Some people find their way in the life of the wood. That’s true. They like, designs in sands creating roads that go on and on. Drums. I sho’ love the sound of ‘em. This drummer, Hamid Drake, man his playing set something awake inside me. Me? Who am I? I s’pose you call me. . .Touched. Yeah, that’s just fine.

You ever git something in you, I mean something that travels so deep in you that it makes you see things in your past? So deep in you that you just know it came from somewhere else? I mean it has some sort of history in you? You see, it’s that thing that’s in you early, and lays inside you until that other thing, that bigger thing comes to claim it. And that bigger thing, man, it knows exactly where to find it. It’s spiritual. Yeah, that’s what it is. It’s spirits and souls. Na hol’ on. I ain’t talking about that stuff in supermarket flyers or magic balls and all that glamour stuff. I’m talking decisions. I’m talking about seeing. The kind of seeing that makes a thief become a saint, a man walk away from his family—who is in dire need of him, mind you—to write words that unleash all sorts of questions in people all over the world. Or, could be a little boy who beats some sticks together. Yeah spirits and souls. You know I never heard nobody say, “It was a wonderful thang.” You know, going through it and all. Cuz you know when they come back, them spirits, I mean. They come back something fierce. It’s all ‘bout 24hours a day or so, but mostly when you sleep or when you thinking. You know that drift-thinking some say daydreaming.

Anyway, I was talking about this drummer, Hamid. I’mo tell you, the first time I saw him play was about five years ago in Chicago at a place called the Heartland Café. I never, in my whole life—and I gotta life—seen nobody play like him, never. Never heard it. Man, I mean what I say. Never! You get me? I’mo tell you something. When he’s in his element, his solo’s, it’s like a massive earthquake happening and following, a land develops. Like all your preconceived ideas about life, they just crumble when you hit with something that just. . .changes your mind and you left with this land of your self. Then he plays slow these percussive instruments and it’s like watching smoke, rich, cumulus, gray smoke in overcast slither from a chimney. That smoke is you traveling on that land moving in all directions. Everywhere you go you design your road.

Na they got thousands of music magazines and write all kinds of articles and such on music. But I betchu can’t nobody hear nothing from them folks’ writing. Shoot, after a while, them folks d’un fell so in love with they own writing, they forgot they writing about music completely. And if you ain’t never heard the kind of music they talking about, how you gon’ hear it in all d’m adjectives? You get me? You get where I’m going with this? I can’t name stick or skin, nor can I name leaf or tree, but I. . .hear. . .them. That man play d’em drums and woo wee!

You know how the room gets dark to highlight somebody on stage? First time I saw him play, oh, I guess it was ‘bout 5 winters ago. The room didn’t get darker, d’em drums just . . .lit up. It’s not that I was scared, I was, I was just touched. But I started seeing things, you know? Mostly trees. The trees of my past unfolding like blooming yawns; real soft. The ones that always been’ere for me. See I love trees around this time; the winter time. I remember seeing them when I was little as arms. And they reached and reach and traveled so far. Just one branch traveled so far. I remembered the ones I care…ful…ly climbed in and let my arms go as far as they could. I became obsessed with this drummer’s work cuz it made me see. Everywhere he played I could get to, I’d go so I could see. Na, ain’t that the tick? I goes only where I wants. Don’t follow nobody. You get me? Nobody. But I followed d’em drums like a habit follows a love.

Them drums come from my trees. I’m city na, but I love me some trees. Don’t care for no animals and all that fairy stuff. I wouldn’t even say I get all into trees like them study folks. And I ain’t going to no school to study ‘em. You get me? But I always love me some trees. Always. Hearing that drummer, I guess I just see ‘em clearer. It wasn’t long before I started seeing other things though. Na this, this leads me to what my friends may call, Nutville. Hey, we’re in the millennium. Some things for TV, you know? Anyway, I met Atu. Na, Atu’s a woodcarver. He loves trees. He does study ‘em and gives lectures on them too. I mean like he’s a keeper or guard for them, or something like that. I mean he knows them. I met him one night when he gave a lecture at the on woodcarving. He liked the works I performed related to drums and so we talked a bit. One day we met up and drove to DuSable Park. On the way we drove around to look at trees and collect orphaned wood. Atu went into a lot of detail about why he chose certain pieces. Some he chose simply by what he heard and felt. In the DuSable Park he showed me how he listens. He danced to nothing but trees. His arms stretched out, not a direct stretch, but just like sticks making designs in sands laying down roads after them. I never forgot that dance because I heard it. You get me? I heard the music. Blessed thang to see. Sho’ was. Blessed. I remember the look on his face, his eyes closed. He had to have seen n’em. Cuz you know, later, when I heard them drums again, I did. I saw them spirits all around him.

When I’m outside or mainly in my room, boy d’m folks start filling up with they sounds. Everybody has a story, you know. I listened to a lot of ‘em. I’m talking ‘bout them spirits and souls. Now keep in mind no glamour stuff okay? For one, they not like people. You’re not sitting in chairs having heart to heart talks using the English language. Naw, it’s your rhythm. It’s your vibes. It’s the tunes of you. Some say we made up of mostly water. Naw, it’s rhythm. Trees, trees full of rhythms. And I have to keep telling you not to romanticize on what I’m saying and hear me. You know when the head ain’t ready to see something it’ll show something else. Like folks may say drums exotic or sexual or they think of tribes and rituals and such. That’s the something else they head’ll show, the glamour. But the reality could be history preserved. The richness of the music could be the care taken in picking the wood or, could be plain old respect. Na where’s the glamour in that? Ain’t that the tick. That’s a whole lot more than glamour, huh?

Well this I s’pose leads me to this whole thing. Sometimes those bigger things come back and put so much on one person or in one person, you know. I see and hear that in the drummer. I hear him and them drums make me see. Now maybe I ain’t part of they thang but somehow I got caught up in it. I don’t want it. I’m a black American. I ain’t searching for no face that ain’t mine. You get me? I love the day I met that man as much as I curse it. I tell you after fighting so much with my head I sat down to see some thangs. Like when I was a kid the trees were like my family or gypsies that I wanted to follow. They posed like questions. They did the funny poses like thinking and some of the feminine ones, you just knew. Boy they were elegant. I see them as I’m now older on Lake Shore Drive rides. Man, they a sight. Thing is, folks think you be daydreaming, but that’s not the case. For every beauty you get, you can get five times as many tragics.

I remember not the things I forgot, but reasons why I wanted to forget. Different and unique. They sound similar but man, they sho’ ain’t. Unique, folks’ll pay a big price for. Everybody want unique, but different means you ain’t right. You just ain’t right. And that can be a hard thing to go through when you a kid. You try to force out or suppress so many sounds in your head because supposedly it ain’t right to hear and talk a certain way. Thing is, all you got is feelings and vibes. You ain’t got no facts, you see. You got intuition. You got these sounds. That’s a difficult tick, you know? But folks with they need for facts, so afraid of trusting the inside. Man, it’s like show me Pain and I’ll say it can hurt. Can you really do that? I mean they feelings! You know a long time ago drums were outlawed cuz folks was afraid of ‘em. They didn’t know what they were saying when the slaves would play them, but they knew they were talking. White folks thought slaves were sending messages to one another and on how to escape or attack. You know the seed of that law sprouted into so many laws, rules and beliefs to this very day? Folks still trying to outlaw one type of language or another. And language still finding ways to come out. Shoot. I tried to mute my whole self comin’ up. My language seemed to go “against the grain” so to speak. But language, man, language gon’ always speak. Folks don’t know trees not only hold life and but so many languages. They don’t know a tree’s life span will have held thousands of people and situations, generations over and over, and that’s just us. Just us folks livin’ na, in 2002. What about everything else including suns and moons? Folks don’t know everything that goes in the wood. So if they don’t know what’s goin in the wood, how they gon’ know what’s coming out, or why?

Anyway, for me, I feel that that bigger thing that came back to be claimed was. . . Right. Right to speak. That’s what came back for me. I feel it by way language. Natural languages that make its way through the wood.

When you witness to something about the trees, I mean like what they do to you when you a kid, or their lives through drummers or woodcarvers, man you ain’t nothing if not humble. I guess it goes both ways. For one, you know you’ll never be able to explain what you more than anything man, more than anything, what you feel. For another, you hope you never can.

Na here’s where you really know nature came first. Her mark is only hers. You get me? She gon’ let you see everything ‘bout her. She gon’ let you follow her and don’t care how long you stay in her sight but if she don’t want you in, she ain’t leaving no coordinates. Ha. You get me? When she wanna hear, hu ears in places you didn’t know you had voice. But na when she wants to talk, man any voice she uses you better believe she d’un put it to the test.