pg2

I was not the brightest in the world during high school, but who was. With all the things you could get into, and all the things you could get away with. I never seemed too interested in my studies, as I was interested in what people do, what is love, what is this funny white powder, what are these funny cigarettes... You know; the usual, everyday norm for the late eighties, compounded with the midlife of puberty. I always scraped through school by the skin of my teeth, being the cleverest “C” student ever to play the trumpet. I was happy with the life of a high-school musician, as I knew in my heart that the music would expand into being my life. The horn, the gigs, the nights. To me, the future was written in stone, with only one variable allowed until my death: where do I play tonight? The only thing that was not set in stone was who would be by my side for the entire journey.

The day I met Jennifer was a day my life changed, and headed into a direction I am not sure I have been able to change to this day. My ideas and practices of love are based on my love for her and our time together, as if I am racing to relive my past. It would be easy to say she corrupted me, led me down the path of sin, etc.. In the same realm, it is easy for me to say that the devil did it, or President Reagan; Bobcat Goldthwait. The fact of the day was: we all did drugs, we all drank, and we all wandered. It was impossible for her to have led me in to the pit of hell, if that is what drug and alcohol abuse really is, if we both met each other at the elevator. I would be the one to fall down that path, not her. We were all looking for some definition of what life was about, how to make budding relationships bloom, and how to hold our-selves together in the process.

It was a time when your inner-most pain was the arrow that pointed north, and helped guide your feelings, and narrow your emotion into something that was not taking over the situation at any given moment. This kind of practiced-instinct is very necessary for survival. It is something you do, for many people do not think that emotion is something that requires growth, stimulation, support. As if emotion is a finite point, and feelings are either complete felt or not at all. There are stages of growth, and moment’s in-between.