You Can't Go Home

As I sit here in the town where I grew up, I had no real choice about coming back.  At first my family questioned why I came back.  It was not crystal clear to me at first, but I was summoned by God.  Overall it was not a pleasant re-entry.  Is it ever, coming home?  Our family had its own baggage, so the immediate task at hand was mitigating that baggage.  Most of it was about our house, and my sister had gotten ill here a long time ago.  She had (and may still have) bad memories about this house.  In any event it was clear what needed to be done.  It was not being a bread winner, because the rest of my family were successful at that.  It never in a million years was a comfort for me.  Each and everyday I wake, until recently, it is very clear to me I am and have been living in my father's house.  (I guess it is fitting to write this on Father's Day weekend)  My mother likes to think it is hers, but really she lives in the great shadow of the house my father created.  There is a fair amount of neurosis, and although he was an exemplary father and provider his philosophy for the house and cars took a back seat to the rest of our more important lives.  (It is not until you really have to LIVE in a house that you begin to understand what it should provide for you)  Covid was such a thing, but I all ready had a head start.  We have made great strides in the health of the house, and consequently in our own personal health.  There are a few untied laces, but they can wait.  In the meantime because of Covid, the familiar adage of "You can't go home" has reared its ugly head.  I never paid much attention to this saying, because I did not have a choice.  My father in his later years aged poorly and had dementia.  My mother was tasked with his complete care, and eventually he had to go into a nursing facility.  This as most people know means you spend even more time looking after your loved one.  When a Norovirus outbreak quaranteened his facility he caught the virus, became severely dehydrated, and was hospitalized for over a week.  It was a rude wake up call to my mother, and every day since that incident she went to see him every single day for almost four hours.  This for the first time gave me time to use at my disposal, and I taught myself how to be a better cook.  This was necessary, and cooking is God's art, because you eat for nourishment what you create.  The rest of the progression of the house fostered the sustaining of my home recording studio.  Always I had something to do to continue to excel in the field of music.  This has kept me busy until how.  I have restored five Rhodes electric pianos.  I have rescued several vintage synthesizers from the trash heap.  I have continued to refine my keyboard and studio sound and create a monitoring experience that makes it pleasing to produce music.  The local industrial noise is a grave deterrent.  It is continuous and invasive both rumbling freight trains and overhead jet noise.  I have chosen different chapters in which to open and close living here for nine years, and most of them in no way were related to the local music scene or our neighbors.  Somehow it has evolved, and probably that is because we have new neighbors on both sides.  We have become ensconced by military families with small children.  As Vivian Howard states emphatically, the American South is run by matriarchs.  The WOMEN run the South, and that seems to be true here.  The men are military men with a hefty monthly housing allowance.  They bring in the bacon, and non-working mom's rear the children.  The scale of my life suddenly has changed, and my once autonomous musically-isolated solitude is no more.  Consequently it seems I am back in junior and high school, where the stark difference between me and them readily is apparent.  Fayettenam is an often violent and crime-ridden city.  Always it has been a scary place to live, because many of the people that live here are of a particular ilk.  Without being judgemental or condescending, there are some tough ass souls frequenting Fayettenam.  I stand out like a sore thumb in my Latino linen shirts (which keep me cool in excessive heat) and short pants.  As a trained jazz musician, skateboarder, and motorcyclist, I have very good balance and control of my body.  Also I have a keen intuition for dance.  This gait in my step or ease with which I approach daily mobility is different than most working class people.  I am not stiff and muscular, although my muscles are strong enough.  I am not desperate, because here and now for me is a speck in the continuum of life.  Consequently I am a challenge for most of these workers who can't help but see me as a spoiled rich kid.  (Which I am not)  My life has been no different than theirs, except I chose to excel the best I could in school mostly through the field of music.  Lately resentment is all I feel from the locals, because like most lesbians they hate everything.  The black contingency has a full force physical reaction to my presence, and it is not insulting but hurtful to me.  Subliminally the law is you must conform to the norm, and although I am adept at being friendly with my training from the cruise industry, I don't also feel the need to fit into the black community.  Sometimes I am too "on task" when I shop, so I am not on the comedic "Latino Time."  Always I am polite, drive exceedingly slowly so not to invoke a violent altercation with meandering pedestrians, and freely speak to those I choose.  Often those to which I chose to speak are reluctant to talk back, and I feel racism.  Either I am too white and square, or more often as when I shop at Aldi's, the black women workers there are arrogant and condescending.  That make it known you are not welcome.  I have taught college, and I am not from the hood.  I grew up in a newly integrated Fayetteville, and I mean when integration began in the public schools.  At first it was a few black specks in our first and second grade classes.  Then after redistricting Greenwood Holmes situated behind Eutaw Shopping Center was chosen not to attend Van Story Elementary or Horace Sisk Junior High School.  Instead I was bussed down Bragg Boulevard and across Murchison Road to attend Ramsey Street Elementary School and then Washington Drive Junior High School.  If I get attitude from blacks in Fayettenam, then I have no patience for it.  I was bullied at Washington Drive, and for two solid years I went to school in fear.  Then as a middle class white student I was not versed in the language of ghetto nor the protocol of gang activity.  When I was dropped off in the courtyard of "Drive" this was the rule.  I had to force my way into a group of white boys, still to this day some of my best friends, and initially they were not open to my company.  I had to prove myself.  As an adult it has become clear to me that any unwanted authority expressing influence or intimidation in my life against my will will be eliminated immediately.  Whoever is trying to exert such influence is a criminal and whether it would be through a skewed North Carolina legal system or a public debacle, they deserve to be quelled.  I believe in the criminal justice system, but often it fails us.  In Fayetteville alone there are over sixty vacancies of "sworn" officers in the police department.  We are on our own.  The trick is not to let someone get in your head.  Often they put themselves in your situation against your will strategically to heighten their chances of achieving success.  While in most situations I do not feel a lethal threat, often I am inconvenienced in my daily routine.  If I were physically threatened in any way, shape, or form I would retaliate immediately.  Most people who have learned to be careful live in this kind of sensibility.  It is an inner city thing, always to be aware of your surroundings.  Drugs do not help, and stoned, drunk, high junkies willing to do anything for a fix are the most dangerous.  Much of the crime in America today is driven from drug abuse.  It would be difficult to rationalize it any other way.  It is extremely ironic to me that North Carolina is an open carry state, but flaunting your firearm on your hip in full view of potential criminals to me is not wise.  They have tried to pass a state wide concealed carry provision, and it almost has passed the state legislature several times.  It probably is wise.  Since Covid began arming one's self when driving and shopping has not been such an issue.  Today the violence is everyday, and it is escalating.  Vladimir Putin had some intelligent words to which we should listen.  First he points out incredulously that American Capitalism has failed, and the effect of its failure is escalating domestic violence.  "So I kill one spy.  You're people are killing each other all the time."  Communist leaders are laughing at the failure of American Capitalism as a reason to applaud and tout their own ideologies.  If you think the Kremlin has forsaken the Russian people at least providing them sustenance and Vodka, look what the billionaires have done to America!  What a rude, selfish, lot of dough boy zealots!  America has a rich tradition of excellence on the world stage, but that tradition has been traded for personal wealth.  If asked what would be such a successful metaphor for American success?  To me it would be the movie "Ford versus Ferrari."  This film represents the hard core, heart felt, legitimate challenges of human creativity and success.  Our enemy today not only wants to erradicate our emotional litmus test, but also disguise the importance of the Humanities in human life.  Intellect, creativity, and discovery through God traditionally are how we have achieved success and thus survival.  Now we are a blind circling herd of cattle with no plan in sight.  The Humanities which were created before the birth of Christ in ancient Greece, never have become extinct.  It only is that we have chosen to ignore them in favor of the con game.  Survival on this earth now depends on a new Age of Enlightenment with the Humanities as its core.  Technology has all ready begun to burn itself out and the Earth with it.