We are somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, on our last day off of the tour, pulled over at a rest stop so we can do some phone interviews in preparation for the final weekend of shows in NY, DC, and Baltimore. I beg off the interviews, still upset that the band wouldn’t join me on the encore last night in Columbus, and I wait in the RV, flipping through stations on the radio. I stop when I hear the opening chords to ‘Peace of Mind’ by Boston. I haven’t heard it in a decade (since I sold my copy of their debut to buy some much ‘cooler’ records) so I turn it up. “If you’re feeling kinda low ’bout the dues you’ve been payin’, future’s comin’ way too slow. And you wanna run but somehow you just keep on stayin’, can’t decide which way to go. Somewhere in that dime-store philosophy and fractured syntax, there was a message for me that resonated. Mr. Delp even understood my indecision! I was torn between trying to stay in the band and wanting to get out of the tense situation that it had become. “I don’t care if I get behind. People livin’ in competition, all I want is to have my Peace of Mind.” I had spent the last 4+ years so heavily invested in this band as my identity that it had taken me the whole tour to figure out that leaving was even an option. I believe this is what AA calls ‘a moment of clarity’ and, by the time my good friend, Brad was exhorting me to ‘Take a Look Ahead!”, I was already moving to San Francisco in my mind. (Sorry, Chicago; done with winters)
When the guys returned from the interviews, I had a big, dumb grin on my face and I felt better than I had at any moment since we left town 6 weeks earlier. A dumb rock song had helped me see what I needed to do. This was more than a feeling; I knew I had to leave it all behind, never change my mind, and, most importantly, Don’t Look Back!
Tomorrow: Back in the New York Groove.
Calculating Route... 