An open letter in response to What Doth Life’s 2nd Annual Block Party, on September 19th, 2014.

 

A Debt of Gratitude

 

by Derek Young, 9/20/14

 

I couldn’t fall asleep until sometime after 2am. It’s only a few hours later and I just awoke, abruptly,

while having a dream where I was ranting to some small group of people in a strange small space I

can’t describe clearly, but I was orating passionately from the bottom of my heart something about the

importance of creating sacred spaces and rituals and thereby inviting the sacred into our lives. It ended

with something to the effect of “…when we build temples or pyramids or any of the other spaces,

spaces for music, and time-space, we are inviting the sacred into our lives… How else can it enter? We

have to give it the opportunity… it’s real damn it, and I still believe in it…” as I dropped to my knees in

tears… then I awoke.

 

 

Was last night real? Last year I had the humble idea that I wanted to do something small, local, and

free. My ambitions were modest. I intended it to be a simple gift back to Windsor and a celebration of

What Doth Life… a good old fashioned festal energy generator… so I put the idea out to the group and

together we did what became the first annual What Doth Life block party. We didn’t have grand

expectations; we hoped our friends would come, and they did, as did a few other people. Everybody

had fun and we received enough in donations to cover costs and still have some funds for the future…

 

 

Sometime this summer people started to say to me, I was there and damn that was fun, are you going to

do that again this year? For various reasons, I wasn’t sure… but people kept asking. So I finally asked

the guys, and they jumped at it. This is partly a story of the stage Bob built. It is also the story of what

Windsor built. It is also the story of what What Doth Life built. Over 100 people came out to hear us

play, Bob swears there was 150 at one point… And this was on a rather chilly night, in little old

Windsor. For our collective, putting on independent shows of original music, this was a milestone.

 

 

Windsor has been good to me. What Doth Life has been good to me. Last night, we created the time

and space and invited the sacred into our lives, and the universe responded. Last night was special. Call

it community, call it a ritual, or just call it a rocking good time. It’s real damn it, and I still believe in it.

 

Thank you all,

Derek