Oh man, what an exhausting evening, followed by satisfaction in a job well done. Jonathan and I have been working hard on creating the 'perfect' backtrack tape for me to play over these past few days, and it's been a comedy of errors. (When will I ever learn that it's not perfection, but 'flow' that I need to aim for? And mistakes are often part of the flow, and not something to be abhorred.) So we celebrated having completed the 90 minute tape of some 19 songs last night (bear in mind that Jonathan is a blind man, doing all the recording and dubbing, with me helping him by checking sound levels, etc.)
Anyway, today, we discovered that somehow we'd left out two of the Jobim bossa novas I absolutely had my heart set on having on this tape; the mystery of how we thought we recorded them, and I typed them up on the list as 'done,' and then tonight they weren't on the tape, shall probably never be solved, but it created quite a bit of consternation and some ruffled feathers for awhile. Finally, we came to our senses and realized we should stop analyzing, blaming each other, and catastrophizing about it, and just do most of side B over, which took another almost two hours.
Oh joy! We are now listening to the tape, and THIS TIME it is finally truly complete, with 'Triste,' Once I Loved,' 'Chega de Saudade' (No More Blues) and a host of other gorgeous Jobim bossa nova tunes, a couple jazz standards and a bit of jazz-blues in the mix.
Now I WANNA PLAY!!!!!!!! We've been struggling with creating this new tape for almost a week now. I'm ready to play some music! Gotta pamper my man and help him get some good rest so he'll feel like going with me when I go out to play tomorrow afternoon before I work in the evening.
I'm listening to the tape now, and I've been practicing some of the new tunes.
***** unmitigated BLISS *****
For me, improvising to beautiful music is such a source of joy and delight.
Here's a tune I wrote a few months back; it expresses it perfectly:

Musicality

Music gives me an attitude
That fills me with such gratitude
Leaving me with one clear choice:
To open my heart and rejoice--
Providing love and motivation,
The energy of exultation.

Music will open the way
Music will save the day
Music will light up the night
Music will set all things right