First Ecstasy, Then Absurdity, And Finally, Miles Davis.

 

 

On a cold spring afternoon, I went to an interview that would change my life. I had applied for a competitive editorial assistant position at a major newspaper, and to my surprise, was asked to come in immediately for a face-to-face meeting with my résumé and my features clips.

As an even bigger surprise to me, I nailed the interview and got offered the job on the spot. I accepted, went down the elevator of the historical building that housed this daily paper, found my car, and started the drive home.

My ego inflated six sizes in three blocks. Of course I got the job! Of course they wanted me! I worked hard to get to this point, and boy, I was ready to go the distance.

(Listen, if I’m going to use a whole bunch of work clichés all at once, I might as well throw in one classic sports cliché to make things spicy, yeah?)

Lost in these intoxicating thoughts, I turned down a familiar road. This tiny lane went by the coolest restaurant in town, and through the windows, I saw a few familiar faces waving at me. I waved back as I drove by.

Of course they were waving at me! I’m hip and I have hip friends! Life is good!

Well, their waving turned more frantic. The waiters I knew by name were mouthing something.

And, it slowly dawned on me that what they were mouthing was “WRONG WAY! WRONG WAY!”

It was then that I understood why this street looked so fresh to me that day. It’s not because of my inflated mood. It was because…

…I had driven the wrong way down a one-way street.

My expression of hipster glee turned to frantic horror and freaky arm-wheeling as I tried to get out of the blitzkrieg of the now oncoming off-ramp freeway aiming towards my tiny Honda.

 

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Even now, when I think on it, the seminal changing moment of my writing life was not getting the job at the big wonderful newspaper that launched my career. It was driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

Any time in my 20s and early 30s when my ego had a “moment,” something truly hilarious and frankly wrong occurred. Usually by my hand. Without fail.

Everybody experiences a certain amount of this sort of gallows-humor absurdity. I just happen to have, to bastardize a James Thurber quote, an unhappy genius for moments of ego glory followed by a sharp left-turn into mortal absurdity.

 

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Here is my theory of what was happening during that heady period of my life:

1. I would be given an opportunity to do something really neat.

2. My hyper-enthusiastic brain would register this fact, and my ego then woke up from its afternoon nap to chime in with useless jabber of the “of course” school of thinking.

3. The universe would lean in and takes a listen to my idiotic ego babbling away, and—

4. —the next thing you know I would find myself driving down a one-way street into oncoming freeway traffic just a-pickin’ and a-grinnin’.

5. Chaos would ensue.

6. Subsequently, I would then get on with the real work of doing whatever neat thing I was offered to do in the first place. Without the ego, which has died of embarrassment. Again.

 

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You’d think I would have learned after the first, oh, one hundred times this pattern corrupted my future hipster dreams.

But, I am now unashamed to say that I have wide blind spots when it comes to some of my own patterns, whether they are neatly laid-out plaid-obvious, such as learning to not procrastinate on deadlines in college, or jumble-colored ambiguous paisley, in the hues of my opportunity-ego-chaos confusion I just confessed to you in the above story.

This rinse-and-repeat of opportunity to chaos might have gone on indefinitely had I not, at some point, figured out that when my ego inflates, I start literally tripping over things in public, driving terribly, or otherwise making more of a fool of myself in public than usual.

I’m not even sure what happened to make me reconsider my approach to art and life and people.

It wasn’t a single event— no tipping point here.

 

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My 30s as a whole have been a slow relaxing into a comfy-chair selfhood and jeans-wearing heart and what I believe is a nourishing amount of confidence in a chunky olla podrida kind of way.

It’s so much easier to be in my late 30s. I am more myself than I ever knew I could be. And I’m so much more relaxed. I feel in tune with my funkamonkatude. And I am cool with your funkamonkatude too.

Instead of the jittery and hard-edged music of my 20s, my latter 30s have been smooth and warm as Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

And believe me, I need that music as a counterpoint my super-enthusiastic, hyper-sentimental, big smiley self.

 

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I need that fresh bebop to slow down the muckle-mouthed things I’m going to say on accident, when the words I’m trying to say behind those crunched ones are sweeter, kinder, slower.

I listen to this album all the time. It’s considered the best-selling album in jazz history. You may own it, or you may hear it today for the first time, and you may like it. (Or it may not speak to you, and that’s okay too. There are other things that speak to your soul now, and I am okay with that also.)

The first song, “So What” opens with some clear, straightforward chords.

Then the heartbeat-even brush drum talks to the piano.

A stand-up bass interacts with a piano in sophisticated but earthy conversation, which is the way I try (but don’t always succeed) to listen to the world and interact with everyone I meet.

And finally, there’s the inclusive voice of the horn, Davis’ song of love to art itself, both opaque and transparent.

 

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Let’s just say, if I were to choose a soundtrack to my late 30s and my celebration of my absurdity, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is what my soul would like to sing.

And my soul would start with the opening song, “So What.”

It is beautiful. It is frank. It soars into the stratosphere of our collective air.

And this song belongs to everybody. It speaks to basic human experience.

Thank you, universe, Miles Davis, and my absurdity— for giving me the gift of the song of myself. And a much clearer awareness of street signs.

Because, frankly, I need all the help I can get.

 

 

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