Stepping out of the shadows...

Artists themselves but ignorant of their true identity, shadow artists are to be found shadowing declared artists. ~Julia Cameron

I just had an AHA! moment re-reading that sentence a few minutes ago. Those of you who are just meeting me might think my romantic relationship brought me into the music orbit, but my relationship with musicians goes back nearly 30 years. Some of my oldest friends are musicians. I've known a lot of musicians in my life and dated a few. I haven't analyzed this for years, because I've been with Jeffrey for the last 11 years. Of course music is going to play a role in my life when I'm with him. But prior to my relationship with him, I used to wonder what it was about musicians that made me like a moth to their flames.

Did I want to work in the music industry? It certainly wasn't a desire to play music, that's for sure. I left keyboards behind after 5th grade (after being forced to play the organ for Sunday mass for a year or two...yuck!). I had an acoustic guitar in high school, but was too lazy to learn to play much of anything and hated developing callouses on my fingers. If it was a choice between reading Seventeen or playing guitar, that choice was easy for my lazy teenaged self. I even bought myself a keyboard when I lived in San Francisco...where it sat untouched in my spare bedroom, gathering dust. So it wasn't a desire to be a musician. And if I really wanted to work in the music industry, I would have pursued it years ago. It just hit me what it really was...

I wanted the lifestyle. (And no, I'm not talking about the drugs and booze and promiscuous sex many people associate with that lifestyle.) I wanted to live a life that revolved around travel and free daytime hours and creativity. That just hit me like a ton of bricks. I wanted the lifestyle. I've always wanted my days to be FREE. (Spend enough years working in office jobs and you'll understand how desirous it can sound to not have to spend your days being at people's beck and call.) It wasn't even that I wanted to work in music (I'd probably be an ace producer, but have no desire to do it...or else I would). No, I just want my "job" to be something that involves only a few hours of the day, gives me extraordinary flexibility, allows me the freedom to travel and to be creative. There. That helps. :)