Coffee on wings, memories bubbles and doors

Good morning everyone.
I just woke up. For the last couple minutes some brouhaha and some windows have been opening slowly transitioning my brain to another timezone. It's 2:42 am but I want to be awake because for the next couple of days I will need to adjust to a new timezone, a new world, a new self and adventure the universe has decided to send me to. We are over the Atlantic, somewhere close to Dublin Ireland the little screen in front of me points out on our flight path. People all around are postulat still sleeping, so in due respect i turn the screen off as to not to flood the cabin with too much artificial light, especially to my neighboor. I can't sleep and decide to start this new journal entry.
The last few weeks have been wild. Life can be so crazy in so many ways!!!!

After a week back in the US at the bitter cold end of march, I chose to embark on a quick journey out on the northeast coast primarily to visit my sister Esther in Washington DC with my deaf brother Yann, not yet knowing later that month I would be headed to France after a nine year non visit spell. In DC the weather already warming to spring with three 80 degree days i managed to busk and making out really well. You see I arrived just in time for the blossoming of the DC cherry blossom festival. This is something I can't stres: you must go see for yourself! Regardless of the crazy amounts and hoards of people it is so so so super pretty!!!!
The co-pilot and crew have now turned to cabin lights back on. A cart full of processed chemically yummed up breakfast and really watered down cheap el gringo coffee is waiting to startle our pallets with disappointment and anticipation for "le petit cafe francais" avec les petits sucres squares you can hardly find anywhere else. Yummm!!!!
After a whole week in DC filled with three days of playing and three days of family time at the natural history museum which houses a great collection of trilobites, which for those familiar with my brother, Yann was drooling over. Over the last year he has been building little by little his awesome fossil craft store (::::). It's wonderful to see him find his work passion! You can feel and see the passion and magic he possesses with his work when he shows you his craft and art on his display table he ocasionally setups at different alternative and art buffalo events.
We now are served Midget Croissant and plastic binned 4 piece fruit salad for breakfast. Coffee is yet to have its last word on this flight.
Our family time was also filled with the smithsonian zoo (one of the few I have not walked out of depressed or sad at the children's cry spells, which inherently -as Lara Buckley once told me- expressed their inner sadness and empathy for these poor animals living caged conditions)
Oh and now A real bitter splash of bitter orange concentrate juice to prepare you for the bad coffee.
But Lastly the highlight of our family time has to be the day we ended up walking an hour and fifteen minutes with Tayin (Esther's half chow half husky dog she bravely brought back with her from her three year Guatemala peace corps service) semi industrial rail lines to get to the famous National arboreteum!!!! It has had to be the Superdest awesome nature walk you can get to do!!! it's a real treat once you enter the park!!!
As predicted the coffee simply is water ragged yuck$&@

I knew I would stay a week in DC only but the weather still looked bleak and I wouldn't be able to buskat the zoo or the farmers market. I shot out a quick message to bill giffear in philadelphia to see if I could crash for a couple days before heading off to new York city. I knew it to be safe, big cities have loads of foot traffic and parks, and particularly these two cities were starting to spring away with tree baby buds and magnolia and cherry blossoms.
And so Philadelphia turned out to be wonderful! I wished I could have stayed longer, for in the space of three days bill introduced me loads of new musicians and contacts for future Philly visits and music jams!
I finished off in New York city which I have had difficulty coping with. It is a crazy bustling city, loud and at time obnouxious, Big and expansive, tiring, and clearly unequal with its towering accumulation of absurdly wealthy people. But this time I ended up in a neighboorhood called elmhurst. One stop past the Jackson heights Queens stop, Rafael Ramirez and Paul housed me in this wonderful multi ethnic neighborhood. Chinese, Mexican, Colombian, Indian, pakistani and no whites. I stayed there for a week and I can honestly say not once did I feel stressed. As a matter of fact, it always was a pleasure to walk out of the third floor apartment, walk a block to the corner colombian owned and operated dinner, where I sat down to breakfast and drank exceptionally better coffee than the one sitting here in front of me I chose to leave full. I played central park five days, mostly at the north side of the small zoo. I witnessed hoardes of french non tipping tourists (i can always pick the french out), germanic looking Minnesota Viking type extra white pales buy ice cream in 50 degree weather, wanna be bourgeois brazilian tourists clearly choosing to ignore the luis gonzaga tunes I played out once i spotted them. And yet despite being the cultural hyms of the northeast brazilian labouror, I was often ignored by these bourgeees.
But best of all, I simply loved the wonderful folk who sat down on the benches surrounding mine. These self inviting guests who are unafraid to enter the bubble I create for myself and them, are to the best part of traveling and playing music. I cant tell you how many times after i ve closed my eyes to enjoy my music, I open them back up a minute later to find to my surprise several by standers or sitting folk listening intimately listening to your playing and the output coming from it. Its pure delight and it only proves that You the musician are your most important and loving audience!!!!
Despite all this optimism I didnt make as much cash as i had hoped in new york city, however i cant be more gratefull for all that was given. I gave my best, at times for more than four or five hours of playing which can be really tiring by the time 4pm starts cooling the april crisp air of the city. And that is why it always was such a pleasure to head my way back to elmhurst, thirsty to speak that non white language Spanish, in that small and long dinner where everyone speaks a foreign language to make you feel more at home if you are homesick and where coffee taste better than the one on that uncomfortable night long american flight.

We are beginning our descent to Paris. By the time you read this I will already have landed. I am nervous and excited. I haven't been in Paris in 9 years. Some of you may know I do not have the best of my childhood memories here, but I am ready to land open hearted. In this strange land I could never find myself to say "it feels like home". I never did feel at home in France, I always felt very different, foreign to this land. But I can't deny that parts of me heavily identify to being French: I love great food, good coffee, cinema, arts culture, accordion and am super curious. French people are inherintly curious (some of them), they are always interested in world music (especially Brazilian music) and well cultured and read.
And so The truth is that I am coming here for two reasons: my grandmother who suffered aperforated ulcer surgery recovery (from which she will recover) and to embark on a new musical journey. I have come here without expectations nor goals but rather with an intention to play, share and learn new music! And that means all options and possilities are available to me.
A couple of years ago, I never imagined I could travel so much on such little earnings, but the truth is that never before have I felt more free since liberating myself from what I call the cube way of thinking and living. I always feared my financial stability and always thought I needed a 40 hours a week stable job. I don't, and it is precisely living without it which allows me to be so flexible to head off to these new adventures, or should i say to where the universe shows me to go.
I really expected to come back to buffalo and play another season in the streets and festivals of western new York, I ll try my best to stick around Paris, meet new friends and musicians and create new music to open new doors this crazy wild universe has for us!!!