Generous spirits

Two very different people showed me much the same thing this weekend, something good for me.

First it was Teresa, a gorgeous German “girl” just days short of her twentieth birthday. We met at another friend’s birthday party. Teresa was living life as an adventure, filled with ideas and interests. She spoke English a mile a minut, with lots of mistakes.  Easy to understand English but for instance she said po-LIT-igan for politician and confused “economy” and “ecology”.

But she shared her thoughts and feelings in unmistakeable vividness.

That was Saturday night. Sunday Lynn and I went to Kingston to see young blues singer, Matt Anderson, 6’2″, 400 lbs., a lot to love as Matt puts it. We’d seen him before and wanted to catch the vibe again. Matt’s a generous musician; he gives it his all from the first moment, completely comfortable with what he’s doing. I’m not a big fan of the blues, and I’m not sure “the blues” covers all Matt does or is. He writes his own stuff, one-of-a-kind outpourings they seem to me, and a few covers, “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,” was one.

He’s a complex enough guitarist who never loses the driving sense of what he’s doing. The music comes right on through. And I had a smile on my face about the whole time. It’s watching an unselfconscious stepping back to let some truths about being human, about being Matt, come through.

I’m an amateur guitar player. What I got from Matt is that it’s not about getting all the notes right, or performing; it’s about being in or with the music, with other people.

Matt shows that music’s about the energy. So does Teresa. They’ll likely never meet, but they’ll go through life doing much the same thing. I aim to do it more myself.

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