This Photo

This Photo.

I have waited to post this photo because it didn't seem right to just throw it up clustered among the ordinary extraordinarinesses and other happy meaningfulnesses. This moment. This moment floored.

Billy and Leo played at a clinic, a facility located within the seedier streets of Bordeaux, far from its wineries and extended pinkie fingers. A needle exchange program, where the homeless of the area can come, use a bathroom, shower, and receive any and all paraphernalia to take the drugs, in a safe and hygienic way... This facility does not provide meals or beds. It welcomes those that can't yet make changes and meets them where they are. They even staff highly trained psychologists and counselors who go out to the streets daily to make sure the homeless have someone to talk to. All of them. Here. In this moment. In this humanity. Us.

This moment. Billy. One man shakes my hand as he enters the room, then 27 more behind him. A full room. This moment. To see him play here. To these souls. To give so much empathy. Tears on both sides of the mic stand. In a story that goes from rifle tower to Eiffel Tower, it makes sense, that after coming all this way, he play here, just as much, as on the high balconies of the restaurant atop Nantes tallest skyscraper. I feel like I am watching the last stretch of a very long journey. An unlikely culmination of events.

Billy. That he would live through the recklessness and harmful ways of his life in music and drugs. Harmful to himself and others. That he would survive prison at all. That he would find a path out of some of his deepest addictions. That he would make music again after losing a hip.That there would be people who would see him through putting out an actual record. That it would take him to France.And that he would play here. To this room. Where people received his truest empathy, people who needed it. And in empathy, maybe hope. This moment. Here. Now.

And why am I here? I don't know. I don't know. I guess I had to see it. Moments like this one. When a fingertip of god touches down in a room.

When our time in Bordeaux culminated last night with the big show, the hall seemed to be filled with family and friends. The owner of the hotel where we stayed, the school children and their teachers Leo and Billy played to, the staff of the nonprofit that works every day to help immigrant families and their beautiful children assimilate into France, the people who had seen the film at the cinema where he played, and, of course, the staff of the clinic, and about ten of the homeless they serve came once more. I felt like I was greeting my friends, as the members of the audience entered the hall and though I was assigned to the (most measly) merchandise table, I was giving hugs and welcomes as if welcoming people to my home. So many have let themselves be so touched by Billy, his story and his music in this time. This hall. It brims with love.

He has been no saint. Nor is he one. I have been accused of mistaking him for one. He is not. I know he is not. But he does give.. All or at least close to all that can give to the people he can reach while he is here. Especially children.

I am not instrumental to this story. I am not actor. I am merely observer. Though this trip has had a lot of hard work for me too, I know that no gig, no note played, no song sung depends on my being here. But if I have purpose, then maybe it is to bear witness to moments like this one. To share them with you. For now, like this. In the only way I know.