Housecoat Diaries

They say that the greatest gifts of all are the ones that are the hardest to give. It takes a true sacrifice to understand what real generosity is all about.
   
Recently, I received a wonderful gift. My friend Jolene — who goes by the stage name Little Miss Higgins — asked me to play bass on a couple tracks of an album she was making.
   
It was an exciting opportunity for me, as I am somewhat of a musician but not really one that serious players would request to have on their recordings. To be asked by one of my favourite musicians to be a part of her band was a great honour, indeed.
   
Now, it wasn’t a big sacrifice on her part to have me perform, since I’m certainly capable of laying down a good old-fashioned thud. It was just a little bit of a gamble, and a gracious one, as we are good friends, and I’d say it turned out well.
   
The real sacrifice, though, came later on. What turned out to be an incredible gift on her part was that, when she won a Western Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Blues Recording, she promptly insisted on giving the trophy to me.
   
How many people do you know who would do something like that? Do you think that anyone would think of you as that generous?
   
Of course, there are lots of ways to be generous, and they don’t have to involve money. I think Little Miss Higgins gave me that award because she knows I’ve sacrificed a lot of my life trying to help musicians get the recognition they deserve, and she wanted me to know how much she appreciated that.
   
What she didn’t know, though, was that, just by asking me to play on her album, she’d already done something amazing for me. I’ve always been good at believing in other people, but Jolene helped me to believe in myself.
   
When we give something of ourselves, when we allow a moment to be special for someone else — even at the risk that we might not look as good as we could if we did it differently — we allow the universe to work its magic.
   
And maybe Little Miss Higgins just got herself mixed up in some magic that’s going to steer her career into a wonderfully unexpected direction. You just never know, eh?
   
Sometimes things have a way of turning out better when we’re willing to allow them to be something other than just what we want for ourselves. When we’re generous with our desires, we get a chance to experience that. Generosity is a way of making friends with the universe, you might say.
   
Now, being great friends with the universe might not solve any of your problems, but it might help someone else feel pretty damn good about their lives. And that kind of friendship might come back around when you need it.
   
On the other hand, if you’re always working hard on your generosity skills, you probably won’t ever feel needy about anything at all.
   
John Scoles is president and janitor of the Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club.