When You Can’t Get Back Home, Part One

I shared a playlist with a few friends for Black History Month, smooth jazz guitar covers of songs I know from the 1970s. As I tried to think of people who’d appreciate what I was sharing, I was taken by how few they are. I needed names from my memory of friends and colleagues who are:

1. African American, and anyone else I remember who was “there”

2. Lovers of the music of the era, especially Black genres like Soul, R&B, Funk, and Jazz.

Shared music experiences are a kind of “home.” It’s like, you had to be there to understand. People from younger generations just can’t get it, although one day it will be true for them. It’s home. When we play the tracks we are transported there.

Home.

It’s where the heart was.

So now my heart is in the here and now with friends who are here and now. I remain aware of these present blessings, some of which would not have arrived without the journey of years. So, I am truly at home, now.

In a way.

It’s more than just music. We’ll have another home someday, and we’ll look back at the Pandemic and know that younger people will not understand this moment. They will write songs, essays, and dissertations about our period but they won’t feel it like we do right now.