Nobody move

  

Despite my affection for Miles Davis and others, I could never reconcile the reverence for brass instruments with the almost tyrannical prohibition on spitting indoors. Trumpet playing requires more saliva than most have to give – which is one attribute distinguishing the great from those just slobbering through arpeggios on their way to slavering stardom. Pitch helps, along with digital dexterity, but the power to produce endless gobs of phlegm-on-demand is the ultimate indicator of a great trumpeter. It might be why trumpet players receive very little in the way of aggressive heckling. Who in their right mind would boo someone possessing supernatural spittle?

I started playing the cello at 7. While there were plenty of legitimate reasons to have chosen something else, I rarely wavered. Because when it came down to it, I really just wanted to sit. I’d tune my strings and smirk to myself at the poor violin bowing saps, standing at attention for another penetrating rendition of “Hot Cross Buns.” I never second guessed my decision, finding unexpected kinship with drummers and pianists – other seated members of an understated minority, toiling in obscurity while touchy-feely guitarists violated municipal fire codes at center stage. 

This is all a long way of saying that very little moves me. While semi-trucks and natural diuretics come to mind, I prefer to remain pleasantly situated, letting the world approach me – not the other way around.  

Some blast the sedentary lifestyle, especially now, as the mark of a lazy bum. That’s hardly fair. Staying put is admirable. As a rule, we don’t respect those who migrate to Florida. Whether they have actual feathers or Bermuda shorts, their flight down south isn’t one to be proud of. What are you moving for? What are you running from? 

Don’t think for an epoch that the earth itself isn’t immune from criticism in this regard either. The shifting of crust is more than simply the work of a rogue pizzaiolo, bitter at his station in life, huddled in front of a volcanic oven at a roadside Sbarro. Drifting plate tectonics are also the presumptuous acts of a restless planet. 

Sit tight.