When were you last afraid?
It took every last penny we had to make this season of "Will Play For Food". We knew this going in. It was either trust or naivete that drove the first reels of tape in Hale'iwa. We planned our trips one meal at a time, running on hope, often adrenaline, counting our dollars each night and holding fast to the belief that help comes when you ask for it.
And help did come. Sometimes in the form of money, but more so as friendship. It's a curious thing, the familiarity of strangers.
We took time to breathe each morning. Breakfast and coffee would come if we could afford it. We enjoyed and celebrated each time it did because why wouldn't you indulge in the moments you have with the people you love, no matter how mundane?
Secretly, it could be that these moments covered up the deepest of fears; that which seeks to confine your art or ease your confidence. We shot this season before we had a network contract. We shot this season not knowing if the band would continue as the three of us.
And suddenly it all gets put into perspective; skipping a meal here and there becomes trivial; going into the night with the backseat as your bed becomes an adventure.
Fear holds onto you like grief; eventually you learn to embrace it. It can grow you or kill you.
We chose the former. It's much less YOLO and much more "Why not?". It's what takes you on a discount helicopter ride, or experience what Jon did in the picture above. If you know you know.
So when the tax man comes, you can be proud of those red lines; they inscribe in history each fear you conquered, each risk you welcomed. Perhaps better decisions could have been made. But you did anyway, victorious, in spite of your trepidation, in light of your uncertainty, balls to the wall with only mom's spaghetti.
578 moons will have passed from that first day to the premiere of the first episode. There's no calm before this storm. Just an ever-longing tingle because you magicked this out of nothing.
Our love for music, our love for each other, has a time and a place. Maybe the fear is in knowing we were capable of this all along.