The Boiling of the Bones

6. Secret Garden

At least I knew her name. If I were desperate enough, I could find her at Mendon High School. But if she stood me up at Mendon Ponds, I should probably take that as a sign she didn't want to see me. If I came looking for her, that would make me a creepy stalker, then she'd definitely be turned off. Besides, I was a hopeless romantic, not a predator. But if she didn't want to see me, she shouldn't have led me on by suggesting we could meet again. Maybe she felt I was being nosy and prying, asking for her phone number and felt pressured to placate me with a lie to leave her alone.

The forest had a fresh earthy smell from a recent rainfall. I learned once there's a weird name for that smell. It's called petrichor. Occasionally the wind or a squirrel would shake a branch above me and release a momentary shower of raindrops.

The trail emerged from the forest and led across a narrow neck of land separating Hundred Acre Pond from Deep Pond. At the midpoint a short stream connected the two. A small wooden foot bridge crossed over it. I stopped on the bridge and leaned against the rail to rest.

A gathering of ducks approached in hopes I might offer food. They looked at me with anticipation, but like seemingly everyone, they quickly lost hope in me, disappearing back into the marshy cattails and swamp grass from where they'd come.

I felt lonely. No, lonely wasn't the right word. I felt alone. No one in the world understood me. I wasn't like everyone else. Even my friends suggested I should go to college if for no other reason, than just for the car. Greg thought I was nuts not to take it. He thought I was so lucky to have such wealthy parents. Everybody did. It didn't seem so great to me, but I didn't know what it was like to grow up poor. Maybe the alternative was worse, and I did have it good. I don't know.

Rob said we could be roommates; it would be fun meeting women and going to parties. My other friends told me to play music at night or on weekends. They thought I should go to college to make my parents happy and suggested I could simply get a degree in something really easy as a back-up plan if a music career didn't pan out. Maybe they were right.

Except a back-up plan gives you an easy out. Just having a Plan B is sort of inadvertently planning to fail at Plan A by implication. When things aren't immediately working out, it's too easy to give up, bail out prematurely and turn to Plan B.

You'd live the rest of your life with regrets wondering what might have been if only you'd stuck with it a little longer. With no plan B, every time an obstacle arises, you're compelled to find another solution until you ultimately realize your dreams. I didn't want to be a quitter—it wasn't even an option. It'd be such a shame to give it all up when success might have been right around the next corner.

Life is tough--full of obstacles to overcome. When you fail, you have to reevaluate, tweak your game plan and jump back into the fray. When you get bucked off a horse, you get right back on it. Right? That's what Thomas Edison did. I heard it from a motivational speaker. I think Babe Ruth and Abe Lincoln and a bunch of other famous people failed and failed and never gave up, then eventually won.

I had to go all in, knowing I wasn't a quitter. If I channeled everything into it, and still failed, at least I'd know I tried my best. But persistence and determination were omnipotent, as the saying goes. Or was Plan A an unrealistic pipe dream? A lot of people failed trying to make it in the music business—or in any business. But some didn't. There had to be a way.

It was my dream, intrinsic to me, to who I was as a person, an integral part of my soul itself. If I wasted ten years trying, at least I could honestly look myself in the mirror and admit I'd given it my best shot, exhausting every conceivable effort until painfully clear it wouldn't pan out. I had to have the satisfaction of knowing I tried. Then I'd be ready to move on and I could live with myself for giving up. There was no Plan B.