Now when I give a performance of The Kalimba Story, I cut to the chase a bit. Also, I am actually selling a lot of kalimbas, and I'm not so mad at the Pakistani kalimba (a cheap and inferior kalimba favored by some music stores), so I don't even mention the competition. I spend more time playing music and less time talking. I am better able to feel the vibe of the audience, and I take requests, even if I've never played the song before (yes, the kalimba is pretty easy to play by ear). But bits and pieces of The Kalimba Story do come up in answers to people's questions.

For example, someone asked me if I made the kalimbas. That takes me straight to a comical list of things people have asked me about the kalimba when I play in a public place.

• Where do you put the batteries?
• My mom and I have a bet: she thinks you're using a palm pilot, I think you are playing a GameBoy -- which is it?
• Do you make the kalimbas?

Yes, I have made them, but not nearly as well as the folks at African Musical Instruments do. I would often answer this question with the answer: "If I DID make the kalimbas, I wouldn't be working as a radio astronomer, I'd be running around selling them and teaching people how to play!"

OK, so here I am, importing kalimbas and selling them. That's part of the story. And an important one too. I had the ideas to write the books and record the CDs, but it wasn't until I had $10,000 of Hugh Tracey kalimbas sitting in my little warehouse that I realized "This is it, the moment of truth!" Yes, it is time to get serious, it is time to show the world just what I can do. It is time for some miracles, and that's exactly what happened with three books written in six months, and more on the way for the coming year.

Mary Jo is a massage therapist who works in a hospital. She loves what she does, helping people feel better, and sometimes helping people die. She called in 30 seconds after I finished playing the kalimba on Deb's show, The Breakfast Cafe on KXCI. Morale was low at her hospital, and she asked me to come into the cancer ward and play some holiday music. I cried, as I remembered a friend of mine who is dying. I didn't know what to say to my friend, but I sent him a kalimba -- he is very musical and can play anything. How strange it is that all this knowledge and understanding and talent which he has amassed over the years will, in the space of a moment not very far off, be gone. The musicians in his band have told me that every show they play may very well be the last, and the music has been amazingly good because of this feeling of the uniqueness of each moment.

"You've got to call him, Mark, I know that he doesn't have very much time left. You need to tell him everything you've got, you need to lighten his burden and help him on his way", Mary Jo told me.

So it was that on Wednesday at 4:00 I was over at the hospital with my Santa Hat and a kalimba. I played my most beautiful Christmas songs for a small group of people, many having lost their hair to chemo, and a six year old girl who wanted her mother to hear the lovely music. She brought me a dollar from her mom, who was sitting in a hospital room with an ill relative -- I didn't know what to say, but Ed, sitting in his wheelchair, knew something. Through the tears, he said, looking at Mary Jo and then to me, "Ariana, these look like ordinary people, but they are Angels. They have no need for money, they are here to bring peace and beauty into our lives, to bring love." Ed was worn out after only two songs, and as Mary Jo wheeled him back into his room, the tears welled up in my eyes, for I had been touched by an Angel.

This part will probably not be heard in a Kalimba Story performance, because I am not a good enough actor to take the raw emotion just to the edge of tears. No, if I tried to go there, I would lose it.

To find out more about The Kalimba Story, contact me.

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