lovely limbo

I love being away from home. Getting out of the city, state, country - wherever - I think travel is wonderful.

A persistent challenge that comes with travel is finding what to do with the days just before leaving a place. I feel like I'm already in that realm of uncertainty. I've worked my last shifts at the coffee shop, i find out from my two top pick medical schools in the next few weeks, I leave for the west coast March 10th and then I'm hoping to leave for India March 17th.

I get back from India the last week of May (insh'allah) and depending on where I go to school I could have as little as two weeks to pack up my things, find a new place and move to my new home for next 4/5 years.

It sounds like a lot, but today, it's more like a lot of nothing.

The last time I went to South America, I fell in with a group of lovely canadiennes. They spent a good deal of time planning their last day together: which markets to visit, where to dance, which coffee/pancakes to savor. If I remember correctly, that last day ended up being a lot of fun, but little of what we did was originally on the list.

Which, of course, is the way it usually goes. One of the most popular interview questions for medical school is "where do you see yourself in 10 years?" While I understand you could probably gauge for narcissism (chief resident with the best handicap on the course) or careful goal setting, it doesn't seem like all that important of a probe to me.

I don't think it's right to chalk up my feelings about my present uncertainties to anxiety, and it's not necessarily as though I'm wrapped up in my expectations - this situation keeps me from having any expectations at all.

That's the present challenge. Keep the future in the future.

Rumi

Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. The child weaned from mother's milk
now drinks wine and honey mixed.

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.

Part of the self leaves the body when we sleep
and changes shape. You might say, "Last night
I was a cypress tree, a small bed of tulips,
a field of grapevines." Then the phantasm goes away.
You're back in the room.
I don't want to make anyone fearful.
Hear what's behind what I say.

Ta dum dum, taa dum, ta ta dum.
There's the light gold of wheat in the sun
and the gold of bread made from that wheat.
I have neither. I'm only talking about them,


as a town in the desert looks up
at stars on a clear night.

This does not, N-O-T, not mean you suck

Eddie is a saint. The man that no longer owns Eddie's Attic, but still runs the acoustic venue's weekly open mic night, finishes every week with: "before I call the last finalist of the night, I want to reiterate that if your name hasn't been called, it does not, N-O-T, not mean you suck.

I haven't played at Eddie's - but - I have spent a number of nights going just to listen.

It's brilliant. Well, in the little league soccer kind of way. So much struggle, everyone going for the metaphorical broken heart/follow your dream/nostalgia-for-something-vaguely-american-that-our-generation-never-knew soccer ball, and no one really getting anywhere, unless you count the three folks that are selected as finalists. There's no shortage of songs by sensitive, misunderstood blokes writing about what they suspect songs should be about.

To be fair, it is extremely difficult to be or do what you are - and i don't pretend to have it right.

One of the great things of hanging out at open mics though, is the chance to build a song from a group of rules of what you'd hope to never do - given how it's playing out on stage.

My buddy Christiaan has been on the road with his band pretty much since we finished at Emory in '06. His band Brass Bed played at a house party this past saturday night (of course the police came. "everybody inside" says the tipsy host, to which mike's inner monologue replies "hmmm, uh, you know what, I'm not doing anything wrong so I think we should just go. i'm getting too old for this")

The last time I hung out with Christiaan, he gave me a bit of friendly guff for not taking more time before school to play music. His friendly jabbing was about my heading to medical school as premature, citing his own backup plans of going to law school if the band doesn't work out. I want to be clear, I have no thoughts about going pro. But I don't think folks that play personally important music ever stop. Playing something that has meaning and familiarity provides a centering counterweight to daily busyness. It's worth too much to walk away from.

The past few years I've become a bigger and bigger consumer of music, always looking for the next sound that pings something simple, creative and organic without trying too hard. I doubt the playing or the listening will stop because I'm hanging out with science a bit more.

If I had to guess what Eddie liked about open mic nights, it'd be the leveling that happens in front of a microphone. Fairly regularly people playing at other venues in town would stop by open mic before their own personal gigs, but they're on the same stage with the same sound guy. They get two songs to say what you've got to say, and once in a while, maybe three times in one night, you get folks that are saying something honest and worthwhile about what living is like.

You do not ride with me, b you ride the marta bus

Since I've started working at Grady one of the perks I've enjoyed the most is the commute on the MARTA. Granted, it didn't help my germ phobias, but it has really helped other parts of my mental health. This makes for a good 20 minutes each day when I get to focus on nothing, and somehow the seasick rocking along at 45 mph along Dekalb avenue is actually pretty relaxing. One of the best parts of my day even.

I've always had a hard time with commuting, and the older I get, the more difficult it gets for me. It's just that any time I have to tread OTP for something other than an overnight trip, and maybe this isn't fair or appreciated, but I get really sad that people spend this much time in their cars. Every day. And, it's human competition dynamics at its worst, stirring up feelings of anger and frustration directed towards other people after a long day of the same mix.

So, and I'm feeling a bit Barbara Kingsolver preachy about the things that I like about my life that are really easy (sure, I'll take a year off and grow my own food), this is what I love about the MARTA. Atlanta mixed in these 8'x30' boxes smellin each other and listening to whatever music is about to blow some poor guy's eardrums.

Quick example, just the other day, a polite gentleman dressed in the latest urban fashion was explaining to a young mother how he could train her toddler to be a part of the true hustler nation.

This is how I learned that MARTA actually stands for Men Actively Recruiting TrueHustlers of Atlanta.

I submit for your viewing pleasure a recent public service announcement produced by the drum majors of the Southwest DeKalb High School Marching Band.

NSFW (not safe for work)