Familiar

To understand the gravity of this story you must first try and understand me (if you figure me out shoot me some tips on how you got there please). I have a pretty unusual relationship with art. I enjoy art in all mediums, and I've always had a keen eye, and a better understanding than I should. Above any other; however, I have deep love for, and bond with music. Music is the only language I truly understand. My favorite thing to do is discover new artists (new to me, or up-and-coming) and share those artists with as many people as I can. I'm not sure what it is about the way I do it, but I can share any genre with any person, and earn the musician a new fan. Frankly, I think it's just the passion I have, and vulnerable, and comforting energy.

2019 was an extremely difficult year for me, and the hurdles didn't stop for well over a year, and honestly they still haven't, but I've had a shift in perspective, and priorities, and my soul is healing. Early in 2019 I discovered an artist that I respected so much I let go of my dislike for Country music altogether. Aside from Neil Young, and some Johnny Cash, Amigo the Devil was the first folk artist to help broaden my horizons. Everything in my life was falling apart, and it had its hand around my ankles trying to drag me to hell with it. I lost my house, my wife, my sobriety, my job, and eventually even my car, and my father.

The first song I heard was called Cocaine and Abel. This song told me everything I needed to know about how wise and introspective this man is. It seemed like he was just about to the top of the pit of despair that I had just begun to hurl myself into. He references metanoia without using the word, he acknowledges things most would hide from, or at least never say out loud, and honestly the most impactful layer of the video of this song performed live in studio is his gaze. When he gets into the rhythm and meaning of the music he looks up, and glances around like a folk artist typically would, but it was unlike any gaze I had ever seen.

He catches the camera lens head on a few times throughout, and I could tell even before that there something else there. He didn't occupy those eyes. Those eyes weren't the physical world around him. Those empty eyes were staring at his soul that stood in front of him as if the song was written as a letter to the hell he knew. This song wasn't for his fans, or his friends, or family. This song was what he knew his soul needed to understand if it were to continue in that vessel.

I was staying on my friends couch while I found a new job and tried to stabilize myself emotionally, but I couldn't find level ground, and I ran from the peace my soul needed. I remember waking up on days that actually followed sleep, and telling myself I would be dead before 2020 even if I didn't make the decision myself. I was destroying myself inside, and out with substance, and liquor, and selfish, meaningless sex. There was void in my heart as empty as that damned gaze...

One day I opened my phone up to scroll social media, and I saw that Amigo the Devil was scheduled to play in my city at the end of that month, and thankfully just before the end of the year because I didn't plan on setting any goals the following year. I bought five tickets with my first paycheck from working the door at the bar next to his house, and I took one, gave him four, and told him to distribute as he saw fit. He gave one to his life partner, her cousin, her cousins boyfriend, and we all met at the venue the night of the show, and I was the only one there familiar with his music, but because they all understand the relationship I have with music they all showed up with enthusiasm. The show started, and he was playing an amazing set. He threw in some comedy, some brutal murderous lyrics, and he even covered "When He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood.

Throughout the set we all kind of dispersed into different sections of the crowd, but that was fine because it was a small venue, and none of us were the type that would leave another at a venue. This is probably not an accurate recollection of the structure of his setlist, but I think it was about three quarters of the way through his set he set down his banjo and picked up the same guitar he played in the Cocaine and Abel video that familiarized me with his empty eyes. He walked up to the microphone, and softly said, "this is a song I wrote about depression." "Cocaine and Abel."

I got chills in ways I had never experienced, and all the hair on my body stood straight up as he looked into my eyes, and serenaded my tortured soul with his dripping vulnerability, and steadfast wisdom. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed by his stare, and I think he by mine. It was as if his soul wanted to hear him perform this song again, but through a different set of eyes. I felt a frightening familiarity in his presence, and it was the same sorrow, and grief I was battling. I don't think either of us blinked once that entire song, and we were locked on for the entire time it took him to play it. I didn't want to believe what had just happened, and I tried to explain it away from myself with rational thought, logic, and blame placed on booze.

At the end of the show we all reconvened in front of the venue to walk home together, and they all walked up to me like I knew something they didn't. They all asked me if it was them going crazy, or if he locked eyes with me for entire song. They all noticed it from different spots around the small venue. I was blown away that I wasn't an insane person, and I wasn't the only one to see it. I'm getting chills typing this right now because I saw him live again about a month ago, the first interaction I had with anyone in the crowd was being told I'm his doppleganger. I sing like him, I look like him, and I carry myself the same way according to the random guy I enjoyed the show with.

I think there is more the human consciousness than we will ever understand, but I'll be damned if it's not a beautiful thing to witness unspoken understanding, and eye-to-eye connection.