There’s as much preparation for returning home as there is for leaving home when one is on tour. For me personally, there are some rituals that I usually adhere to. First of all, if I can, I like the idea of washing all the clothes I had worn on the trip. Getting them the shirts and t-shirts tightly rolled, the socks mated and rolled, even the underwear folded and using the band to roll them into tight little spheres. It is a ritual of making space, taking everything that was used and compacting it as tight as can be, to allow all the accouterments of a tour to fit in the one suitcase shared by Brian and myself. Extra CD’s, a Freeplay portable speaker, toiletries, laundry. Everything packed and weighed to get to 50 pounds. Sharing that one suitcase allows us then to check my bass guitar as well. The rest we carry. My computer, my art supplies, my I-phone stand and microphone and anything else that would make the suitcase too heavy goes into my laptop case. All packed tightly and securely. I carry that, as well as either the mandolin or guitar. We hope that we don’t get any scrutiny from the flight crew. Brian will bring along a little backpack in which he has some personal items, a little Bose speaker to play music, foot pedals and wires. That alone is about 20 pounds of weight.
All that preparation, getting it all tightly put in place, packed exactly and done to minimize our time spent in security and even our seating at the airport. I guess in some ways, it is to minimize our own vulnerability with having instruments. One person with a guitar is dismissed. Two, and now there is a band in the waiting area.
But it is part of that mental preparation for returning home. I have to put my musician-centered thinking into balance with the other person that my loved ones expect me to be. The man who will take the dog out in the morning and make the coffee. The guy who will drive to school and to the job and pick up in the afternoon. A handyman that needs to fix, change, shovel, trap, clean, paint, everything that somehow sprung up in the last nine days of absence. A payer of bills, an opener of envelopes. The packing of the musician, the tour, is necessary to create a balance of space.
The musician happily steps back to let that guy come to the fore. That guy that stepped back nine days ago to let the musician be free. Now, once inside the door, the musician will be there, but it will be that other guy happily scooping up his daughter, kissing his wife, petting the dog and wearily setting down all that tightly packed, clean clothes and kit. The clothes and kit will go back to the closet and wait for the next tour, when the ritual will start over again.
MARTIN'S OTHER BLOG IS HERE.