~ Jon Batiste
Need a little joy in your life?
Listen to Jon Batiste's music.
Feel the warmth of his creative genius as it shimmers, struts, parades, and playfully tickles your ribs.
Joy fills every breath and every note. Jon's music explodes with sublime, dazzling sunbeams of joy.
When Jon Batiste is in full joy-mode, fireworks fill the sky. Confetti and streamers flutter above your head.
Your neighbors dance in the street.
For Jon, music is the language of his heart and the oxygen of his soul. Those aren't clichés - Jon was born for this.
Google Jon Batiste and you will find an impressive and almost never-ending list of accomplishments and awards.
Born in Metairie, Louisiana (one of my favorite places), Jon grew up a few miles down the road, in Kenner:
"I'm from Kenner, Louisiana, where music is played for every occasion in life. There's music for being born, there's music for dying . . . it's just natural."
~ Jon Batiste
Jon was born into a family of excellent New Orleans musicians.
By the time he was eight years old, Jon played drums and percussion with his family's band.
With his mother's encouragement, Jon learned to play the piano.
It makes sense that Jon met the love of his life, Suleika Jaouad, at band camp. The rest, as they say, is history.
Jon and Suleika have created a home filled with beauty, style, grace, and some really great bargains.
Embracing joy doesn't keep life from doling out challenges.
Suleika Jaouad has spent years going toe-to-toe with a life-threatening illness (Acute Myeloid Leukemia and Myelodysplastic Syndrome).
She has often wrestled with fear, grief, pain, and uncertainty.
Suleika's way to cope with it all has been to turn to music, art, and writing.
While in the hospital, she created exquisite artwork - paintings that reflect both her inner turmoil and her resilience.
To ease Suleika's feelings of isolation during her cancer treatments, Jon composed and recorded soothing lullabies for her to listen to.
Suleika has written about her experiences in her New York Times column Life, Interrupted and in her bestselling memoir Between Two Kingdoms. She received an Emmy Award for her column.
In 2023, the Netflix documentary American Symphony featured Jon's and Suleika's journey.
Chronic illness produces a continuous roller coaster ride of highs and lows.
The lows include an onslaught of grief for all the hopes and dreams that are stripped away by uncertainty.
“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning. It comes in the night and rips you from your sleep. It fills your chest with shards of glass. It interrupts you mid-laugh when you’re at a party, chastising you that, just for a moment, you’ve forgotten. It haunts you until it becomes a part of you, shadowing you breath for breath.”
~ Suleika Jaouad
“I used to think healing meant ridding the body and the heart of anything that hurt. It meant putting your pain behind you, leaving it in the past. But I’m learning that’s not how it works. Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.”
~ Suleika Jaouad
In a world where joy and sorrow often walk hand-in-hand, choices must be made.
Give in to despair?
Or choose to live one's life with courage, joy, and purpose?
Jon and Suleika have chosen joy.
They believe life (survival) and death are part of the creative endeavor.
That doesn't mean they are living in la-la-land. Choosing to be joyful can be hard work - especially in times of pain.
The documentary American Symphony shows the struggle - the exhaustion, the tears, the moments of wanting to close one's eyes and forget about everything.
And then, somehow, to rise up and face another day.
As Jon says, “The darkness will try to overtake you, but just turn on the light. Focus on the light. Hold on to the light.”
In the midst of profound and heartrending challenges, Jon and Suleika have created an enduring legacy of strength, hope, beauty, and love.
They inspire us to do the same.
~ Jon Batiste
💖💖💖
(Feature Photograph by
Bekka Mongeau/Pexels)
(Quote Sources: BrainyQuote
and other internet sites)
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