Hippydan's Heaven

I've been having a very intense self-discovery journey for the last few weeks and it has been so overwhelming, that I haven't written anything about it since it started. I've finally gotten around to writing the post I promised on facebook about my weekend in Hippydan's heaven.

The journey started when my brother asked if I wanted to go to a convention in Frankfurt with him. He has a friend who works at the Frankfurt Convention Center which how we ended up with special tickets to the International Music Convention. The tickets allowed us to go a day before it opened to the general public and my brother's friend gave us a private tour of the press area, the VIP area, the offices etc. Next we went all over the convention and tried one instrument after another, many of them expensive high quality instruments from all over the world. We listened to several groups playing here and there between music booths and watched a few bands.

The convention is the largest in the world with 6 or 7 large exhibition halls. I kept imagining Dan there. I can't really think of an event he would have rather attended than VIP day at the world's largest music convention. I felt little pangs of sadness because a couple of times I was so entranced by all the sounds around me that I thought I was there with Dan. My mind transported me back to happy times of Dan and I playing instruments together, enjoying life, before our relationship turned into a nightmare. Once or twice I turned towards my brother, for a split second thinking he was Dan, thinking how awesome it was that the two of us got to experience this together, feeling excited about how much Dan was enjoying himself.

Most of time I, though, I felt excitement for myself, that I was able to take part in the world of music again and actually enjoy music, unlike I had in recent years. I wished Dan could see me, see, that I never actually hated music even though I kept saying I did, but that it was our unhappy relationship and the different way he and I experienced music that was giving me a hard time. I was proud of myself for picking up instruments I didn't know how to play without succumbing to the fear of criticism. When we were together I didn't want to learn new instruments because I felt defeated in advance. Dan was always a faster learner than I and an impatient teacher. Now I felt free to mess around at my own pace, in my own way, producing terrible sounds, and having fun.

I enjoyed being free to roam without the pressure of placing Dan's interests over mine. I passed by the bagpipes without even stopping and grinned. If Dan had been there, I would have been stuck at the bagpipe booth, bored out of my mind. I played a giant flute, tried getting a sound out of an oboe, tormented other visitors by "playing" a trumpet, ran up and down the length of huge marimba sets, and banged on tie-dyed skinned drums and random percussion instruments. Later in the day I met a group of Americans who were stoked to find me as a translator. They cheered and raised their glasses for a toast when they heard I was recently divorced. "Good for you" and "well done" they shouted and I laughed heartily; I'd never expected to be listening to a whole group of strangers shouting in celebration over my divorce. Heads turned everywhere to find out what was up with the Americans but the collection of empty and half empty beer mugs seemed explanation enough to our German audience.

When I left the convention I felt like I had recovered a piece of myself, the part of me that has a genuine interest in music. I had lost that part in my relationship with Dan. It had been drowned by his obsession with music and gotten lost the moment I gave up on trying to force my interest into matching Dan's fascination. It is true that Dan would have enjoyed the convention a hundred times more than I did. He would have been in heaven, and while I had a good time, I realized I would always enjoy visiting Hippydan's heaven much more than I thought I would. But it was not my heaven.

The next day I visited another part of Hippydan's heaven, the medieval market at "my" castle, the Ronneburg, close to my hometown. Memories of Dan and I playing on the castle grounds rushed through me. When a medieval bagpipe band performed Douce Dame Jouliet, Spielmann's Tanz, Skudrinka, Platerspiel, and so many other songs Dan and I had played together over the years, a wave of tears rushed to my eyes. This should have been us playing the newly built stage on the castle grounds. It should have been us climbing the re-opened tower, sampling dried organic fruits together, and picking out amazing homemade incense. Dan would have so loved it there and I would have been so proud to show him around "my" castle once again.

But that moment of sadness passed and I felt stronger afterwards. I sat down to watch the band play, humming along with tunes I knew so well, noting how they interpreted certain parts differently, munching on fruit and breathing in the long forgotten scents a medieval market mixing with the musk of the ancient fortress. This, too, was a part of me. I felt that a part of me was at home here. I was wrong in thinking I hated medieval faires. I only hated how Dan experienced then and how I felt I had to experience them, too, I hated needing to make a living off of them. And most of all I hated being a part of Dan drawing energy from the crowds to fill his ego with their applause and admiration. I realized that I would enjoy participating in the medieval scene again, even entertaining people again, so long as I did not get sucked into the dependency connection Dan would always establish with his audience.

I smiled when I realized that the pain of missing Dan was giving way to my own joy at being here. This was not my heaven, but it was a part of me nonetheless, and I enjoyed being here. At one point I met one of the staff members of the castle. She had heard that I played music at Renaissance Faires in the US and invited me to join their inner circle anytime, after hours, at any event. I wasn't actively looking for an "in", but the thought of getting involved with the medieval scene and hanging around a bonfire within the castle grounds had crossed my mind. The atmosphere on the Ronneburg touched me deep inside, the mixture of ancient buildings and the memories those walls held gave a depth to the festivities that made them seem so meaningful, so pregnant with history and heritage. Not only had I found another piece of myself, I had also been welcomed into a new tribe.

As if those 2 events were not enough, I spent sunday in yet another part of Hippydan's heaven, and again I recovered a part of myself. The Irish band I joined last month had its first performance. We were going to play at a Christian event, something similar to a Billy Graham Tent Revival. The church we were supposed to play at is the church Dan and I used to attend whenever we were in Germany. The songs we were playing were almost all cover tunes from The Crossing, a Christian celtic band that used to be Dan's favorite band. When Dan and I met Dan was learning one Crossing song after another and once we started playing music together we became somewhat of an unofficial Crossing cover band.

And now I was playing Crossing songs once again, with an all new group, performing at a church I have known since I was young. My emotions were a tangle of confusion, especially since I had not performed music since Dan and I separated. Only weeks ago I had sworn I'd never perform music again. At least I was going to be in the background, I thought, but as soon as we started setting up we received a phone call from the bassist and singer saying his train was running very late and he would miss the gig. All eyes turned on me when the band leader expressed his concern that no one in the band was as familiar with the Crossing songs as the missing bass player - except the newcomer, Annika.

The bassist is one of the main vocalists of the band so I agreed to take over his part and sing. People must have thought I was stoned, I kept smiling, and smiling, and smiling. It was such a powerfully redemptive experience, not only was I performing again without the energy pull from the audience, without financial pressure, but I was liberated to sing when before I had always been worried about hitting bad notes. We were flooded with compliments later, but my favorite part was telling people that, no, we did not have a CDs, and no, they could not give us money for our music but they could support my friends, The Crossing, by buying their CDs. I even stayed throughout the evangelistic service without having panic triggers. I felt I had reached a new level of tolerance and reconciliation with both, this kind of Christian context, and the experience of performing in a band. I had reconciled a third part of myself to myself.

As I reflected on this weekend I kept thinking of it as "the weekend in Hippydan's heaven". I had tried to live in Hippydan's heaven before and tried to make it my heaven. The constant pressure to be more like him and less like myself had turned Hippydan's heaven into my purgatory, purging me of whatever joy I had had. Now I had stepped back into that place, knowing full well that it had never been and could never be my heaven, but also that it was no longer my hell. The parts of my soul I had lost were freed from purgatory, freed to melt into me again and give me wholeness in this life.