making music (national cheesecake day)

  

Last Sunday night a band called "The Format" was playing in downtown Greensburo. Some friends and I went to the show, well, at least to the door anyway. But we never saw the stage and never sang along to the one song we knew. The place was sold out, so we walked away from Green Street dejected, upstream against the rush of eager faces and hands full of tickets.

I remember Brittany saying, "Let's not be disappointed." But we all were, and no one had any ideas. There was awkwardness and regret. Momentarily optimistic I blurted, "We should make our own music tonight". But no one had any instruments.

After a few more failed attempts at finding something to do we ended up at Tait Street Coffee were we had peach cheezecake, because after all it was National Cheezecake Day. Seriously. Then we talked...about hurt, change, and the future. We looked at art. Met a few new people. It was turning out to be an ok night. After we got tired of sitting we went for a walk through the campus of a nearby university.

We came across some "itchy" trees that seemed to be shedding all their bark. Their falling skin was like natural paper so we started peeling it off. I like to think we were scratching thier backs. We all kept some bark to later write on.

Though we were wandering with seemingly no purpose, we were beginning to feel strangely comfortable with each other, our silence, and lack of plan. It was good just to be together. I had forget about the concert, so much so I didn't realize I had forgotten it.

I layed down on a bench next to the itchy trees and wondered if any homeless person ever slept there. I wondered what it would be like to sleep there. I closed my eyes to try to imagine. Just then I heard a sound from all directions like the turning on of hundreds of televisions...or the turning on of a sprinkler system on a hot humid night in North Carolina!

Though none of us knew what to do all evening, suddenly we all new what had to be done in that moment. We ran. We danced. We "made music" on the lawn until we were soaked with it.

There are few things worse than the feeling you get standing outside a building, empy-handed, on a street filled with music, staring at a scribbled piece of scrapp paper taped in a window with the words "Sold Out" written on it.

But it is ture also, that there are few things as beautiful as discovering the "music" inside yourself and others.

This is the gift of spontinaity. The opportunity in plans foiled. Creativity is your personality singing, a song too often unsung.

Some of my favorite memories are plan B's. It is in those moments I am forced to find out what is really inside of me. It is then that I have seen how beatiful my friends can be. That's that kinda stuff that can't be sold out. That's the kinda of music that requires only the instruments of our hearts.