I never spoke a lot about this but somehow felt like I should, especially in these weirdest of times we all still live through. This following story may explain some of the decisions I made throughout the last year, and then maybe it's a bit of an inspiration for you who reads this ... at least, I hope so.
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| My little car after the bigger accident, Organ Pipe Arizona 2018 |
So I wanted to write about what really happened to me in that desert. Some may remember when in 2018 I was still in Samsara Blues Experiment, and everything was still "normal", nonetheless we had to cancel our tour and in a way this was the first of two events (or actually three, when you include the still actual restrictions) that subsequently lead me to leaving "the rock circus" (means not playing concerts anymore).
It was a long time dream coming true for me when in January 2018 I headed off to a solo USA-trip, after being heavily affected by US-life style as transmitted through movies and series from the 90s and two prior tours with the band. I wanted to further explore the country. And after a long period of hesitation (I'm still a sort of "shy guy".) I finally decided to do it, thanks to the help of my good friend Jabal in San Francisco who'd lend me one of his cars to take off on that big adventure.
So the first two weeks of my trip were amazing, just me alone in that car driving across California - the redwoods, the deserts, the ocean - visiting friends here or there, living this kind of dream that I had for such a long time. The turning point came only the second day after entering Arizona. For me who'd never been there before, I was completely overwhelmed again. The natural wonders are really sth that I can not praise enough. But I was too naive, too much overwhelmed and not paying attention at a point that needed the most precaution.
Being alone in the desert I randomly stopped the car and went nuts to take pictures of every cactus tree I'd see and actually had more than just one opportunity to cause an accident while even taking pictures behind the wheel ... at one point I climbed a pile of rocks to take a picture, ... and fell. I broke my wrist in two points. All I saw was blood but the pain wasn't that bad, so I decided (there was no other other option anyway) to get back into the car and drive back the 30 miles to my hotel in the little town of Ajo, AZ.
Five minutes after that though the worse accident occurred when I passed out behind the wheel and the car took off from the road, hitting a huge cactus, and whatnot else ... I wasn't aware and only woke up some minutes later, like from the weirdest of dreams. I only remember hearing a Emmylou Harris-song in my head ("the darkest hour is just before dawn...") and a lot of light coming through the broken windscreen. Was this dream or reality? I pushed back the broken door and went a few meters to sit down on the desert soil and finally saw the heavily damaged car: OMG what strange reality was this?!
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| Just to give you an idea, also about the distances ... |
It just slowly occured to me that this wasn't just a dream while also the hour before was only a somewhat blurry memory. Luckily for me, I've been on the only road in that area (Interstate 85) that connects Arizona with Mexico, so there were other people who went down that way and found me sitting in the desert. After a while there'd been like 15 people around me, not sure which authority to call as this is very close to Mexico, but after ca. half an hour the ambulance from Ajo arrived and took me all the way up to Phoenix. There, or in Tucson, were the only hospitals who'd been able to do all the kinds of checks to ensure I'd be okay.
At that time my body was one big pain and honestly I had no clue if there was severe damage or not. I had been tied to a stretcher, just as you see it in the movies. Luckily after spending the rest of that day in hospital doctors told me that everything was okay, except for my broken wrist, which came as a big surprise as still I had not realized that it was so bad. Because of this, of course I wanted it to heal the best possible way, I booked the earliest flight back to Germany and subsequently cancelled that Samsara-tour.
Gladly I recovered from all this with not much more than the distant memory to which was one of the more significant, life changing moments. Prior to that, SBE had even played when we had a flu, and even when one of us fell ill and could not enter the stage. Yet I'd already been struggling for a while to find out what I really wanted to do with my life. Then in 2019 I went through another troubled period after severe problems with my intestines, and another hospital visit, this time in Brasil, I ended up in an emergency operation and for a second time had to cancel a tour.
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| The last picture before I fell and broke my wrist. // Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument AZ, Feb 2018 |
Honestly I am glad for all that the band had brought me and we all worked hard for this success, but in the end I was happier to not being obliged to tour anymore. The craziest moment though still had to come ... after another Winter in Brasil in February 2020 I returned to my old apartment in Berlin. There'd been rumors of a new kind of flu coming from China that was much stronger than all anybody had known before. Already on the airports I'd see a few, primarily young people wrapped in face mask and gloves, while all I thought was ... WTF?!
I had come back earlier to Germany basically to record the, now final album with SBE which at that time still had the working title "Second Birth". Yet it seemed to become impossible to rehearse. And I, at that time living only ten minutes walking distance from the rehearsal room was not able to meet up with the two other guys, blame it on the overall confusion at that time, but also on the infamous "German Angst"- or, when your need for security makes it impossible to be flexible.
Still, I don't want to blame anyone in particular, we all need to find out what is best for us, and these were not the only problems that we had in that group. In my humble opinion, we all live through some of the weirdest of times, where at its peak fear ruled over reason.
I've been raised in a small socialist country and already experienced a lot through the last 40 years, lost my mum at a very young age and had been a kind of hypochondriac most of my life... but do we want to live our life dictated by fear? But then this is my personal blog and I make it one of my main purposes here to inspire people to live their own lives - responsibly - but free from indoctrination and media madness.
Namaste -- and seize the day, in a good way.
