What day is it? What week are we going on? And it snowed for one day last Friday?
Rod Serling should be appearing any time soon.
Scrolling through social media as I always do, there's a lot of posts cropping up with old photos of days gone by. When the future's uncertain (didn't Jim Morrison sing about that in the 60s?), it's common to experience something psychologists call a "reminiscing bump". It's perfectly healthy to talk about what once was, makes us feel alive and bring back a bit of that youthfulness we all thought would last forever.
But I see a lot of people are stuck there.
Friends from high school are posting endless photos, and comments range from "Wow we were young once, what happened?" to "Wish we could go back to high school one last time." Really? I for one do not miss my awkward years. Far be it from me to trample on someone's memories but I am happy where my life is at now. Life started for me at age 30. I even said back then that it felt like a blanket was lifted off my face.
Another interesting thing about seeing these pics: I am hardly in any of them. Now why is that? For starters, I was busy in my own bubble, practicing my guitar, but don't get me wrong. I had friends. Just that I was never part of anyone's clique or scene. For a brief minute, a touch of sadness hit me like "Wow I was never really accepted back then" but I learned that I was not born to fit anywhere. Again, my friends want to bask in the glory days (didn't Springsteen sing about that in the 80s?) and that's cool. That's just not where my head is at.
I had a friend ask me a long time ago, "Why do you never talk about your past albums?" I am proud of my past works but I am always writing and evolving. A guy I worked with many years ago at Victor's House Of Music said to me "You're like a painter, you make something, admire it and then move on. You're almost like a jazz musician." He was not wrong. I did the REFURBISHED album as a way to say "Okay here's some out of print stuff, since some of you asked. But I'm moving forward with new music." Even my last studio cd MARBLEHEAD will be two years old on May 15th. I am super proud of that album but again, I have a ton of demos waiting to be finalized should the right combination of musicians come along.
But back to these photos on social media. Everyone are getting a kick out of the wild hair styles, tacky clothes, whatever was happening in the 80s. Time does not care about you or me, it just moves on. Rivers never sit still, and you will never stand in the same river twice. We are all feeling varying degrees of depression because of this quarantine. Our moods are erratic (and the drama on social media is worse than ever!) In the words of my former history teacher: "It can't rain forever."
We can't talk about the future because it hasn't happened yet. Seeing cancelled tours and whatnot give us clues as to what we might expect in the foreseeable future. As for the present, yes right now it's not looking so great. While pining over the past is the "in" thing, please don't be trapped there. It can lead to more depression. Though I have to sound like a hypocrite here: If I hear a song from my youth, I get dragged back and think about how I dreamed of being a guitar god. And then I tell myself that my life is right where it should be. My students like me, they enjoy learning cool things, and I enjoy when they throw a challenge my way.
Case in point: one of my students (she's 14) wanted to learn a song called "Feeling Lonely" by Boy Pablo. Of course I never heard of them or this song, so I was thinking "Great, another rap song" but I was genuinely pleased to hear REAL GUITAR and jazz chords in a pop tune. I even said to her that I checked out the whole album and while it's clearly not my demographic, it was great to hear real guitar work instead of computer-driven pablum. I thanked her for exposing me to this music and she gave me a sheepish grin. I learn from my students as much as they learn from me.
Learn from the past, focus on the present, don't be worried about the future.
I still wish I had long hair in high school though. Ah well....
