Drumming Master

I was at the Stony Brook playground with Jonah and there was an older man playing with the plastic drums. I could tell by the smoothness of his slight and light hand movements that those were practiced hands that were masters of their art. The drumming sounded very African. And yes he was black
I tried to start a conversation.
"Where are you from?"
"Haiti."
We talked a little bit, but pretty quickly language became a barrier. We talked about the event tomorrow, the fact that a lot of people in this neighborhood like African drumming and that maybe he should teach. We talked about various Carnivals in Boston, and about kids and even about cars a little.

But it was hard to make myself understood and I found it hard to understand him. He doesn't perform drums anymore but just plays piano at church and it occurred to me that drumming in his culture might signify something more than just drumming. Or maybe I was just misunderstanding everything.

I thought it would be cool to hang out, exchange drumming cultures, or something like that. But I realized that there was no way we were going to hang out probably, unless we happened to see each other at the playground again.

When you are young you go out clubbing, traveling and hanging out and you want to meet young women and it occurs to you that you will probably not see this person again. At best you have a one night stand or some such event to remember. But then if you really do want to have a relationship with someone based on friendship and mutual interests alone, that seems to be even harder to create out of thin air. Except if you decide on a place and time where everyone goes at least once a week. I guess that's why people go to church.

But I suppose that's something I feel is lacking from the St. James Church. Music. And then even if you do play music, how do you do these cross cultural things? How would Haitian drumming mix with Chinese lion dance? Or if not the arts, then at least the people? Soon it was time to go home and make lunch so we said our goodbyes without even exchanging names.