A New Beginning

About three years ago I graduated college and I left for Hawaii with plans of being there for about a year. I went to the Big Island, Kona specifically, to get my 200hr Yoga Teacher certification through Konalani Yoga. The lessons they taught me there are things that will stick with me until the day that I die – and hopefully after. I am forever grateful to them for those experiences. However, the training only lasted three weeks, so after I planned to work on a farm on the Big Island for the rest of my time. Well, unfortunately this was around the time the volcano erupted and kept spilling lava for months, so the farm I was supposed to go to was evacuated. Thankfully no one was injured, but that means I had to find another plan. Sure enough, one door closes, another opens; and the leaders at Konalani were gracious enough to invite me to do an extended work study for a few months based on the effort I was putting into the meditation and asana training during the certification course. This was a dream come true to me, studying yoga more in depth in Hawaii of all places! There was only one roadblock…I had just started a relationship with a wonderful woman named Kat and we were two months into this wonderful, new thing when I had to leave for Hawaii. Now, anyone who has heard and experienced the term the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship knows about all the hormones (love drugs) running through system and knows those feelings are very powerful. So, my time in Hawaii was a bit bittersweet; being at one of the most romantic places on Earth with your new loved one thousands of miles away stung to say the least. After training I spent a week on Oahu to explore and see if I couldn’t find some waves to catch (I didn’t have much success), and with most of my money gone I bought a ticket home for Texas to move in with my lady.

I’ve never lived with a partner before, and my previously longest lasting relationship was a little over a year, followed by a four year hiatus from dating to focus on self-improvement (debating monkhood), then a six week romantic fling that I thought was going to last forever and when it didn’t threw me in a depression the likes I’ve never experienced before and hopefully never will again – but life is long I won’t hold my breath, although I should be better equipped the next time around. The catalyst that led me to this Hawaiian excursion was actually the burning out of this shooting star of a fling. So, I found a part time job working as a line cook in a café and began saving up for a year. It was at this café that I met Kat, and it was two months before I was set to take off that we started dating. I know my timing is impeccable to say the least. Now that we have all the information we can continue.

I was excited to start a new adventure with this girl. I’ve always been quite the romantic, so exploring all these new experiences I didn’t perceive as negative even though I did sacrifice some personal dreams. Even now that Kat and I are broken up (within the last week I might add), I don’t think harshly on the decision. I acknowledge I could have stayed at Konalani a few more months, and that I mildly regret, but I don’t regret moving in with her. This relationship shattered my previous record of a year by almost two whole years. I learned a lot about what it means to be in a long-term relationship with someone, the art of compromising and playing the supportive role among some valuable lessons learned. I never truly mastered how to be an individual within a group though, and this is true historically amongst my friend groups and such. I find it difficult to wholly stick to my convictions or desires when involved with a group dynamic there is always some compromising happening whether it’s what to watch on TV or what music to listen to there’s always a give one way or another, but I truly believe a master would find the compromise that fits all parties instead of the age old saying that, “a compromise is where both parties leave dissatisfied”, or there’s the scenario where one gets their way and the other doesn’t. Ideally, this results in taking turns, but more often than not it’s usually one person sacrificing their needs for the other in a more unbalanced way. Kat and I were both guilty of this in different ways, instead of in the same which would have been more balanced. It just got to the point where we were hampering each other’s growth instead of supporting it, so we made the difficult decision to split up.

So now, for the first time in a long time, I am only responsible for myself and that is both exciting and a little terrifying. There aren’t quite a million directions I could go, like being a little kid again, but there are quite a bit. I play piano in a country band based out of College Station, TX; I have friends in Austin I play with sometimes that we could turn into a jam-band rock group sort of thing; and finally, there’s my own music and skills I want to develop. Which all-in-all, has led me to heavily lean towards saving up and teaching English in Japan for a year. I say “heavily lean” because I’ve learned after Hawaii not to speak in 100% absolutes, that’s not to say avoiding commitment just more of an acknowledgement of the impermeance of life. It would be a way to get my year (or more) of travelling/adventure that I was hoping to get in Hawaii, while also learning a foreign language I’ve been wanting to do since I can remember. Apparently when I was younger, before my memories, I only spoke Spanish and my grandpa had to translate for my parents. Though I soon switched over to only English, my mom never having learned Spanish from her dad because in her days of growing up it was looked down upon as a second-class citizen thing. In some ways it still is, although I think America is starting to wake up to the utility and even necessity of speaking multiple languages. Another motivation for learning Japanese is so I can watch my favorite animes without the subtitles, which is how I’ve heard most Spanish speaking immigrants learned English when they came to America, by watching TV and immersion of course.

Not only will going to Japan fulfill a lot of desires, but it will also give me some time to focus on my yoga practice and on my music. Especially now that I’m not in a relationship anymore I have nothing else to call a distraction and with that I’m excited. I said before I debated monkhood at one point, right now I’ve settled on living as a monk without actually joining an order and we’re going to see how that goes (I take a lot of inspiration from the pianist/author/composer Seymour Bernstein in that regard). So, with all that preamble and backstory, I want this to be a journal of my experiences trying to live like a monk in pursuit of self-discovery through music, the music monk.

Today I did thirty minutes of a morning breath and gratitude meditation that I learned in Hawaii that I haven’t done in maybe months. Consistency has always been my issue, and I am very streaky. I take some joy in having taken the right step today, but I’m trying to iron out of my streaky side. I like meditating first thing when my brain hasn’t fully woken up yet to the day’s tasks, and it’s a great way to center and focus the mind in the body before practice. I also enjoy practicing first thing in the morning when I have all my energy and dopamine so it can be directed towards that practice. I know that won’t always be the case and real discipline – where I struggle – is doing your tasks even outside of your ideal routine. I did wake up late today though and only got about an hour and a half of practice total. I did an hour on the violin just going up and down on the E and A string with my bow to practice proper bowing technique, with a little bit of noodling in between the droning. I’ve played guitar for about five years now, so I know music theory, I have a good grasp of the fingerboard concept, and my fingers are fairly dexterous although they of course could be better. That’s why I spent so much time on only bowing – and even then, not as much as I would have liked. I recently refurbished a friend’s old violin and she said I could keep it since she had no more use for it. I had another friend who is an expert at violin, piano, accordion, singing, mandolin – you get the picture, help teach me, and I probably practiced around two hours a day three to four times a week for about a month. Then, COVID hit, Kat and I moved, and I didn’t touch the violin for about six months, until today actually. I really love the instrument. It’s more portable than guitar, can have a little more emotion to it, and the concept of intonation adds a personal touch you can’t really get from a fretted guitar. It’s a perfect instrument for lead/melody, but being a beginner is difficult and I must remind myself to be patient before I start playing like Stephane Grappelli or Hilary Hahn.

I spent the next thirty minutes practicing Johnny B. Goode on piano. Again, I woke up late and didn’t get nearly the amount of time I wanted to on it. Ideally, I’m getting around two hours on each instrument which is only going to happen through more efficient time management, but you know “haba na haba”, little by little the well fills up. I take some joy in taking the first steps, and I won’t beat myself up too much about it – it’s more about establishing the habit right now. Piano to me is the composers’ and most musicians’ best friend. It’s easy to digest with its linear lay out. Don’t get me wrong to play at a high level is no easy feat, but it’s a great tool, nonetheless. I also find it to be the perfect instrument for harmony. I love jazz harmony on it, and I aim to master (to the best of my abilities or as much as you can master an ever-changing genre really) one day. This leads me back to Johnny B. Goode. Blues is a great bedrock for learning Jazz, and for practicing my hand-independence, something I am sorely lacking having only been playing piano for about a year. Not to mention, Marty McFly’s performance of Johnny B. Goode on a Gibson ES-335 made me want to learn music in the first place. My hand-independence is barely passable right now, but that’s better than a month ago where it was non-existent (I mainly do right hand fills or left bass notes in my country band). I start with triads in my right hand and am just aiming to master those before I mess with extensions too much. Mastering fills between the triad notes is a good to start to practicing extensions, and so is approaching the target notes with another triad, say the IV or the ii of the chords you’re aiming to land on. That’s where I’m at today so far. Hopefully tomorrow I will keep steadily improving. Unit next time…