Day Ten

This is what touring is supposed to be like! Great towns, great audiences, friends with floors. Minneapolis is such a fantastic place, and when I woke up this morning, the sun was actually shining. Granted, it was colder than when I had gone to bed, but by the time I got showered and dressed, it was just gorgeous outside. Got some breakfast in me, got a lamp to replace the burned out head light, and we’re on our way to Des Moines.

There’s something about towns I love. I mentioned yesterday that I know of a handful of towns that I just feel right in. Usually, this feeling manifests itself in an excessive display of gregarious behavior mixed with drinking. Last night I drank liquor for the first time on tour, and I did not hold back. I only had three gin and tonics, but they were pretty big and pretty strong and I hadn’t eaten in some time. It felt like home in so many ways! Joe drove the van back to the house.

Tonight we play a fun park. As far as I know we get free rides and free access to one of potentially several haunted houses. The only downsides are that it’s an outdoor show and we can’t swear from stage lest we receive no compensation. Having played a church already on this tour, I have no philosophical problem refraining from swearing. I feel as though I’ve done an OK job keeping this blog somewhat clean. I do however have a severe discipline problem which I learned because I already played a church on this tour. If I mess up, we might not get paid, and I’m not sure if I can handle that pressure. Yet one more creative use for gaffers tape.

It feels like the home stretch of the tour now. Six more days. I found my checkbook and wrote a check to the band in exchange for some cash, so the financial issues are at bay for the time being. I’m seeing old friends in Omaha tomorrow and a relatively new friend in Des Moines tonight, hopefully. All in all, I do feel like the worst is behind us. I know that this is a drastic tempting of the fates, but I am not a superstitious man. Maybe I should be. For the moment, I’m thinking of what life is going to be like when I get home.

I have two good friends who are getting married on Halloween. Actually, I have four good friends who are getting married on Halloween, but I can only go to one wedding. I went to a wedding back in August, and I had a really weird time. It was in many ways one of the coolest weddings I’ve ever attended, but I also found myself scoffing at times. It was a clear indicator that I am not in a very good place emotionally. I’m scared of how the wedding a week from today will affect me. There is a definite shame spiral that I seek to avoid.

It goes like this: I am a happy dude most of the time. I like to smile. I try to be a source of joy and comfort for others, and I never hold back my positive feelings about them. So I feel like it isn’t fitting of me to feel jealous or skeptical of love in general or two people’s feelings for each other specifically. Even though I know that healing is a long term process and that I’m pretty far along as things go, I get upset at myself for allowing those feelings to creep up, even in minute doses, and they have certainly crept up on occasion over the past year. I get mad at those who betrayed me for their role in my BEING in this situation. And then I get mad that I’m still getting mad. And then I get depressed because more than a year after the whole thing went down, I’m still going through this process. And then I get scared.

I have been separated from either the part of me that is capable of feeling that level of affection from another person or the part of me that is capable of recognizing those feelings when they occur. In a lot of ways, it’s like the car keys I lost back in Grand Rapids. Most of the time when I lose something like keys, glasses, my wallet, or whatever, I don’t ever see them again. Finding my keys in Chicago was a rare blessing but also an anomaly. I’ve lost some part of me, and it’s not something I can even look for, not just because it’s intangible, but because even if it were tangible, I wouldn’t know what it looked like.

Or maybe it’s like my ATM card. I know it’s somewhere but I don’t have it. I know I will get it back but I don’t know when, and I’m going to have to endure some hardship before I get it back. Regardless of which analogy fits best, it’s time spent waiting and suffering, and I’m by no means unique in experiencing this.

Perhaps the thing that binds me most tightly to my circle of friends is that to some degree we are all trapped in the same place. No matter how the circumstances differ, the frustration is similar. And it is my friends, my incredible, glorious friends who keep me as centered as circumstances will allow. From band mates to my people at home to my family, my peeps are my strength. It’s the reason I don’t live in that spiral of negativity full-time.



Have I mentioned on this trip that I feel a spiritual connection with wind farms? I feel a spiritual connection with wind farms. I took some pictures of windmills, but they didn’t turn out.