I believe that everyone needs a place. This was my place for many years while I was working hard as a musician living next to the Saint Johns River in Jacksonville. The name of the statue is Spiritualized Life and inscribed on the statue was something like “Man rises triumphantly over the chaos of war” etc. I loved this statue.

Each morning I would wake, get dressed, load my bestie, Mayo, into my Prius, and head to the Riverside Starbucks for a coffee. (Wow, typing this I realize how much of an American cliché I used to be). Then we would walk across the street to this park and sit by this statue and reflect on our magical existence. Well, I would reflect and Mayo would chase squirrels (don’t worry, he never caught one, but he never stopped trying). Maybe my lesson should have been taken more from Mayo than from the statue because I did stop trying with my music. I stopped trying because I never really “made it” in the time that I wanted to, but if I had learned from Mayo, I would have realized sooner that the joy was in the chase because my time as a struggling, hungry artist were some of my best.

Magic 363/365, Spiritualized Life, Jacksonville, Florida, 2015