Busking

I’m severely tired. My brain feels like it melted into a gray pool of weary uselessness. My heart feels thin, like over-watered soup. Part of me wants to call off tonight’s rehearsal, but we need to keep working and improving, tightening our performance. We’re playing at Mosaic Adventist Church again this weekend.

General and I arrived in Portland about 10:45 this morning. We drove East on Hawthorne Blvd and then again West toward downtown. Our first busking spot was the sidewalk outside Food Front, where we met some wonderful people and hopefully made their lunch hour a little more pleasant.

Then over toward the waterfront where we catered to the folks coming out of Voodoo Doughnut. We met Lyn (Lynn?, Lynne?) there and folks were just as pleasant as the first sidewalk concert.

The emotional (and correspondingly physical) exhaustion that I feel right now is the aftermath of exiting a comfort zone. Around 11:45am when we were about to begin the first set, I felt a level of fear I haven’t had to face before any performances in the last 5 years. I was more than a little scared this morning, which is why I wanted to get it done. This is a fear I wanted to face so I can get comfortable with it and move on to something bigger. I’ve grown comfortable in being invited to play for an audience. When you play at a Church, or a coffeeshop, or even a winery, they’ve come to you.  There’s an implicit agreement: I’ll play, you’ll listen.

When you play on the street, there’s no invitation from your audience. You might be intruding on their expectation of a quiet lunch hour. They might consider you a disturbance.

A good day. I played well. Didn’t make much money. You don’t get a very long time to grab someone’s attention as they walk by. I’ll have to work on that.

Fear faced. Comfort zone exited. Off to rehearsal. Thanks for listening, Lynn.