Listen, I know that when I tell people that there are certain moments where certain things from wholly disparate sources converge in my life at the same time — let’s call them… oh, I don’t know, maybe capital “s” Signs — I may sound a bit nutty. But I tell you, it happens.
I haven’t written down each instance of it, so I get it may sound dubious, but let me run the most recent instance by you and you tell me what you think:
I’ve been a hobby drummer since I was in early grade school, probably around 10 years old (in fact, it just occurs to me as I write this that somewhere there’s a Polaroid photo of me with arms reached out to gesture to my new, somewhat scaled down but still genuinely real drum set that I’d wager was a tenth birthday gift for me). Some friends and I put together a (literal) basement band and played at my place for years. As newer, full-sized drums eventually entered the picture, we kept playing for a stretch before ultimately going to different high schools proved a bridge too far to hold things together.
I missed playing with them, and I still do.
Jump way ahead to my 50th birthday, and my now wife in our now house (a lot can change in a couple of decades… did I mention being a dad for over a decade by that point?) went in with my father and got me a new set of drums. Electric drums. You can still hear the sticks whacking the on the sensor heads (think tight knitted plastic) and hitting the hard plastic of the high hat and cymbals, but it’s nowhere near as loud as classic, acoustic drums, so our neighbours don’t hate me. Electric drums allow me to play with headphones plugged into the set computer, which completes the drum sound. In fact many, many drum sounds. But the point is, I could finally play drums again.
I was back, baby!
This of course led to missing playing with other people, though. So while I have no clue how I’d manage making the time to do it, the idea of playing in a band was back, as well. And that’s been the case for years.
Let’s now jump ahead to a few days ago, ahead of the annual Grilled Cheese Challenge, and I saw a promo for it that informed people that the Challenge this year would feature a band called Dadmotorfinger (as a longtime Soundgarden fan, this was very amusing to me: Soundgarden’s probably best known album is called Badmotorfinger). And I thought… huh… here again, more dads getting together to play in a band. For people, no less. I wonder if there’s still any chance that it could maybe, possibly work to try to put one together to just hack around a bit?
So yesterday I’m standing in line for a grilled cheese sandwich at the tent of one of the grilled cheese challengers — this genuinely is a judged challenge — offering up some pretty tasty sounding options. And a band is playing a stone’s throw away. Perhaps Dadmotorfinger themselves? Not sure. Point being, they were playing some 80s covers. And the dad who’s waiting in line right in front of me starts half-lip-syncing but half-real singing at his teen son who’s standing with him. He’s doing the whole “singing into your fist as if you’re holding a mic” routine, passionately belting out the lyrics as the band plays. His son studiously ignored him and was flipping around on his phone, instead. But anyway…
I was struck suddenly, and for the first time ever, to just ask his guy out of the blue if he wanted to start a band together.
I fought the urge hard, though. Because what kind of psychopath waiting in line for a grilled cheese just asks you to join a band? I squeeze down the urge to say anything. Shortly after, they get their sandwiches and they leave.
Then today (allegedly totally disconnected from all that) was a going away party for friends at the top of our block, because they decided to sell their home here and move to London, Ontario, instead, to be closer to his family. Weeks back they invited everyone they knew in the neighbourhood to drop by and say Hi and hang and have some drinks and catered food.
I was able to squeeze in a visit after my work shift, and ran into a friendly guy from up the street who I know even better than them. Our dogs are friends, but we’ve never really hung out aside from quick chats as our dogs meet when Radar and I are returning from our morning walk and he and his doggo are just heading out. So he’s at the house party and we meet and get chatting in more depth. And not only is he in a line of work that overlaps the kind of work I’ve done and would do again (a great connection to have in and of itself), but it turns out that he… you probably guessed it… plays in a band. Now, they aren’t looking for a new member, or anything, but it was a weird continuation of the recent days of thinking hard about playing in a band again.
And then as a topper, it turns out that our nearby dog trainer, who’s become a friend of ours, just recently started learning to play the drums, and has a kit in her basement.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that under a week of a) happening to see a promo for a band of dads, b) having an unprecedented, very strong urge to make a band with a total stranger because he seemed to maybe know how to possibly sing, c) finding out that a friend I’ve known casually for a couple of years turns out to be in a band, and d) that our dog training friend is just starting to learn drums… is more than mere coincidence.
That’s the kind of experience I’ve had again and again, regarding things related to very specific events currently happening in my life, but not sought our or focused on by me. This is not like me liking red and suddenly seeing red cars everywhere because of the lens I’m seeing things through. This is something in my life that a new poster promo I happened to see touches on, that a total stranger right in front of me touches on, that a friend up the street touches on, and that another friend touches on.
Tell me that’s totally normal. Tell me that’s just pure coincidence.
Go on. I’ll wait.