In the winter light of Uummannaq, 1988, I gave away something that meant the world to me and sent it to the school of Uummannaq for the kids to play with. My Yamaha DX-7 - a marvel of its time, shimmering with digital magic - was carefully packed and sent northward, a gift for the children of the town’s school. I imagined their curious fingers dancing across the keys, discovering sounds that could carry them beyond the icy mountains and into dreams. Music was my language, my gift, and I wanted to pass it on.
The synth made it to the harbor. That much is certain. But from there, it vanished. Not stolen. Not broken. Just gone - absorbed into the silence of snow and cold storage. I searched. I asked. No one could explain where it went. Maybe they didn’t care enough to look. Maybe they didn’t believe it mattered.
I’ve often asked myself: What was the universe trying to tell me that day?
That good intentions go unnoticed? That dreams melt away faster than snowflakes?
All I know is that moment haunted me. All the noise from others seemed to drown out every good I tried to do. Even now - nearly 40 years later - I’m still waiting for an answer.
A Full Circle
But life has its strange, circular poetry.
Two years ago, I discovered that an American composer named Jim Daneker had sampled and built a stunning recreation of the DX-7 for Kontakt. I listened to those sounds - and there it was again: the voice of my youth, resurrected. I paid around $100, downloaded it, and without hesitation began re-recording old projects from my 80s archive — over 800 MIDI files I had kept like buried memories. That was late 2021. For the entirety of 2022, I lived inside those old songs, breathing life into them again.
Then, in the shadow of all this creative rebirth, I suffered a massive stroke. A blood clot in the brain. The song We Need to Talk — written just a week before it happened - could’ve been my last.
But fate, ever unpredictable, gave me another chance. After 15 months of rehab, I returned - to the studio, to the DX-7 sounds, to the person I had nearly lost. I was slower, maybe softer, but still here.
The Lost Synth
And still, I wonder about the original synth.
Sometimes I dream of it. A dusty box in a forgotten warehouse, buried behind years of untouched pallets. Not stolen. Not thrown away. Just misplaced by time. It’s still there, I believe - unseen but intact, like part of my soul waiting to be rediscovered. Not that it matters now. The people who dismissed my gift, who questioned my story - they’re all gone. Their noise faded into silence.
The Message
Maybe that’s what the universe was trying to tell me.
Sometimes the music we give doesn’t land where we expect.
Sometimes it disappears — only to find its way back decades later, wearing a new face.
Sometimes we are the gift that disappears for a while … and returns.
And sometimes, just sometimes, the silence gives birth to a new song.