Eleven Eleven

Today’s post was written for the “litebeing chronicles” blog, where a

SENSE-SATIONAL BLOGGING CHALLENGE

is underway for the month of November. When I chose 11/11 as the date for my post, I received the following response:

“11/11 is such an auspicious date, great choice!”

Yes, 11/11 has been auspicious for me. Ten years ago — on 11/11/07 — I met the man I would eventually marry.

Truth be told, we met before that, on match.com, but that doesn’t count, does it? His match.com profile said he played piano and liked Jackson Browne. That would have been enough for me — I play folk guitar and love piano — but in his picture he was riding a train and had a camera slung around his neck, just the right combination of sensitive musician and street-smart artist to hook me in.

We met for coffee on 11/11. We talked a lot about music, and a little about our former marriages. Our first official date (a Herbie Hancock concert) went smoothly. Before long, we played some songs together, and I started to dabble in songwriting. (He’d already done quite a bit of that himself.) Eventually, we decided to record our songs, but we needed a name for our duo.

Because we’d met on 11/11, and his apartment just happened to be #11 (how’s that for auspicious?), I suggested the name Two Candles. But when I Googled “Two Candles,” I found that the name had already been taken … by a store that sold sex toys. We didn’t want any confusion about that, so we crossed Two Candles off our list and kept thinking.

We came up with at least a hundred possible names — I’ve still got the list — before hitting on the one that would stick: Pacific Buffalo. (He’s from the Pacific Northwest and I’m from Buffalo.) For me, the name Pacific Buffalo conjures up oceans and prairies, modern and rustic – and that describes our music, too. There’s no one genre that we fit into, so I’ve made one up: “Cool Americana.”

Writing and recording cool Americana music with my husband has been fulfilling, frustrating, exciting, scary, tedious, and exhausting … but never boring. It’s taught me so much about music, about singing, about breathing, and about myself. It has shown me what a nitpicky perfectionist I can be, and also what a patient person my husband is. It’s made me a better listener. I’ll never hear music the same way again.

It’s also what got me started on blogging. Our band needed a website, so I became the official blogger. For a real treat to your senses, go to our website and check us out!

Which senses bring me joy and delight? They all do, but the one I chose to write about for today is the sense of hearing, and more specifically, of music appreciation. When I listen to music, I’m carried on a sea of sound to a space outside myself, a beautiful space filled with energy, waves, and light. In that way, I get to commune with some really cool, rustic, and positive energy in the universe. It even helps me to believe that there’s some meaning to my life (although I haven’t quite figured out what it all means yet). Is there a song in there somewhere? I sure hope so. Maybe I’ll call it “Eleven Eleven.”

Thank you, litebeing chronicles, for inviting me to write today’s post. My being feels lighter now that I’ve shared my love of music with you.

Tomorrow’s Sense-ational Challenge writer is: Barbara Franken