You Can't Go Home Again

I moved to Lowell from out of state about two and a half years ago. At the time I moved down here, my goal was to dedicate one year to the job that had brought me to the area while completing graduate school, then to move back. Well, we all know what the economy is like. And my one year stint in Massachusetts has stretched well beyond two.

I have always been fairly independent. Since the singular tragic summer camp incident at age 9 when I experienced a crippling case of home sickness and begged to be brought home halfway through the week, I have never had a recurrence of separation anxiety that has stopped me from going away. In fact, in looking back on my life, it seems like my youth was a string of attempts to get away from home. First, it was informing my parents that I intended to spend the entire summer living with my grandparents. When I got into high school, I took part in residential college-prep programs during the summer. Once I was in college, I devised ways to stay on campus year-round. And after graduation? I was not one of those kids that moved back in with Mommy and got comfortable and decided to stay. I was gone as soon as I could save up the money for first month’s rent and security deposit.

However, for all my itinerant tendencies, I have never been more than two hours away from my family until I came to Lowell. Up until about seven months ago, I traveled back to my home state every weekend. I used to see my mother a couple of times a month; now I am lucky if I see her once every other month. Being an only child, I do have a significant amount of guilt over being so far away as Mommydukes gets older and I know that she would like to have me closer.

The other day, Mommydukes left a message for me about a new company that’s moving into her area with jobs paying the equivalent of what I am making here in Massachusetts.

The first thing I thought of was something that an acquaintance, Marlene, recently said to me. Marlene is originally from New York, but has lived everywhere, landing in Massachusetts for the last 10 years.  Marlene’s perception of New England women is that they are the most scared group of people she has ever come across in her travels. She says that they are scared of living and that they are incredibly jealous of those people who don’t let their fears overcome them.

For the last four or five months, I have been feeling as if there is something else out there for me, a life beyond what I have already made for myself. In hearing my mother’s message, her shrouded plea for me to move back home, it dawned on me that for all of my drifting, I am still one of those scared women to which Marlene was referring. I have never really left my comfort zone. I have never really put myself out on the line to take a “make it or break it” chance. I have always chosen the “safe” alternative. And then I regret not being bolder. In Myers-Briggs lingo, I am an INTP. The “P” in me wants desperately to be spontaneous; it is what pushes me to rebel. But it is always overridden by the “T,” the thinking part of me, the part that examines all the angles and weighs everything carefully, and to a lesser extent, by the “I,” the introvert that worries about having to start over again and about being alone without a safety net.  

When I heard my mother’s message, my feelings became very clear. I do not want to move back to my home state. I feel selfish for admitting it because I am the only child, but I finally realized that I have to think about my own happiness. I had a brief glimpse of my life laid out on a string, with “home” behind me and my eyes looking down the sting at something else in my future. I felt like I have the potential of being in the same league as Marlene – going anywhere, doing anything and having no feelings of longing over lost opportunities. I realized that returning to my home state would just be a step backward… and right now, I feel something else propelling me forward. Into what? I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

This is Your Brain... This is Your Brain on Jazz

I really love it when two of my favorite things intersect. In addition to loving jazz, I am an incredible science geek, so I was psyched to come across this story on NPR's "A Blog Supreme," about a group of German researchers who studied how the brain processes spontaneity by using jazz improvisation. Fantastic! I'm very taken by the idea of music stimulating different areas of the brain. When I have a bit more time, I can't wait to read the article in Science Magazine so I can test my own perception of the performances.

My Morning Cup of Mingus

One thing I really appreciate about being single is that there isn’t anyone around to criticize. No one says anything when I leap out of bed at 5:45 am with my eyes still half closed with sleep to groove around the bedroom to Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug.” No one turns up their nose at the curry powder I add into the egg mixture for my omelet. And no one challenges my decision to turn my apartment into the auditory equivalent of a temple for Charles Mingus’s Blues and Roots.

Listening to Mingus this morning got me wondering… out of all of the jazz I have listened to over the course of my life, what is it about Charles Mingus that makes him so consistently appealing to my ear? What is the defining characteristic that makes me relate to his music? The reason came to me very quickly. Mingus’s music has no sharp edges.

It may be odd to say of the man who is known as “the angry man of jazz,” but Mingus’s music has a very smooth, mellow reverberation. His pieces are well-balanced. His tone is warm. What a different experience it is to listen to a Charles Mingus composition as opposed to Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman. I wonder if the reason isn’t all in the perspective of the bandleader?

A trumpet is a piercing instrument. A saxophone has an element is dissonance built in. There is no high relief in the sound of a bass. It is resonant and rich. It is the glue that joins the rest of the instrumentation. If Mingus directs from this perspective of unification, it’s no wonder his compositions project a well-developed sound. His music is not necessarily a showcase for his own instrument. Note that when the lead is taken by a saxophone or a trumpet or a baritone saxophone, the result is still the same. Solos are mature, tender, inviting. They are not brash or arrogant. And while they are self-confident, it is confidence without arrogance; each individual instrument is cohesive to the whole, each artist is a team member whose contribution bolsters the performance of the group.

Now, I am certain there are other artists about whom this could be said and my quick evaluation is likely the very reason I am head over heels in love with Bossa Nova. But for now let’s just leave it with me professing my longstanding and undying admiration for Charles Mingus. After all, one of the best things about being single is that there is no one to contradict me, either.