I'm just getting back from a trip back to my hometown, Corvallis, OR. My parents still live in the house I grew up in, and while there have been upgrades here and there, the core of the house is remarkably just the way I left it all those years ago when I moved away.
Driving the 8 hours gave me time to think, to reflect, and even a chance to reconnect with an old lover along the way. So many memories flooding back, so many hurts, fears, joys and exciting discoveries that have come to make me who I am today. I just sat back and allowed the thoughts to flow. If you've been reading this blog, you know I'm on a quest to find the source, where it all began, and how things got so messed up. A key part of this question was answered this week when I went back home, intent on reclaiming myself from my past.
Walking the hills behind my parents house, the first thing I noticed was the beauty of the surrounding area: all the dogwood trees in bloom, mounds of azaelas, bluebells, tulips.... flowers and color everywhere, surrounded by the lush rich green grass that only can be found in a place as wet as Oregon. I hated that rain growing up, the cold, the damp, the gray. It permeated my bones and I could never get warm enough or dry enough. But I always had a deep love of the landscape, and the miracle of flowers that all that rain brought. Clue number 1...
I ventured around the neighborhoods I lived after I moved out of my parents house, looking at the old houses still standing, crumbling some of them, but still liveable. Just drinking it all in, allowing the thoughts to flow, knowing how much a part of me all this was. I visited Happy Trails, the old record store where I shopped for music. Its still there, holding on, struggling but surviving, navigating the newest version of the music industry, much as I have had to do with my label and store.
But the most incredible thing was going back to KBVR, 88.7 fm, and reconnecting with that most important part of my past. The old station manager is there still, Ann, and it was so good to see her again, and share my memories of how important the station had been for me. It smells the same, and while they've upgraded to modern digital equipment, and a playlist that doesn't even vaguely reflect the amazing history that once flowed onto the airwaves from those turntables, it felt like coming home all over again.
I met the new Music Directors, Caitlan and Han, and shared memories of the passion and commitment of my fellow DJs, the amazing things we were able to accomplish and the bands we helped break, all because of a passionate love for the music. And standing there talking with them and Ann, the old familiar excitement was churning in my gut. It was all about sharing something new and wonderful, turning people onto music that touched me in some way. Ann got out the video camera and taped me talking about what the station had meant to me, how in effect, my time at KBVR had changed the course of my life forever.
They even put me on the air briefly, talking about what things had been like. It was incredible, and it felt so right, with a mike infront of me, sharing with a new generation of kids the love and passion for music, and all the doors that could open for you if you just followed your gut. When I left, I was buzzing with the old excitement and passion that led me on the perilous journey of discovery these last 20 years, and caused me to put my ambitions of being an Ethnobotanist on hold.
I next walked over to Waldo Hall, the home of the Anthropology Dept. I stepped through those doors, and was hit even harder by memories of the past by the familiar smell of that building, of another passion that had gripped me so intently, I let it too shape my life. When I decided to major in Cultural Anthropology, I had no idea how much that decision too would shape my future. I went in search of my old professors, Bobby Hall and Court Smith, and while they have since retired, I shared memories of their classes with the secretary, who started in 1988, the year I graduated.
She remembered me because they had done an article for the anthropology newsletter, showing how you could apply an anthropology degree to just about anything, including the music industry. In its most pure form, I have been doing research these last 25 years in the field of underground music and punk rock, essentially applying all I learned studying cultures to the contemporary music industry. Who would have thought that!? I certainly hadn't made the connection.
It wasn't such an about face after all, my switch from Anthropology and ethnobotany to the Music Industry. I had found it, the source, of all I had done this last quarter of a century. It had all been about love and passion, following the various cool things that captured my attention.
I was able to bring my past into present time, a current context for the changes I'm now going through. Its not a spiritual crisis after all. Its more a spiritual "clearing", cleaning away the debris that covered the original intentions. Along the way, I got sidetracked but this trip allowed me to see that it was all just steps along the way. You can go home, you can find the true essence of your life if you have the courage to look.
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