Home and Away

The places we go and the places we return to

I have this idea for a docuseries about what it’s like to be a baseball fan. It would be two seasons long and season one would be called, “Home” and season two would be called, “Away”.

I know other sports have home and away games, but the concept is more pronounced with baseball. When your team goes to another city, it’s usually for a three or four game set. If you’re a die-hard fan who wants to catch all of the games in the away city, you’re going to be spending some significant time there…away.

And of course home is a huge theme of baseball! Hitters must start at home plate and the objective is to go visit all of the bases, but ultimately, return home. The catcher protects home. The umpire enforces the laws of home.

There are so many directions you could go with this for individual episodes. Life on the road for players and fans. The businesses that depend on home fans for their livelihood. The nomadic home and away lives of minor league players. The viewpoints of broadcasters, concession workers, people who transplanted from other cities, but maintained their original fan loyalties rather than taking on the fandom of the new city.

I’m no documentarian so I need someone to do this for me. Just give me a producer credit and I’ll be happy. Maybe we can have some brainstorm sessions to make it happen? But this would be must watch tv for those of us who love baseball maybe a tad too much. Is that possible though? I don’t think it’s possible to love baseball too much. Football, maybe. Baseball, never.

When I started this project a little over two years ago, my idea was to explore the intersection of music and travel. Many people I know have robust concert schedules in places far and wide, and while sometimes I have the good fortune to see shows in other places, mostly I live vicariously through them and dream of one day having my own music-inspired adventures in both familiar and unfamiliar places.

But music takes us on its own form of metaphysical travel. For me, growing up in a small town with very little to do, music was a way for me to go places in my mind. It was a way to hear new thoughts and ideas and to be both challenged and comforted. Music IS travel…all from the comfort of one’s home!

But music is also a resource in the search for home. One of the reasons I love travel is it’s one of the most immediate and powerful ways to to learn new things, meet new people, and expand one’s horizons and empathy for other people’s experiences. And then when you return home, you have all of this new data to work into your everyday routines. Travel helps inform your concept of home. What it can be and what it should be? Or sometimes it’s just nice to have some new memories.

Through no fault of anybody else, I’ve always had a hard time with the concept of home. I think it’s because I’m naturally filled with a lot of insecurity and anxiety quite a lot of the time. And because of that, I get restless and want to be “anywhere but here”. Music gives me a way to both escape those internal battles, but also a place to engage with them in healthy ways. I can go away, in a way, to make home more understandable and controllable.

What is home? Home is a place where you can be present and yourself. It’s where you are restored and the place that makes sense to return to after visiting the other bases. Slide in and have the ump scream out, “SAFE!” Because you are.

The first song that I think of when I think of “home” is “Homeward Bound” by Simon and Garfunkel. It probably helps that they say the word, “home” a ton of times, so my brain doesn’t have to do much heavy lifting to get there.

But I also think of a song like, “California Stars”, which is actually a quilting pattern, which to me, makes the song an even more powerful metaphor for home than literal stars in the California sky, though that’s nice too.

It’s a song about longing for a warm safe blanket with the one you share it with. The lyrics were Woody Guthrie’s, so I imagine him rambling somewhere across the country missing home or whatever version of it that he may have had on his mind. Maybe he’s sleeping on the hard ground in Oklahoma and dreaming literally of spending the night with his love underneath California’s stars or if not literally California, underneath that safe quilt, with the person who is home to him.

It’s a lovely thought. As a quiet person, I like quiet spaces (though I do get restless, as we’ve established, so I need the city too). But even more appealing than literal quiet spaces are the people and things that quiet the struggle. I have a partner who helps do that for me and I am filled with gratitude and love for her.

It’s also why I think I’ve always bonded so well with cats. A cat can be an unpredictable, antisocial being, but when one trusts and loves you, it will be a constant companion of literal warmth, stillness, and gentle noises of trust and healing.

Home for me is found in many forms, both places and people: my family’s farm, my parents, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my friends. My child is a uniquely special form of home. And then there is the physical/spiritual form of home that I inhabit with my longtime partner Danielle and my sweet, little cat, Maggie. When my mental state becomes unbearable, as it often does, I can always return to that loving safe space.

By the time you read this, our sweet girl Maggie will be gone from this earth. She has been in decline for a while, but it recently became abundantly clear that she was telling us that it was time to go. Danielle and I are beyond heartbroken and a piece of home has gone away. Away. Where? I don’t know. Hopefully somewhere safe and warm, though. If there’s a heaven, Maggie will be warmly invited, I’m sure, because there’s not a being human or otherwise sweeter and gentler and more deserving of eternal love than that cat.

Songs about being away: “Vacation” by The Go-Go’s, “Far Far Away” by Wilco, “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, “Walk Away, Renee.” Many others. I wonder if there are more songs about home or more songs about being away?

To me the most powerful song about going away is, “Keep Me in Your Heart for Awhile” by Warren Zevon, which was written when Warren knew he was in his last days suffering from terminal cancer.

Death is the ultimate expression of “away”. And the thing that makes it most powerful is he acknowledges how it will affect those at home whom he’s leaving behind, but asks them not to keep him in their hearts forever, but rather, “for a while”. Truly it’s all we can ask of those we leave behind. Life will and must move on, but little moments of remembrance are the ones that truly matter anyway. It’s a message of, “it’s okay to move forward…remember me every so often, and that’s okay.” It’s a selfless statement and a gift that speaks of a love for and understanding of what life is all about.

I apologize if this is a heavier topic than you wanted or expected. A lot has been on my mind lately. And we are about to embark on a literal travel adventure, which normally I might try to think about in terms of how I can present it to you in “song seeker” forms, but I think I just need to be away. I want to bask in the warm sun with my partner and I want to find quiet and solace from the darkness of the world. I want to experience the joy of live music and the home that it provides me.

It’s been a hard month or so. Without going into too much detail, there was some significant profession disappointment and there also have been some instances where my mental health and personal demons have gotten the best of me and left me feeling a bit adrift and questioning.

And I don’t have to tell you the daily anxiety that the news presents us with. I want to be strong enough to handle it, but sometimes I’m just not.

And now I’m having to say goodbye to my beloved cat and am heartbroken and feeling a bit adrift because of it. I never understand the people who say, “it’s just a pet.” The grief is real and I don’t know what life looks like without her. It’ll move on with love and hope, but it’ll be hard and I know many of you know what it’s like to lose a pet. It’s a unique type of friendship and love. For awkward guys like me, that sort of unconditional affection and acceptance is often hard to find in the human world. It happens, but it’s rare. I’m not trying to feel sorry for myself. It’s just the truth.

So I’m taking my heartbreak and frayed nerves to Florida for a few days and am looking forward to the possibilities inherent in being away. Home is always a little different when one returns to it after being away, but it’ll be filled with some different routines and ways of being as a consequence of one less being being a part of it.

Songs about cats? Songs about difference? Songs about searching for answers? Songs about fairness and unfairness?

My mind is going blank right now. I’m a bit overwhelmed by the it all of it all and need away to help me redefine home.

So I think I’m going to take a break from writing here for a bit too. I don’t know for how long. I want to work on some of my own music, with the goal of releasing some still being a part of the plan. I want to reflect on some goals and better ways of being. I want to listen to music. I want to enjoy quiet moments and maybe read a bit more. I want to not put so much pressure on myself to “be somebody”.

I’ll come back. Hopefully rejuvenated. Hopefully with perspective. Hopefully with hope. Maybe I’ll have a renewed sense of purpose for what this Substack actually is. Or maybe I’ll just ramble on like I always do. We’ll see.

Until then, thanks for reading. Take care of yourselves. Look out for one another. Talk to you soon!