The One Two Punch, Divine-style

I guess I broke a promise to myself about not getting on the computer tonight, but I’ve got to share a couple of experiences that happened to me tonight. I’ve been spending a LOT of time online, for work, and I’ve really been needing to prepare for the Ani DiFranco show on Tuesday. I’m really looking forward to it, and work has had incredible demands on my time, energy and focus. As a partner in a company doing great work in the world, I feel like my time, energy and focus are still pointed in the same general direction as my music, and consequently, I’m feeling like I’m doing the best I can to make a difference in the world, one way or another.

Anyway, tonight I had two incredible, mind-blowing experiences I’m still trying to wrap my head around.

#1
In the park near my home, they were having “Movie in the Park” (Big Lubowski) and there were about a hundred people. I was actually walking home and happened to walk by the park, curious to see what the hubbub was all about. So anyway, as I walked up to the alfresco theater, I sorta walked up to this short, stocky black girl, probably in her 20’s. She was really sweet, had on some delightful perfume and at the same time she seemed really lost. There was something both attractive and tragic about her.

Our conversation was clear and direct and deep and connected, an atypical meet-a-stranger-for-the-first-time encounter. She was new in town, homeless, had been abandoned by some travelling partners who’d taken her blanket – she had no idea where she was going and wanted to go walk on the beach, which way was it?

We talked a bit more, and she mentioned she was lonely and wanted to know if we could go for a walk and hold hands. I told her I had a girlfriend and that I’d just dropped her off at the airport (which is true) and that I was going to walk home. She asked if she could walk with me and be romantic, just for the night? I told her no and rubbed her back and generally loved on her. My mind started cataloging all the things I could do for her, posessions of mine I could give up.

She asked for a backrub, which I gave her. I happen to give really good backrubs being a trained (but not yet certified) accupressure therapist. She didn’t seem to care about my credentials.

She was muscular in a feminine way, but with lots of tension I helped dissolve a little. She asked for a bear hug to crack her back, and I gave her a good Ian Hug. She said “I’m just going to walk away from all this negativity”. I said “yeah, walk into the positive” and I just hugged her and stroked her back and loved this total stranger for a minute.

By now I totally smell like some kind of magnolia perfume and she pulls away and looks up at me with this beautiful almond eyes and says “I was thinking about going out there and killing myself, but you saved my life.”

I had no idea what to say. As I was thinking and trying to feel what was the right thing to do, her attention shifted and she started talking to a more punkish looking kid about something, sort of like the fragments of conversation I hear from streetpunks on Haight Street. Disjointed, kind of rambunctious and tough. It was clear they were familiar with one another, but I didn’t turn to engage in their conversation.

I had to decide in that moment if I were going to get pulled further into something I ultimately couldn’t do more to help with. The decisive moment was feeling like I’d done what there was for me to do, anyway, and i quickly left and walked home.

#2
Meanwhile, before leaving for the airport, I’d had an IM exchange with a guy I’d interviewed for a job at CivicActions. The big push lately has been to find web developers for change-the-world projects and it’s absorbed an incredible talent search that’s had me working 75-85 hr weeks. The interview guy was pinging me to say hi and follow up on the referral. The conversation quickly turned to music, and I shared Unamerican with him. He liked it, gave me some feedback that made me feel like “yeah, actually, I AM on purpose with this stuff.” It felt great.

I asked him if he’d seen my next trick: The Missing Song. He was stunned. This guy he’d referred had told him a very similar story about his friend who’d passed away in this totally tragic way and thought for sure his friend and my song were talking about the same person. Neither of us could believe this was possible, so he left a message for his friend.

Fast forward a couple hours – I come home to an IM from this friend of “Robert John” – the subject of the song, the “boy who died, becoming a man”. In fact, they were very close friends. In fact, he’d played the guitar I wrote the song on. He used to jam with the former owner of this exquisite instrument I play at performances and has known the current owner, “Robert John’s” sister, for years.

We had a mind-blowing IM exchange. I had my breath taken away as we had convulsion after convulsion of divine enormity about talking to someone I’d randomly met through the course of doing what I’m on the planet to do about a person who’s become very much a part of my life even though I’d never met “Robert John” in person. I hear him playing guitar once in a while, though.