Livin the dream

I have many regrets in my life and one of the biggest is the decision I made back when I was 9 years old to refuse the school band teacher's assignment for me to play the drums and instead force my parents buy me a flute so that I could take the class. An aside - who the hell lets a 9 year old make life altering decisions anyway? As a member of the army known as the flute section of pretty much every school and city band or orchestra in my youth, there was many a time when someone from my section was called upon to play one of the myriad of 'auxiliary percussion' instruments. I was at least smart enough to be the first to volunteer to pinch hit every time. Consequently, I have had the pleasure of playing cymbals, gong, timpani, bells, bass drum and even one time the back of a chair on stage at Massey Hall and Roy Thompson Hall (2 major venues in Toronto).

There are songs I LOVE I could no longer listen to because the feeling of needing to crawl out of my skin because I could not play them on the drums was too overwhelming. When I moved into my own home, I thought that it would be nice to have a set of drums but it was much more of a concept than an actual plan. For 11 years I have imagined and wondered and daydreamed about having a drum set. I am a girl with a percussion fetish, my 2 favourite words in the English language are 'percuss' and 'reverberate'.

As of today I do not have to wonder anymore, I now own (and after 4 hours of hard work, have assembled) a drum set. I have been trying to either talk myself out of wanting or into buying one for 11 years and after having the chance to play someone else's a couple of months ago - it got me really thinking about what it was that was stopping me. Then, 2 weeks ago while I was fast asleep and dreaming - in my dream appeared Levon Helm - and he said "Stop whining and get your bloody drums", and so I did. Who am I to mess with Levon Helm? It is by far the most ridiculous thing I have ever done in my life and it is AWESOME. My life was not complete until I owned a kick drum. Please don't get the impression I think I can actually play , I'm awful, I suck more than a vacuum - but today has been the best day of my life thus far and I'm having a blast trying!

I would highly recommend that everyone live their dream - it rocks!