I’ve always loved music. I’ve been playing music on any instrument I could get my hands on since I was a very small child. Not necessarily musical instruments in the traditional sense. I hear the capacity for music in everything. I have music inside of my soul.
That’s not to say I don’t play traditional instruments as well. Instruments have always been part of my life. I’ve always played around on pianos. I played the violin throughout elementary and middle school. I played the trumpet. I sing. You might call someone like that a musician. Still, I never felt comfortable referring to myself as such.
The only instruments I really kept up with throughout the years were my voice and the piano. It wasn’t until I started traveling that I came to terms with the fact that I am a musician.
To figure it out, I had to lose almost everything I owned.
I was homeless in San Francisco at the time, and honestly I was pretty naive. I left my backpack behind where a few friends were sleeping, and it got snatched up. Fortunately I had a few things like my wallet on my person in a little satchel, and I still had my dog.
Everything else, though, gone. I had my childhood collection of GameBoy, GBA, DS, and 3DS Pokémon games in that bag. All of my clothing. My dog’s stuff. A stuffed animal from when I was 5. My sleeping gear. My 2 and a half octave Casio keyboard.
I spent awhile angrily searching for crackheads to interrogate, but it was pointless. My stuff was long gone. I abandoned my search. As I sat, mulling the situation over and trying to come to terms with it. I realized that above all else, my heart was aching from the lack of being able to play my sorrows out on my instrument. I said to the ether, “Okay. You can have it. I’m willing to let it go. But if I could have anything back, I want my keyboard. I feel so lost without an instrument.”
After that, I let it be. Over the next few days I started to pick up the pieces, rather than focusing on what I had lost. I acquired clothing, a new sleeping bag, something to carry it all in. Then one morning, maybe 3 days after my bag was stolen, I received a message on Facebook.
The man said that he had found my old ID card, which I was very glad I had kept in my bag despite replacing it, and that he had used it to look me up on Facebook. Any guesses as to what was with my ID card?
My freaking keyboard. Along with my old set of car keys and some Pokémon cards.
I couldn’t believe it. Part of me didn’t want to believe it until I had my keyboard back in my hands. So, I went to retrieve it with some help from a friend who knew how to get there.
I walked into the building and told security that an employee had dropped off a few things for me to pick up. The security guard handed me a small cardboard box, and there it was. My keyboard, my old ID, some Pokémon cards, and my keys. Just like my FaceBook good Samaritan said. I never even met the guy, although we are still Facebook friends all these years later.
The fact that I had gotten my keyboard back was so unbelievable to me, yet I had it in my hands again. I played a lot more after that, and I felt more comfortable doing it. It felt like playing music was something I was supposed to do.
If there was any doubt in my mind, the next instance sealed it for me.
A few months later, this magical keyboard broke. I was a little bummed, but instead of letting it get me down, as I understood the impermanence of possessions painfully well after having my things stolen months earlier, I went right into solution mode, racking my brain on how to get another one.
Not even an hour after it broke, a random man came to my hangout spot looking for me specifically, with a brand new keyboard of the exact same model. He wanted to trade it to me for way less than the selling price, practically nothing. Now that I think about it, it was probably stolen, but that never crossed my mind at the time.
Apparently some people down the street had told him I might be interested, although none of them knew my keyboard had just broken.
That was when I realized that I am a musician. It’s not about the level of skill. I don’t have to be the best singer or instrumentalist to be a musician. It’s about what’s in my heart, and it’s music, baby. I’m here to express the things I can’t express any other way.
Everyday Immortal 