A Different Drum (Holiday Run Streak, Day #28)

comparisons to Scorsese...?
made to nameless forms in a faceless void
the Poet's son
adrift on the water
past the snowbanks, orange stained by the late solstice sun
in a long black cloak blown open by the frigid wind

*****

Much stronger five and a quarter tonight. Total opposite from yesterday. Pretty cold, but otherwise much less effort involved, and I had a lot of fun.

I've been thinking a lot lately about a teacher I had who recently passed away. It wasn't that this teacher was particularly good, I'd say fairly mediocre, overall, but at a time in my life when I was in a lot of turmoil. 

I was a screwed up kid in my teenage years. My home life was rough, and academically I was completely directionless. I righted myself by attending a community college, and following my dreams in music, and eventually music education. I made a thing of myself. But I always remember an early time when I was about sixteen, when this particular teacher, talking to some other kid's parent, said of me that I "Marched to the beat of a different drum,"

I knew what that meant, that meant that I was an oddball. I was seen as taking a road less traveled and was probably doing things "the wrong way" by a conventional viewpoint. I did fine for myself and I'm proud of what I've managed to do, it's just odd to have that memory and to feel that judgement on me. Especially the need to explain my existence to someone completely incidental to my story. It doesn't even really matter who that person hearing the phrase from my teacher was. 

A few months later I watched Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. I'd loved Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to it for years before that, but I wasn't as familiar with the film. A Different Drum is track seven on that album, and had been a piece of music I loved listening to walking around New England in the height of winter, when the snow would be many feet high on the sidewalks.

Obviously, I don't think it was even a comparison to Scorsese's work, it just hangs closely together in the fabric of my memory. A really strange memory that's been floating around in my head since hearing of the death of this former teacher.

Lots of time to work this stuff out in my head on the road.

*****

I dream in the winter

and Orion dreams with me

the city by the sea

and a twenty-six mile foot race

waiting for us in the Spring

*****

Baby girl's second birthday today. I felt guilty about being at work all day while she was at daycare, but I know she had fun there. After work, we picked her up, sent the Christmas cards out, and came home to do some cleaning for this weekend's festivities. Baby girl and I read some books, and sang some songs.

Since she was born, I've really been aching to be able to feel like we're able to communicate, and that communication skill is developing more and more, as I'm able to get on her level now, encourage her to focus, and give her choices of things. We're able to breathe through frustrating moments, and move on to other things. It's pretty cool and I'm having so much fun.