Fasting, reflections, etc....

Right now I'm on the third day of a water fast. I always thought about doing it but never had the nerve to do it until recently (check out the previous blog postings to see what I have been dealing with throughout December.) Before I attempted to fast I researched it on the Web as thoroughly as possible, and I was impressed by the benefits that many water fasters claimed to receive. I feel a lot of physical, mental, and emotional toxic waste coming out, and believe me it's rough. But I feel that the fast will be well worth it in the long run, so I'm just standing strong.

The mental and emotional toxic waste that is being cleansed out of my system was the main reason why I chose to fast in the first place. Recently a close friend that I care about a lot has basically drifted off all of a sudden with no initial explanation. After numerous attempts to contact the friend just to see what was up, I began to become really frustrated. When I finally got in contact, we got into an argument and the friend accused me of intruding on h** life. Being a stubborn person who has learned after many extreme trials in life to be empathic to others, I felt as if that friend was putting up a shield around h** heart and just up and abandoned h** own personal goals just to cater to the goals that others had for h**.

I'm blessed (or cursed, depending on who's judging) when it comes to really listening to people I'm close to. I basically remember a lot of things, and at first I used to call someone out to spite them when they contradict themselves. Now I learned to listen even deeper, and the things I listen to now are not just the words but everything else underneath (including the person's shortcomings, intentions, and etc.) During our entire friendship my friend and I have shared our issues and passions and because of this I felt for the first time in my life that there was someone out there besides some family members who was willing to get beneath the surface and see the real Donald Crawford. I'm not the type of person who has a lot of close friends and believe that even having just one close friend is worth more than having several flaky cats around who tries to use you to benefit their ego.

Anyway, I wish the best for my friend but really hope that my friend doesn't continue to mistake me shooting flowers at h** heart for arrows. Yes my friend is supposedly happy now (at the expense of a lot of things that I won't get into besides what was already mentioned), but I keep forgetting that yes we are all human. I'm happy for my friend's being, but my stubborn side forbids me to be passive about my friend being fooled into thinking that sacrificing h** own self-reliance in order to follow other people around is the way to go.

But time will tell. I know it's wishful thinking, but I can see us becoming closer after this phase goes away (and hopefully it will.) Maybe this abandonment is my friend's idea of fasting in order to return to what really matters. If this is true, then I can give 100% support.

to be continued........

A common quote I hear a lot concerning the discussion of music....

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

Actually to me dancing about architecture (or anything for that matter) might be a cool and unique hobby if it's done once in a while.  But the bottom line is the music..........

God, living in the moment, etc...

This is something that has been on my mind recently. It's basically a rant, but I really feel that it has to be addressed.

I'm not the type of person who feels that I have to prove my belief in God by constantly repeating it out loud for attention. I rather live about God than talk about God, and every single thing I do in life (at least as a mature adult) is based on nonstop communication with the higher power. Whether things are going well or not in life is not the point; I rejoice being able to have the free will to mindfully live in the moment.

One of the hardest lessons I've had in life was to break out of putting God at a distance from so-called reality. I used to see the belief in God as a guilty pleasure that is to be enjoyed only when I'm not wrapped in "ungodly" vices. This caused an ambivalence in my faith; God was good as long as I was materialistically happy but nonexistent when things weren't satisfying my ego.

When I was younger, I had to face a whole lot of obstacles that used to make me embittered. And all this time I would hear from different folks about how God has blessed them with a good house, good clothes to show off in while in church, and etc. Rarely did I hear about how someone who still believed in themselves and persevered through any hardship that came their way. My mother was such a person; she would face enormous financial difficulties while trying to take care of a very opinionated teenage son. She would give her all into raising me by herself while working so hard with nothing to show for it except for frustration and a sore body. She was a very giving person; she would even donate whatever money she had to the the most selfish people around if those people whined hard enough. I used to really question this, and looking back I used to wonder for a minute how anyone could persevere when it seemed that every rock, boulder, brick, or whatever came rolling downhill at us as we tried to make our way uphill.

Now I see what's up. I realized that God didn't put human beings on Earth to snap their fingers and expect to have any desire fulfilled. Each and every one of us have unique experiences in our lives that causes us to travel down various paths. Those paths and the problems that may come along with each one along the way are meant to reward the traveler in the long run. A lot of people (especially my mother) are blessed simply because they refused to give up and continued to push on despite the odds.

As a teenager I used to face my own battles and used to expect God to automatically solve them without doing anything I was meant to do as a human be-ing. When I snapped my fingers and found myself still struggling, I would just give up easily. These situations happened so much that I would actually snap and would wish ill will on every single person living on Earth at the moment (including me.) I found that violent daydreams was an escape from a reality that I refused to see.

The actual breaking point for me is when I dropped out of college for a couple of years to work full-time to help my mother pay the bills (we were struggling at our hardest at this time, with ZERO support from relatives and so-called friends.) I originally decided to go to college because I felt that all I needed was a degree to validate my existence, and the money, a nice car, a hot woman, and a rep from having all of these things would come easily because of that degree. So I was already unhappy, but working fulltime as a mail clerk didn't help any (though it did offset a lot of financial difficulties and allowed me to buy my first keyboard - a Yamaha PSR-330.) I didn't know that this keyboard would really open myself up to the world, and for the first time in a while I felt a happiness that extended beyond the satisfaction of my ego.

Like I said earlier, every person has their own path in life that may cause them to take many detours, twists, turns, and etc. Because there are so many people in the world traveling at the same time, many of those paths cross. We meet people from various backgrounds with various dreams who influence us. Once I became involved in Jazz, I began to make powerful connections with many positive folks (even though I still to this day try to stay away from people who intentionally feeds me negative energy.)

Jazz (at least to me) is something that first and foremost is about being mindfully in the moment. The actual study of Jazz ended up spreading throughout all aspects of my life, and now I live and breathe 24/7/365 through good and bad situations. I'm a human be-ing first and a human do-er second, which means that I feel blessed to be able to maintain my overall health through everything and to be able to express myself and share my talents with the world. That's the "be-ing" part, and the "do-ing" part involves the politics involved with dealing with a mostly materialistic society (I always heard the saying that the music business is 10% talent and 90% B.S. - I mean business.)

P.S. -
I'll let the social chameleon-type friends in my life repeat God's name out loud just because they mistakenly believe that having their egos satisfied will guarantee overall happiness. As the old saying goes, God don't like ugly. Although I (and possibly others who truly care) are being shunned at the moment I'll still be around to catch you when you come crashing down from your euphoric state.

A nice quote - to whom it may concern

Those that go searching for love, only manifest their own lovelessness. And the loveless never find love, only the loving find love. And they never have to seek for it. - H. Lawrence

Think about it. Peace......

Dealing with death, friends, etc...

On July 9th of this year I lost my mother in a road accident. Right before this happened I took part in a play about Billie Holiday, playing pianist Jimmy Powers in Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill. This was the first time since elementary school that I was involved in an acting performance, and although I had to get used to the heavy rehearsals, the result was a very enriching experience. This took place throughout the latter part of June.

The weird thing about this was that Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill took place at Sycamore Square in Petersburg, and I had to drive back and forth daily for the rehearsals for a while (and three times a week while the play was going on.) Because of this, the Ford Explorer that I was used to driving all the time wasn't going to cut it based on the wear-and-tear of it. I drove this around when I had local gigs, but I would drive my mother's Ford Escape when I had to go out of town. So I ended up driving the Escape while Ma took the Explorer.

The play lasted right until the end of June, and I was planning to rest for a couple of weeks before attempting to work on other projects. I was blessed to have a mother who appreciated the hard and mindful work I put into things because she understood that I valued my happiness, which includes (but is not limited to) happiness for self , for close family and friends, and others that I may directly or indirectly make a positive impact on. On that particular night, as Ma left to go to the grocery store, we had a brief but mindful conversation about what she was going to buy. We said goodbye to each other, and she left the house.

About an hour later I hear a knock on the door. Thinking that it was Ma (she usually would knock if she had a lot of grocery bags), I opened the door only to see two unfamiliar faces asking to come in to speak to me. They said that they were from the Richmond Sheriff's Office and I told them that my mother worked there. They mentioned that they knew that and wanted to speak with me. I told them to wait a second and ran upstairs to call Ma on her cellphone. It was no answer, so I started to prepare for the worst.

And prepare for the worst I did. Next thing I knew I was in a state of no emotion. No sadness because of the initial shock, no anger towards the responsible party who eyewitnesses said was totally responsible for speeding through that red light, nothing. At my age I began to value the lives of those that I'm close to and would cherish their presence in my life because physical lives could be lost at any moment. And for the very first time someone that had an extremely huge presence in my life was gone.

Now it's December, a month full of holidays and my birthday. This was the first time that I celebrated Christmas and my birthday without my mother being physically present. I'm still grieving, and I was told that the grieving will never go away and it's never constant. The euphoria of knowing that my mother is in a better place looking at me carry on with my life contrasts with me constantly reliving the night of July 9 all over again. Many people commend me for being stronger than they could ever be if they had to face the unexpected passing of a loved one, and I appreciate all the condolences and words of inspiration.

The result of my grieving is that I'm now even more passionate about what matters to me in life. That includes being more mindful in living each second in the moment, expanding my music career, and deeply connecting with current friends and family. I still have to understand that some of my closest friends haven't really had the experience of losing of a loved one, and sometimes I would mistake their naivete for being cold and distant. Being mindful and open at the same time is easier said than done, and the truth is that many folks have an extremely hard time being empathic with an experience that they never had to face. It's just about me keeping my calmness and understanding of the other person's views, shortcomings, and etc. We are all human who live and learn.

Maybe I'm a lone wolf when it comes to trying to be way more open than I ever was, but as long as I stay mindful on everything I do, I'll walk that path.

First post (second arrival on Blogspot)

Sup everybody I'm from Richmond, Virginia and am really into mindfully living each second to the fullest. The best outlet for me to express the overall spectrum of life as I see it is through music (I'm a jazz pianist/composer.) But I'll attempt to break down what I'm basically about in words:

I'm a lone wolf who enjoys communicating with others on a deep level. I chill 24/7/365 and finds joy in giving 110% to everything I do. To me, giving my all to anything I focus on (whether it's my career, dealing with close friends, or whatever) means giving my all to myself. I'm a calm person who embraces the storm brewing underneath instead of suppressing it. I prefer happiness outside of the material and sensual world though I'm cool with rejoicing in whatever material and sensual pleasures may come my way.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, so stay tuned.......