I bought a Bat Girl t-shirt at Ragstock yesterday. I like to give myself super powers. Wearing my sunglasses, I summon my best Anna Wintour. My gloves, Ava Gardner. I know it’s all internal, but I like to give it a name. Maybe we all do.
We went to Down in the Valley, the record store near Ragstock. It felt like a Time Machine. I thumbed through stacks, just like I did when there was nothing but time stretched far ahead of us. When we bought full albums at full price. Played it on the stereo. Lying heads beside giant speakers, feeling each note, each lyric as if it were written just for us. Wondering if our lives were soundtrack worthy. Willing to believe they were, and would be ever.
My husband bought two Kris Kristoffersons. One for himself. One for his best friend from those days of lyrics and promise. I watched the man behind the counter place youth’s super power in the bag and hand it to Dominique.
The afternoon sun bounced off of Highway 55 and we drove, each a little lighter, armed with nothing shy of super.
The music was playing loudly in the studio, Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” She came to see me paint, my soon to be mother-in-law. Both being brand new, me to this language and she to sharing her son once again, we struggled to find something to say. I was so delightfully surprised when she joined them in the chorus. “Lie-la-lie, Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie…” She clapped along. Whirled her hands in a motion to tell me to play it again. I did. Twice. She touched my canvas (the nearest thing to my heart) and smiled. She made a motion like one would asking for the check at a restaurant. I gave her a pencil and paper, and she went back to the house.
I found a note on my desk later. She wrote it in her best English. The words are mine, but I will tell you she welcomed me to this family.
It was only a few years later. We weren’t prepared for things to be brand new again. I suppose one never is. Losing her memory, she needed the special care of assisted living. It was still new enough that she could tell the difference. She knew what was happening. Tears fell like drops of paint down the canvas of her face. I took out my phone and played “The Boxer.” She smiled, not with joy, but enough to say, “the fighter still remains.”
We fill the car with music as we travel from state to state. When Simon and Garfunkel sing this song, I can hear heaven’s clapping “in the clearing.” We head toward the daily brand new.
Sometimes someone says something, so simple, so pure…and you’re sure they believe it — so sure that you believe it too. And so you say it. The words roll in your mouth, and you start to believe it, sing it even, willing it to be true.
“I had a feeling I could be someone. Be someone. Be someone.”
That was Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” I was in my own state of becoming. Not even making a small splash in this small pond. It played on the radio. Not enough. I raced to hit record on the boombox that I got for my college graduation. Two fingers. Press. Got it. I couldn’t afford the real cassette tape, but listening to the lyrics, I thought maybe she would understand. And I made a promise to buy the original when I did in fact have enough money, when I did become someone.
I took my own fast car to Minneapolis. Created my own soundtrack. Bit by bit. Job by job. I don’t know the exact time, the exact year, but my boom box was obsolete. There were cds now. And I had enough money to buy them. Drinking my coffee, browsing through the music section of Barnes and Noble, I saw it — Tracy Chapman. I bought it.
I have made splashes in bigger ponds since then. Even crossed them. Fast cars. Faster planes. All fueled by small words that made a giant difference. Some I heard on the radio. Some came from teachers. A lot came from my mother’s mouth. But they all carried me. They still do. Because my heart hit record.
We learned to type on electric typewriters at Jefferson Senior High. You could hear the click of the keys from down the hall. It was located on the other side of the school building from the band and choir rooms, but there was a music to it, all the same.
I certainly don’t miss the “white out,” or replacing the ribbon. But there was an art to it. Even when we were all typing the same thing — “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” — we would make our own mistakes, different letters would be painted over, then typed over again and each sheet was an original, with it’s own look, it’s own sound.
I type now on my iPad. It can go with me anywhere. I can correct mistakes in an instant. There is an ease, a freedom, unmatched. But I must admit, there is a tiny part of me that longs for the music. The romance of the keys.
I want to allow for this in my daily life. I want to see the romance in all of my mistakes — and oh, I am making them for sure — daily tangled in my not so quick brown foxes. I, we, need to see the beauty of the learning.
Today’s blank sheet opens with the sun. I set off, not in search of perfection, but poetry. Click, click, click, begins my imperfect heart.
When Delta Dawn came up on the radio, it was as if my Aunt Sandy was sitting in the car beside us. Maybe it was because she named her daughter Dawn. Maybe it was because she liked to sing. Probably it was because she told me she looked like Helen Reddy. I remember it not because I was so sure that it was true, but I liked the confidence. She didn’t say, “People have said…” or “I think maybe I…” No, she came right out with it — “I look like Helen Reddy.” I’m still smiling. It’s just a snapshot of a moment. I don’t have many. And certainly no photographs. But I have this. And I can play it whenever I want. I’m humming the memory right now.
We didn’t take photographs. Maybe it was because my mother didn’t want to be on either side of the camera. Maybe we didn’t have the money, or the inclination. But moments were captured. In heart and mind. With each song that comes up on the radio, I can tell you where we were, with confidence. I can name the time, place, and food. The clothes worn. And can feel the picture between love’s thumb and first finger. Never to fade.
Maybe it’s easier now to take the photos. We all have cameras in the palm of our hands. No cost. No film. And I take many, it’s true. But I’m happy I didn’t grow up with a phone camera. I think it would have been too easy to rely on it. I had to find other ways. Work other muscles of living, of memory. What a gift to have them at the ready now. No swiping for hours to find that image. To release that feeling. I don’t have to find the nearest Starbuck’s to use their free wi-fi in search of a treasured memory. It’s within. Ever.
As we drive from state to state, Dominique learns a little bit more of my family. Marty Robbins began to sing and we are at my Grandma Elsie’s kitchen table. In a rare moment, talking like girlfriends. About love, like girls do. I asked her if she ever loved anyone else but grandpa. She just smiled. That was for her heart to know. As the music played she asked me what singers I loved. She didn’t know any of them. I asked her which famous person she loved, who she would leave Grandpa Reuben…before I could add the word “for,” she shouted “Marty Robbins!” I don’t know how long she had that in the holster, but it was at the ready! We laughed hard. Waist bending hard. We knew she loved Grandpa. But this was a moment. Our moment. I sing the memory to Dominique. The music plays on. The wheels keep turning. Smiling the snapshot.
They say if you have a song stuck in your head, the best thing to do is to see it through — sing it all the way to the end. Maybe it’s the same with the heart.
I first heard this song on Tik Tok — E penso a te — (I think of you.) A young man is singing with his grandmother. This was enough to warm my heart, but the music, the lyrics, the harmony that only heart related people can produce, this was pure magic. And it stuck. It played again and again within me. And I let it play. Before I fell to sleep. When I woke up. When I went to the studio to paint, the grandmother arrived on my paper. Note by note. Stroke by stroke.
I write of my own grandmother. My mother. Daily. Their music lives within me. I tell their stories like the lyrics to my favorite song. And I let it play. Again and again. Because, just as recommended, I am going to see it through, think of them, love them, all the way to the end.
According to the song, we were not yet even “puppies,” but each morning around 8:15 — just after being dropped off of the school bus at Washington Elementary, and just before Miss Green began our 5th grade class — we sang alongside the turntable with Donny Osmond, “And they called it puppy love Just because we’re in our teens…”
Of course we weren’t in our teens, but even just having a record player, we felt old enough to experience all the emotions. The closest we actually got to boys was playing four square on the playground. We rotated through the boxes, never touching, hovering somewhere between wanting to beat them and wanting to be liked. I suppose we thought the answers would come in the next song. But none of us actually had the money to buy a new 45 at Carlson’s Music Center, so we sang it again and again, “
Someone, help me, help me, help me please. Is the answer up above? How can I, oh how can I tell them,this is not a puppy love.”We began to lean on Mr. Iverson, our music teacher. Each week he gathered us together to learn a new song — new meaning new to us, but certainly old, perhaps older than our parents. We were desperate for new. “Please please please,” we begged, “let us sing something from the radio.” Our hands shot up straight in the air when he asked for suggestions. “Seasons in the sun” was the overwhelming response. They played it constantly on KDWB, the radio station that intermittantly came in from Minneapolis. Unfamiliar with the lyrics, he said he would play the record and decide. He placed it on the turntable and immediatlely his face turned. None of us had heard the actual verses. We were all just mesmorized by the chorus — “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…” Unfortunately, the majority of the song was about dying. Somehow we had missed that. He scratched the record racing to get the needle out of the groove. I guess we were all in such a hurry to become older, at least puppies, that we missed it.
And that’s the gift, isn’t it? I’m always surprised as summer turns into fall. It happens year after year, and I’m still hovering between the bus ride and when class actually begins. Luxuriating in the 15 minutes of unsupervised freedom. Still ready to believe. To become. To begin again.
The worse we sang, the balder he got. Each wrong note hit in our seventh grade choir raised Mr. Dehlin’s hand to the top of his head, rubbing in desperation. How could he direct us to the right note? He seemed to be willing the answer inside his brain with the hand that carried the baton.
I don’t remember the note, nor the song, but no one in the alto section seemed to be hitting it. He directed David Alstead to hit the note on the piano. Again. And again. The note rang through the choir room. The problem was that that one poor note had to compete with all of the noise in our teenage heads. The noise of the upcoming exams in English and Math. Who was dating whom. Who was about to break up. Why was she wearing that? Would we be invited to the dance? Would there be time to get to get to the locker room to grab the forgotten book? Who would we sit next to on the bus. Again! — he pointed the baton at David. Again! He played the note and we sang something close to it as a section, but not close enough. Mr. Dehlin went down the line of altos, pointing the baton at each person. One by one. Note by note. Each missing by a hair – a hair that seemingly fell from his head to the floor. Twice through the line. Getting closer each time. He had our attention now. And we sang. We sang that glorious note. He raised both hands in the air, then collapsed them to his knees. We all cheered (in the right key!). It was only a note. But he got us there. There was still a whole song to learn. But he gave us our victory. Our moment. He stood tall again. Tapped the baton on the music stand. Gave a look to David. One quick flick of the baton, and we were off – in song!
Through our junior high years we held countless concerts. Parents gave us standing ovations for the mere fact of being born. But it was that impossible note reached that I remember the most. And what it took to get us there.
My love for music has never faltered. It has layed beside me during the darkest times. Danced with me through the highest. Pushed my lawn mowing legs. Moved my paintings, stroke by stroke. Brightened breakfasts. Made sacred each holiday, each friendship. Gave me the soundtrack for hellos and goodbyes. Note by note.
I suppose we never forget those who walk with us, battle with us, just to get us through — see us through — to become our best selves… those who give us not only the note, but also a reason to sing!
The first few notes played on the radio this morning. So iconic. We both put down our toast and jam. “Start spreading the news…” we sang. New York. New York. Perhaps one of only a handful of songs about a city that is known internationally. “I can name that tune in five notes,” I said. “What?” I explained to him the game show Name that Tune.
It was my mother’s favorite. And she was good at it. She loved music. She knew the notes. The words. As easily as my grandma could beat me at cards, my mother could beat me at Name that Tune. But as we sang together, laughed together, sometimes even danced, it felt like we were both winning.
I don’t think the show was on the air that long, but we kept it alive in the car. It was difficult at first, with cassette tapes. Trying to cue up the song to the right position. We kept a pencil nearby to wind up the ribbons that we abused. The game was significantly improved when we graduated to cds. It was so easy to cue up the song. To start and stop. To Name that Tune.
We didn’t really keep score. We knew the music we owned. And of course we always created a playlist for the city we were driving towards. A trip to Chicago always included Frank Sinatra singing “My kind of town…Chicago is!”
It seems funny to even mention it – because we never really gave it a thought – but neither of us were particularly good singers. That was never the point. What we were really good at was being friends. I suppose nothing else really matters. When you know someone, really love someone, above all the flaws and the shortcomings, you only hear the music.
I had the privilege of taking my mother to New York three times. I can’t hear the song without descending in the plane over the Statue of Liberty. Sitting beside her on Broadway. Looking up in Times Square. Drinking the wine. Trying the clothes. Singing on the sidewalk. There’s a reason your heart “beats” – to keep time with the ones you love.
Ask me anything about my mother. I can name that tune. The music never ends.
It was one of the first games I learned at Washington Elementary. I had no idea, that so many years later, I would still be involved in my own game of musical chairs. The teacher placed the chairs in a line in the center of the room. One less chair than there were students. She started the music and we marched, danced, around the chairs. When the music stopped, we had to race to get an available spot. The person who didn’t get a chair was out of the game. Each time a chair was removed and the winner was left to sit alone. I enjoyed the music. Loved the dance. But what an odd way to win I thought. Silent and alone.
My mother loved to dance. And this relationship we had was one in itself. A movement of joy and support. A partnering. Then on a November day, the music stopped. I raced to the nearest chair. My yellow hair flung as I yelled and pointed. The metal legs scraped against the floor as people pushed and scrambled. Smiling and exhaling the joy that we danced for my entire life, I looked left and right. Noooooo! I looked up and she was still standing there. Wait. I’ll slide over. Not within the rules they said But she belongs beside me. She needs a chair. We need to keep dancing. We are supposed to keep dancing. I could give up my chair. Could I give up my chair? Not the way it’s played. But how do I play without her? Where is the music? I need her in the game. I looked up from my cold metal chair. So cold. She smiled and waved. I’m not afraid she said. The silence filled the room. I covered my ears.
Grace sat with me. There was no need for an additional chair. The music began. Softly. We’ll just sit a while she said. And listen. The music never ends.
