So What if the City Changes Us?
Sometimes change is what we need
Hello, there!
I told you last week I’d be spending some time talking about home, and since there are absolutely zero updates on the book and writing front this week (other than the fact that I launched a local news publication that seems to be filling a need and that I’m going to be interviewed about on cable access tonight), I’m going to just launch right into it.
I’m going to start with music, because pretty much everything worthwhile begins and ends there.
I love Andy Grammer. His debut song, Keep Your Head Up, is a positivity anthem, encouraging us to keep with the hard stuff even when we’re discouraged. It’s worked out pretty well for him. His music over the years has mostly kept with the open, positive, feel-good vibe of that very first single. I like it. when I want to dance around and sing along, I put his music on.
But there’s this one song. You know when you go to a concert and you’re waiting to hear the music you know, but then they throw in stuff from their new album and you’re like “OK, OK, just get to the good stuff already!”? Not that the new stuff’s not good, but it’s not familiar and it’s not really what you came to see. Back Home was that song for me. It’s an energetic song. It’s one you and the rest of the crowd can’t help but shout back to the stage when he grabs the mic from the stand and aims it in your direction. I’ve even come to like it. But my first memory of it was one of those “And this is the single coming out next month” moments, and that’s how I’ll always remember it.
The premise of the song seems to be that “Yeah, I’m going to the big city and I’m going to be famous, but don’t worry. I won’t forget where I came from.” One of the most-repeated lines says, “Oh no, the city won’t change us.”
And, I don’t know, maybe it feels like a personal indictment to me as someone who, as I mentioned last week, doesn’t really connect with where I came from. But also, I have a hard time with the mentality that “being changed” by the city is a bad thing. I can smell the politics around the corner, and I’ll try to plug my nose and march on - but it seems to me that a widened perspective is a good thing. Am I wrong?
I moved from a small town to the city. (That’s a simplification, but my housing history is as long as my arm and you don’t want to hear about all of it.) It took living outside my little, tiny, homogeneous town to understand even a fraction of what other people go through. It took meeting people with different skin colors and religions and socioeconomic status, and watching what they experience on a daily basis, to start to recognize I wasn’t as wise, learned, and open-minded as I’d always thought I was.
Without those experiences, I never would have been able to develop the empathy I’ve grown over the years since I left. And now I spend at least part of my time volunteering to spread this empathy and awareness around. I still have a metric ton to learn, but I don’t make that a secret. I have learned how to advocate for others and also listen to people who know a lot more than I do.
So, yeah. The city changed me. But I think it changed me for the better.
What do you think? Is it possible to have a truly open mind if you don’t step outside the confines of comfortable place?
Hit me back. Let me know. Share the love.
