What’s one piece of travel advice you always follow?

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Find your comfort level and recreate it in any country.

My comfort level is Hilton. Nothing fancy, just stable. I was reminded of this when I went to the Fenwick Inn in Delaware. It’s so cute and cozy, but it is also chaotic. Lots of little maintenance issues in the rooms, etc. It took time and energy I did not have to pack up my stuff to move when the shower was broken.

At the Hilton, everything works and breakfast has already been purchased. I can find that baseline in other countries without having to guess how I’ll be treated in advance. Sticking with them adds free nights through points, so it’s worth it to pick a hotel chain you like and keep going there.

The Fenwick Inn was cheaper but no it wasn’t.

The sensory experience was exorbitant.

At the Hilton, I can get a disabled suite that has a bathtub. I have balance issues, so I don’t like a stand-up shower when I want to shave. Alternatively, there’s usually an indoor pool, which also has a hot tub. Either of those are great in inclement weather. What is doubly great is having those things at my beck and call, but not owning them.

Again, maintenance is a neurodivergent nightmare. The cognitive load of remembering to service things will eat your lunch…. so pay up front. It’s the same technique while traveling. You are not paying for luxury, you are paying for stability in a place where you don’t know anyone.

The key to having a great experience while traveling is not to be dysregulated by everything. If there is no Hilton where I want to travel, at least I know what kind of hotel I am looking for. Clean, well-maintained, with trained staff and no issues in the rooms. That is not five-star accommodation. That is respect for myself. Sure, I can spend an enormous amount of energy on my environment. I have been doing it for eons. But is that where my energy should go?

I want to have room to explore the country I’m in, and that comes with not being exhausted and overloaded before the day even starts. It is a different proposition to wake up in a place where you don’t know anyone when you are well-rested and comfortable vs. stuck in the almost of sleep because the electricity is too loud and the toilet won’t stop running.

If you have never said, “the electricity is too loud,” then you are probably not neurodivergent. It is a thing among our people to hear it. But it’s not just electricity. It’s refrigerator and HVAC hums as well. Insulation matters for soundproofing in a hotel………….

Istanbul, under Frank Wisner’s nose

The cognitive load of worrying about where to find food in the morning is also solved, as well as the all-important first cup of coffee.

Everything about the way I travel is about reducing cognitive load so that I have room for new cultures and experiences. I take them in slowly, and generally want at least four or five days in a place so that I feel the transition culturally both ways. It is also cognitive load to return home, because the vacation task list and the home task list are not the same.

It is also very important to me to shop while I’m traveling, because I love to wear memories. It means a lot to me to open the dresser and take out not just a shirt, but a picture in my mind of the place where I was when I bought it. And it’s not about going shopping…. it’s about going toward something else and seeing a shirt in a shop window and having the time to detour because I haven’t planned a trip within an inch of its life.

It is amazing what you can do with your time and energy when you realize you own it. Masking is essentially saving up all your energy for other people. In a lot of ways, I did not realize that I would never fit into someone else’s framework, and I have spent a lot of time talking about other people’s motivations toward me because those people’s feelings actually mattered. I did not assume that my needs mattered and spent energy writing about a conflict that didn’t need energy put into it.

Aada was emotionally unavailable, and any attempt to get her to see my emotions would have failed because she isn’t processing them. At that point, I should have stopped talking and closed the door, but I didn’t because I needed her approval so badly and was in constant anxiety thinking that God knows what could be happening God knows where….. because in her context, that’s not a guess. That’s a constant.

I was not spending energy trying to punish anyone, least of all Aada… but I was spending energy trying to explain her to me because she wouldn’t explain herself. I have come to realize that it’s not that she wouldn’t. She didn’t know how, and I didn’t know how to explain myself, either. I do not want to say that we’ll never talk again because stranger things have happened. But what I do know is that it is not possible to see her in the same way that I used to, because she broke my trust and I broke hers.

It is not that we cannot rebuild; it is that I have seen no evidence that she wants to spend energy on it. I do not know the reason, but I can guess. But what I can say is that I have owned my half absolutely and have been doing it all along, walking away with my nervous system settled because I haven’t been keeping my emotions bottled for years on end.

In the past, we both kept our emotions bottled to try and please the other. The difference between us is that when Aada says she doesn’t like something, I turn it over in my brain and start making changes. When I say I don’t like something, Aada tells me to go to hell and complains that the narrative is repetitive. Of course it is repetitive. She didn’t change anything, so I cannot write anything different.

There’s no dictatorship around me anymore, because my parents were just as authoritative and why I was so comfortable with that dynamic. I was allowed to have all the emotions they said I could and that has been a recurring theme in all of my adult relationships. 

I do not believe that Aada has changed that much since the last time I talked to her, and I am not interested in signing up for a situation in which I am lesser-than. But if she wants to see me at full-tilt, I will happily sign on for that…. when she’s capable of being full-tilt as well.

Figuring out that part of it is not longing for Aada. It is figuring out what I will tolerate from someone else and giving Aada grace. There’s a path to a happy relationship after the fallout, but it doesn’t come without reparative work…. accepting that she’s already told me she doesn’t want to do the work and knowing she’s said that a hundred times before and has always come home. It’s not about predicting what she will or won’t do. It’s having the openness to say “I will always love you whether we are in communication or not.” I do not wish to put enmity out into the world, and I also do not want to lose respect for myself. I want a clean boundary…. she is welcome if and only if she is ready to be the non-puffed up version of herself. That is the Aada I love. The lines on her face tell a wonderful story, one that I have loved reading for over a decade.

She never needed to be anything but herself and thought that wasn’t enough. She thought I betrayed her when she left me with no other options. She was only digital scaffolding, refusing to get in the weeds when I needed it because her words were troubling to me. I was confused and upset a lot of the time and told I was too much because of it…. then told I was using this blog as a weapon and a shield when I vented about not being heard.

Meanwhile, going back over my old entries with AI and my therapist has given me a better narrative than what I’d allowed myself to see through rose-colored glasses. Aada was indeed a 3D character, the most technically gifted I’ve become at character study because I loved her enough to want to work out our problems. It is not that I think of her as a character. It is that my impressions of her are not her and never will be. She is wholly other, not an accessory to me. Her character is that she wanted me to think she was cool, and I absolutely did. But it came through my love of her little quirks, the things that only she would say/do in any given situation. It did not come from awe, because I am physically incapable of admiring another person that way.

I don’t adore excellence. Excellence has been expected of me since childhood, and this was not parentally induced. My parents gave me the love of music, sure, but they didn’t choose HSPVA for me. They didn’t choose Summer Jazz Workshop, either. The difference between my dad and me is that he’s Wayne Bergeron and I’m Miles Davis.

Miles’ brand of jazz is known to everyone, but Bergeron is subtle. Not a household name, but you’d know him in an instant- he’s the lead trumpet player on “The Incredibles” soundtrack. The first five notes are a hook.

Meanwhile, I am and have always been Kind of Blue.

“Kind of Blue” represents me as a person, particularly the bass line in “All Blues.” In terms of excellence, most of the population isn’t into jazz, but those that are would be interested to know that I am not famous, but I played with famous names 30 years before the public knew them. I was in Jazz II, which meant that a lot of the percussionists (drums and keyboard) rotated in and out depending on what charts were on the set list. So, I wasn’t playing with Robert Glasper and Eric Harland every day, but they were a part of my soundscape at Stanford (the name of the street where HSPVA used to be).

When I was a sophomore, the freshman I usually beat out in chair tests kept grinding and achieved success with The Suffers. I am so proud of Jon Durbin because in my opinion, he is the road not taken. I loved being in jazz band. The idea of joining a band and going on the road was what was foreign. I do not crave that kind of adrenaline in daily life, because I do not want to have to create my entire structure on my own. I am not built for a gig economy in which my living situation changes constantly no matter what genre of music I choose.

Therefore, I am not jealous of the people around me who made it big, nor do I have parasocial relationships with them now- I just care about them as former classmates, and people assume it is name-dropping because they do not know or care about my history. I may never have hung out at Jason Moran’s house, but we’re close enough that I would be concerned if something was up (it’s not, I’m just sayin.’).

I also have a strong lineage because you learn a lot by listening- Jason wasn’t in my band, but he was a senior when I was a freshman. It was a good opportunity to pick up knowledge, and he said the most important thing was listening. So I listened to him, literally. I have continued that tradition. RFK in the Land of Apartheid lives rent free in my head.  

I can be proud of something. Robert missed going to school with Jason. I didn’t. 😉

No shade on him, though. Elkins is a fantastic program and if I’d known Robert was at Elkins freshman year I would have tried to get closer to him. That’s because back in the day, you didn’t have to live in the district to go to HSPVA and people were from all over. I never would have guessed that Robert and I both lived in the Sugar Land area. I learned it from Wikipedia. As it was, I saw him every day for History in addition to being in Jazz II together. He was a funny kid, comedic in all the right ways.

At last meeting, I said, “Robert, I didn’t know you were this talented.” I was smiling and warm. He said, “I didn’t know I was this talented, either.” We laughed together and it was relaxed and comfortable after the shock of seeing each other (“oh, SHIT! You from the CRIB!”). I would choose Robert over the bear, which in today’s society is the highest praise I can give an artist. I don’t care how technically gifted you are (and he is), my standard is that you have to be a good person. You can feel the difference instantly.

People who have enormous talent do not feel the need to trash others. People who stand next to people who have enormous talent are exhausting. I hate it when people try to be competitive as if their experience trumps mine. I would rather be collaborative and share. I have found that only truly great talents are capable of giving others room to be themselves. It is the difference between getting results through teamwork and getting results through fear and intimidation.

I am not myself in any room because I have connections like Robert, Jason, and Eric. I am myself in any room because Dr. Robert Morgan (“Doc”) taught us all during the school year and I don’t know about them, but Conrad Johson taught me in the summer as well. Excellence was not “way up there.” It was the air.

Church was a rigorous arts program in its own right, and I am glad that I had choir directors that were demanding as a child because I don’t play trumpet anymore and have switched to voice entirely. That does not mean that what I am telling you does not influence my travel. It absolutely does. I want to go to amazing cities with jazz festivals, hoping to meet old classmates by accident because there is no family like HSPVA family.

It’s not unusual to go to a jazz concert and be able to pick out the players from the crowd even when they’re not on the bandstand. The trumpet player is quietly doing the fingerings on the table. The drummer is straight up itching.

I travel to find other people who are comfortable with rigging, and not being in front of the lights.