Two Nights, Three Months Apart

The last time I visited this local nightclub to see a friend play it was winter, exactly three months ago tonight.

A lot's changed since then. Tonight, after the Oscars, on an extremely windy San Francisco night, I returned to see my friend perform again.

He's getting better as a singer; I'm getting better as a listener.

Driving home after the show, I again was struck by the nature of time -- slowed down, sped up, drip drip drip or racing like a rocket.

That December Sunday night, I walked back home. For whatever set of reasons, I can recall every block on that walk, the way the walls of buildings looked, the wood paneling here, the rows of bricks there, a mural that lay in shadows outside the streetlights swaying in the night.

This night, the only music back home is from a set of wind chimes a friend from Malaysia gave me years ago when visiting my home in Mill Valley, some 15 miles north of here, across the Golden Gate Bridge.

That was probably 23 years ago.

On that property, which was wooded and terraced uphill, a night's wind could rattle the chimes outside our basement door as the possums worked their way uphill, or the deer ate their way down.

Here, on my back porch, the same chimes swing in a Pacific gale, summoning me back then to that place and that time, that friend and those moments.

I ran into an old friend tonight at the club, a former softball teammate, now a performer himself. I love hanging around live music venues -- I love the energy, the anticipation of each act, and of course the performances themselves.

Into a warm place, surrounded by people and music; or out again, alone in the night. Either way the clock keeps ticking, oblivious to anything written or read here.

Three months vs. 23 years. Any of it could be today, yesterday or tomorrow.

Life is what you make of it. If I had mine to live over, I would have made much more music...

-30-