I need to preface this blog entry by stating that I love Sister Hazel and I love their music.  Now that I’ve put that out there, please hold on to that statement as we will be coming back to it later on in this entry.

 

Lee and I traveled to Rome, Georgia this past weekend to watch Sister Hazel perform at the First Annual North Georgia Music Festival.  Of course, this immediately implies there will be a Second Annual North Georgia Music Festival, and Lee and I will most likely be making the 8 hour trip up I-75 again next year.  With the exception of road construction traffic and some convertible-induced sunburnage (that was for Missty), it was a great trip.

 

We stayed with our dear friend Robin in what has to be one of the loveliest homes I’ve ever seen.  Her house is not a mansion nor is it echoing with square footage.  Her house, plain and simply, is a home.  It’s welcoming and inviting and screams with comforting familiarity.  It is, in every sense of the phrase, a reflection of the wonderful and beautiful woman who lives in it.

 

We arrived late in the afternoon on Friday and were greeted with the warm kisses and loving embraces of Robin and Rich.  Their story and how they got together is such a great one, but that’s a blog for another day.  It was great seeing them again, even though we had just seen them at the end of May at Isle of Palms.  Shortly after our arrival, all of our other Nutty friends began arriving as well.  Before we knew it, we had a house full of friends, coolers full of beer and the mandatory bottle of Jaeger.

 

We hung out, talked, laughed, and got caught up with each other.  We made beer runs and took turns playing with Landon, our friends’ 4 year-old son.  There was a lot of “Here, let me get that for you” and “I insist.  Take my seat.”  Lee and I were surrounded by 25 other people who just 13 months ago we didn’t know, and we felt nothing but love from them and for them.

 

Saturday morning was very much a continuation of Friday night.  Lounging and laughing.  Eating and napping (ok, maybe that was just me – but you get the idea), all in preparation to go see Sister Hazel at the music festival on Saturday night. After all, this weekend was about catching the band, and as you recall from earlier, I absolutely love Sister Hazel. The show itself rocked, and I can honestly say it was one of the most fun Hazel shows I’ve ever experienced.  It was outdoors, the weather was not bad, the crowd was not tight and aggressive, and the atmosphere was just conducive for fun.

 

We got back to Robin’s after the show, talked some more, laughed some more, drank a little more (ok, again, maybe that was just me), but overall enjoyed each other’s company some more and cherished the specialness that was that weekend.  Although no one said it out loud, it was obvious from the look on everyone’s face that no one wanted it to end.

 

As I was getting everything ready Sunday morning for our trip back to Tampa, I had one of those reflective-surreal moments.  I grabbed my bag, flipped it over my shoulder and experienced the same feelings in my gut as when I’ve traveled to stay with family and had to leave.  It’s that feeling of wishing to stay longer yet knowing you’ll be back again soon.  It’s realizing that it’s okay to go home because the host will always be there for you waiting with open arms when you come back.  The only difference is that I wasn’t staying with a family member. 

 

Yet in many ways I was staying with family.  I was sharing the weekend with a collection of individuals that maintain a unique bond that is the music of Sister Hazel.  After all the shows and all the concerts and all the road trips, for me it’s evolved to something greater than just a band out of Gainesville, Florida.  This is where my disclaimer comes in.  I love Sister Hazel and I love their music.  That being said, I know in my heart the feelings of warmth and love that defined this weekend would be there regardless of the act performing on stage.  Yes, all of us singing along together to all our favorite Hazel songs makes the experience that much better.  Watching Drew, Ryan, Ken, Jett and Mark interact on stage (okay, maybe not Mark) definitely adds to the awesomeness of the show.  Yet for me, I feel that it’s not so much about the music anymore as it is about being with family – my Hazel family – and sharing the whole event with them.

 

As I sat down to write this blog, I warned Lee I might skew blasphemous.  I like to think I did so with all do respect to the members of the band and their music.  In many ways, however, they’re the ones to blame.  When I first got into being a Hazelnut, it was about the music and the ‘fans’ and the cool things they all did together.  As my Hazelnut experience has evolved and the lyrics I’ve known by heart for years continue to take on new meaning, I feel now it truly is indeed all about the love. 

 

I love that I had the opportunity to travel with Lee this weekend and take part in such a special event.  I love that I have friends that are supportive, encouraging and beautiful people, both respectively and collectively.  I love being a part of something so special and, in many ways, so unique.  Long story short, I love my NUTS ….. and I love not needing a disclaimer for that.

I’ve spent this past week in Miami, staying at my mom’s and helping her clean out the house in which I grew up.  To give you some background, the lot on which the house sits has the main house and a guest house in the back.  My parents lived in the main house with my grandmother living in the guest house.  After both my dad and my grandmother passed away, my mom moved into the guest house due to continuing maintenance issues with the main house. It’s important to note the phrase ‘continuing maintenance issues’ is a gross understatement. 

 

The houses in this neighborhood were built in the 30’s.  They’ve withstood hurricanes and other storms, not to mention the brutal South Florida sun year after year after year.  Over time, the structural cross beams the keep the house elevated about four feet off the ground – thus creating a crawl space which was the norm at the time – have simply deteriorated and given in.  As a result, sections of the floor in the house are sunken or sloped.  My dad tried many different ways to remedy this, but after being diagnosed in 2002 all work on the house stopped. 

 

My mom maintains hopes of putting money into the house and having it renovated back to livable conditions.  So I decided to take a week off of work and come down and help her out, even just a little bit, with getting the ‘clutter’ out so the eventual restoration project can be done.  I came down knowing I would need 4 weeks in order to deal with all the clutter, junk, collectibles, and other stuff my mom has accumulated over the years, and that’s not even tackling the mini Home Depot my dad had going in his tool shed.

 

So here I am with a sore back and achy feet following four days of moving this, trashing that, cleaning this and “Don’t you dare touch those. Leave those alone!” that’s. It was hardly smooth sailing for the week.  I preface the following by saying my mom and I have an okay relationship.  However, we have never been ‘tight’ the way my dad and I were, so we tolerate each other in doses.  When it came to me trying to suggest and recommend we box up several items, the back and forth discussion turned into a back and forth shouting match.  Unfortunately, this is typical in most Cuban households.  Fortunately, it was a necessary evil that allowed us to finish all we needed to do for the rest of the week.

 

It’s as if the anxiety brought on by a sense of overwhelming, the flood of memories, and just an inundation of emotions came to a head at that one moment.  It was our own, little perfect storm.  We went to our neutral corners and resumed everything the next day.  The truths that were aired out in that highly emotional moment brought relief from the pressure building inside each of us.  It was pressure born out of frustration and from having to politely keep our mouths shut so as to not cause a problem. When we finally got a chance to release that pressure everything was better. When you stop and think about it, it’s really interesting how that dynamic works. 

 

Even though we completed about 50% of what I had envisioned in my head when I drove down Monday morning, I am happy with the work we did get done.  There is a lot of what I call ‘visual equity’ on which my mom can continue to build.  Now that she can see some headway has been made, I hope she will continue to clean up and get rid of all that ‘stuff’ we all are guilty of accumulating in our lives.  We got a lot done, but there is still so much more left to do. 

 

As for me, I return to Tampa with several boxes of family pictures, paintings and tools from my dad’s shed.  Yes, it’s more ‘stuff’ for me to deal with, but it’s stuff that is important to me.  It is memories of rowing up in a time that seemed so simple and care-free. It’s an opportunity for me to share my past with Lee.  It’s a way for me to continue to have my dad with me always. 

 

At the end of this month, it will be 11 years since I moved to Tampa.  Counting the time I spent in New Orleans, I will have lived as many years outside of Miami as I did growing up in Miami.  That number will just continue to increase as time presses on.  My heart and my home, however, will always here.  Not so much in Miami, but in the blocks and wood that make up two houses and one tool shed on a little plot of land in Dade County.  I may never physically reside in South Florida again – have you SEEN the cost of living down here? – but my emotional residence will always maintain a summer home with a 33142 ZIP code.

A fire cannot burn without fuel.  Suck out the oxygen and you suck out the life of the flame.  Don’t feed it anything flammable and the fire will slowly fade into an ember, a glowing light reminiscent of what once was.  I think the same applies to stress.  Feed it, and it will rage on with greater fury and intensity.  Conversely, if you focus on the important matters and keep the oxygen away from the ‘small stuff’, you will find the stress becomes manageable if it doesn’t flame out entirely.

 

I need to remind myself of that as I have been anything but focused lately.  My mind has been all over the place and thus I’ve been unintentionally feeding the fires in my head.  I’ve allowed myself to deviate from the central point in my being, and filled my head with worries of things over which I have no control.  I cannot control other people’s behavior. I cannot speed up time so as to quickly slide down learning curves.  I cannot allow myself to dwell on the irrationality of situations when what I really need to be doing is finding a viable solution to that condition.

 

For a self proclaimed control freak, it’s tough to just go with the flow and be comfortable continuously reacting and adapting to my surroundings.  A good friend of mine once told me that a person’s ability to adapt is directly proportional to their intelligence.  If that’s the case, I’ve been a complete idiot the last several weeks.  What really stinks is that I cannot pinpoint the root cause of this mental vagueness.  Actually I can.  It’s just not anything I want to admit.

 

I have found that my mind is like a boat adrift on the water.  Within my boat journeys my soul.  It is a passenger on the voyage of life, and the vessel for this journey is made up my thoughts, ideas, fears, etc.  For the most part, my boat manages to stay in relatively the same area all by itself.  With each gentle breeze or rolling wave that is circumstance, environment and conditions, my mind will sway to and fro and will deviate from where it needs to be.  The solution, I’ve found, is prayer. 

 

Prayer is the anchor that keeps me centered and where I need to be.  Spirituality is my North, always pointing me in the right direction.  My faith and my beliefs are grander than any GPS device.  In fact, you can argue that when trying to figure out where you are in life, GPS stands for God Prefers Spirituality.

 

I’ve been lazy with my faith lately.  I’ve been too tired to get up on time on Sunday mornings.  I’ve been neglectful to pray before meals or with my kids before they go to bed.  I’ve let silly skirmishes with friends and moronic managers at work get to me and poison my ability to relax and be at peace.  Life happens. Shit happens.  Things rarely go as planned.  There is one constant, however, on which I can always rely and which has never let me down.  Given that it lives inside all us, it’s a shame we have such a tough time finding it at times.

If you call my girlfriend’s cell phone, you’ll hear her ring back tone is ‘Seasons of Love’ from the play Rent.  It’s a beautiful song that poses a very thoughtful question.  How do we, as individuals, measure a year?   After all, we’re given the same amount of time.  Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes to be exact.  When I listen to the song, I am reminded of the many ways that value exists in our day to day.  Is it the daylights and sunsets, the midnights and cups of coffee?  For me, I measure this past year in nuts.

 

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes ago, I was sitting at home doing pretty much the same thing I am doing now.  That is coming off the high that was the Sister Hazel Hazelnut Hang at Isle of Palms.  In the year since I first came back from South Carolina following Memorial Day weekend, I can honestly tell you I’ve lived a lifetime.  I’ve met so many wonderful and exciting people, and I have created and shared so many wonderful memories with them.  It is hard to believe this has all happened in only one year.

 

It is also hard to believe that I am surrounded by such loving and amazing individuals.  To say I am fortunate would be a gross understatement.  This time last year, I was just learning MySpace and was struggling to get a profile created.  Now I have close to 200 friends, the vast majority of which are individuals I have met through the Hazelnut community.   From friends I have yet to meet in person, to friends I’ve met once and with whom I remain in contact, to friends I communicate with regularly, I can honestly say that my life is filled with their love, generosity and graciousness. 

 

What truly astounds me is the strength and depth that exists with some of these closest friends.  Individuals who only one year ago I had just finished meeting and was having a tough time keeping names with faces.  We have grown together through ice cream socials, barbeques, road trip, hospital visits, and, of course, concerts.  We have shared secrets and confided in each other.  We have celebrated birthdays and mourned the passing of loved ones.  It has been true and real and cemented in a foundation of love and hope.  The same love and hope that resonates in the music of the band we all mutually share and love.

 

Like so many precious things in one’s life, it’s often difficult to go back and recall what is was like before I met all my nutty friends.  The individual bonds that exist create a collective web of support that feels so comfortable and familiar; I cannot imagine a life without it.  It’s as if a mighty Banyan tree grew exponentially, its roots taking hold quickly and strong.  Its branches reach up and out and clearly extend well above the other trees of friendship that existed before this one was born.  It is the landmark in my field of life.

 

I measure this past year in the number of smiles I have shared with these wonderful people.  I measure it by the memories that exist and the excitement generated by the idea of more to come.  I recognize that from the outside looking in, it may be difficult to understand.  Some would even say my association with this collection of music fans is borderline crazy.  I am happy to quickly correct and tell them it’s not crazy, just NUTS.