blazing

The Perseid’s shower peaks at about 2am tonight.  Driving out past city limits and stargazing during meteor showers was something I used to do with my Dad.

I’m too tired to head out on my own, and being in Seattle, I’m not sure I’d even know where to go, so I have jumped onto an available computer and making a quick post. 

The 6th NATC was a whirlwind of a weekend.  I barely had enough time to catch my breath and, like many, never much had a chance to grab anything to eat.

The advisory board did talk about the jam-packed schedule and how it was both daunting and in some ways kind of amazing and great, given the sheer amount of quality programming available to attendees.

I was grateful to be able to participate in a few different ways this year.  I have to admit it would have been nice to be able to *take* a workshop, but I also had a great time with all the folks who took my workshops and I always learn a lot when I’m teaching so it was time well spent for me.

Thanks to everyone who offered their condolences and kind support.

It’s all very surreal and I think maybe stuff hasn’t hit me so hard just yet because it’s been a jam-packed few weeks, what with Powell Street Festival and the concert in Vancouver, B.C. (especially considering the last minute change of venue due to the city workers’ strike), all leading up to the NATC and now pre-production for Sacramento Taiko Dan’s 18th Anniversary Concert and so on…not to mention handling all the logistics of the circumstances which are extraordinary and not fun.

I’m not being strong, per se.  I’m just falling back on what I still have and what I know.  I am falling back on what usually sustains me.  Drumming sustains me.  It nurtures my spirit.  It would be so much harder to *not* continue to practice, teach or perform.  It balances out the profound grief and sadness I feel when I realize he’s just not ever coming back.

Then, too, if I think about my father’s character…his basic disposition…his compassion, his generosity, his warmhearted kindness, his easy-going sense of humour, his love…sure, I miss it…but I had it.  Lots of it.  He never held any of that back.  We, he and I, don’t have any unfinished business in that regard and so it’s not that hard to hold that part of him in my heart and just…do what I do.

A few weeks before he died, I had been talking to him on the phone and I’d asked him how he handled loss and heartbreak.  I wanted to know how he got through some of the hardest times in his life.  He said, “You just keep going, you know?  Some times it gets so hard and you think you can’t possibly go on.  Then something great happens and there you are and maybe you never even thought anything like that could ever happen to you, and maybe it gets bad again, but you just keep going and then things eventually turn around again.” …and so on.

I’m so lucky to have had that conversation with him when I did.  I can hold that in my heart and mind and feel a little bit of peace…and I just keep going.  Sometimes I am consumed with grief and I cry and cry, but mostly I try to hold on to the joy and love…and then it’s really not so hard to keep going.

Then there are all the incredible strong and wonderful relationships I have with so many people that make life easier because there are people *there* for me in so many ways, and that doesn’t even take into consideration the connections made with folks just over the weekend. 

We accomplished so much.  We dared and dreamed and gambled and struggled and achieved and messed up and got through it all…together.  We were alive.  Brilliantly.  Passionately.  We were connected and joyful and sharing so much together.

That’s what it’s all about.  That’s what my dad was all about.  That’s *how* I can do it.  I’m not just *getting through it* because I have so much to draw from…especially when I am drumming. 

HUMONGOUS BIT ‘o THANKS to everyone!!! (Yes, I do mean you!)