34. Robert Lee Mitchell

34. Robert Lee Mitchell. Oh, where to even begin on what a huge influence on my life Rob has been? It all started way back when, when Rob lived in a house on Eastlake that threw epic parties, with tons of bands playing all day long, Rob in many of them, rocking the hell out of whatever was in his hands - keyboards, bass, sparkling water. He was (is) tall, handsome, friendly, flirty, funny, quirky and generous to a fault - his whole life centered around music and loyalty to his friends and family. Our band Matchless ended up recording with him at his house - his funky funky house, with like 17 cats and cat walks everywhere, one morning I even came down to a possum, or maybe a raccoon, in the middle of his kitchen - where we had the vocals isolated in a downstairs bathroom, and the bass isolated somewhere upstairs in a bedroom and the band just generally strewn about the house, along with the remnants of many unrelated late nights and musical extravaganzas. Rob was always focused and funny, and had great ideas for getting our sound to be as lush and layered as we wanted. Like almost every other young woman of that time, I started to get a huge crush on Rob - it would be hard not to - and began to follow him around to shows and dinners and various excursions around the sound. With Rob, everything was an adventure, everything was fun, and he had this perfect balance of the silliest sense of humor - yes, when we were both well over 8 years old, Rob was still telling the joke, "There's a bear under there..." "Under where?" hahahahaha you said, "underwear." no, seriously, that's true - but alongside the deepest of thought, Rob also always opened up the most expansive conversations about life and death and the cosmos and our purpose and dreaming, and love and any other esoteric or nuanced subject you can imagine.Our friendship continued over time, and only became deeper, Rob is one of the dearest people ever to be in my life. We spent weekends driving down to Moclips with my old dog Lulu, hanging out and walking the beach as friends, and I ended up traveling with him more than once to both Costa Rica and Mexico, finding new adventures and new points of connection along the way. As much as Rob is always open to a new adventure, he is one of the most committed people I know to deep and enduring friendships, with his bandmates and best friends in Jerry and the Philbillies, or the Juke House Hounds, or Delina, or Krizsten, or his sister, or the hundreds of people he loves so fully and unselfconsciously - Rob is a person who is one of those really, really true friends and he manages to give that to all of the people he loves so easily, and who love him back just as much.When I first started building out what would become The Samarya Center on Yesler Way, it was Rob who was there, Rob who helped put in the floor (and irreversibly jacked up his wrist in the doing) and Rob who cheered me up and talked me through many of the doubtful times I had during that process. When I decided I wanted to make some recordings of kirtan, it was Rob who invited me, Stephanie Sisson and Sanjaya Krishna over to his new recording studio in his new (now old) house and set us up, making us sound amazing. When I did many other recordings with other friends, Gary Mula or Stuart Hallerman, Rob would always come over to give his support and his two cents, or just to hang around because everyone loves him.I used to love to go over to Rob's mom's house on Mercer Island and talk with her and Lynn, Rob's sister. Their mom was super vivacious and beautifully put together, a master piano player, and a clairvoyant. She always looked amazing, and I loved watching Rob's relationship with her. We would often stop over there en route to Ikea - for some reason, I used to love going to Ikea with Rob, buying new items for the Samarya Center and eyeing all the furniture I wanted some day - Rob was my main Ikea date and if I ever step into an Ikea now, I still think of Rob and of those delicious almond pastry things they used to sell at the bakery on the way out. Rob and I share a love of food too, whether Thai or Dinette, or Ikea pastries, I could always count on Rob to share great food and great conversation. Rob likes to go deep and can enter into and sustain any conversational topic, as easily as he can be totally juvenile and silly. Seeing Rob with his family, including Sandy and Brian, always gave me a new perspective or new insight into the many sides of Rob - all equally lovely and curious.It was one of the greatest honors of my life to be invited to Rob's mom's house as she was in her final days, offering Bedside Yoga and Reiki to her as she lay in her bed in the middle of the house, Marcus, her little dog (I'm quite sure that was his name) by turns running around and sitting nearby, trying to figure out what was going on. Once Rob's mom was asleep, I would offer a thai yoga session to Rob to help him find relief in that constricted and exhausting time. Being allowed into anyone's delicate space of near death or bereavement is such a precious gift, it will always be one of the things that connects me to Rob - his generosity with allowing me to become who I am, to practice what he knew I believed i could, in those tenderest of moments. But Rob has always been so tender, he has been with me in such a kind and loving way through so many of my biggest life's transitions, including my wedding itself, where he sang and played the keys, along with Karen andGary, to Nick Cave's "Into My Arms." He has been with me through both of the Samarya Center locations and build outs, and ultimate closures, and is one of only a tiny, tiny handful of friends who truly accessed the Samarya Center and IMT, opening himself up and being a guinea pig for my students in internship, always giving them both real material to work with and honest, appreciative feedback.And if it weren't for Rob, I would not be sitting on my back porch in Mexico, typing this appreciation for him and his influence on my first 50 years of life. After finding a house in Mexico - a dream that Rob and I had talked about - I called him from a payphone on the corner of this dusty road in this dusty town, and asked him if he could help me to buy it, which he did, sight unseen. Rob came down here with us right after our wedding - in fact, we joke he was on our honeymoon with us - and lovingly gave his blessing to our new home. We had so many wonderful days and evenings swimming in the ocean, adventuring on the coast, dreaming about our future, wondering who among us would be the most "successful," what we would "become." Of course, ten years later so many things have happened, so many things have changed, and I think the thing that we have both become is simply more of ourselves, and more loving for it. Rob was always curious about the future, and how we all might change - I remember betting him $500 that I would never, ever have a cell phone. Seriously. Rob, I think I still owe you that bet! But the truth is, there is no amount of anything I could give to Rob to pay him back for all the love, all the encouragement, all the forgiveness, all the opportunity he has given me so freely over close to twenty years. Thank youRobert Lee Mitchell, for all you are and all you do. I love you oceans. Come see me. You are always in my heart.