I’ve made a point of avoiding the city centre for weeks now, partly because of the hordes of tourists, but mainly because of my latent anxiety over living in a socially constricted town (more on that later).
Today I deviated from the rule because my old pal insomnia was calling out for a dose of herbal sleep meds. Walking along, much to my surprise, what did I encounter?
On the corner in front of Holy Trinity there was a band called playing at enthusiastic volume for the gathered crowd. I watched with delight while my son sighed next to me, anxious to get on to the next errand.
Six years after moving away he still openly grieves about leaving Portland, but the truth is that he never much cared for the aspects of that life that were most important to me.
Standing there in the pallid, sweaty light of August in England, I could smell the band – though of course I do not have functional olfactory perception so what I was actually experiencing was a haunting, a ghost, the sensory memory of singing in public.
In a daily life sense I am about as introverted as it is possible to be and still function, but the stage is something else entirely. Whether the audience is big or small, hostile or celebratory, the best part of my odd job has definitely been performing.
Touring: long drives, cranky passengers, setting up and breaking down, irregular access to food and baths, crying or laughing down the phone to the people left behind, glimpses of old friends, either too much or too little time to accomplish what needs to be done, a near constant feeling of being lost – I love every last bit of the experience.
That is the one thing I have not been able to recreate here.
I miss having practice sessions in my living room. I miss sitting on my front porch late at night singing with friends. I miss the zine release parties, events at Reading Frenzy, dropping into the IPRC, making things and performing with friends
I still travel all the time, but I miss life on the road.
The band was playing later at the Portland Arms and I paid the cover charge, then stood at the back enjoying the particular and fleeting joy of watching live music.