This is the 4th in the series of Fluck Tuesdays.
Inspired by Oliver Fluck’s “Making Music.”
Photo courtesy of Oliver Fluck.
“Why do I have to know about Baba in order to understand your music?”
“You don’t have to understand it. And it’s not–my music. It’s music. You don’t own music,” he replied.
He scanned Odia’s long unshaven legs, host to a suntan which highlighted her two bright Kokopelli tattoos, one on each ankle. He wanted to let her go, recycle her back to the Universe, out of his life. Yet she was balm for his reactions to the world, relief for windburned astringent feelings.
“Don’t look at my legs,” she said childishly, “I need to shave.” She grabbed the tattered white blanket over her legs and propped herself against the headboard of his bed.
“Babatunde Olatunji–Baba–was a virtuoso of West African percussion. His 1959 album ‘Drums of Passion’ was a worldwide sensation, a global hit. He received a Grammy Award in 1991 for his collaboration with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart on their Planet Drum album. He is percussion.”
“Can you toss over that pillow instead?” she asked.
Six months with her and he was already reminiscing about their beginning; he wasn’t aware though that this always marked the onset of the end of his relationships.
There is a drum circle on Sundays at Venice Beach in Los Angeles. The orchestration is self-arising. This time it began with one guy and his Tibetan bells and then within minutes the other drummers formed a circle. The percussion sounds challenge the ocean waves in the background for a rhythm. People come and watch and then pass on by. Some Sundays the crowd is intense but small. Other Sundays, despite the overcast sky, the pulsating vibrations are airborne above the boardwalk in a tempo which attracts a congregation. No one can resist drums.
He recalled Odia staring at him on that particular Sunday when they first met. As a performer he was used to entranced looks. He mistook Odia’s desire for him for the music he created. He was certain she could feel the music beyond the swayskip-bouncehop-tripbop in the hips which the magnetic beats compelled.
He told her that very night he met her that he was in love with her. She was genuinely impressed that he knew so much about music and that too drums. She was a regular at all the local spots where small overcrowded spaces boomed eclectic global sounds.
“Okay fine, Babatunde is AWESOME. But I still want you more. So come back here. I get scared that you are going to leave me when you get ‘discovered’ when you start talking about music like that.”
“I fell in love with you because I thought you felt music like I do,” he said calmly. He hesitated to get off the couch. From where he was seated he could just examine her as if she was a painting hanging on someone’s wall in a corridor. “I read an article once which said that if you say I love because it is not really love. That love just is,” he continued cautiously.
“What are you saying?’ she asked quickly as she sat up, alert, away from the headboard. “You don’t love me because you think I don’t understand your music?”
“It’s not my music,” he repeated. “I am not going to get ‘discovered’ like you think I should because I am good or maybe you think that’s what I want. Because I don’t. I don’t want that. I just play to understand energy. Energy of everything around. You know,” he continued.
“This understanding of ‘not-my-music’ is not going to pay bills or advance your career,” Odia pointed out without intending to hurt him.
“There is no career, Odia. I just create music,” he said, withholding the lurking thought: didn’t have to worry about money before budgeting your nightlife.
“Talk about this after we go out tonight to that show at Zanzibar?” She stated rather than asked since she was already on her way to his turquoise tiled bathroom. “Besides, you can still create music, just not on the streets you know?”
Odia twirled with a head full of thoughts in the shower: how they would return after the night out to make love like many nights before, while listening to some soft drums from Mali or Benin in the background, and he would say what he always said before falling asleep, love is like making music, and fall asleep wrapped around her. They would be fine, she decided.
She didn’t know then that she loved how he loved music more than she loved him.
“It’s not the streets,” he said to no one.
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Wonderful: reminded me of memories of Kokopelli dolls in Sante Fe but more pointedly of 5 drummers playing in plaza in Berkeley California in early seventies-their drumming was mesmeric but i was alone, broke and sad watching a girl nearby flicking through notes;I felt I could not possibly approach this girl that the music was a bond which linked us together and as long as the music continued i would be happy;I had totally forgotten about this experience until I read your fine article;Thanks for reprising the music+the memory!
Love this Fluck Tuesday…and Babatunde too!
He is thinking about the beginning of their meeting, which heralds their ending. She thinks they will be fine.
No real love for each other. Just tenuous sounds of music being the glue for the moment.
Wonderful.
You capture the people and life in the drum circle well. I like the way you bring in the flashback, it feels smooth and magical.
I’m cheering for Babatunde to break up soon and find someone who deserves his musical soul better, and his budget! heh
Great piece Annie. I felt a great connection with him, although you made me understand Odia’s view well too.