Follow Your Bliss: A Story
Dotan Negrin travels the world with his piano and makes friends everywhere with the universal language of music.
So yesterday I’m driving back from my favorite store in the universe — Costco, great value for customers and they treat their employees right! I’m listening to the local NPR station featuring one of my favorite shows “The Story”. Rounding out the trifecta of favorites, I hear one of the most wonderful stories like… ever.
Dotan Negrin plays piano. That is his passion. Somewhere along the line, he got it in his head to buy a van, load his upright piano into it, drive around the world, stop, unload his piano, set up and play.
That’s his bliss. That’s what he’s following. He and his dog have traveled across America three times. With no sign of stopping.
He has a sign on his piano. It reads: “You owe it to yourself to do something remarkable with your life.”
Is that the Creative Spirit talking or what?
One trip Dotan took he calls his $2 Road Trip. The backstory:
To see if I could travel across the Northeast and Canada starting with only a $2 bill and 1 gallon of gas.
My Gear:
My plan was to bring very few things with me. I learned in the past that simple is best. Here is a list of what I brought.
- Hygiene kit (toothbrush, toothpaste, Deoderant, mouthwash)
- Clothes (5 pairs of socks, 4 shirts, 3 pants, 3 shorts, 4 underwear)
- Sunglasses
- 4 Rachets to secure piano
- Dog Supplies (5 lbs bag of dog food, 2 collars, 2 leash)
- iphone 4
- Notebook
- Laptop
- Stool
- Bucket
- Kimball Piano
- All Terrain Piano dolly
- Sleeping Bag
- Food Cooler
- 3 Books: (Into the Wild by Jon Krakaeur, Walden by Thoreau, A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink)
Cities visited:
- New York City, NY
- New London, CT
- Provincetown, MA
- Boston, MA
- Portsmouth, NH
- Kinnebunkport, ME
- Portland, ME
- Vinal Haven Island, Maine
- Acadia National Park, ME
- Bar Harbor, ME
- Quebec City, Canada
- Montreal, Canada
- Toronto, Canada
- Niagara Falls, Canada
- Buffalo, NY
- Rochester, NY
- Lake George, NY
- Saratoga Springs, NY
You can read about Dotan’s trip with lots of photos by going here. And when I said he travels around the world with his piano, I mean the WORLD. Over 20 countries so far. Here’s an improvisational jam session in Paris:
Singing “Hallelujah” in NYC:
This is the stuff of a Hero’s Journey, don’t you think? And it’s completely relevant to what we do and who we are as writers. We are responding to the call of The Creative and in that response, we are following our bliss.
Every time we sit down to write a story, we embrace the spirit of that sign on Dotan’s piano: “You owe it to yourself to do something remarkable with your life.”
We could choose the safe path, the common path, the familiar path.
No. We choose the creative path. One filled with twists and turns, dips and swerves. The going is smooth sometimes, but more often it is a slog. And yet we press on, responding to the call of our individual Muse.
Muse. As in music. As in Dotan playing his heart out on the streets of America and beyond.
You can listen to the segment on “The Story” by going here.
You can visit Dotan’s Facebook page here.
You can go to Dotan’s blog here.
And his Piano Around the World You Tube channel is here.
Dotan, what you’re doing is remarkable! May the Muses be with you!
