Sprung Spring

Starting this post without a direction.  It just felt like time to write here again.  I have been focusing all of my writing into my journaling and song-writing.  I am starting to think the rule of 10,000 hours is accurate as I feel much more confident in my music lately.  I can feel the flow and the beat in ways that I never bothered to listen to.  I can now see how, when I tried playing with other musicians, it was sometimes difficult as my own internal beat fluctuates wildly.  I have to tame the beat.   The keyboard and tapping my feet have helped a lot to keep me at least slightly structured.  Which, I imagine, makes it easier for other musicians to vamp off of.

Spring is here and it is so nice to start setting up the deck, the yard and the hot tub.  This winter felt long for me, although weather-wise, it was not that bad.  I am looking forward to getting out and biking, hiking, beach-walking and generally being outdoors this summer.  

Home sweet Home

Before I start playing music, I like to play the song Home Sweet Home on the keyboard.  It is the only song that I can fully play from start to finish on the keyboard, but it reminds me of where I come from.  A Piano salesman grandfather who founded the Harold Wartman Trio and wrote the theme song to the Moncton Hawks.  It also reminds me of my own limited musical upbringing, the dreaded two years of piano lessons with Gerry Robins.  She was fantastic.  I use the word dreaded, because I dreaded having to explain to her each week why I didn't practice.  

Playing the song makes me feel confident enough to sing and play unabashedly.   The song itself is so reflective of me as well.  So many great lines that seem to speak directly to me:

• You know  I'm a dreamer
• My life's like an open book for the whole damn world to read
• Sometimes nothing keeps me together at the seams.
• One more night, and I'm coming off this long and winding road.
• Just when things went right doesn't mean they're always wrong
• Take this song, and you'll never feel left all alone.

Home sweet home.  If I could bottle that sentiment.  My own home on Osborne Street is gone.  What I wouldn't give to take another tour of that place.  Home sweet home, indeed.

What a difference 14 years makes

 

In 2010, Cheryl and I stayed at the Grand Palladium Resort.  In 2024, we returned to stay at the higher end Lady Hamilton side of the same resort.  These pictures were taken in the same place.  The entry way to the building we stayed in 2010.

The last 14 years have been a mix of highs and lows, and we have only recently started getting back to some highs again, and this trip was definitely a reminder of how far we have come.  

In the picture on the left, we are 36.  Our trips were generally an escape to remember that we are not just mom and dad and worker bees in the workforce.  We are Tim & Cheryl, two young kids fighting against all odds to prove ourselves.  These trips were our reminder to live life and enjoy the world around us.  

The picture on the right is a little different.  Sure, we are older, with more wrinkles, and more grey hairs, but the thing you can't see in the picture is that we are no longer escaping from anything.  We are already there and these trips are now adventures to push ourselves and to experience the world.  Not because we need to, but because we want to.  It is not so much a getaway, as an adventure with the person who understands you and supports you most in this world.  A shared experience between two long-time soulmates that no one else will fully comprehend.