Musical Soul and Its Pitfalls

There once was a time long long ago when I was a musician.  I can't remember it.  I can't remember it, because it is too painful to remember.  There once was a time long long ago, when I was good at music.  It was okay to be good at music.  Something changed. My entire existence was upset.  It took a long to time right it again, but I did eventually.  I had to travel.  I had to leave where I was and begin again.  I put distance in between what happened and what was going to happen.  I am not sure of what did happen.  Part of that is I chose to not remember, because when I do there is an immense amount of pain still.  Twenty years later I lied to get closure.  I accepted responsibility for callous and insensitive things I did.  I accepted responsibility for things I did not do and which caused me almost immortal pain.  It was the only way it seemed to receive closure.  My professional career and my personal life were at risk.  Both were disrupted.  My musical life sustained in tact, although no longer  was it joyous.  I had enough gumption to tough it out, even when this joy disappeared from making music.  It was difficult, and I suffered.  The personal side was even more difficult, and this hardship lasted four years.  I solved if finally by changing myself.  I changed the way I thought about things, and I changed the way I loved.  I forget this from time to time, and when I do this hardship returns.  I have it now.  Music now causes me pain.  Rather the sharing of my music causes me pain, because I am back in the place where this pain began and not around those who have inspired my new music.  It both is ironic and surprising to me that this is true.  Fuck!  Nothing has changed, here.  I have come to understand this is the plague of the American South.  While somewhere deep inside still I can muster images of southern gentility, mostly that has changed to a perception of control.  The same shit that is and was going on always will be going on.  Via the Confederacy and their slaves.  The people remain the same and things will remain the same.  If I wanted to progress, I had to move where there was opportunity.  Many others in American history have done the same.  Black slaves traveled up the Mississippi River to Chicago and then to Harlem in New York City.   You must move somewhere where there is a higher, equal, and more accommodating consciousness.  That was not here.  It is extremely painful that music still brings me pain, but I know why it brings me pain.  It brings me pain, because the two people who brought me into this world no longer have their lives of music.  The music that brought them both happiness all their years is gone.  As their sown seed I have discovered it is not possible to start anew in this absence of their musical lives.  Jesus says someone in your life must die to make way for you.  I do not necessarily believe that is one of your parents, but I know in this case that my parent's musical lives will have to die, before I ever will again receive musical happiness.  Their grief over losing what was crucial to them grossly overwhelms my desire to reap musical joy again.  It is the station of being a son.  "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" even if that means you sacrifice your chosen vocation.  It is difficult this sacrifice.  It is difficult, because I have unfinished work.  I have musical projects yet to complete, but the quintessential connection with this music lies in its expression.  It is my expression.  It is not my parents expression.  Their need for expression in their later years has become more important because it it becomes lessened.    My music necessarily  is not selfish and singular.  It includes many things.  Much of it is consequences from other people and places in the cruise industry.  It is a fusion of my own feelings mixed with perceptions, reactions, and thoughts about these things.  This is what makes the music possible.  This is what makes it rich.  The difficulty lies in the disconnection of these mixtures.  The majority of these influences were metaphors of people and places I met and visited while playing the piano on cruise ships.  I was lucky and chosen to find the perfect venue for the composition of these works.  There is no other musical studio better than a floating piano in the ocean.  This piano is immune from the negative connotations of American capitalism.  Only does this piano receive honest and direct communication from people and places.  It is a shame that my soul no longer is strong enough itself to mitigate my parent's honesty.