The Long Way Home

Yesterday I finally arrived home to Maryland/Washington, DC. For some reason the eight hour flight seemed longer than usual — and I was taking a direct flight from Madrid for the first time in six years. One thing that I found interesting while looking at those maps they show on the screen on the flight was just how immense the world was. I was about two hours out over the Altantic and the map was showing cities like Paris, Madrid, Santiago, Rabat, and others. The couple sitting next to me where Indians who had emigrated to the US about 10 years ago and had three very nice boys. Two rows ahead of me was my co-worker Gon’s sister and two daughters. I was thinking about how rich the world was with such diversity of people and places.

Anyways, I arrived home saw my father, cleaned up a little, and about one hour later left to Bethany Beach with my mom where her youngest son and his girlfriend were waiting for us. As when I am always about to go home, I go onto Amazon and buy all of those books I have trouble locating in Europe and all of the music I can’t find on iTunes. So when I arrived yesterday afternoon, I found the following books and music waiting for me, which I put in my bag and set out for the beach:

Books: Elias Canetti, The Voices of Marrakech; Kurban Said, Ali and Nina; Fatima Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass; and Vladimir Simosko & Barry Tepperman, Eric Dolphy: A Musical Biography & Discography.

Music: Elvin Jones/Jimmy Garrison Sextet, Illumination; McCoy Tyner with Roy Haynes and Henry Grimes, Reaching Fourth; Max Roach, Percussion Bitter Sweet; Max Waldron with Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin, The Quest; Ken McIntyre with Eric Dolphy, Looking Ahead; Oliver Nelson, Screamin’ the Blues; and the George Russell Sextet, Ezz-thetics.

I will still have to wait a few more days to really be home.