Hello from Starbucks on a cloudy, overcast, and misty Sunday morning,
The annual pilgrimage known as the Bloomsburg Fair has finished its 169 year, and the number of trailers, 5th wheels, food trucks, and other things that make up the week long event that results in cholesterol spikes, diabetic events, food comas, and anything else you can imagine for a GI track is packing up. Perhaps it is because I only live about three blocks away, perhaps it is because it my last time as a Bloom resident, or perhaps it is because between friends from breakfast, being a veteran and a senior citizen, I attended more times than ever before. What are my daily go-tos if I attend this gastronomic monstrosity? Roasted corn, an apple or peach dumpling (sometimes with or without cinnamon ice cream), and a lavender London Fog tea cold from the Wandering Brewtique. For the most part, I am able to stay away from all the other fried things.
This last full week in Bloomsburg will be a mixed bag of things. I need to get a lot done in the next two days, and that is merely discipline and making myself do what is necessary. Later in the week, I will spend most of the time cleaning, scrubbing, and making sure the mini-acre is ready to hand off. Significant things are occurring on the bus-front. I was at the Ford dealer on Friday, and they were installing the new transmission. It was exciting to see the bus up on the one lift that would handle it. I got to take a couple of pictures, which will be posted on my YouTube channel (@auguriesofadventure – please do subscribe). There is a bit of a delay on the window installation until Monday, the 7th. All this creates some other changes, but flexibility seems to be the plan for the next month for sure. I think there will be a lot of this over the next months as the build begins. Of course, coming down to days before I leave Bloomsburg has developed a wistfulness that is understandable as I complete this phase of my life. The reality of time marching on and keeping up with it is poignantly evident each morning. There are some of the what-ifs, some of the can-I-still-do this, what needs-to-happen versus what-do-I-want-to-happen that are regular elements of each day. Learning to accept, to be content with what is reasonable to accomplish is something I might finally accomplish.
I would like to take credit for the title of this post, but I heard it yesterday on an NPR segment where Scott Simon interviewed the legendary Herb Alpert, the lead trumpet player and namesake for the Tijuana Brass. He just released his 50th (yes, that many) album, and he is almost 90 years old. He was lucid, funny, and self-deprecating in the interview. I remember my parents having one of this first albums, Whipped Cream and other Delights, which would play on their cabinet stereo often around supper time in the Martin household. There were two songs in particular, which transport me back to my life as a ten year old: “A Taste of Honey” and “Love Potent No. 9.” Another (actually earlier) album called El Toro Solo (The Lonely Bull), is another standard. However, I digress. in his interview, he mentioned the phrase, noting that a concert goer described his music with this description. When I was in my last year at Stout, and in my first couple years at Bloom, a former student used the term melancholy to describe me. Up to that time, I am not sure I would have used that term, but she was exceedingly accurate. There is that element to my psyche. What does it mean to be melancholy? It is merely pensiveness or something more? I love the word lugubrious, but I think in my case that takes things too far. I think my melancholy is a consequence of needing to be profoundly honest about things which have affected who I am, how I perceive others, and how all of that pushes me to be more solitary than I often realized. And yet, for the most part, I am content and optimistic about things, where I am headed, and how my life has transpired.
Yesterday, as I walked around the fair, I was asked again why I would embark on such a journey that is quite solitary. The person who asked was intelligent, inquisitive, and interested. Knowing that, I believed I owed them a thoughtful response, not some canned-sound-byte. What I found myself relaying was how being told I did not belong somewhere had such a profound consequence. Most often feeling like I was a guest, a person-passing-through, a vagabond of sorts, I have learned to adapt and take what is offered, expecting little. I think the reality of curbing expectations has been one of the things that have served me well. It is related to my father’s reminder that no one owes me anything. This does not mean I do not have expectations, but that my expectations are tempered by the simple reminder that we are flawed. This past week, when speaking to three people for whom I have great love and appreciation, I reminded them that the people we love the most have the potential to hurt us in the most consequential ways, but because they try, but because we are vulnerable to them. I think about those people to whom I have given some significant insight or access to who I am. Rhetorically, I have learned to be both open and controlled simultaneously in my life. I am not sure that was something I consciously did or if it evolved over time. I do believe this very forum developed some of that. This past week (the 27th) I was reminded of a two events, both which occurred on that day, one in 1973 and one in 1977. I graduated from Marine Corps Boot Camp, which for any Marine is a day they will always remember. The second was the day my grandmother, Louise, my hero, passed from this world. I thought of both events pointedly on that day.
As I move on to this next phase, this next space, this next possibility, I am excited and blessed. it is somewhat ironic, unexpected, and shocking that I have found this week to be one of reconnecting with something that was much of my life when I was 10 years old. I have about three years into playing the trumpet myself, and my older brother was an accomplished trombone player, even though only in early high school. We would listen to our parents playing of Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass (which btw, Herb Alpert is a Russian Jew, and has no Hispanic background). What I have found as I listened to the interview yesterday and revisited his music both on YouTube or Apple Music was the profound ability of music to transport us. It not only brings the sounds, but the emotions. What I remember is how music then, as the 10 year old, was an escape. It was a time that made my mother pleasant. She had a very strong and capable singing voice (as an alto). Music was something that made moments in our home more tolerable. Perhaps that is why I appreciate those memories, but it also reminds me of those other moments that were difficult. Those brief respites from what was more often stressful are much more what created the element that is the title to this post. it is easy to see melancholy as something to avoid, but I have decided it is what grounds me. It is what, oxymoronically, allows me to be optimistic that I can handle whatever comes my way. During the two weeks, there will be a lot of moving pieces, but that is part of the excitement of what is to come. The number of things that have been shipped back to Iowa already is extensive, but there is more to do. This coming week, I think the last couple major pieces of the background of the mechanics of the bus will be in place. And yet that is only the beginning of things. However, soon, I will be in the weeds of all of this. Getting to Iowa will happen within two weeks, and yet then I will be back in the Bloom area to officiate a wedding. Then it will be back to Iowa for the duration. There is a ton of stuff to manage. The next 24 to 48 hour will hopefully complete some of those details. So indeed, I am upbeat. The video below is the audio of a piece from Alpert’s 50th album. It is a song that was composed in the 1930s, and is well known, but it is his “spin” on it. The contemporary way he continues to bring his signature sound, and this song titled, “Are you lonesome tonight?” does such a wonderful job of illustrating the character of this little Northwest Iowa boy, who finds life to be real, thoughtful, hopeful, and yet something worth doing.
Thank you as always for reading.
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 