Feeling the Future

Listen…

Woodie Guthrie sang about the great migrations from the American dustbowl to California in the 1930s. Nearly a hundred years later, in the 2030s, reverse migrations from urban centers to small towns occurred, prompted by overcrowding in cities and escalating housing costs. Starting during the first pandemic of 2019 and continuing through the second and third pandemics (COVID-23 and COVID-25), remote tech workers flooded into smaller , more “liveable” communities, and radically changed their demographics, economies and social fabric.

As these “refugees” from expensive and cluttered urban centres arrived, new genres of music emerged. The Ballads documented these 21st century migrations, from the perspective of both the newcomers and the original small town inhabitants.

FEELING THE FUTURE

I’m in my hometown to catch a recollection of who were we and where I came from. Main street is different, yet familiar. Hardware store gone. Corner market where my 8 year old self stole candy morphed into Yoga Studio.

Above it, young people in apartments make Zoom calls to New York and Beijing. They arrived from bigger places, important places. At dusk they run on newly built paved pathways with only their earbuds for company. Listening…..Listening to the Future
Feeling the Future
Feeling the Future

As a kid I rambled in the woods by the creek with my best friend. Finding frogs and bugs of all colours, dipping feet in cool water. Mom said – be home for dinner.

A new playground is there now. Fabricated plastic yellow toys hover over black mat of rubber pellets. Kids fall carefree and joyous. No scuffed knees or grass-stained hands. Mothers on shiny benches pulling recipes from glowing smart phones.
All is well, all is safe – as the children fall into their future.
Feeling the Future
Feeling the Future

Where my Uncle’s farm was on the edge of town, a Box Store now sprawls. Cars sit motionless between moving carts. Each one brimming with shiny packaged objects manufactured in distant factories.

Strangers clutch cart handles. Walking awkwardly, Not pushing – but being pulled. They’re being pulled into the future.
Feeling the Future
Feeling the Future
Feeling the Future
Feeling the Future

In dusk light my house is smaller than I remember it. Old stone steps I sat on with my Dad now demolished. A glimpse of the new family. Young woman carries crying newborn across the porch. Blue Glow of a flat screen silhouettes my bedroom window

And through the windshield of a self-driving car I see my childhood house. And I see other houses across the planet, in Calcutta, Berlin, Shanghai, Manila, Bagdad

Bricks and mortar crumble and re-emerge under the weight of historical events. People in them Feeling anxious, feeling uprooted, feeling hopeful, feeling the future. In one strange moment, I see the truth about my home town, my childhood house, my whole life!
My home never was!