I played my last show with Blue Sage in August of that year and haven't seen any of the Iverson's since. I loved playing with them. I loved them. I still do. I think - no, I know - I scared them away with the reality I've lived with most of my life. They weren't prepared to see me at my worst, even though my worst was better than my best in a long time.
My worst, to be less specific, was playing very well at a concert in Liberty Park. Everyone who was there said what a great show it was, how great we sounded together and how much fun they had.
The sad part is that I don't remember a single thing from that day.
In August and September of that year I was receiving treatments every few days for a "chronic" condition I had been dealing with for years. That show landed on one of those days. I had to be anesthetized for these treatments, and the anesthetic and the nature of the treatment caused the loss of a great deal of my memory. I don't remember the treatments themselves, or waking up afterward. I do remember a couple nervous mornings waiting in a small room with a huge television showing a fish tank and having an I.V. put in my arm by a nurse in a bunny outfit (real, not imagined). The last thing I can remember for any of those days was thanking the doctor as he put me under.
I remember most of these things now, but I didn't remember them until February of 2018. I didn't remember most of 2015 and 2016, until then either. I still don't remember the concert since it was later in the day of one of these treatments.
I'm not going to say outright what the treatments were, or what they were for. They were important for a lot of reasons, and for different reasons for different people. For me it was a hope for the diminishment of a long-running issue I'd fought most of my life. It was almost a "Hail Mary". To the Iversons I believe it became a reason to distance themselves from me. The only reason. We had been family - Mike even said we were brothers on stage that day. Anyway, we all have our burdens and I believe they didn't want to associate with my burdens.
About the "Hail Mary" reference - I had been trying a myriad of medications and treatments for years with no success. Dozens of combinations for months at a time, months of misery, sleeplessness, weight gain, weight loss, sleeping all the time. For some of us the medications reveal over time that we are "Treatment Resistant" and there is little to no hope of finding any relief from this condition. The "Hail Mary" play was called, I had doctors lined up to block, nurses to make sure everyone was hydrated and up for the game, and when I sprinted down the field and broke free the pass went straight to the sideline. Sadly, the pass continued to fly toward the sidelines while I was standing wide open in the end-zone. What came after the errant throws were punishing and crushing tackles that left me beaten, bruised, dazed, and ultimately crushed with what could be compared to a severe concussion at the minimum, and certainly in the realm of traumatic brain injury.
The passes didn't connect. The locker room post-game talk of what went well, what didn't go well, never actually happened. Nothing connected. This was made clearly evident just weeks after the treatment and I went back to work. There was no relief whatsoever. I reluctantly found a new doctor, started new medications, started putting on weight again.
I don't want this to make Mike and Shauna look or feel bad for not reaching out to me (should they ever see this). I truly don't. They are the best of people faced with a decision of deep importance for them (Music is Mike's livelihood) and the question of my reliability was legitimate.
Now, three years have passed since my last treatment and that concert with the Iversons. My memory has recovered most of the lost time in between. Most, but not all. I'm not playing as much music as I used to for several reasons.
- I've admitted to myself that sometimes I really don't enjoy playing music with certain types of people - mainly people who play loud ALL THE TIME, or play over the top of others ALL THE TIME, or are apparently unaware there are others playing music, too
- I avoid situations where the communication of music takes a back seat to the individuals playing, to the egos playing
- I seek out people who are like-minded and feel that music is a dialogue where not everyone can speak at once, where what each of us says lifts up and supports what others are saying which giving each a turn to be supported as well
- I mostly want to play with people who LISTEN
Does this make me as snob? No, but I don't care. Does this make it harder to find people to play with? Absolutely, but I also don't care. Once you find those people just 5 minutes of conscious music makes it worth hours of driving, or rehearsals, or months of waiting.
I'll mention someone I recently had the good fortune of playing with - Justin, the bass player with the Banned Sigmund Freud. Justin is a rare musician who clearly knows what making music with a bass is all about. I'd play with him any time. Playing with musicians with his ear and timing makes me want to write and collaborate creatively on something completely new. Makes me want to be a better musician.
I don't know what the future holds. I'm still playing one or two weekends each month in church. I enjoy that due to the nature of the music, the place we play, and the people I share the stage with. Some love to play and are career musicians, they make us sound legit, and others are volunteers who sing and strum and shake and rattle and it all comes together in a way that really feels like worship - a way that makes me look forward to more music.
That's what the future holds. More music.
