jon_chaisson | N is for No Myth (Reply)

Michael Penn's debut album March came out in the first week of September of 1989, just as I was heading off to college. I'd been looking forward to going to Emerson for most of that year. Part of it was because it was a Massachusetts school that focused on mass communications (at least much more so than some of the other colleges I'd been checking out. Part of it was that I wasn't just escaping the small town I'd grown up in...I was heading to The Big City. Mainly, it was for me to make my attempt at a writer, possibly a filmmaker, possibly a musician, in this place.

I won't say I failed miserably, nor will I say that I was a smashing success...but it was definitely a learning experience. There are still some events that took place back in 1989-1995 that I'm finally coming to terms with, or putting into perspective to learn from them, and that's twenty years ago. Most importantly, what I see now that I didn't see clearly then was that I'd avoided a hell of a lot back then. What if I'd stood up to my roommate that pissed me off so much? What if I'd broken it off with T instead of dragging it on for close to four years? What if I'd just said no instead of letting JA be such a bad influence on me? What if I'd stopped feeling so damn sorry for myself because I couldn't find friends like the ones I'd had my junior year in high school? What if I'd transferred to UMass Amherst instead if I felt so damn out of place?

What if I were Romeo in black jeans, indeed.

But that was then. I've gotten over all those what-ifs and moved on. I actually learned quite a bit in college, despite my less than stellar grades. I still can't speak a sentence of French without making a fool of myself, but I can pick up a lot of a conversation. I might not be a filmmaker, but I learned out to have an eye for visual cues and how to tell a story. I might not be a musician--at least not in the way I'd envisioned--but I was in two bands and have over a dozen tapes and at least 30 or so songs under my belt, and recording digitally is something I can do on my own at any time now.

It took me a long time to get over moving away from Boston in 1995. I was so damn angry, mainly at myself. For not doing the best I could. For being such a pushover. For being so easily influenced by things and people. I was pretty much starting over from scratch.

On the other hand, I faced my fears and failures directly. I would make visits to Boston on an almost monthly basis, right about the same time I was working at the bank and was about to start working at HMV. I'd stop by all my old haunts: the new and used record stores, the old dormitories, the apartments, the restaurants and parks. I'd get a little nostalgic, sure, but it was part of my healing process--that I could still face all my old haunts without feeling like an idiot that I was no longer living there. Especially when all the Emerson buildings I knew ended up being sold while the campus moved to the corner of Boylston and Tremont.

The last time I spent any significant time in the Boston area was with

emmalyon when we stayed at a hotel near the Boston Garden in 2005. Things had definitely changed, even then, with a number of buildings gone or remodeled, stores closed, and so on. It's no longer the Boston I lived in, but that's a good thing. It's been long enough that it's like visiting a new area for me again. I'm seeing new things, remembering old things, and having a lot of fun doing it.