I wonder, sometimes, at how small a city Jackson is. How everybody knows everybody. I go to shows, and I see people that I’ve met from ten different sources – not only all in the same place, but all interacting. It makes me feel slow, quite frankly. As if it shouldn’t have taken me years to meet and get to know these people. As if the number of people I’ve met in a few years is paltry compared to the number of people everyone else has met.

This last part has some merit in it though, I think. Somehow, I think I missed the boat as far as social networking goes. Or maybe I just got a foot and maybe half a leg in the boat, and the rest of me is splashing awkwardly in the sea, trying to stay afloat, marveling at the other passengers, safe and dry and perhaps marveling right back but more likely just too busy doing what they’re good at to notice.

I remember that when I grew up, age mattered. 9^th grade was very, very different from 8^th grade. I know this was the case in most people’s heads for a while. But at some point there was a switch in mindsets; one day the older kids just started accepting the younger kids. Suddenly everyone was hanging out together. Everyone was the same. I think I missed that. Granted, I had a tendency to hang out with people older than me; even three or four years older. I think those just happened to be the people I connected with. I imagine that my lack of presence in the social network that was my grade level and surrounding levels probably contributed to me missing the switch. It probably also had to do with the nature of how they would “hang out.” What I mean is, suddenly alcohol became the unifier; you may not be taking the same classes, but you’re drinking the same beer. Drunkenness varied from person to person, not grade to grade. That boat I definitely missed.

And now, age means nothing. It baffles me more today than it ever has. Sometimes it seems like everyone between the age of 16 and 31 knows each other. It’s just one giant group of friends that somehow never really ages. It’s got this ability to shift, to transform, to flow and move through time that I just can’t track or follow. I see the various age groups, the cliques, the scenes, the tags, etc. And all is well, because they stick to their own section…their own niche of society. But suddenly two groups start talking, and then another one comes in, and before I know it they’ve all gone and formed this gigantic, larger group behind my back. A huge macrocosm that is the youthful in Jackson, MS. And what blows my mind the most is that it doesn’t even cut off at 31. Somehow even the parents and the grandparents get involved; the lines between generations blur and fade away. Actual age means nothing past a certain point.  There is no “growing out” of it. It’s not a phase.

Point is, I now find myself bewildered by what has grown up around me – what I grew up in but never really noticed. I shake my head at how I missed it all. It’s almost as if, right before I got here, the city held a bunch of get-to-know-each-other parties, finishing each one with a stated pact that this newfound closeness would only be revealed to the ignorant in stages, and that it would in essence always be a tacit agreement.

And that makes me wonder about where I actually do fit in. I wonder about my brother and sister, and what our history has been in Jackson. We came late to the party, for sure. And it seems like they did a pretty good job of working their way in. I suppose that one of the major reasons I get so affected by the generation bridge is that when I go to concerts like the one I went to tonight, I meet people that are friends with my brother, or my sister, or both. People that perhaps see or talk to my siblings more than I do. Truth be told, we are all three in the same generation – but something like 8 years separate me and my brother. And yet, that entire age range (plus more) is represented.

But where are we? We worked our way in, we made the connections, we established the foothold – and now are nowhere to be found. Some people seem to dedicate their lives to the Jackson scene. Some people know everybody and are at every social outing you go to. But not us. I think you would be hard-pressed to go to a show or concert or some similar event in Jackson and not meet someone who knows one or more of us. But we’re not there. Are we just foreigners, through and through? Are we just unsettlable, naturalizable by definition only? Or is there something else to it? Is there, in fact, actually an age at which you grow out of the Jackson scene? Maybe that age exists relative to each person. For some, like my brother and sister, it comes early. Others find themselves in their thirties, only just now feeling the urge to move out. Still more live their entire life within the physical and social boundaries of Jackson.

The social fabric that is Jackson, MS is tightly knit. It pulls people in. You have people from Oxford, from Starkville, from Tennessee, from Alabama. But they’re all from Jackson. The city has a way of feeling like the world; yeah, the bands go out and do tours and get fans from other places and stuff. But really, this is it. Everyone is here. This is all you need. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Jackson’s not huge, and yet it’s certainly not a small town. But the intimacy that it has can be pretty astounding. I think it’s important to see the world, yeah…but I also think it’s important to have (and experience) a home.

 I suppose the question is, how much of a home do you want?