Where was I… oh yeah! I left my therapist numb and my entire being knew that this was the final straw. I began to plan my inevitable departure from America. This was a very intense period, almost a total blur to me. Going to pioneering institutes, meeting Baha’i friends that have pioneered or wished to do so each giving me advise, material support and even traveling gear and of course lots of prayers and blessings for my future trip. Finally I gave my 2 weeks notice at work, sold my CD collection (over 500 CDs, which was a big deal for me) and finally my car.
Music was my life. From my job at Tower Records to my music production major and of course managing various acts ranging from techno pop, to alternative rock, to pop/R&B to just plain bad pop. But over time fame being that illusive thing she is wore me down, I was already getting impatient after 8 years of being involved in music 24/7. With one of my bands “American Dream” leaving me and signing an Interscope Record deal as the band “Cola” and my other band Yuska’s closest brush at success was sharing the same practice studios as the Himalayans (the Adam Duritz group before he went off and started Counting Crows) I was realizing that something wasn’t right. There was more to my life than the ephemeral life of entertainment. I had another destiny calling for me (About my exploits in the Baha’i teaching project in 1993, I’ll save that for another post, suffice it to say that this 8 month experience was the catalyst for leaving America for good…).
I remember that one moment as I drove down from Sebastopol to San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge in April with “Mayonaise” by the Smashing Pumpkins blaring and taking in the city in all its splendor for what seemed to be the last time. This was one of the most memorable drives of my eintire life, a peak experience as they call it. It was then that I realized I was leaving my youth – that San Francisco State University music production graduate that wanted to become a music talent manager so badly as he tried to fit into the local music scene. That boy-man who lived on the outer most edge of the Western world inhabiting a space in between a worldly fetish/fantasy of being immersed in the center of the SF music scene, with the diploma to prove it, and at the same time soaring in the spiritual realm following the idealist visionary of the Founder of the Baha’i Faith yearning so bad to place the Revelation of that great Personage into the hearts and minds of the people opened to the prospect of unity of all the peoples and religions of the world… It was this boy-man who yielded himself on that April spring day to his Creator and said, “Do with me as you wish I am yours…”
With the car and the CDs sold, all my debts paid off, tickets from SF to Macau purchased I began to prepare myself. Prayer, meditation, and an intense yearning to serve mankind… Then a week before my flight at the San Francisco Baha’i Center during a 2 day youth teaching project I met Chris Willows. She gave a presentation about the Marion Jack Teaching Project IV that was going on that summer (a little under 2 months away) and that they were taking volunteers. I asked if she could get a visa to China and she said yes. I wrote a check for $80 and that was it, the process for my first Russian visa was in motion. I was ready for my trip to Asia and the Divine orchestration had given me a Chinese AND Russian visa, now I was set…
(this submission was made under the influence of a -25 Celsius Siberian friday night in December to the tune of Joseph Arthur “In the Sun” performed by Peter Gabriel and Joseph Arthur… that’s right both versions I’m in love with…)
