jam out with your jam out

Things are moving fast again because I'm out of vacation days at work and Improv Aslyum shows are in full swing. Plus, I had some guests in town this week.

Thursday during a lunchtime in-service on pap smears I got this phone call from Jay "Action" Petrone:

Jay: Hey. I'm in Connecticut on a road trip with a friend. Can I-
Me: Sure!
Jay: (laughs) Well then. That's all. I'm not giving you any other details.
Me: That's fine. I already put the key in your pocket.
Jay: Good. I copied it and gave it all all my friend's friends.
Me: They better be hot.
Jay: Seriously. It's tonight.
Me: Even better. I have some other guests staying over whom you know very well.

Agent Heart* and one Mr. Brennan Clark came to see my show that same night and afterwards we were met by Jay and his friend Chris. The timing was perfect. We all got to JP at the same time.

I showed the boys around my digs (of the group only Brennan has been there) and then we stayed up and spent some time in my living room making music. You know, like people do.

All day long my veins had been electrified by anxiety. I was worried about making it to the theater on time due to some scheduling problems. I didn't want to let anyone down. Not my cast, my patients or my co workers. The adrenaline was actually physically overwhelming. The taxi I hailed at 6:45pm might as well have been a spaceship. Doing a show helped, but I still had plenty of energy to burn off, and I needed something to unwind my chest muscles.

Two guitars, one harmonica and as many of the words to Sweet Home Alabama as we could remember or make up, and that's all we needed. We played and sang for a couple of hours; it made my chest cavity feel light and empty. I didn't stop smiling. It reminded me of college, where I took so many similar nights for granted.

The night in its entirety made me some of the happiest and burden free I have felt in quite a while. From getting out of the show to the first time I opened my eyes in the morning it was like nothing else mattered, and like nothing could go wrong.

In the morning we all had breakfast at Java Jo's and then I took everyone on a tour of one of my other favorite places, The Forest Hills Cemetery. I showed off e.e. cummings' grave ad some of the best sculptures, and we tried to find Fern Hill with no luck. "It's super spooky," I promised, "I just can't find it right now."

They've all left; I just got home from dropping one of them off at his parents' house to spend the last night of spring break. It'll be nice to go to bed early for the long day ahead of me tomorrow (work, church and then two shows). Still, I can't help but feel a little bit lonely in the quiet. I wish that every night could have guitars and harmonicas - no drama or stress, just a ton of laughing, feeling safe and happy and being surrounded by love.

And I wish that for everyone. Because I know there are people who experience it even less frequently than I get to. Or maybe not ever, not even at all.

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* I'd use his real name too, but in his blog he gave me a code name which I think is bad-ass and awesome.

Quarter of a Century

Today I am 25 years old. That is to say, I am a quarter of a century on this earth. I am beginning my 26th year of life. I am a year older (wiser?) than I was when I turned 24. I am finally old enough to rent a car.

To celebrate my birthday my supervisor let me out of work early today. I met up with Quinn and we went to Toro, which is a tapas place not far from BMC. Our waitress spoke mainly Spanish, and so Quinn did all the talking, although I could understand enough to pick out him telling her it was my birthday. She brought us a cookie at the end of the meal, and held two burning candles in her hands while she, beaming, sang Feliz Cumpleanos.

Then I met my Mom and we went for a walk in Forest Hills Cemetery. I know that seems like a weird thing to do for my birthday but you have to go there and then you will know why it's one of my favorite places to go in Boston. It is also right at the end of my street.

So Mom and I have been trying to find e.e. cumming's grave armed with only a crappy map for a few months. We set out determined rain or shine to find it and after an hour and a half we did exactly that. The grave is hard to locate because it is amongst a different family plot, the stone is flush with the ground, and the name is written out "Edwin Estlin Cummings." It is set on a bit of an incline, and we looked around for a landmark so I could easily return. Then, straight across from us, and down the hill I saw my favorite tree in the cemetery.

It's my favorite tree because it's hollowed out and the inside has been bronzed and inscribed with this e.e. cumming's poem:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

I took Mom down to the tree and climbed inside because something caught my eye. Since I had last been inside the tree someone had wrapped a book of cumming's poems in plastic to keep in a nook inside. I opened it and read out loud a bit. Even further back in the nook, which I had never once noticed was a journal and a pen. The journal was full of poems and messages from different visitors to the tree. Mom and I wrote our own message, and the sky opened up and began to pour.

I think this is going to be my year.