Today is August 3rd and there are two notable moments that occurred in my life on this date. The first was that I tendered my resignation from my day job in 1993 to pursue music full time and the second was the passing of my mother in 2016. That my mom died on the day of what I look at as embracing my life as a musician was sort of a sign to me. She embraced her new life on that anniversary, and I would like to think she made that decision while we all stood around her bed at the hospital. She was given her wings, and she took off from this world.
While I was at my day job (working as a marketing/PR person for a regional hospital) I knew my exit was coming, almost from the first day I started the job. For one thing, I was already playing music at a professional level, doing a lot of evening shows and weekend shows. I kept two suits in my car so I could alternate them between shows. I was already an expert at packing clothes and taking two-minute showers.
Brian FitzGerald and I began collaborating on music back in 1986 and so the siren song of the road and being a performer was crystalizing, even as I wrote newsletters and devised mammogram ad campaigns. I have to credit working at the hospital as being an essential part of my training to be an independent musician. In fact, I was surprised how much marketing is needed to promote music, shows and introduce ourselves to a larger world.
I was able to make the jump when I felt ready and also when I realized that to stay at my day job was holding me back.
I like to repeat the telling of “what” actually made me quit that day.
I had a great sign on August 3, 1993, when I was driving to work and praying over what to do. A hawk came right over my car and on the level of my windshield. It had a field mouse in its talons and the hawk and my car almost collided. In order to gain lift, it dropped the mouse which bounced off my windshield. It was all the symbolism I needed to understand that I had to let go of my security in order to soar, too. I walked in and resigned. Interestingly enough, that hospital, that security, no longer exists. It succumbed to the perfidious healthcare system that exists in our country, as well as (in my opinion) being deliberately run into the ground by unscrupulous management. It was a blessing to be free of it and to find my wings.
Not to say that my career as a musician soared majestically. My career has been a bit of wing flapping over the years. The struggle to make music is always searching for greater heights and praying for a thermal to glide on for a while. In the meantime, it’s flap, flap, flap for Switchback. And in some ways, keeping closer to the ground, we have managed to see so much more than those majestic birds that seem to be lofted high and stay there.
Yes, I do believe there are no accidents and my career has been one of making and maintaining connections with fellow travelers through music. I think of our fans and us as those starlings one sees in the autumn evening, gathering in a big cloud and wheeling into breathtaking shapes. That beauty is only capable when all are involved in making such beauty happen. And it is accomplished with a lot of wing flapping as well. The most ordinary looking of birds becoming something almost supernatural, that is how I see my relationship with my fellow travelers. As I like to repeat to Brian “It’s bigger than Switchback.” It has always been and that belief has kept me going.
And now, 40 years have passed since tendering my resignation and ten years have passed since my mother’s death. I count myself blessed and lucky to have been able to have flown so far and with others who appreciate what I do. And I am equally inspired and awed by the collective beautiful shapes that come when that musical energy is shared. Each show, another breathtaking configuration that soon dissipates until the next takes its place.
Some day, it will all end. I know that day approaches as well. I pray that it isn’t for another 40 years, to be honest. I clutch this experience in my talons as I flap toward my destiny. I know that like my mother did, I will have to let go in order to take wing. Until that time, I will choose to be among my other starlings, joyful in our murmuration, creating and sharing and celebrating what is bigger than all of us.
READ MARTIN’S OTHER BLOG HERE