Northeastern Dopplegangers

There is a story I'd like to share with you fine blog readers, because it makes me excited.

As I am currently without a way to use an iPod in the car, and I only have so much room for CDs, I turn to the radio more often than I would if a greater portion of my music collection for available to me while driving. However, there are often many things I'm not interested in hearing on the radio. How do I fight to quell this quandary? I play Radio Roulette. It doesn't always prove fruitful, but generally my efforts are rather successful.

I took a short night time drive tonight, and as I always feel more adventurous in the night, my desire to play Radio Roulette was increased. So I did.

I punched through a couple of stations, stopping on them long enough to determine that I didn't want to listen to what they were broadcasting, then stopped on a bluegrass song. I don't make a habit of listening to bluegrass every day, but it holds a warm place in my heart. And this particular song caught my attention because they were singing about Greene County, Arkansas. (And I soon came to find out that the song was called "Greene County, Arkansas.") These guys were singing about my homestate. Granted, I had no idea where Greene County is located (or if there really is a Greene County.....apparently my study of Arkansas History didn't stay with me), but this song seemed to deserve my attention. Most bluegrass songs are about Kentucky or Tennessee. This was a rare gem.

I listened to what remained of the song. It was good. Then the radio show host announced the title of the song and said it was performed by a man, his wife and two children by the name of "Harmon." Really? Harmons from Arkansas? And music-making ones at that! (As an aside, after I got home, my friend Google told me not only where Greene County was, but also informed me that there is a Harmon Park in Greene County. !!)

My first thought: "This is too wild. And hitting awfully close to home. In more ways than one. My family's from Arkansas. And my mom, dad, brother and I (either all four or some combination of two or three of us) have played/performed together a lot." My second thought: "We could be related!" (Which really wouldn't surprise me, because I'm convinced I'm related to at least half of the state.)

If that wasn't crazy enough, the content of the song was something I relate to (which doesn't always happen with bluegrass/country music. Especially bluegrass. I was born and raised in the South, but I've never lived on a farm. Or driven a tractor. And I don't eat fried chicken or cornbread. I'm really not the greatest Southerner.) The song was a part of a show on NPR about the rich music of Detroit. This particular section of the show was talking about Southerners who moved up there to work in the automobile industry. The point of this "Greene County, Arkansas" was that the storytellers had moved away to Detroit and, after working there for years, had changed to the point that they didn't think they could go back and live in Greene County anymore. They still loved it, though, so they also sang about the certain grief it brought them to no longer fit in.

I've often wondered if I could go back to live in Arkansas again. Full-time, that is. Anyone who knows me fairly well knows I still spend a lot of time there, to the point that it's almost like I live there part-time. I don't want that to change. And I still call it "home," but technically my "home" is in Tennessee. And it has been in Tennessee for more years than it's been in Arkansas, despite the latter being the place of my birth.

It's because I spend so much time there that I wonder how I would fit again. If I didn't go back there often, and every visit I made was just a happy one with dear people that I miss more than any of the other treasured relations I have all over the place, why wouldn't I think moving back would be great? I'd only be there for a short while, and being with those people I miss so deeply would feel so right. That rightness would be so overwhelming I'd be blind to anything else. How do I know this? Because that's still the way I feel every time I'm in close range of these certain people. If they're all I'm thinking about, then the answer is clear: of course I could fit here again.

But I see those people fairly often. Not nearly often enough, but enough to not feel like strangers. I keep up with them enough to know generally about all of their important life events and even a fair number of mundane ones. And beyond those people, I, the person I am right now, know what it's like to live in their towns. To shop in their grocery stores. To interact with their neighbors. I know the rhythm of the city (metaphorically speaking, because there are few places in Arkansas that could remotely be called a "city." You're doing good if you can be called a "town." For those who don't know, I'm from one of the towns, a place where all kinds of people within a certain mile radius come to shop and find something interesting to do. Which always made me feel kind of like a city slicker........and now I live in a place with double the population......). And I'm not sure if that rhythm jives with mine anymore.

In certain sections it does. Like it or not (and I genuinely do like it), Arkansas is in my blood. There's a familiarity with that great state which will never leave. There are certain philosophies I hold and habits I have developed which can only be contributed to the time I have lived there. But while I'm there feeling those familiar feelings and rejoicing to be around people who have this one certain idea in common with me, there's another part...a larger part....that feels like a foreigner. I have a lot of ideas that most people I interact with in Arkansas don't seem to have. I've developed a growing number of habits which seem out of place when I'm back there. And I've just generally grown accustomed to spending my everyday life right here in Middle Tennessee.

So when I'm there, it's like consonance and dissonance coexisting. I'm not convinced that this isn't worse than pure dissonance. Because the blending of consonance and dissonance essentially only renders dissonance. The two don't blend and that's the definition of dissonance. What makes it worse than what I'm calling pure dissonance is that there is a part that wants to sound like it fits, like its settled, like it's lining up perfectly to make a sweet sounding tune, but it can't. There's another part there spoiling its efforts. And that spoiling makes it more sad than the tune would have been had there clearly been no attempt for a tonic chord to step in and provide resolution. Unsatisfied resolution leaves more longing than resolution never being considered.

When I'm there now, as a non-resident, I'm able to hold off the conflict long enough to get the little bit of resolution available to me. It's deeply satisfying. Then before the muddled music gets me down, I have an excuse to escape it. I can go home.

I don't have that excuse if my home is there.

Add my laments to those of the Greene County Harmons.