There are days in life where we plead for a do-over. This does not indicate a bad day, an embarassing day, or any other supposed connotation. Just a chance to do everything one more time, or change little things here or there.
I want yesterday back.
I want to sleep in late and wake up in our New York hotel, creep quietly through my hungover / passed out band-mates to find clothes, and head out on a Manhattan morning for a leisurely walk down 7th avenue, stopping in the deli for soda, the bakery across the street for a muffin. I want to make my way through the tourists, languages mixing delicately with each other, watch a parade of blazer-clad young school boys walk well-mannered in two straight lines following their chaperones, the glint in their eyes of innocent wonder and excitement giving away their desire to breakfree from their prep-school constraints.
I want to sling my sax case over my shoulder and head around the block to play a show in front of a 2800 seat sold out house, feel the grove with the boys on stage and hear the roar of that crowd, watch their smiles and nodding heads as we play, hear my sound reverberate through the house.
I want to be all sweaty after pouring out the last little bit of rhythm I have in me.
I don’t want a friend of our agent’s to tell me to work on my “stick flare” as I play the drums.
I want to ride subways to the East Village, meander through neighborhoods with someone who knows the place, where I don’t need to pull out a map. I want to make puppets in a workshop converted from an old commercial kitchen, watching fish, crocodiles, and leopards taking form out of foam, fabric, papier mache.
I don’t want to act like a dope in front of the one who runs the puppet shop, who I had slightly known five years ago.
I want to ride the train to Brooklyn, and emerge onto a neighborhood that looks like one I’d dig hanging out in.
I don’t want to make a lame joke that it looks like the Cosby Show street.
I want to happen upon a little hole-in-the-wall bar, filled with people crowded in the backroom listening to a jazz combo, the upbeat quazi latin rhythms awakening my rhythm reserve in my left elbow, letting the music wash over me, the combination of music and beer fueling a night of animated conversation with friends, the low-lit bar hiding the redness of my face from the copious amounts of beligian beer I was consuming.
I want to meander the streets, taking in the sites, marveling that somewhere in New York it is actually possible to see stars.
I want to catch a cab and drive across the Brooklyn Bridge back to the hotel, the fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline sillouetted against the dark sky rising in front of me.
I don’t want to somewhere along the lines lose a full, unopened back of smokes forcing me to pay an exorbitant amont for a new one.
But I can’t have a do-over of a beautiful day. All I can do is try hard not to forget the moments.
