Legends Write Their Own Stories

There’s this story, stop me if you’ve heard this one…

There’s this story of a man… born out of violent tragedy, but given the gift of a second family by his biological mother. His upbringing has its ups and downs, but the majority of it is positive. Sure, there’s some self doubt and confusion, but that’s normal for teenagers, especially boys who are too smart for their own good. Through it all, he’s surrounded by the idea, the feeling, almost a certainty, that he was meant for something bigger. Not making money bigger, not fame and renown bigger, but still… bigger. Greater.

He leaves home, goes away to college and starts to act upon a lot of that promise and potential. He’s no superstar at school, but does reasonably well. Learns about himself, about friendship and a lot about how the wrong choices can lead to the right wisdom.

Post-college, he has some adventures, some physical, some emotional. He wanders and is content to do so for a while. In the back of his mind, he fights to remember that feeling of something bigger. Greater. Meaningful.
Then disaster strikes. First nationally and financially. Then personally. He loses one of the pillars of his life.

But when life takes away one thing, it leads you to another… a few years later, after fighting to get back to his feet, the young man finds Love. And things are wonderful. For a time.

Yet, as in all good stories, the Hero is only as good as the challenges he faces. So Love and Faith are shaken and broken. Comfort is removed and he’s set into the wild. He has to make sacrifices and changes he doesn’t expect and wonders if he’ll regret them. He has many allies who help him in ways known and unknown, but still… he feels the urge to not only rise back up on his own two feet, but the call of something bigger. Greater. Meaningful. Extraordinary.
So, he makes a plan. Not A Plan, because that leaves no room for the unexpected. But a plan lets you have choices. A plan that will bring him to a place where after a little more than a year will allow him to either chase a lifelong dream, chart a course across part of the world working and teaching or even something he has not foreseen.

No matter the choice, it is the next step to something Bigger. Greater. Meaningful. Extraordinary. Legendary.

Epics aren’t written about people who live ordinary lives. No ballads are sung about those who keep their hearts locked away, they are sung about those who love without fear, past the point of all reason. Legends are for those who alter the course of one life forever. Their own.

I will write my own Legend.

Every Good Hero Needs Theme Music

Ever since I was a kid, music has been a character trait to me. Not in terms of me being able to play, I’ve never been even close to the musician of my own daydreams. My parents, for all their love and support when it came to education, never saw anything beyond the regular slate of classes as something worthwhile. Granted, lack of money had something to do with all that (different story), but sufficed to say that there wasn’t a big push to expand my mind by picking up an instrument. But music has always been something that I would drape over people, like a child dressing a doll. [MALE EGO WARNING: Use a different metaphor.] Er… I would attach the music to people, like putting different accessories with your action figures. [MALE EGO: That's better.]

Music’s role in how I view people started at home, with my Dad. Dad, even when we lived in New York, was always about country music. In the late 70’s and early 80’s Dad never forgot to drift back to the country music he grew up with. Some rock and roll would mix in, but country dominated. Hank Williams certainly got a lot of play in the shed while Dad was fixing… well everything and anything that broke in the house, but the music that drifts across the landscape of memory with him will always be the Man in Black.Whenever I think of him, a Johnny Cash song is never far from my thoughts. When Cash released an album with a cover of ‘Hurt’ in 2002, in my mind, it was no longer a Nine Inch Nails song, it belonged to Johnny. When The Death occurred in early 2003, it become an anthem for me. Not only one to mourn my father, but a symbol of loss and lost opportunity. A heavy example, I know, but the best one I have at hand to show you how vital music is in my mind.

This habit of assigning musical cues and theme to people was never something I set out to do, but it has happened for virtually everyone important in my life. For some its just a particular song, like I Shall Believe by Sheryl Crow for GreyRose (my first college girlfriend). For others its a particular Artist – Sir Wolfgang gets Melissa Etheridge and LL, the Newshound, gets Tori Amos. Those are ones that I can give you that make sense when I say them out loud. There are moments that tie those people to that music.

Others… they might make sense, but because of what’s happened, its tainted certain music for me forever. IrishLass, the first (what I thought was) love and the first big bloody, emotional train wreck of my lifetime, still comes to my mind when I listen to Counting Crows. And I used to adore that band. I can still listen to them and enjoy the music, but I have a cut off point now. Where I could go through the band’s entire discography before, now… I can handle few songs now and again, though Anna Begins can still kick my ass.

The musical cues aren’t always set in stone. As I grow to know someone better, the music will change. Fortunate Son used to be Billy Joel, given his affinity for the man’s music. But as he’s grown older and (in theory) wiser, the easy to digest and forget music from Long Island has been replaced with Heroic Scores and inspirational music. Any music that reflects the triumph of the human spirit, it makes me think of him.

And as is often the case with my mind and my heart, the decision can sneak up on me when I’m not paying attention. The music just starts playing in my head at some point when I think about that person. Like Miles Davis for The Heroine’s father. Not that he’s s huge fan, but because to me Miles is cool, talented and in control with a just enough quirkiness, it suits the man perfectly. Besides, anyone who can make me turn white as a sheet deserves a cool theme song in my head.

Some of it is cheesy… we won’t talk about the music that plays for my Ma, my Savior, because it will make me seem like an even bigger Mama’s Boy, if that’s possible. And there are others that I’ll keep to myself for now because I don’t want to show all my cards right now.

So, what’s the point here?

It seems like this Hero has found a new set of theme music.

When I was little, it used to be anything that made me imagine that I was a super hero. In high school, when I was a Stupid, Simple Creature, it was a mix of Metallica and Pearl Jam. In college, U2 provided music for every mood, every facet of my life. Through my middle 20’s, given all the changes and uncertainly I had in myself and my life, there was no clear sound. In recent years, it has been a mix of Guster, Pat Green and U2 (again). That and anything that made me think about my relationship and how happy it made me.

Now, it has changed again. A house band has taken over, as it were. One song in particular in playing lately, but since I’ve apparently assigned the Foo Fighters to myself, they do mix things up with different songs lately. Learn to Fly and Razor get some heavy play time. But the main track right now… I think it picked itself for many reasons. I need to remember this, for myself and others. It makes the most sense in my life right now. And, fittingly enough, I’ve kept hearing it everywhere. I even had a friend send me the lyrics as a pick me up, unaware of what they already meant to me.

Best of You, by the Foo Fighters. Until further notice, our Hero’s Theme music.

Now its just a matter of making it true.

Echoes in the Rain

I love to work in the rain. It settles the dust in the air. A good solid rain, with its own rhythm as it hits the ground, the window, the street outside. Tires throwing up a spray as cars pass and the distant rumble of thunder serve as percussion and strings. I’ve missed having a good storm cover the area for a day or two. Not that I like the gloom per se, but a good storm helps the mind move, providing a cloak for fragile or forgotten thoughts to move under. You know you’re surrounded by a good storm when the sound of thunder doesn’t jolt you, but sends goosebumps all along your body.

I was spoiled with storms, growing up in Florida. We’d have rain year round, snow being only a distant memory from my first years in New York. Cool rain, warm rain, gentle winds and ranging storms. And the lightning. I miss the lightning most of all. The Bay Area where I grew up is the lightning capital of the world and Mother Nature loved to show off her fireworks. Lightning storms that would appear from nowhere, sometimes no bolt would touch the earth, yet you’d be in awe of the naked power and beauty as bolts of blue, white, purple, red and orange would lance through the sky. One of my favorite memories is of a storm from when I was in high school. I was playing basketball with several friends at dusk, red and purple blending at the horizon together like crumpled sheets on a bed. As a gentle warm rain began to fall, the sky began to flash. Slowly at first, the blue-green bolts came, but soon they increased in speed, moving like laughing children bounding across the bed. For some reason, none of us were afraid.

The game stopped as the storm continued, not because anyone called time, but because all of us were transfixed by the majesty of the moment. We’d left one of my friend’s car door open so that we could listen to music. The local rock station was on and as the storm began, Pearl Jam ended and Led Zepplin’s The Battle of Evermoor came over the radio. 10 teenaged boys simply stopped what they were doing and sat down on the court, the heat stored in the concrete of the court and the sweat from our own bodies quickly giving way to the soft breeze and cool summer rain that fell around us. No one spoke, no one wanted to break the spell. Even then, my storyteller nature got the better of me and I stole glances at my friends to see their reactions. I was the only one whose eyes left the sky, if briefly. The rest gave themselves over to the power of the storm, letting it carry them along. I can’t say I have any clue where it took them, but I know that if it was anything like what I felt watching the lighting roar across the Florida twilight, it was a majestic place.

When it rains and the only thoughts that came to me are sneak-thief moments of worry, jealousy and concern and fear – like today – I send myself back to that night on the basketball court outside my high school. A night where the simple act of watching nature in her furious glory cast a spell on a group of boys nearing the beginning of manhood. I don’t know what that meant to the others afterwards. None of us really spoke about it. But I know what it meant to me.

It showed me that storms are chaos and fury, beautiful in their destructive power. Storms bring change – sometimes in the distance, sometimes all around you. Slowly by replenishing the ground or swiftly with wind and thunder and fire. Storms are the necessary agents of change.

So as the rain takes a pause outside my window, my mind still races, letting the emerald-eyed children of my confusion play their tricks. But like the storm, they will pass. Until they do, I’ll sit inside, warm and contemplative, letting the thoughts flow like the water rushing along the gentle hill outside. I don’t know how long it may last, but I know I have no choice but to weather it. And marvel at the majesty and the upheaval.