The Drummer

There are moments from childhood that never really leave you.

They just... settle into your bones. Become part of who you are.

For me, one of those moments happened in the back of a brown VW Bug—squeezed into that little storage area behind the back seat where I probably wasn't supposed to be sitting.

My mom was driving us from my grandma's house in Waipahu to Nanakuli, back on my home island of Oahu.

And through the crackling radio, "Rainy Days and Mondays" was playing.

I remember watching the trees drift by through the window...

The ocean air mixing with the warm Hawaiian sun on my face...

And somehow, in that simple moment, my home was embedding itself into me. Into the places that would later turn to shadows in my mind when life took me far away.

Music has been with me since I can remember.

Those Saturday gatherings with my aunties and uncles...

The sound of ukuleles being strummed with calloused fingers...

Everyone worshiping together, voices blending into something bigger than any one person...

I'd sit there, wide-eyed, completely amazed.

And I knew—even as a kid—that I wanted to create that feeling. To be that feeling.

I wanted to be a musician.

Of course, nobody tells you when you're young and full of dreams that it's going to be hard work.

Really, really hard work.

But there was something else I knew, too...

Something I felt so deeply that it didn't even need proving:

I could play the drums.

I just knew it. Before I ever sat behind a kit. Before I ever held sticks in my hands.

And when I finally got my chance?

When I finally got to sit down and let my hands and feet do what they'd been aching to do?

It Was Like I Grew Wings

The basics? They came easy.

Almost too easy.

I'd sit behind the kit and the bare minimum just... happened. Like my hands and feet already knew the language before my brain had to translate it.

But here's the thing about having something come naturally—

It makes you hungry for more.

So I started pushing. Testing myself. Seeing how far these wings could actually take me.

Rock music that made my chest pound...

Metal that demanded precision and power I didn't know I had...

Punk that was raw and angry and alive ...

Then I'd swing back the other direction—

Blues that taught me about space and feeling...

Jazz that showed me complexity could be beautiful...

Disco that reminded me groove is everything...

Each style was like adding another color to a palette I didn't know I was building.

And somewhere in that journey—through all those different sounds and rhythms and challenges—

I Became The Drummer I Am Today.

Not because I stuck to what was easy.

But because I kept asking myself, "What else can these limbs do?"

And then something shifted

One day I was just a kid who could play drums...

And the next, I was in a band with my neighborhood friends from school.

We'd get together after classes, drag our gear into someone's garage, and just... play .

At first it was covers. Songs we'd heard on the radio. Stuff we loved.

But then something magical started happening—

We started making up our own songs.

Our own sounds. Our own rhythms. Our own voice .

And man...

I can't even describe what that felt like.

It was revolutionary.

Like discovering fire for the first time, you know?

Because suddenly, I wasn't just playing someone else's music anymore.

I was creating.

And with every beat, every fill, every song we wrote together...

I could feel myself evolving.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of all that broken self-esteem I'd been carrying around.

All those doubts. All those voices telling me I wasn't good enough.

They were burning away.

And what was left?

Someone who finally believed in what they could do.

Life got interesting after that

Because suddenly I was living in two completely different worlds.

On one hand, I was playing for worship teams—

Standing on stages in churches, leading people closer to something bigger than themselves.

Sacred spaces. Reverent moments. The kind of music that's supposed to lift your soul.

On the other hand?

I was playing gigs in bars.

Dimly lit rooms thick with cigarette smoke and cheap beer...

Where the crowd was rowdy and the music was loud and nobody was thinking about anything "holy."

At least, that's what I thought.

But here's the thing I started to realize—

Something that changed everything for me:

Spirituality isn't about the building you're in.

It's not about whether someone shows up on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

It's not even about whether people use the "right" words or know the "right" prayers.

I found solace in both places. In ways that honestly shocked me.

Because I'd be on stage in some dive bar at 1 AM...

Playing for people who society might write off as lost or broken or "not spiritual"...

People you wouldn't think of as being awake to anything beyond their next drink...

And then I'd see it:

That flicker of recognition in someone's eyes.

That moment when the music hit them somewhere deep.

When they stopped pretending. Stopped hiding. Just... felt something real.

And I realized—

These people? They were just as awake as anyone in a church pew.

Maybe more awake, actually.

Because they weren't performing spirituality.

They were just... living . Searching. Hurting. Hoping.

The divine doesn't live in buildings.

It lives in moments.

In connection.

In the space between the beat and the silence that follows.

And once I understood that?

I stopped seeing two different worlds.

I just saw people .

All of us trying to find something true in a world full of noise.

 

Mahalo and Aloha 🤙🏽

 

About the Author: Ðean is a multi-disciplinary creative professional who combines personal experience with self expression. After overcoming significant hidden and personal setbacks, he now helps others unblock creative freedoms that provide time access for their passions. His approach combines the Hawaiian principles of Kokua (helping others) and Ohana (family) with proven strategies to leverage states of being and release the flow, which ultimately expresses our own personal journey.