Today—yesterday—was a wonderful day! Which are the hardest to write about, because one wants to sit back and watch the dying embers of joy, not try and capture them and risk destroying what remains of the feeling.
Spent most of my day thinking and processing the implications of my session with J last night. Read through most of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and I think I’m going to put together a group to go through it and have some peer accountability. Spent some time listening to Ahmad Jamal, who is somebody that I’m going to have to listen to a lot more of. [The throughline, if you’ve been playing at home, has been: Lana Del Rey to The Byrds to John Coltrane to Ahmad Jamal]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qc3VaXtW5M
I had to watch teens today. It makes me nervous being around them because of how hard they are trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and how much power they have to be cruel to each other. I can’t look at myself with the same compassion yet, maybe some day.
I stopped by the food carts on Hawthorne for some palak paneer fries at Potato Champion. They’re my favorites. I shouldn’t have spent the money, but when I’m hungry after work is literally the point in the day when I have the least willpower. I would agree to anything, like the Godfather on his daughter’s wedding day.
Afterwards, I went over to J’s studio to jam for a little bit. It’s been really hard to find time for us to play together, and I’ve been dying. It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable accepting that he genuinely likes playing with me, and to not be afraid to take real pleasure in the music we make together and the compliments he gives me about my playing. We complement each other well, and both of us have some envy of the skills of the other.
Afterwards, we went to a little restaurant/wine bar in NW and J had a little food while I had coffee and we had a long conversation about being musicians and artists and the project of figuring ourselves out. It was a conversation that was so white hot with truth & vulnerability & honesty & love & ambition & want &
