It's Just Like the Bronx...

Right now I'm so homesick for the Bronx that I can't hardly stand to see pictures of New York City without getting teary eyed...
It's so funny, when I was younger I had such loathing for life in the Bronx, and everything in it. I hated my dialect, I hated my school, and I longed to be from somewhere else. Nothing prepared me for how I now feel. When I was growing up I played music much like I'm doing these days and I was involved in the music scene in much the same way that I am here, but I didn't realize that I was getting the same support then that I am now. I didn't realize that the people of the Bronx as it were, gave me the same kind of life lessons that Daniel LaRusso got from Mr.Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie series; you remember..."wax on, wax off."
There was a scene in the first movie where Mr.Miyagi was explaining to Daniel who was enthralled by the Bonsai trees to trim the tree by "closing your eyes, and just trusting the picture." The inference here was to believe in your abilities enough to, 1.see that everything in your life has the same beauty if you work toward the trust of it, and 2.in the same way that Allah's (God's) aim is to create balance and constancy in our lives, those standpoints can be utilized anywhere, but you have to believe that it can and does exist ("just trust the picture...")
One time I took my wife to New York, and we were driving up Webster Ave in the South Bronx, the street was terrible, our car was just going along bumpity bump THUMP!! Vickie looked over at me and said " are all the streets this way ?" Then she said, I can see why you love Charleston so much, it's just like the Bronx !! Of course, we had a good laugh, but my point here is that close your eyes and you can transplant that situation anywhere.
The reality is that everything is relatively the same, and for all my desires to "escape" the Bronx, I learned that running away doesn't help because you have to take yourself along.
Despite my current bout with terrible homesickness, I love it here in West Virginia and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I will use it to launch me from this spot to the world because hey...it's just like the Bronx.

Support Live music today tomorrow and always and you'll find that the grass is greenest wherever you are.