Obsessed?

My next little adventure: zooming down to Portland Sunday morning, for a whole FOUR hours there, to catch ONE Lions rehearsal. This is so silly. I'm spending $36 on a one-way train ticket, and getting up at 6am just to catch a 3.5 hr train from Seattle to Portland for ONE rehearsal....I'll only be in Portland from 11am to 3pm... then turning right around at 3pm and driving right back up to Seattle again. Then straight to VamoLa rehearsal, of course.

Why all this? I don't know, I just feel like I owe it to the Lions if I want to play with them at Folklife on 3rd. I need to get in another rehearsal. And 3rd requires a little extra. I want to be sure I've got the breaks straight; I've been playing with 2 other groups and am getting my breaks & hand signs mentallly scrambled again. And Folklife means a lot to me, personally. For the Lions it's just another gig; for me it's an annual ritual of re-discovery that has marked all the major changes in my life.

Another weekend devoted to samba. Obsessed!!

One of the new VamoLa players told me last week that when she joined a few months ago, people mentioned I might be back to teach soon. She didn't know me, so she asked what I was like, and apparently they told her "She's obsessed."

I was a little distressed to think that was the ONLY thing they'd say about me, but I didn't really mind, because it's true. Obsession it was, in all its good and its bad. I actually even wanted to do it that way. I thought, I'd rather go through 2 years full-on, every second of the day, and get really good, than 10 years half-assed and still be mediocre. I'd done half-assed before, with Balkan & Hungarian, and I was tired of being mediocre. I knew I had limited time to achieve what I wanted to achieve. You have to be obsessed for a while if you want to get good; that's really the only way.

I guess I just don't see the point in screwing around. Do it, or don't.

Then again, I'm also the kind of person who would think to herself "well, if I'm going to take any biology courses at all, I might as well move 3000 miles to the best biology program in the country, get an NSF fellowship, go do field research in Alaska for 6 years and get a PhD". All that without ever really caring, or even thinking, whether it was going to lead to a career or not. It was just - Do it, or don't.

Well, for drumming, the two years stretched to three. I still have my obsessed moments, like this Portland train trip, but actually I feel the obsession loosening now. Because I'm finally where I wanted to be! I've got good bands to play with and I can teach a bit and lead a bit. I actually felt it relax its hold on me this week, this very week, like a tight fist loosening up, when I realized I had a GOOD group to play with - and not one, but two! - and when I realized the teaching was going well and that I was making a difference for the students. Suddenly ..... hey.... this is where I wanted to be. WHEW. So now, at last, I no longer need to practice EVERY single minute of my waking life. The pressure is off.

I bought a book. I bought 3 books!! I signed up to volunteer with the raptors at the zoo. (First thing I have ever let conflict with music in about 3 years. ) Tonight I went to a movie. Pan's Labyrinth. I think this is almost the first movie I've been to in the U.S. for 3 years. That's how intense it's been. There has been nothing else.

One movie. Then I came back home to practice for the Lions. 'Cause I like it! ok, maybe it's not exactly obsession any more, but it's definitely still an addiction!