Life as a musician on the road can be a blast - or not - especially if you've got a deep secret

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Something was making a buzzing sound, it was intermittent:
Buzz-buzz, pause... buzz-buzz, pause... he could hear it but not quite place what it was. He knew he'd been asleep, no dreams he could remember, but now something was buzzing and slowly bringing him back from wherever it is we go when we sleep.

Awareness slowly came to Jesse, fading into focus in his mind's eye. Still halfway between asleep and awake, his first thought was the usual one when just waking up: "where am I?" Images began shuffling through his still not-quite-awake mind, images of places and people in his life, changing one after the other like a slideshow as he tried to recall which one was his current whereabouts and situation.

As his mind tried to overcome the fuzziness of sleep, with his eyes still closed he tried to picture the room he was in: was this the one with the window on his right, the door to the left of the window, and the phone on the credenza on the wall at the foot of the bed, or was the phone on a little table beside the bed and the door on the left of the room......? Is that buzzing the phone, or the doorbell? Which way do I go to answer either one of them?

Most of us have had a similar experience, that disorientation of where we are when waking up in a strange room, perhaps while visiting friends or relatives for a time, or when staying in hotel rooms during a vacation. For most, it's a somewhat unpleasant and disconcerting feeling. Jesse had become so accustomed to it that he'd begun to find it somewhat amusing.

Jesse's chosen profession took him from one town to the next. A week in Tucumcari, a night in Denver, two weeks in Albuquerque, a week in... who knows, it might be anywhere. Some towns came and went so quickly that he couldn't remember what town he'd been in just 2 days before. There were also regular spots he'd return to every few months, and he'd look forward to seeing the familiar places and people again. Such is the life of a musician on the road, and Jesse equally enjoyed both returning to familiar grounds and the excitement of seeing new places where you never knew what to expect, what you'd find, or who you'd meet.

It wasn't such a bad life for a 23-year-old single male with no bills or attachments. Jesse didn't own many material things, he took with him his musical instruments and related items of course, and not much more. He'd learned on his first road trip that it was more practical besides just easier and more sensible, to take as little as possible. His first time on the road, he'd taken one of his favorite hobby items, a radio-controlled model airplane with him, thinking it would be possible to fly it now and then in-between playing gigs. He never got a chance to do anything with it other than pack it around and watch it be destroyed in the process. Balsawood planes are not a good item to drag around on the road, especially with 4 other musicians sharing the same motorhome. Live and learn.

And learn he had. Despite his intense love of music and making music, he quickly learned that playing in bands for a living could be more fun and more enjoyable than anything else he knew of, or it could be anything but fun, depending on many things.

He'd come out to the southwest United States to be near a girl he'd met and fell in love with during one of his road trips. Now he found himself traveling all over the place and having very little time to be with her and it was having a very bad effect on the relationship.

This band was also not turning out to be what he'd thought, neither in fun, quality of music, or money. But it was a job and it was music, so he determined to hang in there and make the best of it, at least for now.

"Buzz-buzz!" Whatever the source of the noise, it was persistent. Finally the mental haze vanished and Jesse's eyes opened wide and his brain kicked into gear. It was the phone, on a credenza straight across the room. "What the heck kind of phone goes 'Buzz-buzz?!", he thought. He leaped out of bed and ran to the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey Jesse, I was starting to wonder if you were still alive in there!"

"Yeah Hank, sorry, I was just getting up." Well, he was now.

"We're going to have a rehearsal today at the club, got some new songs to work on, be there in an hour".

"OK, see you then."

"Bye".

"Bye".

Jesse took a quick shower and after toweling off, reached for the built-in hair drier beside the bathroom sink. As he looked in the large bathroom mirror while blow-drying his ash-blond hair that fell to several inches below his shoulders, he began to get that familiar feeling, that pang of sadness and longing.

He'd been letting his hair grow out for a couple years. Whenever someone mentioned his long hair, he jokingly told them that he was playing at the role of being a "guitar star". It seemed to be as good an excuse as any and no one had questioned it so far. He of course knew there was more to it than that, much more to it than just hair... and though thoughts of it did bubble to the surface at times, he pushed it out of his mind as much as he could manage.

"Forget it, don't even think about it!" he told himself. He'd long ago decided that he could just put it out of his mind, deny how he felt and everything would be fine, he would "overcome" it all.

Finishing drying his hair, he grabbed his usual garb; t-shirt and jeans and his somewhat ragged tennis shoes, and went out to his old blue '63 Ford. Sometimes he left it with friends and rode in the band RV, other times he'd drive it to the gigs by himself so that he could have his own transportation. He'd found out soon after joining this band that despite the leader's promise, "Anytime any of you need to go anywhere, just holler and I'll throw you the keys to the van!" ... it never happened.

He unlocked the door of the big car - it was old but in excellent condition and he loved it - and seated himself on the big, soft bench seat. The car started easily as usual, and with a sigh of resolve, he headed for the club to meet with the band and rehearse the new songs. He hoped there would not be any problems. He just wanted to play some good music, try to enjoy doing it, and get down to see his girl on the few days between this gig and the next.