Avi Amon | Musician

Wut.

Nostalgic blog post alert! 

So I’m sitting here at Drew’s house for one last night on the threshold between two worlds. The first, my Delaware world and all the intricacies associated with that. The second, my new reality in a new city with new opportunities and responsibilities as a student. Which is so weird to say, by the way. Master’s degree? Who am I?!?!

The real difference between these two is that I am only allowed and ready to experience this new world because of the opportunities given to me in the first.

We always think that we’ll have time to reminisce and enjoy the last few days of living somewhere. Take time to say goodbye, cross items off a bucket list, process everything. But it’s actually just a hurried, stress-city endeavor, barely giving us a few seconds to breathe, let alone think. And throw in a car-burglary in there, too… The thought of leaving doesn’t become real until that last glance as you walk out of your whitewashed shell of a room, and the only thing indicating that you ever lived there are the marks on the wall where pictures used to hang.

But then, after the madness has died down, I finally get the chance to think about and really appreciate the moments that have brought me to where I am now…

Late nights around dueling pianos. Silent fights about dishwasher organization. Riding bikes in the rain that just won’t stop because we were too cheap to pay the fifty cents to park in a lot on Main Street. Several sets of housemates (and house guests) I’ve grown to love as brothers. Thousands of dollars spent on alcohol. Forreal. The farmers market, Homegrown, meeting old professors for coffee just because, way too many plants, midnight pancakes even though I’m 25, and mail every day. Writing a freaking musical. The Deltones and everything that means. Free concerts, the best bedroom I’ll ever have, and perfection on the Green. Learning how to be Present and Passionate from everyone around me. Love, in every sense of the word. My first job with bosses who will never be topped, my parents’ first apartment in this country, inviting my younger sister to her first college party and then, what seems like two days later, watching her graduate in the same blue-and-gold garb I wore 3 years prior. Porches and dancing and roadtrips and beer-tasting and inside jokes and humidity like you wouldn’t believe, and the thousands of other tiny and enormous things I can’t think of right now. Oh, and obviously, a pair of bedazzled jean shorts (though I’m sure those will resurface many times in the future).

I never thought that I’d eventually call this place home and while no living situation is ever perfect, these past 7 years (and 5 different residences, the most recent being right above) have truly been magnificent in most regards. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to appreciate my school from a different, post-grad perspective, develop relationships on and off-campus, and meet incredible people up until the very last day. This isn’t about graduating college and wanting to stay 18 for the rest of my life - I’d hate to think that I’ve peaked already. But there’s something to be said about that feeling in your heart that creeps up on you when you’re on the cusp of something new. Part nerves, part adrenaline. Sometimes its the GUT feeling that something is terribly wrong. But other times, as is in this case, you’re like “this is totally right but I’m still caught up in the finality of it all.”

Is it the friends I’ll miss? No. Well, yes, but not like that. I can’t think of a possible future in which we WON’T keep in touch.

Is it the place? Could this life have happened anywhere? I really don’t think so, nothing even close to this iteration, not this set of specific memories. And to be honest, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

So thank you, Delaware. It certainly has been a grand old time….

1. Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions - Mark Horowitz
   
2. Three Uses of the Knife: The Nature and Purpose of Drama - David Mamet
3. Colored Lights - John Kander
4. The Complete Works of Harold Pinter
5. Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories - Christopher Booker
6. Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe
7. Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Things One Sees - Lawrence Wescheler
8. Lieutenant of Inishmore - Martin McDonagh
9. Complete Poetry of Robert Frost
10. Seven Plays by Sam Shepard
11. The Art and Craft of Playwriting - Jeffery Hatcher
12. The Life of the Drama - Eric Bentley
13. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
14. Alphabet Juice - Roy Blount Jr.
15. Four Plays by Caryl Churchill
16. Lyrics on Several Occasions - Ira Gershwin
17. Finishing the Hat - Stephen Sondheim
18. Comprehensive Rhyming Dictionary - Sue Young
19. The Stranger - Albert Camus

This list - Hunger Games, The Stranger and about 30 musical theater and film scores not included - is about 1/5 of the suggested summer reading for my masters program… Pretty happy it came out to less than $200.

Yeah learning!