I
was born with a “lazy eye”. Actually, it was never really lazy; it just floated around my socket, looking this way and that, until it finally settled down in the wrong place. I’ve been plagued with double vision ever since.
As soon as I learned to crawl, I would smack headfirst into walls, tables and chairs. As a toddler I walked like a drunken sailor. I probably ran into more walls and doorways than before.
At the age of five, I began piano lessons. Learning to read all those little black dots posed special challenges. But I persevered, closing one eye at a time. In this way I joyfully learned to play such classics as “Chopsticks,” “Polka Dot Polka” and the “Sewing Machine Song.” Meanwhile, I ignored the headaches that plagued my practice time.
The first time I ever saw a bass guitar, it was hanging on the wall in the local music store, all shiny and supremely cool, as if waiting there for me. I sat on the chair to thump out a few notes - and my whole body rumbled with its power. It sounded to me like the voice of spirit. I was in love with music at the tender age of thirteen. I studied guitar like a mad scientist searching for the answer to life. The headaches continued to bother me off and on, but I decided not to give up because I loved the instrument. I knew that I was born to play the bass, though at the time I wasn’t sure why.
In my freshman year of high school, I began working with someone who knew the band leader at a local polka hall and who sat in with the band. He arranged the same privileges for me, and these sessions became a regular part of my musical training.
But that all changed on a breezy Sunday afternoon in the fall of 1973. A neighborhood friend had talked me into joining an impromptu afternoon football game to even up the sides. I did little for most of the game until a teammate tipped the ball as the opposing quarterback attempted to pass. To my surprise, and everyone else’s, the ball floated into my outstretched arms. I had never in my life handled the ball in a game and I ran for the sheer joy of it. I grinned with delight while everyone stood staring, their mouths agape.
The opposing captain was livid. His team was behind and he wasn’t about to stand for a little goofy-eyed kid running an interception back for a touch-down – with a weird way. I glanced behind me to see him pounding the turf at full speed, gaining fast on me. I ran for my life. If he caught me, I’d end up bleeding in the mud.
Aiming to dance in the end zone, I ran madly, wildly, until I hit a patch of slick mud and fell face first to the ground. I rolled over, just as his careening hulk reached me. Seem me down, he tried to jump over me but the corner of his left heel met the corner of my left eye. I remember the pain, then blackness.
When I came to, I noticed something weird - no ghost image, no double vision. My sight was blurred and the world was filled with fuzzy shapes. But there was only one of each shape, not two. Carefully, I closed my right eye to see what my left eye’s sight was like and the world went dark. That’s when I got scared and started yelling.
My friends drove me to the emergency room where a doctor pried my swollen eye open and pronounced it fine. The eyeball itself was intact - only the socket area was destroyed. He squirted some antiseptic goop on me, taped a huge bandage over half of the left side of my face and sent me home with a stern note to my parents about the dangers of football (especially, I supposed, for a goofy-eyed boy).
I tried to stay home, embarrassed by the bandage, but a friend urged me to play that night. He figured I was sure to get major sympathy points.
At first I thought I’d actually have an easier time with one eye bandaged. I wouldn’t have to alternate eyes to see the music clearly. Then I realized that I couldn’t see my bass at all. Without my left eye, I had to turn my head far enough that my right eye could see where my left hand was. But in that position, I couldn’t see the music. This terrified me.
The bassist for the band was kind to me. Watching me from the buffet line, he saw that something was clearly wrong. Setting his plate on the table, he came to the stage. I said, “I can’t see what I’m doing. Without my left eye, I can’t keep track of the notes and my bass at the same time. What am I going to do?”
“Just play,” he replied.
“You don’t understand,” I pleaded. “I can’t see!”
He climbed on the bandstand and sat beside me. “Lane, you don’t need to see,” he promised. “You know these tunes - you’ve played them a dozen times.” Pointing a wrinkled finger at my chest, he continued, “You have the music inside you. It’s always been there. You know it and I know it. Tonight, let these people know it, too.”
For a moment I just sat there. Then something - I don’t know what it was, maybe a mixture of fear and the realization of truth - began to swell inside me. He must have sensed this, because he smiled and went on: “God gave you a gift, Lane. He’s given you the ability to make beautiful music that makes people happy. Stop worrying. Accept that gift and share it with them,” he said, gesturing to the audience.
“But I can’t see,” I stammered tearfully.
“Close your eyes, Lane. Trust yourself. Do you really think God would give you such a wonderful gift then take it back? I promise you - the music is there.”
He left me to ponder his words while he ate his dinner. As the other musicians completed their final preparations, I looked up and said a short prayer. In that moment, it seemed that a warm, loving feeling bathed me, as if a light were shining down, as if God were smiling on me. Taking a deep breath, I brought my gaze back into the room as the bandleader counted us off.
Hesitant at first, I felt my strength start to grow. By the time we hit the second chorus, I was really digging in. The second song was better than the first, and the third continued the upward trend. By that time my eyes were closed but I could see the music all the same. Just as promised, it was inside my heart and I realized that the old musician was right.
That night I learned a new way of playing on faith. All I had to do was open my heart and let spirit guide me. It took years of practice to do this whenever I chose. I continued to study and constantly strove to build a bridge of faith between spirit, myself and the music.
In this, I’ve experienced a measure of success. Some people tell me that I seem lost in the music when I play; that’s the greatest kind of compliment I can receive. And they’re half right: I am definitely inside the music, but I’m not lost at all. I’ve never felt so found. I don’t have the words to describe how it feels to be nestled in the arms of spirit, wrapped in the blanket of the song, completely removed from the physical world.
After one particularly Spiritconnected performance not long ago, a friend said to me, “Welcome back, Lane. For a minute there, I thought we’d lost you for good. I’ve never seen someone so consumed by music.”
I had to smile. “I guess I was born with the music inside me - with this gift of spirit.”
- Lane Baldwin