Andrea Blumberg

27. Spring Migration (Mar '08)

I am on the eve of my departure back to Scotland. I've been in Philly for just over 7 months, and the time has passed like a winged snail. Or a cheetah with bunions. Or a sloth, riding in the side car of a motorcycle. That is: both fast and slow; both been-here-forever and hard-to-believe-I've-been-away-from-Scotland-at-all; both "whee!" and boy-you-really-get-bugs-in-your-teeth-when-you-ride-in-a-motorcycle-sidecar (don't try to figure out the real-world equivalent of that last comparison; I didn't).

My time here has been more successful than I'd hoped. Initially, my goal was just to spend some quality time with my folks, whom I hadn't seen for over a year, and to recover a bit, physically (I've been having problems with chronic fatigue for a while, and I was really worn out [a sloth with bunions?]). But in addition to enjoying the time with my parents, and getting a lot of my strength and energy back, I also managed to meet a lot of new people, make some good friends and do some interesting things. How long does it take to kick start a life? I would have thought more than 7 months, but I guess my sloth stumbled onto some roller blades, because I made some good mileage!

So, looking back, here are two of the more interesting things that have happened in the last few months: I took one of those "continuing education" courses at Temple University (you know, the kind that include basket weaving, wine tasting, and yoga [luckily I didn't take those particular ones, or I probably would have ended up as a drunken pretzel trapped in a basket]) The course I took was called "Center City Savvy" and it consisted of going behind the scenes to meet some of the city's most important players, in their own offices. Some of them included: the mayor of Philadelphia, the District Attorney, the editor of the Phildelphia Inquirer, the anchors of the CBS Philly news, the chief homicide detective at the main police station, and the head pastry chef at one of the top restaurants in town, Le Bec Fin (he not only spoke with us, he gave us samples of his chocolates and pastries!). Guess which person I liked best. [hint: the mayor was a close second] :)

And the kicker was that here we were, a bunch of nobodies, just some people who paid a few bucks to take a "class", and all of these movers and shakers gave their valuable time for free, after hours, to explain themselves and their jobs! It felt the most weird to be sitting at the table with the newly elected mayor, who had a zillion and three things to do, and yet treated us as if we were the most important people in his day, graciously answering our questions and spending way more than the initially allotted time with us. But then, he's a public servant, and we're the public. A random sampling of the ordinary people for whom he (and all the others) do their job. In a huge city like Philadelphia (1.5 million, last time I counted) the people who run the place seem impossibly removed from the rest of us; but because the guy who ran the class has the chutzpah to call up all these people and just ask them to let us drop on by, the 24 other students and I got to close that gap. Surreal, but fun. And even a bit educational (shh! don't tell).

I've also been volunteering for the last few months at 88.5 WXPN, a commercial-free radio station in Philly. For the most part, I just went about my shy little way, happy to get to see a few concerts for free, never expecting to be on the other side of the microphone. But one of the other volunteers took a shine to me (a big-hearted train engineer with a mustache like Snidely Whiplash) and convinced Michaela Majoun, the host of the Women's Music Hour, that I would be great on her show. So she interviewed me last week, asking me about harp making, harp playing, living in Scotland, etc., and it was a blast! I'm attaching the blog about it below.

And, as a happy side-effect, someone I knew from my old acting days heard me on the radio, and asked me to record a bit on his upcoming album. He's an indie/folk/pop musician, so you may never hear of him anywhere but here (David Disbrow, for the curious), but it made it me feel pretty good.

Tomorrow I play my last gig at the Naked Chocolate Cafe (drink my last Aztec-spiced, melted-chocolate-bar-in-a-cup, sigh). And then Monday I get on the plane to begin a new adventure. I'm sad to be leaving so many wonderful people, but I'll also be returning to so many wonderful people; what a pleasant dilemma, to have to choose between such riches. I'm not entirely certain what I'll be doing when I get there, but some of my ideas are: finding other people to play in a band with, teaching harp, volunteering at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, and possibly helping out friends of mine with their puppet theatre company, the Puppet Lab.

Much love,
Andrea

Interview with Michaela

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