Week 18: Beginnings 
‘And suddenly you know…it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings.’ I’ve only been African drumming for a month now (every Monday night at 6pm for an hour) and I have had the pleasure of performing to an audience just after two weeks of practice. I know the video of us performing a song on the night isn’t technically a photo but I thought I’d share it with this entry. I’m 3rd from the left 😄 I won’t lie, I was scared at the concert but it was an excitable butterfly feeling inside of me just like the feeling I got when I was a little girl getting her first ride on a merry-go-round. You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, just like the first time I slapped my first base and tone on the drum. My teacher said she witnessed that smile on my face when I first made music – she thought to herself ‘she’s hooked.’ And I was! I’ve always found that when I listened to particular instruments and songs an inner stirring of rhythm comes to life and it makes me feel, either physically by dancing, clapping, tapping my toes or swaying my body or emotionally by laughing, smiling, singing, humming and crying. I drum with several ladies who like myself have lost a child and we all belong to our local chapter of the compassionate friends group. We now play our beat on our drums in unison for our children in the hope they can hear, feel and see us all connecting together. I know in my heart that Jacob hears me play for him. I might lose the rhythm and beat the drum out of time but that’s what happens in the beginning. It’s the journey of the learning in the beginning makes it magical. Then one day you’ll look back at how far you’ve come and you can trust your ideas that learning African drumming was a wonderful idea. 

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