Life on the road

So here I am, straddling along the quiet landscape, a world new, a world embraced. I am on the road, stamping my way through the harsh reality of nearly being arrested by Lesotho border officials for car theft to being released into the starving hands of music lovers that accept me due to association.

Trekking down the brown plains of the Free State terrain, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of the silence. Something that I envisioned for so long which now stands real to my gypsy soul. The wheels of the green micro bus roll on and on and on, the silence escalates and I am hit by the obtrusive sound of nothing. I think, last night, I was surrounded by multitudes of appreciative good-wishers, today I face the emptiness.

For the first time since being on the road with artists, I understand how they can easily jump the rope, cross the line into a bare protectiveness. How do you deal with the ferocity of the lights? They call it the limelight. What a mind fuck!

I was at the beginning stages of a very bad breakup that lasted a year beyond then and I was yet to still understand the psychological impact that the life of a musician has.  I say this from an introductory level of being in the music industry. Many people don’t understand. Many people expect. Many people have opinions. Many people don’t know the creative process. Many the process engulfs.

Performing artists are dead and alive. Many tour managers, I imagine, relate to this conflicting internal feeling.

I believe in where I’m at any given time, and in this moment, I feel loneliness beyond measure. My insecurities are heightened. My relations are fucked up. How does one maintain the normality of a family life? Friendship? Self?

Perhaps I give too much thought in everything I do. My downfall inwardly but my greatest asset when entrusted in contribution to the picked out artist.

Someday, my struggles, my unnoticed effort, my love for the minds that stand barren in their destitute creativeness, shall be seen. Or not. I don’t care. I did what I wanted. No one can take that away from me. Not any artist that I’ve worked with or still shall. Not even myself because I am an artist in my own right. We have all been blessed with a wretched curse. Let all our souLs fly free.