Pardon me while I wax emotional. It’s that time of year. It effing snowed today, okay people?

This show got its name four years ago when my girlfriend was studying abroad in France for a semester. We had been together for less than a year, but it was pretty clear at that point this she was for real, and we were for real and it was all for real. So the whole affair was pretty heartbreaking, hence the show bore the name “The Distance,” as it was pretty clearly my weekly escape into music… a little therapy from the loneliness. Since I couldn’t be with her, I’d shut myself alone into a dimly lit, softly humming radio booth and immerse myself in music. Just me and the sound waves filling the small space.

Now, four years later, I find myself in the very same position. Away from her once more while she’s off studying in New England. And away from my family up in the the great white northern midwest. And away from my friends spread across Texas, everywhere but this town. It’s just me and the dog, and the sounds coming out of my radio. And so this show serves its purpose once again – immersion therapy for physical distance. If you can’t be with those you love, I say take some time each week to find that space deep inside the part of yourself that contains that love. Behind the loneliness and the distance and the isolation lies that warm cavern inside all of us.

We all have someone or something we must hold at a distance, loving intensely from afar. If you dwell on the separation you will drive yourself into a very bleak corner indeed. But if you can focus that energy into the passion, the power, and (let’s just go full emo here) the love behind it all, you might find a fullness and a satisfaction knowing that 1,900 miles is but a fraction of an inch for a soul. That the people you love and who love you will always be connected to you, where it counts. That no amount of physical distance will separate you… not completely.

There’s deep solace there.

Thus, this show is dedicated not to the sorrow or the pain that comes with The Distance in our lives (as it once may have been), it is dedicated rather to the bonds that bridge that Distance so seamlessly and mysteriously. To the wordless connections in our lives.

To the love that transcends all.

Background Tunes: Stefon Harris and Blackout – “Urbanus”