Step into the Light

There are experiences in life when, even as you're living them, you just know that this time will forever change you.  The important moments when you first open up to your best friend, have your first solo travel adventure, have your heart broken- where your self dissolves into this universal, transcendent vitality.  And even though you know you'll be talking about these experiences for the rest of your life, you also know the words will seem adulterated, woefully inadequate, pebbles in the ocean of what you were feeling then- growth.  Transformation.

Office for the week.  Heavy on the X-ray machines...

So, apologies for the grandiose intro, but I had one such experience last week working with 20 incarcerated men at a maximum security prison in South Carolina.  My colleagues and I received a grant to facilitate a songwriting workshop for a special community within the prison dedicated to safe, open living through communal education.  Most of these men have life sentences without parole, most of them have been behind bars for 20+ years.  They have now committed to being accountable to their cell-mates, teaching classes on any subject of which they have knowledge (from German to bee-keeping), and living without locked doors.  I have many reflections on what kind of integrity it takes to learn something new with so many hard knocks against them, but I'll save those for another post.  For now, I just want to express my gratitude that I am a musician.

It's such an arts education platitude these days, but music does truly connect people in a way that nothing else can.  In the 5 days we spent working, writing, teaching, and jamming out with these men, we got to know their personalities and life stories.  They wrote poetry which we helped them set to music and then they performed alongside us.  If only I could share all of the songs they wrote.  Unfortunately we haven't received permission to do so from the Department of Corrections, but these songs were moving, tender, and powerfully honest.  These men shared, in the action-verb sense of that word.  They were also crazy-talented.  Several of them could be gigging musicians in NYC, most of them sang quite well, and all of them learned the fundamentals of music theory in about 20 minutes.
Outside of the actual workshop, the men were collaborating in a way they had never previously.  Several of them reunited with their wives during this week after decades (!) apart.  Most of them described how optimistic they felt at the end of this week for the first time in years.  One of the most grisly, tough guys has a "poetry notebook" now.

I've never been a religious person, but our culminating concert felt like one of those ecstatic, testimony-filled Baptist church services where people cry and dance and laugh.  And we were just as moved as they were!  Yet despite the personal proclamations, the week was about music in its most nuts-and-bolts form.  Sure, it's great to make a grown man cry (well, sorta...) but it was more about the chords we used to transition to a chorus.  And it was about finding just that perfect note to sing "dream" on.

Here's the truth-iest lesson I experienced: the more you make it about the music, the more it becomes about the Big Stuff.  If you can learn and create alongside fellow musicians, while looking them in the eye and shaking their hand, you will connect in a way that seems ridiculously, overwhelmingly
human.

I will never forget these guys' generosity and willingness to trust us.  I will never forget hearing my name sung in a Boyz II Men-style thank you ballad.  I will never forget feeling so relevant.  I think this is the first time I have definitely, no-question made the world a better place through music.  Or rather, made the world a place through better music.  Also, there were some sweet hip hop French horn licks.  Holla.

I google imaged "transformation" and this came up.  Metaphors y'all.