Making the Familiar Strange
“And what the hell are you gonna do with that?” is a question my ears are all too familiar with. I’ve become a pro at proving myself to others since the day I declared to the world: I want to study anthropology! While maybe there’s a few who do not find this just a little out of the ordinary, as a good anthropologist would, let’s look at the context here.
There’s been a shift occurring with me recently, and the catalyst is group think. I’ve left a solidified student body at Mercer and become a member of a new group of professionals and young adults all making their mark on the community of Macon. This new group I’ve joined may not even know I exist yet…but we all have one thing in common: passion. As a Mercer student I’m no stranger to people with passion. Mercerians do so much in our community and around the world. You can see exemplary products of passion everywhere in this city: Bragg Jam, Second Sunday, Spark Macon, NewTown Macon, Bourbon Bar, Macon Pops, Macon Arts Alliance, Just Tap’d..all started by people doing what they feel is important in this world. People of passion here are commonplace…aren’t you bored already? I had options to leave; I could’ve seen what this town looks like from a tiny plane to Peru or on a postcard as I eat beignets at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. Life after college could have gone in many different directions, but I chose to dwell here because my passion is making the familiar strange.
Henry David Thoreau seems like the ideal dating candidate for me at this point. No cell service to access Ashley Madison, badass cabin (that’s not his parents’), and completely in touch with emotional things like intentions. Although I doubt he’d quote me his blog, I think his wisdom transcends that 21st century faux pas. “We would see amazing things if we could learn to be travelers in our own neighborhoods.” Wingin’ it is something I practice daily in some aspect of my life. I try to put myself out there and see part of this town I haven’t discovered, talk to people I’ve yet to meet, and never fail to make myself a little uncomfortable. For the most part, my exploration of discomfort is largely nested in my passion for music.
Music in the past for me has so often been about imitation. That’s what musicians have done since the beginning of time, right? Something I realized once I decided to stay in Macon is that my limitations with what I can get my fingers to express on the keyboard have ventured into uncharted territory. It can only bring me a certain level of happiness to know that I can produce sound that is calculatingly replicate of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor. Don’t get me wrong, I can dig a Mozart concerto as much as a Wilson Pickett acoustic session. I love it more than most things I’ve ever heard on the FM radio. However, I have questions. Do you know why you’ll find the same Jimmy Cox song covered on Otis Redding’s The Dock of The Bay album as on the Duane and Gregg Allman album? Because some things are just too damn great not to imitate. But do you know why there’s whistling for the last verse of the Otis Redding song “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay”? Create, innovate, or die. Otis never finished “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay”..maybe he didn’t want anyone to imitate him anymore; maybe he knew they could never do it justice. Maybe he wanted them to instill their own passion in it and continue a legacy of creation and imitation. And it is that whistling that keeps me writing my own tunes today.
I chose to stay in Macon because I have passion for music and for making the familiar strange. And since I’ve made that decision, an influx of beautiful souls have slowly but surely started to surround my efforts and give new life to my own ideas. I am so happy to be welcomed into this perfectly-unperfect, quirky, close-knit group. Not as a college student passing through, but as a resident with passion. Just know that when I get a little too familiar with y’all I’m gonna keep on whistlin’ until I can see the strange.
