For the past three years, ever since I graduated from Delta State with my BA, I've been grappling with a couple questions in my life. The first: should I concentrate more on music or continue my work in public service? Thankfully I have learned that I do not have to compromise either. As long as I sustain my almost crazy determination and meticulous scheduling, I can give both the attention they require. (I will be honest though, music does sort of take top priority. It is the only thing, aside from a very few good conversations with friends and family, that gives me chills, the good kind.) Just this past year I feel that I have grown exponentially in my musical ability. I am now writing more mature songs, playing better improvised phrases with real feeling, improving my saxophone intonation and tone, and developing my keyboard skills. At the same time I have been able to keep work with a large, regional non-profit with substantial backing. And I have received three promotions to where I am now a Project Manager, a position that requires a Masters degree or higher. I am happy, grateful, and humbled to have achieved so much, especially in a place where many will say there is little hope or opportunity to accomplish your dreams.
The second question, however, is taking longer to answer: should I stay or go from the Mississippi Delta?
I've been thinking a lot more about this question recently. I have some close friends around my age who are considering leaving the area and more than likely will. And I have met some new ones who already have. The New York Times also posted an article about people in their 20-somethings earlier this week. Take some time and read it, if not the whole thing, then the few introductory paragraphs. My main concern at this point though is, rightfully, me. By the time the New Year rolls around I will have been in Mississippi for 11 years and in the Delta for 8. This is the longest I've stayed in one place, ever. (The act of moving isn't an issue. As a child my family moved many times. I am no stranger to moving and the paradoxical feeling of "upheaval" and "excitement" that the change can bring.) In November I turn 26. I am single, I have no debt, I have a great job that brings about both short term and long term change as well as some good change in my pocket, and I am developing into a reputable and respected musician. There are, however, a few things that I see as missing from the picture now: more formal education, being closer to my family, and the chance of meeting someone and eventually starting a family. These are the things that I am thinking about now as I weigh the pros and cons of place.
A couple months ago I came across a book that is helping frame this question better. It is Wes Jackson's Becoming Native to This Place. His passages are some of the most powerful that I have recently read. It is influencing my thinking and giving me the courage to "dig in." You'll see what I mean, just read the following selections from his Prologue:
"...this book is a challenge to the universities to stop and think what they are doing with the young men and women they are supposed to be preparing for the future. The universities now offer only one serious major: upward mobility. Little attention is paid to educating the young to return home, or to go some other place, and dig in. There is no such thing as a "homecoming" major. But what if the universities were to ask seriously what it would mean to have as our national goal becoming native in this place, this continent. We are unlikely to achieve anything close to sustainability in any area unless we work for the broader goal of becoming native in the modern world, and that means becoming native to our places in a coherent community that is in turn embedded in the ecological realities of its surrounding landscape."
"....Think of what a shift would mean for our universities. Today they hold the majority of our young people hostage for four years with the always implicit and often explicit promise of upward mobility. For tens of thousands of students, the universities have become little more than holding pens that keep them off the job market, requiring them to devote millions of hours to turning out work too shoddy to be either useful or artistic. Think about what is likely to be the eternal judgment of the generation now in power. As the result of its excesses, this generation is likely to be the first, and for that matter, the last, after it has died off, at best to be regarded as simply comical and pathetic and at worst to be hated. Isn't it time we begin figuring out a way to earn a living and amuse ourselves cheaply, which is to say with the least expense to our life support system? The binge the developed world has enjoyed is about over. It's time to find our way home and use what little time is left for partial redemption of this prodigal generation."
"This resettlement will be no small matter. It will have to be carried out by those who have a pioneering spirit, by those who see the necessity of such a dispersal, by those intelligent enough and knowledgable enough about its necessity that they will have the staying power. What they will be up against is horrendously formidable: a society dominated by the rich and powerful, offering temptations to embrace the extractive economy that keeps our income and global nonrenewable resources flowing their way."
So, that's where I am now.
