I’ve been a regular at a blues jam Sunday nights the past couple of years, but not since this hit. Like him, I play the harp. And like him, I love playing in G, especially the moody or minor keyed songs where 3rd position works so well and I can play my favorite harp, the low F, the full bodied Mississippi saxophone.
I miss playing. I miss playing for the woman who loves to dance, has told me for years she loves my playing and bugs me when I don’t . I introduced a young man with autism that plays drums to another jam a year before we started going there. He got turned on to lessons on blues drumming and that jam. He’s getting really good! The band leader, one of Portland’s best blues guitarists, call out a shuffle and he is right on it! i”ve seen him keep things together when the bass player didn’t have a clue. Usually though, he is with one of several bass players who are very good and I get to play in front of A1 rhythm section. I go to sit with him and his family watch him, even when I’m not playing.
Anyway, that woman has been going through major breast cancer the past couple of years, dancing all through it. Her gift, like riding was after my head injury. Playing for her is a honor. No, no interest in her. Never was. If not for music and our shared (but very different) journeys “on the other side” I would never have done more than said “hi” to her. (I get along well with her boyfriend – a Harley two-wheeler.) Now I love her as a sister from a different womb.
I don’t even carry my “pocket” harp around anymore. (I’d have to wash my hands before playing, then after for others and really, the harp too since it’s been in my pocket with other stuff.)
Sucks not to be able to play the blues for others to hep us all go through this. I haven’t lost anyone close yet. I worry about her, not hearing anything and knowing she 1) has had her immune system decimated and 2) is a hugger.
Ben
