Hello Everyone!
I hope you are having a fantastic day! Before proceeding to this month’s post, I want to give a shoutout to all of the amazingly talented Paralympic athletes 👩🏽🦽 currently competing in Tokyo! Thank you to NBCUniversal for televising hundreds of hours of the Paralympic Games. I’ve enjoyed watching every possible second and cheering on the athletes in everything from swimming 🏊 to boccia! Here’s to the continued growth of the Paralympic movement 🦾!
Love 💜 and blessings to all, Allison
Now, please understand that we have as many laughs and hilarious conversations as we do serious conversations in drum circle. One week, one of our circle members revealed that she absolutely loves frogs. Yes, frogs. After sharing this fact, she asked if she could show us her frog collection.
Craig led the group in saying, “Yes, we’d love to see your frog collection.”
None of us had any idea of just what we had gotten ourselves in to. She showed us frog drapes, frog pillows, frog napkins and at least 20 different types of porcelain frogs in her porcelain frog display. I don’t think I was alone in thinking, “I didn’t even know this much frog-themed home decor existed!” We all enjoyed the tour and asked her different questions about each item. The huge smile on her face conveyed her absolute delight in being our tour guide through frog city.
A few days before this year’s Super Bowl, Mike, a drum circle member, showed up to circle sporting a New York Giants jersey. In the interest of full disclosure, everyone in drum circle lives in New England. There’s an unspoken rule in New England that under no circumstances can a pure New Englander ever, and I do mean ever, show any affection for a professional New York sports team. Especially a New York football team. It borders on being sacrilegious!
So, when we saw Mike wearing a Giants jersey, the drum circle took our responsibility to New England teams quite seriously and asked him what in the world he was wearing! We took turns giving him a slightly hard time about his choice of attire.
Someone asked him, “Does this mean you like,” there was a pregnant pause and then the person said, “the Yankees?”
Before the person could finish the word ‘Yankees,’ Mike began shaking his head emphatically while saying, “Oh no! I’m Red Sox all the way.” We all breathed a huge sigh of relief and started cracking up laughing.
When Carol, another circle member, said she liked Rob Gronkowski(a former member of the New England Patriots), I quickly agreed with her. The men in the group commented on what a great football player he is.
I said, “Yeah, but he’s also pretty cute!”
At which point, everyone started laughing and a few people said, “Allison has a crush on Gronk!”
To which I replied, “Ya know it!” Everyone started laughing uncontrollably.
Carol and I agreed that we’d share Gronk by taking him on alternating weeks. Carol’s mom, Patty, who is a beloved member of the circle too, overheard our master plan and said, “Wait! You’re going to do what with Gronk!?!?” Both Carol and I laughed at her mother’s exclamation.
In the midst of this fun and absolute mayhem, I caught a glimpse of Craig who was laughing just as hard as the rest of us. I’m fairly certain that he didn’t quite envision this scene when he agreed to start a drum circle at the beginning of the pandemic. In true Craig fashion, once we had gotten most of the giggles out of our system, Craig asked if we wanted to keep talking or drum another rhythm. We all calmed down just enough to drum another rhythm.
While the drum circle members have created an awesome community, our community extends beyond the faces on the screen every week and includes the family of each circle member. Craig’s wife, Emily, was the first family member to bravely join our rollicking band of drummers. She used the time gifted to us by the pandemic to learn to play the harp. After learning her first song on the harp, she offered to play for us during one of our circles. A few weeks later, Emily made her Zoom debut and it was a rousing success!
The week of Christmas, John and his wife, Stephanie, turned our drum circle into a festive Christmas party. At the beginning of drum circle, John said that he and Stephanie had prepared a few Christmas songs for the circle to sing together, if we wanted to. Of course, all of us eagerly agreed to having the opportunity to sing Christmas songs together.
After we finished drumming our rhythms that week, John moved into his kitchen where Stephanie had her clarinet and sheet music positioned perfectly and John had a few papers with lyrics to all of the songs laying on the kitchen table. We had a blast singing about Rudolph, about having a merry little Christmas and about those jingling bells. The sounds of the clarinet added so much texture and beauty to the evening. Seeing John and his wife working together to bring such a joyous experience to the rest of us was a tremendous gift!
At the end of the night, I said, “I feel like I just went to the most awesome Christmas party!”
J.R., another drum circle member, said, “Yeah, it really was! We just had our own COVID-proof party!”
Two members of our drum circle are a married couple named Bertha and Steve. They have been married for years, both have disabilities, and are always a source of hilarious commentary on the events of the day. One day both Bertha and Steve arrived at drum circle wearing hand splints. Craig, who always keeps an eye on the health of all of the circle members, asked what happened. Bertha explained that she sprained her wrist and Steve had a minor procedure on his hand. Then, she and Steve grabbed each other’s hand.
As they held hands, they lifted their hands to the sky and Bertha said, “We’re the perfect pair. Right now, I can use only my left hand and Steve can only use his right hand, but together we make one perfectly functioning pair of hands!” We all started cracking up laughing at Bertha’s blunt, but oh so truthful, statement.
I couldn’t help but think how that statement perfectly described our drum circle. We all arrive at circle bringing our unique blend of abilities and, yes, disabilities. And, we all fit together perfectly in ways that uplift each other, and I dare say, the world.
Who’s ready for another RUMBLE?
