Drum lesson (and other adventures in timing)

This entire evening has been strangely off-time.

I left for my drum lesson at 6:15. I set my burglar alarm (which I had installed today so that I won't worry about my drum set--or anything else--while I'm traveling for Thanksgiving) and left. I stopped to check the mail outside--one piece of junk mail one rejection slip from a magazine I didn't really expect to be interested in Disillusionment.

No sooner did I reach the car but my alarm went off. Apparently I had been thinking about the mail and had not closed the front door all the way. Fortunately, ADT doesn't respond to stray alarms until after a few days have passed, so that people can get used to their systems--I stood out there for five minutes before I realized the annoying alarm sound was coming from my house. (In retrospect, it's a good thing I have the alarm--otherwise I wouldn't have realized the door was open and driven off).

I went back inside, turned off the alarm, looked more closely at my junk mail, reset the alarm, and tried again. This time the door closed all the way.

I couldn't find the directions to my drum teacher's house, but I was pretty sure I knew the way. I started out fine. I thought I had to make a left on a little street called Water's Edge, which is nearly impossible to see in the dark. This street is on a very curvy, very not-lit road. Worse, there was construction halfway down the road. Lanes had to merge so that traffic going the other way could use the free lane. Their side of the road was closed.

So I did this, and drove and drove and drove, and passed a bunch of stores I didn't remmeber having seen before, and thought I was coming to Water's Edge soon, and drove some more, and came to a huge supermarket and realized I had gone way too far.

So I turned off the road and went into the supermarket lot and turned around. Unfortunately, I have a poor sense of direction (in case the above paragraph failed to enlighten anyone about this.) I turned the wrong way out of the supermarket and ended up on some pebbled private driveway.

I backed out very carefully, since I couldn't see which side of the road was which, and turned around again. This time I was determined not to miss Water's Edge.

At about 7:05 PM (five minutes after my lesson was supposed to begin), I made it all the way back to where I had gotten on this road in the first place. I had a feeling I should call and ask for directions. Instead I went through the light in case I had gone the wrong way.

Since I recognized absolutely nothing, I realized I was lost, and finally called. I found out I was supposed to make a right on Water's Edge, and that it was right where the construction began. I made it to my lesson within five minutes, thinking about how funny it was that I had been right there all the time and not known it.

My lesson went very well, however. My teacher said he can tell I've been practicing because I'm much improved from last week. He then asked me what I thought the drummer's main role in a band was. Without hesitation, I said, "To anchor the musicians so that everything is played at the right time." I had heard Dave say this so many times that it automatically came to me. My teacher really liked that way of putting it... I hope Dave was listening up there in Heaven, because he always felt supremely honoured that my teachers would say the same sort of things he said, as if he didn't realize that he knew things.

Anyway, we worked on timing during this lesson (ha!), because my teacher said that the main mistake beginning drummers make is wanting to do all sorts of fancy stuff and not paying attention to their timing. (I think Dave told me that more than once, too...) My teacher was so impressed with my ability to play in time to the exercises he gave me that he lost track of time and let the lesson run over by ten minutes.

I have a lot of homework exercises, which is good because next week is Thanksgiving, so I won't have a lesson. I have to continue practicing my buzz rolls and double strokes as well as the new exercises we went over today. I don't quite know how I'm going to fit it all in to the half-hour I allot myself for practicing homework exercises... I may have to do an hour a day even though my inner 16-year-old whines and complains and wants to practice actual music instead... it's a struggle sometimes to sit still through a whole practice session when it comes to those exercises.

As I drove home (going the right way this time, though at first I had my doubts...), I thought about how much of what Dave taught me was already integrated in me before I started taking lessons. The radio was playing classic rock, all the songs Dave loved, and I thought: even though he's gone, he's still part of my life, and he always will be. He taught me so much and meant so much to me that no matter what I do, his memory is there. I guess that's what people mean when they say that someone's spirit "lives on in your heart". I woud rather have him with me here on Earth, of course, but it doesn't hurt as much now to remember all the things he was associated with, for me. It's like visiting with him whenever I do.

When I got home, a big gust of wind blew just as I was parking. As I got out of my car, the screen door blew open, and stayed open--as if someone was opening it for me. I was laughing as I thanked God for holding the door.