Closer to the Moon

We’re sitting in the sanctuary waiting for the Saturday evening Hutchmoot session to begin when Ashley turns to me and asks, “Now, why aren’t you living here?”

I don’t have an answer. Not a good one at least. So I make something up (as I tend to do). She replies. I say more things. You know how a conversation goes. By the end she’s unswayed. “You should move here,” she says, and I can’t disagree.

The next day we visit Michael and Angela at their new home near Nashville, and they’re giving us a tour of the house. Angela leads us down the hall, showing us the master bedroom, the guest bathroom, the linen closet. When we get to the end of the hall she opens a door. “And this is Ben’s room,” she says. She might be kidding, but she’s also serious. And everyone laughs, but only after I do.

The week after Hutchmoot it’s hard to be back in Nebraska. Fall semester is just starting at Union, and our department is busier than ever. Enrollment is up. The TLC’s student numbers have practically doubled. It’s good that there’s so much to do; it doesn’t leave much time for reflection. Still, I know my heart’s not in it.

“Why can’t you just go for a few months and see what happens?” asks Ashley. It’s sunset and she, Ben, and I are walking the dam at Holmes Lake. “You could always come back,” she says.

Ben agrees. “You’re in a unique position. You have nothing tying you down. There’s no reason you can’t go.” Again, I can’t disagree. All that’s holding me here is fear, and that’s just one more reason to go.

A couple weeks later I hire Justin Okimi to write up the detailed plan of my move to Nashville. It will include a stimulus (to get me out of here) and it will be feasible (meaning "capable of being done with means at hand and circumstances as they are”).

When I tell Taleah about hiring Justin, she’s a bit put off. “I already made your plan for you,” she says. It’s one of those times when I’m at work and Taleah comes to visit me and she sits in the chair by my desk and we wax poetic about the days of our lives.

“But you didn’t write it down,” I tell her. “I need a written plan.” I hand her an extra-large Post-it pad and turn my attention back to Facebook and the important matters of the day while she gets to work.

Phase I
1. Put necessities in car.
2. Be sure guitar and cello are in car.
3. Choose 3 plants.
4. Drive to Nashville.
5. Start playing on the street.
6. Enjoy the adventure of being on the road and being a free bird.

Phase II
1. Circumnavigate the world.
2. Write a book.
3. Break even on your book.
4. Feel satisfied.

She hands me the list, and I look it over. “My favorite is the last one,” I tell her. “Feel satisfied. I think any good plan should end with that. I’m going to start adding that to the end of all my plans.”

What I don’t tell her is that her free-bird plan, her follow-the-open-road plan, the longer I let it sit in my mind, the more it feels like acid burning a hole in my skull, and the sides are caving in, and all that’s left is a huge puddle of panic gurgling around where my brain used to be.

Days pass.

John calls me to chat. He’s driving to Portland for an oven presentation, or something food service related like that. We talk a bit about his life, and then the conversation turns to me.

“I feel like I’m nearing the end here,” I tell him. “This is the last year.”

“Haven’t you said that before?” he asks. Dang him and his memory.

“Yes. But this time it’s for real. Even if I don’t have a plan.”

“You need a plan,” he says. He knows me well.

“Well, I’m accepting ideas. Would you like to make a submission? It’s a contest. Maybe you’ll win a T-shirt.”

“A T-shirt?”

“Yeah. We’ll make a T-shirt of whoever’s plan wins.”

We decide we need a shirt that has Ashley’s smiling, supportive face, saying “You can do it, Ben!” Next to her will be John saying, “No, Ben. Get on the treadmill.”

“You should be a session musician,” says John. “I think you would really enjoy that. But you’d have to move to Nashville. Or L.A. But for you...,” he pauses, “Nashville.”

“Agreed.”

“You need to use your connections. You know a lot of people down there. At first you will probably have to play for nothing, just to get your name out. But then one day some band will be in a bind at the last minute and someone will say, ‘Hey, I know this guy. He’s just starting out, but he’s amazing.’”

“Have you been talking to Ashley about this?” I ask.

“No. Why?”

“Your plans are very similar is all.”

His phone loses reception, and just as suddenly as the conversation started, it’s over. Which is just as well. Conversations with John rarely have a true beginning or ending.

The grass in Lincoln is green again these days, but I know it won’t last. I linger in the simple moments. Sitting in the car in the driveway long after I’ve arrived home. Turning up the music. Looking up at the night sky and feeling closer to the moon than I have in years.