Same Song, Different Verse
Reflecting back on the me I used to be
In the life I walked away from, I am forever frozen midway through that moment between the last click of the drumstick count-in and the sweaty, cathartic bliss that is the crashing first note of the night’s final song.
My Jazz bass hovers, neck raised and ready for the wave of sound it will hold down, my pick poised over the string that will sing out the lowest frequencies.
The sweat won’t dry until our van is half an hour out of town. And we won’t stop for anything but gas until we pull up in front of the next night’s crumbling hole-in-the-wall, hoping they haven’t cancelled the show or closed up shop since booking the gig six weeks ago.
That me wouldn’t believe it if he could see this me, because this me’s path over the last decade and a half has had its fair share of twists and turns since it bent in the undergrowth.
But what that me would see is this me, briefly frozen midway through that moment between the thought and the word, as the Muse hovers just out of sight, more a sense than a feeling, and my pen poised to capture some fleeting image, like a flicker in the periphery.
Hindsight is far clearer, and I don’t regret leaving that me behind any more than I regret every other possible version of myself…
