Nimrod

It's almost 2am.  This day is much longer than usual and the night will follow suit.

This was the last time to walk on the stage at HPAC.  And the last time to stare out at a full audience of Japanese faces, a sight that has become so familiar to me over the past three years, like a friend. I wonder if any feel the same way about me.  We are so anonymous to one another, and yet so familiar.  Familiar.

Afterwards, one of them whom I had briefly met on the train one night and then subsequently at another concert, but not seen for two years, managed to send a bass player after me to bring me back to the stage, to meet him at the edge of a dwindling audience heading for their trains.  He wanted to say goodbye.

I had been crying.  As musicians we learn to control the fire with which we work.  Audience members may become caught up in a moment, but if we are to do so entirely, we might lose it and all it's worth.  It's a difficult balancing act to perform, to be within and without at once.  But sometimes, one permits it.  And today I did.

I don't know what it means to be good.  I don't know what goodness is, but sometimes I feel like I can touch it, and today was one of those moments.  There is something so good about playing with other people.  And something so sad about not seeing it.  I feel a little like I am dying and realizing how much I love to live, wishing I had the clarity to see all that I love so much.

And yet it is time to go.  There is something else waiting for me.

Tomorrow morning I will say goodbye to the river, goodbye to my apartment, to Akuradanchi, to Takarazuka.  And after one more night, goodbye to Japan.  The folds are closing, bit by bit.