Thomas Wolfe was wrong. Or at the very least, was wrought with two afflictions; the positive-minded vigor of Eeyore and the lack of a thesaurus defining home as more than an abode or a series of isolated childhood incidents. You can go home again.

 

Since leaving New Mexico in 1992 after nine months of travel that brought me back through for short intervals before finally landing in my hometown of Chicago, I've returned every year to visit...save about three. I always come in from the east on I-40 over Tijeras Pass, usually from Oklahoma City or on the more ambitious drives, somewhere in Missouri. The change to Mountain Time buys me an hour, and as I come around that final bend and see the lights of Albuquerque, spread like a thousand stationary fireflies in formation, I always feel that I've come home.

 

While I was born and raised in Chicago, and have spent the better part of my life there, it was my growth as a young man, that good old coming-of-age and finding of one's purpose that made New Mexico my new chosen home. From sitting atop Sandia's crest in 1983 on a trip with my Pops--always taking me out of town with him on business trips, hoping to keep me out of my relentless trouble back in Chicago--I wanted to move here. After an especially debilitating illness in late 1988 that left me unable to work full time, and doctor's "orders" to find a more favorable climate, I sold all that wouldn't fit into my brother's pick-up bed and  made the move. On March 28th, 1989, my brother drove away, leaving me and my small belongs and a stash of cash at The Royal Hotel on Central Avenue. By the end of the week, I was playing my first gig in their lounge and had several new friends escorting about town to various destinations--mostly bars.

 

I started my musical career here while working various odd jobs until landing additional income through an audio technician who installed the sound system at the Kimo Theater among other locations. He and his partner brought with them plenty of experience in music, including having worked at The Power Station in New York and with the likes of Stevie Ray and Jimmy Lee Vaughn and Edie Brickell. I learned about music production on our downtime as they threw CD after CD on (a brand new technology at the time) and pointed out the stylistic moves of the artists and how the producers worked with them. One that sticks in my ear to this day is John Lee Hooker's album "The Healer."

 

I also immersed myself in the practice of Buddhism and became attached to a large community of Buddhists, many of whom are still here. One guy I met at the time has remained a dear friend to this day. Now that he's located in Denver, we see each other whenever circumstances permit. The last visit was when he made a trip through Chicago for a convention and we met for lunch in Greek Town. Our differing political views and his ridiculous intelligence and knowledge of things have always made for challenging debates...that had they been judged, I probably lost. After many a night of tequila shots and flying facts to back our stances, we'd marvel how our interaction was the benchmark of a Democracy. Then I'd run home to research all the shit he said that stumped me, in hopeless preparation for our next meeting.

 

While working a "regular" job by The University of New Mexico, I became friends with a couple of long-haired rockers. I bought a cassette duplicator and some blanks through my friend the audio guy, and ended up making some extra cash doing a short run of demos for them. The first mosh pit I experienced was at a loosely thrown "concert" at a junk yard in the Valley where these two fellow workers' band played a set.

 

The music scene at that time was made up of retired and neo-hippies playing in foggy jambands, Norteños,  Country musicians, and a new and burgeoning hard rock scene. Occasionally, rap would crop up. The other night, as Megan and I pulled through Tijeras Pass on the way to stay with our friend Karen, I wondered how the scene has changed.

 

After a long day of intermittently sitting inside or out, reading about the Irish, writing about my travels, practicing and promoting, Megan and I were invited to a party on the West Side of Albuquerque, hosted by friends we met at Karen's "Leo Party" last August.

 

As I drove us up the hill towards the West Mesa, the sun was setting behind the Three Sisters--dormant volcanoes that formed the mesa 40,000 years ago. The wispy remnants of evening rain clouds left their droplets evaporating in mid-air, refracting colors everywhere with a perfect blue sky as a backdrop. Behind us, across the valley, the sunlight filtering through the airborne desert dust splashed the mountains in a red hue that made it easy to see why the Spaniards named them the Sandia and Manzano, or "watermelon" and "apple" in Spanish. As we pulled up to the party, a gibbous moon alighted in the darkening sky to the west with one companion star.

 

"Oh my god," gasped Megan, "this is absolutely beautiful. If there was anything for us here, I'd move in a second."

 

"Well," I responded, "every day, the people of New Mexico are rewarded for their forbearance in a weak economy (it's always been so here) and few jobs by the beauty of the land. And every night, the Gods give them the bonus of a painting across the sky that even the greatest artist would be hard put to emulate."

 

"Amen."

 

At the party, mostly stationed in a garage, our friend Alex and his musical contemporaries were listening to Reggae and Hip-hop while using their dilapidated t-shirt press (only two of the six presses still work) to print up shirts for their show Saturday in Denver. T's hung everywhere, drying the group's name, Government Cheese, into their fabric. As the Jameson flowed and interesting smells floated about, they spread ink onto the next piece of merchandise while free-style rapping over the music. In time, discussions of the state of music turned to impassioned debates on how to implement change in the industry...and life. Megan kept the video camera running, the shots kept coming. We broke for vegetarian lasagna (Alex is also a professional chef), and the music and debates continued until Megan, Karen and her daughter, and I returned to the North Valley to retire.

 

As I stood under the night sky, I pondered our experience. I began working through the thoughts that have become this blog and came to this; Home is not a location. Most people will say that. And the spirit of home is not the initial experience we had as youth per se. It is more the nature of that experience. The music may have changed, but the spirit of it has not. So many times I stood outside a party with friends, somewhere in Albuquerque between 1989 and 1992, drinking, listening to music and thinking out loud at each other as we searched for our place in life. In so many places, this continues today. And as such, home is still here for me where this spirit grew.