypsy who?")

The point is, I like playing with GB. But in the week leading up to the gig at Jack of the Wood we’d had two deaths in the family. We also have been having issues with several of our friends, and as noted before, stress was beginning to get to me.

So if anything that I wrote in a previous blog reflected poorly on my band mates, or on Jack of the Wood as a venue, I apologize. My mood was not their fault.

I’m working on it. I expressed some of my frustration to Karin, Lance, and Carissa this afternoon when they were here in my studio. It surprises me just how much stuff could be dredged up by the death of two Aunts in a week’s time. I’m finding that stuff that I thought I was done with has come back to haunt me, and other stuff that I thought would affect me more hasn’t.

It’s not that I’m angry at my Aunts, or members of my family. Nor with the band. I’m finding that I still have anger at an unnamed educator who’s class I had the displeasure to attend. I mean, where’d THAT come from? I thought I was done with that. But the mind is a strange thing, and it seems by stirring up my childhood emotions about my love for my Aunts, that a lot of other stuff got stirred up as well. And it’s made my days difficult. Aside from the one nightmare about the unnamed educator, the nights have been pretty uneventful.

Fortunately the weather has turned. God has been gracious and we’ve had two beautiful days in a row, and I’ve gone out walking on the Blue Ridge Parkway both days. So now I’m sore physically, but not so much emotionally.

I’ll keep at it.

But to sum up: sorry that my mood affected the blog entries. I had no idea that anyone was paying attention, but I will try to measure my words more carefully from now on.