A Musician’s Creative Journey
If you missed it, you can read Week Seventeen of my Musician’s Creative Journey, where I explore symbols, memory, and what endures.
This post is the latest installment of my ongoing series, A Musician’s Creative Journey — a weekly practice of reflection through music, writing, and daily life.
In Week 18 of my creative Journey, I find myself reflecting on how vivid the images of my past remain — like photographs.
The world continues to change, and the pace of that change feels like it’s accelerating. These reflections help keep me grounded. Remaining grounded in our world today can feel like a full-time job without a pay raise.
As always, these reflections feed my soul, keep me present, and provide a roadmap for the journey ahead. My camera captures what is real, reveals the naked truth, and becomes the storyteller without words.
Eighteen weeks of building trust with my Muse. We’re becoming friends again.
Thank you for being part of this creative journey Series.
— k
Day One
April 29th, 2026
A cobblestone street and its row houses go unnoticed.
Just a block away, a different world churns
a busy street, loud and alive.
Two rhythms, side by side.
Both part of the same song.
Northside always feels like its own microcosm. Old-school. Retro. Urban. Sub-urban. A time warp resting within its own feedback loop, ever-evolving as its own timepiece.
This is not a review; it’s a reflection on my experience each time I visit this part of town.
Tattoo Designs by Dana — I was branded there. I wanted a design of my heart, surrounded by angel wings. It was a difficult period in my life. I was writing, recording, and about to release my last CD, Shakedown Soul — the title of this CD would prove to be an accurate assessment of my life, career, and spiritual journey, all at once.
Ruth’s Parkside Café is the closest thing to the old Mullane’s Café — the café I could walk to from an old mansion I lived in when I first moved to Cincinnati.
A beautiful home above Liberty Hill in Mt. Auburn, with a panoramic view from the living room and a glassed-in solarium directly above, adjacent to the bedroom, that overlooked the downtown Cincinnati skyline.
The architecture was stunning. It was at the end of Bigelow Street, managed by Kitty Carson, head of the Cincinnati Blues Society — and I always teetered between her graces. This house, this period of my life and career, deserves its own story. Maybe even its own series.
It’s there that I ended up with a pool table in my living room, sporting a purple felt, a recording studio in my dining room, threw a notorious “be a duck” party that I mistakenly invited my parents to. I would soon move to Deer Park — one square mile of Beaver Cleaver land.
Oh well…
Mullane’s Café had the coolest table — it looked like someone had dumped their grandmother’s junk drawer onto a square Formica-top, mid-century table straight from the diner in Happy Days. I always requested that table and didn’t mind the wait. I had my journal.
I remember listening to the random conversations around me, taking notes, and later piecing one-liners into poetry and songs. “Raymond Was a Junkie” was one of the strangest stories I ever captured.
Mullane’s Café eventually closed, but years later its essence — minus the table — reincarnated as Ruth’s Parkside Café in Northside. They still have the spinach sauté with brown rice and tofu.
I like to take a walk through Northside after I eat at Ruth’s. It’s like connective tissue between my past, nestled within a timepiece of cultures, ever evolving. It represents the sheer beauty of diversity — and I’m heartbroken by the monkey wrench that has been thrown into that important fabric of American society. It’s shocking. Disturbing. Mind-numbing. Catastrophic — and dangerous.
I was raised on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement, from the front row of our Southern Baptist church. I’ve been baptized twice. When people talk to me about God, I warn them to tread lightly — they are seldom prepared for the sermons I’m prepared to unleash.
Today, this week, and the recent months of my life have been filled with much solitude, as I struggle to make sense of it all. Some people say life doesn’t make sense, it’s impossible to know what’s true, and stop worrying about things you can’t change. I don’t think truth is hard to find and I strongly believe it’s our duty and responsibility to love and care for each other, and to try and make the world a better place, especially for the marginalized.
One of my favorite quotes is by Gandhi — “Be the change you wish to see.”
Fun fact — each morning, Gandhi read the Beatitudes; one of Jesus’s most famous teachings. Maybe, just maybe, there is hope beyond our division. And my own division as well.
BTW — this photo was taken from a side street in Northside. Here you’ll see a few blocks of community woven together by a cobblestone street that leads to the main drag — where I got my tattoo.
I reflect on Mullane’s Café, my heart wrapped in angel wings, my parents’ junk drawer and how I now ponder recreating that table, the shakedown soul of our nation, and the diversity that exists — like it or not — a diversity that will never be erased.
Only love can save us now.
Day Two
April 30th, 2026
A sound bath —
Music for the soul.
Music is a form of expression. We all know that. We’ve all experienced it. Some embrace it more than others.
My life has been built around music. One big sound bath on steroids.
Now its power has shifted in volume, but not intensity. I’m still finding my way through this new maze of sounds. Each instrument I now play is like an effect from the pedalboard of my guitar rig, most interesting, and something to be experienced. That rig itself has evolved a lot this year — I recently put together a fully battery-powered acoustic setup so I can play anywhere, no outlets required. It puts me in a headspace much like the guitar does, where I can think. I never could multitask while playing guitar, and I’m saved from those same pitfalls as I enter my studio of sound.
I’m excited to share sound baths with others — to take people on a journey, much like I remember doing in people’s living rooms with an acoustic guitar, back in the day. It’s where I first started. And like most things, our point of origin, when dreams are followed, leads back to where they began.
This past week I did a sound bath in my studio for a woman from our church and her friend. Each sound bath is different — but with the same intention: listen to what is needed and fill the space with the gift of sound. Sound has a way of healing. It mysteriously finds its way.
I’m thankful to have the gift of music as my life’s work and journey.
Day Three
May 1st, 2026
It’s hard to find time to pause,
reflect, and nurture what sustains us.
It’s not just important — it’s a necessity.
This reflection is an extension of Day 2.
Taking time to pause is critical. It’s justifiable. It’s a luxury.
Taking time to pause is something we must give ourselves permission to do. It’s necessary. It’s a gift to the soul.
Taking time to pause is a break toward reality.
It can happen.
It’s not complicated.
Day Four
May 2nd, 2026
Suspended between motion and stillness…
Adding something different from my creative Journey.
I borrowed this from someone. I never gave it back.
Do such acts come with karma?
I think so — it’s almost impossible to make it stand up without falling over.
It serves as a reminder.
P.S. It was borrowed with a pure heart. I still know its owner. They know where it is if they ever want it back.
Day Five
May 3rd, 2026
The sound of the ocean, captured in a drum.
Sound speaks without words.
It’s an ocean drum. It sounds exactly like its name claims. I use it for sound baths and sometimes just for fun. It’s mesmerizing.
After the most recent sound bath I delivered, the first question they asked once we finished was what was that thing that sounded like an ocean?!
I replied: it’s an Ocean Drum — a drum filled with tiny ball bearings. As you hold it with two hands and shift it forward and backward, left and right, the ball bearings roll in tandem, creating the sound of the ocean. You’re in total control of the physics of sound.
I love that feeling.
Day Six
May 4th, 2026
Each day is a blank slate — create, capture, release.
Some nights I sit on the floor playing handpan, practicing guitar, or just stretching. Typically, I sit in front of two double glass sliding doors, looking out on green space, and eventually spin around in marvel at my studio — my grownup playground.
When I was a kid, it was a swing set, sandbox, pogo stick, crackfire rifle, and my purple Huffy bicycle with high handlebars, a banana seat, and a sissy bar in the back. It’s where I learned to dream!
It’s important to dream. Dreams come true. Dreams never turn out how we dream them — they are the journey, and each moment is the destination.
Intentions are like fertilizer. Dreams are like seeds. Life determines the sunlight and the rain. We determine our exposure.
Day Seven
May 5th, 2026
Innovation doesn’t always look like a lab.
Sometimes it looks like this — warm light, an open road ahead, and a mobile rig built to go anywhere.
A reflection on a light — not just any light, but a solar light from Amazon resting upon a plastic spike driven into the ground by hand. From that list of descriptive details, there is one redeeming quality it’s a solar light. It doesn’t take gas. I don’t have to mess with it. It turns on and off on its own.
It senses when it’s dark and provides light. It has enough sense to turn off in the morning when the sun comes up. It lights my way so I don’t stumble over the rocks that separate the untamed green space next to my driveway.
The space where there’s a tiny blue Buddha, a peaceful smile, and a rusted sunflower propped up by a stone. Oh yes, and the little plastic frog on a straight wire tucked in the grass. You have to look for it in the summer. It all works just fine.
I was visiting an old friend last year and noticed her beautiful garden. I mentioned that I didn’t have a green thumb and could never have a garden as beautiful as hers. I asked her secret and she responded — “I do not interfere.”
Her story?
Mid-80s. German. Grew up during the war. Eventually made her way to the States by way of South America. A lifetime of wisdom and knowledge.
Maybe this is the best reminder to do what I can do. To be the change I wish to see. And maybe the most important do not interfere.
Wrap Up
Week 18 is a wrap. I remain fully committed to this creative journey — taking it one day at a time, one image at a time, one honest reflection at a time.
Every image I share provides a thumbnail view of the world around me. This journey creates a deliberate pause and continues to serve as a reminder to slow down, look closer, and stay the course. Steady on!
Bye for now — see you in Week 19.
— k
An Invitation to Write
Set a timer for ten minutes. Write without stopping. Stay ahead of your editor — just let whatever flows onto the page unfold.
Writing Prompt: Take a minute and write about something that stands out in your mind — something that paints a vivid image, holds meaning, or simply makes you feel. Then write about how it spoke to you — what message it delivers, and how it quietly shapes the way you see the world today.
Resources: I’d like to share a link to one of my favorite YouTube channels — Samaneri Jayasāra – Wisdom of the Masters. Check it out and see what you think — it always calms my mind and helps me center my thoughts.
Here is a featured track — LOVE — from my catalogue:
Seek out something new this week — and let it surprise you.
— k
P.S. My Substack is growing. It’s a space to go deeper — beyond the weekly posts — into the thoughts and questions that don’t fit neatly into a caption. I’d love for you to join me there.
