May She Forever Let Me Know

I'm a damn good teacher.

Its why I have the job that I have. I might not be the best employee in the world. I might be a little too open about the mistakes I make, too honest about how I feel about things, but I can command a room, get people to listen to me, and have them walk away feeling as if their time was well spent. I can make a paradigm shift seem like a walk in the park, and filter details on a need to know basis.

Its really the only reason my boss likes having me around.

Wasn't something I was born with. But like cooking, its something that I wanted to do and I spared no lack of energy learning how to do it.

For as the saying goes:

Teaching like cooking like making love should be approached with reckless abandon.

Or something like that.

Ask Julia.

So, teaching a class today and my phone buzzed.

I didn't check who it was, I just casually switched the phone off so that it wouldn't buzz again and continued delivering my speech.

Usually when my phone buzzes, its my wife sending me something sweet/funny/dirty/cryptic. Those can wait for a better time.

And there's no better time than when the computers fail and we have to take a ten minute break in order to sort out the glitches.

Which happens all day.

So the computer crashes (damn you PC and your cheap fucked up alternatives to an actual working system), and I check my phone.

Instead of being from my wife, there's a string of texts from my sound engineer wanting to set a date for working on the new album.

OMG. I'm actually gonna start working on music again and the thought fills me with joy. For it has been too long since I've not only worked on the album, but too long since I actually wrote about the musical portion of my life. Its as if the context of my life has strayed from dreams and become mired in reality.

And reality is no place to live.

I'm so excited I reply right away. How about next Tuesday? Five O'clock? The answer is swift, as if he knew Microsoft was going to crash at that exact moment. See you then. And my posture takes on a whole new dimension of confidence.

For I am not a working stiff. I am pre-Rock Star and its time to show everyone in the room that this little training is far beneath my scope of life, yet I am happy to do it as long as it pays the bills. You're not getting the beaten down version of me, you're getting the pomp of a man who has strength and ambition, you're getting a performance of a man in his prime.

The training goes well. I hope they learned. I hope they trust I know what I'm doing. I dream that they could feel my air of confidence and that that air has wafted into their souls and filled them with peace. For I have given them the real me. The me who lives in many worlds.

But the me who lives in many worlds is a farce.

Its scientifically proven that there in no such thing as multitasking. What we think of when we think of multitasking is actually a physically and emotional draining skill of re-prioritisation.

You can't do two things at once.

You can't be two people at once.

You can however switch between the two quickly.

But you blow twice as much energy doing so.

So you can't do it for long.

And eventually, the two things become weak shadows of themselves and nothing is done well.

Artists know this. Which is why in every other aspect of their lives they are complete assholes. You can't be a good Husband/Father/Employee/Artist. You can only be a good artist and shitty at the rest.

I've defied this logic for as long as I can.

but my wife knows better.

Four months ago I showed her the recording schedule I had mapped out for my the new album. She immediately noticed the lines throughout April, May, and June for recording and mixing.

No, she said.

What? I replied.

Those are the months we need to help Taylor find a college, the months where we need to get him settled for graduation. There are parties to plan, weddings to go to, finances to adjust, cleaning to do, a five year old to keep busy.

No, she said.

Why? I asked.



Because I need you.



And so I stalled everything else.

I put my engineer/producer on hold.

I went from writing once a week to every other week.

I etched vacation into every work crevice I could find.

She knows I can't be everywhere. Everyone. And she knows I would have tried. But she didn't want me to try. She wanted me to be there for her, for the family, for this one moment in time when we can relish our triumph of delivering Taylor into the unknown world with the best possible foot in the door.

And I was okay with that. Because when it becomes my time, I know that she will watch my little artistic ship sail and eagerly await my return.

But when I tell her that I will be meeting with my engineer this Tuesday, she looks at me funny.

Damn,

she says.

What?

I ask.

Katie was going to come over for dinner that night.

Oh. I say. No problem, you'll just have to make dinner.

Hmm. She says. Maybe she can come over another night.



Because when it really comes down to it, my boss needs me to teach.

And my wife needs me to cook.

Unless she needs me for something else.

And hopefully,

she will forever let me know.