February 5th: Rooibos Tea

Cold and rainy days have never said “happy” to me.  But I’m a man on a mission to be happy so I knew when I woke up this morning here in LA for another day of rehearsal for Saturday’s webcast of a show I’m doing with John Batdorf  (8pm Pacific Time  www.kulakswoodshed.com) my happiness antennae would have to be extended if I were to achieve an authentic moment or two of real joy.   To make matters worse I had a miserable headache and felt that the headcold that invaded our family last week was about to find a temporary residence in me.  I felt lousy.  After a bite of breakfast and a heavy dosage of vitamins and some other pills advertised to stop colds dead in their tracks I laid down and waited for the sledge hammer banging on my brain to stop.  Two hours later I woke up.  The sledge hammer had been replaced by an ice pick which I chose to believe was an improvement.

The rain hadn’t let up since I escaped a few hours into nap-land.  I didn’t really feel like eating much, but I needed something warm and wonderful to take the chill off my pretty-soon-I’m-gonna-be-sick bones.   In the kitchen, right next to the kettle, was a box filled with Rooibos Tea bags,  My life was about to change for the better.

I developed a taste for rooibos tea when I lived in Southern Africa nearly forty years ago.  We were encouraged to drink at least two cups a day of this herbal tea because of its health benefits.  I loved it then, and just the thought of having a cup or two on a rainy day brightened my mood.  I boiled some water and poured it into a cup and then ceremoniously dipped the tea bag into the water.  I think I made it a ritual because I was summoning ALL the power this tea brought me while I was in South Africa.  It worked. As I sipped I flashed back on a period in my life when I realized that maybe, just maybe, writing songs could make a difference in peoples lives.

For seven months I belonged to a group of singing missionaries known as The Family Band.  We traveled around South Africa and what was then known as Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) doing concerts encouraging audiences to strengthen their families, love one another, and increase their faith in a loving Heavenly Father.  The hope was that people pre-disposed to be fearful of Mormon Missionaries in their Dutch Reformed country would give us a listen and not be as fearful or suspicious of the boys in white shirts wearing badges on their shirt pockets.

While I was drinking my herbal tea, sitting at the piano in John’s studio I remembered a pivotal moment in February 1972 sitting at another piano in Johannesburg, South Africa, rehearsing for a program we were taking on the road; Later that day we would be driving to Rhodesia to perform 6 shows a day at the Rhodesian Trade Fair.  Back then, like now, I was trying really hard to master my parts for the show knowing full well that I was the least talented guy in the group.   Trust me, this isn’t false modesty talking.  I couldn’t sing, arrange, create or write as well as those I was performing with and wondered what exactly my unique contribution could be.  It was at that moment, sitting at that Hoffmann piano (a spinet that was mildly out of tune) that I tried to write an original song for our family friendly program.  Since we were playing songs that were popular back in 1972 and which encouraged all of the various kinds of love in families…husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, the family of man, the children of God…I thought it might be interesting to have an original song about a guy 10,000 miles from home coming to terms with the fact that he’d never told his dad how much he loved him.

A few more sips of my tea and I could feel the keys of that piano responding to my fingers in the most cooperative way and helping me write that song.  Only took about thirty minutes and it was finished.  I remembered how I felt when I first sang it for the other guys in the band.  I remembered how I felt when I first performed it for an audience.  Another taste of my herbal elixir and I remembered the face of the first South African to talk to me about my song.  He said, “you know, the same thing happened to me when I was about your age”…and then we started talking, together, as friends.  No suspicious looks or guarded exchanges.  Openness and candor…even gentle laughter and teasing.   I remembered that music that I had written opened doors and built bridges and mattered.

Now, thirty-eight years later I was at a piano, sipping on rooibos tea, trying to learn my parts for a concert tomorrow that might be heard in South Africa, should anyone there have a computer and an internet connection.   The dozen or so songs we’ll be singing are not unlike that song about my father.   They’re about life and love and challenges and hope and….where we find happiness.  Had it not been cold and rainy today I’d have passed on a warm cup of tea.  Had there been anything other than Rooibos Tea (from the bush in Southern Africa) I’d probably have misssed the connection to a moment that changed my life and my career path.  Had I not been on a mission to be happy I might have let this cold, gray, miserable day be just that.  But the tea leaves aligned and as I write this, I’m smiling still.  In fact, I think I’ll brew myself a second cup.