So I am sitting at my table surrounded by work. The remnants of this morning's American Public Address under signs of my job topped off with Frenchies talking about expats (thesis). It's all work, and there are weeks--like the last two, and the future four--where it seems like I do nothing but work.
So I finished grading seventeen speeches and was contemplating tomorrow's reality of twenty more and the unreality of a thesis that might write itself when I decided I needed a break. Not just a paltry need, like really, really needed a break.
So I pulled up facebook and, through a series of clicks, ended up on The Study Band. Now, The Study Band is special because my friend Jack is the pianist. I met Jack in Paris and I still remember the day I fell in love with him (no, not that kind of love, sicko) and an idea in one instant. Paris was difficult the first few weeks. It is far from home, and it is different. My head hurt with all of the change and, like everything, it all circulated around memories of my mom.
So I was trudging through the courtyard one day, fumbling with my lighter, headed for the lounge. It was a cold day in January and the cigarette smoke did that awkward thing where it hangs around your head. I was in the process of blowing it away from my eyes when I heard someone on the piano. It was Jack, and he was playing but not just playing, he was meditating, performing some act of self-therapy. By the time he had finished his song, his little bit of self-therapy had worked on me too.
So that's when Paris became about a lifestyle--the artist's lifestyle. Jack would play, I would write, we would spend long hours drinking with purpose and then wander the streets and, for me, it was all about experience. Like most artists, we weren't too terribly productive during our time in Paris (uhm, it takes time, duh) but it was worth it.
So when I am stuck at my table in Ames, Iowa surrounded by endless work that is so structured, so rigid, and, in some way, so painful, I listen to my friend Jack's band and I get this serene feeling in my shoulders and in the back of my neck. I am comforted because I know people who are out there giving the world the middle finger, writing music, living the lives of artists. Someone has to. So if it can't be me, I am glad it is Jack.
