"I'm a fool of the music, choosing to express the music
That gets me through the restlessness and ends the confusion."
--From "Here Upon the Keys" from my upcoming album Here He Comes CW.
SQUEAK! ...Goes the sound of the smoke detector up on the wall above the double doors coming into my room. I'm still getting used to that, as I never heard it before yesterday. My landlord was here a couple of times yesterday, so I am wondering if he turned it on for the first time then. I suppose it's something I can live with, although it is a little odd, the periodic sound like a mouse's squeak got recorded and then blasted through an amplifier on the ceiling. [Note: since posting this I have learned that the sound is due to the smoke detector battery being low, which probably is obvious to some people, but which wasn't to me. Lol]
My computer clock reads 7:31am. Since moving to my new room here in Hayward at the border of Castro Valley in the Bay Area, California, I have been more prone than ever to get up at 7:00am during the week, as a conscious choice to make use of my mornings.
Note I said conscious choice. I didn't say, "Because I gotta go to work." My work schedule no longer works like that, meaning, I don't have a nine to fiver that supports me financially. Therefore, I typically get to organize my weekday mornings the way I want to now. And this to me is a wonderful thing.
It is especially wonderful and I feel blessed because of HOW I am working. Nowadays I have been doing more and more work through one principal activity that rewards me not only financially, but spiritually and artistically as well: Retirement community and Alzheimer's Care piano shows. As of this writing, I have done ninety-one (that's 91) piano shows since July of last year, and eighty-six (86) have been for seniors. And by the end of the week I will have done four more shows for seniors, and two other shows, to make a grand total of ninety seven shows! No other statistic speaks to me more clearly of this new life that I am creating, one based on musical expression and performance as I have always dreamed of. This is truly a dream come true, and a dream made manifest from a thought back when I was in high school and visualized myself giving piano performances.
Performing for seniors is particularly satisfying because I am playing for a group of people who appreciate what I have to offer like perhaps no other group can. These are people yearning for connection, for experience, like a potted plant that sits in the corner of a house yearning for water. (Pause to water the plant my mom gave me a couple of weeks ago).
I get to give generously to people who in some cases can't be reached by normal means of communication. I have never experienced myself like this before. I frequently play at two Alzheimer's and Dementia care centers in Castro Valley, and some of these individuals are unable of communicating in an everyday fashion. Yet I know that my piano playing reaches them, it speaks to them, just as it did to my Grandmother when she had Alzheimer's before she died. And I hope that it brightens their day, makes their time here on earth healthier and cheerier. I like to think that my performances positively affect these communities as a whole, leaving a smile on the faces not only of the elderly but of the staff that takes care of them, and of the families that visit them.
Since last July, when I started performing these shows, I have reached hundreds of people in a variety of communities. These are people who have lived complete lives and are now, through either their own choice or the choice of loved ones, spending the remainder of their days in these communities set apart from the rest of society. Yet they are no different than the rest of us, and they appreciate an enlivening experience, an enlivening music performance. And I'm happy to oblige them and hopefully make their day a little better.
By the way, whose day are you making better today?
Sincerely,
Chris
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