I learned this morning while doing a walkthrough with the tenants to winterize the pipes that they intend to move out next summer. I had thought they wanted to buy the house, and I was mostly ready to let it go. It's a beautiful house on a lovely property, but it's also very big for one person. Nonetheless, as we went around the property via video call, I had a huge surge of homesickness. It's a little ironic coming after my last post about the concept of HOME and whether I even had one to return to. It's true I've come to love traveling the country, being in nature, seeing old friends and making new ones. As most people who know me would agree, I tend to overthink, imagining potential futures and pre-coping with changes that haven't even happened yet. Until this morning I was imagining a future where I'm perpetually traveling until my body can't handle it anymore. The nomad axiom, “It's not a trip; it's a lifestyle” would be my mantra. But now I'm not sure at all.
I'm writing this as the van bakes in an dusty, empty lot in tiny Kettleman City, CA. I'm surrounded by ubiquitous names; Dunkin', Denny's, Taco Bell, Mobil ($6.77, wow), and trucks making that gurgling sound as they accelerate. It feels very much “away”. I imagine being home, playing piano, having pizza parties, watching the clouds drift by from the deck, and suddenly I desperately want it to be next summer already.
But I have an itinerary and I'm sticking to it. And thankfully, I feel an organic pull to make music again. Grief, changing roles in retirement, a felt judgement of any happiness with so much suffering in the world, all combined to keep me from doing something I love. And, by the way, to quote Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, “Every act of art is an act of resistance”. Here is a song I wrote during my three-week stint in Deming, NM, “A Stranger's Just a Friend I Haven't Met Yet”, a line I heard from a very interesting person I met there…