Nostalgia, Meet Zen
10 tracks that only skim the surface
Track 1:
The first kiss between my parents witnessed by my cognitive self was at a Neil Diamond concert. As an 8th grader, was the bottom tier of fashion, wearing a knock-off Panama Jack light blue long-sleeve t-shirt from Ventures with “jeans” in the flimsiest sense of the word, in that they were made with denim but missing a zipper and button, flared along the waist with full-on ruffles, and a built in belt, to ensure I was never invited to a sleepover.
We were in the far end of the arena when apparently their baby makin’ song came ringing through the expansive, auditorily painful rafters of Kemper Arena. Kemper Arena was in the river bottoms, aka, right next to the Stockyards, of Kansas City. In my glee at attending my first concert, as the introduction of meeting my new and ever-present friend, tinnitus, was unfolding, I slowly turned to my left just as my two creators decided to Braille each other’s tonsils.
To this day, these lyrics bring tears to my eyes with an image that can never be erased:
"I am"... I cried
"I am"... said I
And I am lost and I can't
Even say why
Leavin' me lonely still
Track 2:
Our family enjoyed at least one day a weekend of marathon card games. I’m not talking about your grandma’s gin or canasta. It was rummy, for five cents a point, regardless of age or income. The table sat only four participants comfortably as the sweet-tea glasses mingled with the ashtrays and persnickety manner in which each placed their cache of allotted funds for the day. Until Babe, the matriarch, lost one too many deals, and with his gorilla hands, tore the deck in half, tossed it overhead, Rip Taylor-esque, his catcher mitts arriving back down upon the table with a thunder which sent ashes, coins, and ice soaring.
When my grandparents, first Babe, then Mable, passed away, the 1st and 2nd generation offspring were tasked with preparing the home, including the kitchen, where the table and appliances, still stood, for sale. Fourteen different decks of cards, in varying remnants, were exposed in the nooks and crannies of the 10 x 10 room. As the brooms and scrub brushes kept time, you could hear:
“Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away
And knowin' what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner
And every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep"
Track 3:
When you are four and you sprint to hold onto your friend EVERY.TIME. she comes into sight, you know a lesbian life is awaiting you once the timing is square.
In 1988, at the emotionally stable age of 19, Melissa Etheridge’s first album was released, and so was I. My K-Mart Walkman was essentially another appendage. And her tape was stretched to the point she began to sound like Kathleen Turner after three scotches and one-too-many cigarettes.
I dissected every lyric for any nuances of similarities of how I felt about an opponent on the basketball/softball/soccer team du jour, and knew she felt what I was being consumed with as I mouthed these omniscient sensations of self:
“Will this aching pass?
Will this night be through?
I wanna hear the breaking glass
I only feel the steel of the red hot truth
And I'd do anything to get it out of my mind
I need some insanity, that temporary kind
Tell me how will I ever be the same?
When I know that that woman is whispering your name”
Track 4:
As Melissa strode onto the stage at the Triangle Ball, with kd lang fist pumping her announcement of womanly love, I was slow dancing with alcohol-soaked legs at Dessert Heart, a bar the goddess I prayed to at a Catholic college dropped down a mere six block stumble home to my dorm room.
Inevitably, when my first girlfriend heard “Nothing Compares 2 U”, she knew regardless of her drink or cigarette status, I would tug her onto the floor, get as close to the mirrored wall as the troops of similar couplings would allow, and wail into her ears Prince’s serenade sung by Sinead. We broke up more times in two years than most couples say “I love you”.
It’s easy to transpose words in songs about losing and longing, especially ones written by men, sung by women:
“It's been so lonely without you here
Like a bird without a song
Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling
Tell me baby, where did I go wrong?
I could put my arms around every boy(girl) I see
But they'd only remind me of you
I went to the doctor, guess what he told me
Guess what he told me
He said, "Girl you better try to have fun, no matter what you do"
But he's a fool
'Cause nothing compares, nothing compares to you”
Track 5:
A move 37 miles west to Lawrence, Kansas, brings new interests, new shenanigans, new music. Attempting to earn a master’s degree in a field you are supremely underqualified in sets one up for significant times of distraction so as not to focus on your inadequacies.
Melissa Ferrick. Who the fuck was she? As the album cover attested, my life was a Massive Blur, center stage. Overtime, I have seen her live at various venues, in various roles, more than twenty times. When a musician’s words and melodies weave into your heart, the beat is more pronounced and true. And the vision reflected in your morning mirror is safer to see.
“Maybe you could direct me
To the ri ght - the right train of thought
Because you see I don't think that I am on it
'Cause it's foggy down here
I'm along and I'm scared
All I can hear is
Your beating heart
Your beating heart
Your beating heart”
Track 6:
Being sporty is a term someone may use to describe me from pictures of my youth. Notice I did not say athletic. I grew to tolerate the term “chunky athletic” and at times, I was “sturdy athletic”, but I am quite certain many, upon our first introductions, did not automatically equate my stature with standards above varsity high school-level physique.
Regardless, my passion has always been under the umbrella of competition, and for activities that I could experience immediate gratification, unlike studying or tanning, I jumped into sports with my eastern European genetics in full non-grace.
But to achieve the highest levels your lineage allows, you gotta have the pump!! Or you gonna get killed on the rugby pitch.
Trent Reznor came through with Pretty Hate Machine, which summed up quite a bit about my journey during this phase of living.
I would drown my fears with typical clear rail drinks, eat Taco Bell, go to grad school, drive to hills with the most extreme pitch and run, jump, skip, puke, on repeat, as these words permeated the tissue I spent years denying it's potential greatness.
Head like a hole
Black as your soul
I'd rather die than give you control
Head like a hole
Black as your soul
I'd rather die than give you control
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
Bow down before the one you serve
You're going to get what you deserve
It's still getting worse after everything I tried
What if I found a way to wash it all aside
What if she touches with those fingertips
As the words spill out like fire from her lips
If she says come inside I'll come inside for her
If she says give it all I'll give everything to her
I am justified
I am purified
I am sanctified
Inside you
Heaven's just a rumor she'll dispel.
As she walks me through the nicest parts of hell.
I still dream of lips I never should have never kissed
Well she knows exactly what I can't resist
Track 7:
When you are 26, moving 584 miles away for a job, in your profession, does not matter. Until you drive north from Kansas, on I-29, through Nebraska, turning left on to Highway 12, into South Dakota, for the first time. In a Saturn. With a dream that one day, you’ll be a NCAA D-I basketball coach. Then you arrive in Aberdeen, SD, and you realize dreams are just that: something that happens at night, when all sense of reality is cut-off and not attenable.
I felt untouchable, not human, ethereal and false. I played songs to soothe my fears and my doubts and sang songs to myself that were meant to be sung to someone I was attempting to fall in love with.
Ani Difranco spoke for the parts of me that had not learned how to speak.
“Tell you the truth I prefer the worst of you
Too bad you had to have a better half
She's not really my type
But I think you two are forever
And I hate to say it, but you're perfect together
So fuck you
And your untouchable face
Fuck you
For existing in the first place
And who am I?
That I should be vying for your touch
I said who am I?
I bet you can't even tell me that much”
Track 8:
My wife can attest: my life has been a series of pushing envelopes which contain pop-up cards of unknown clown faces and sentiments and happy fortune cookies.
I truly do not feel it was luck bestowed upon me and pity presented by the hiring committee who brought me another level of fortune. I truly feel it was karmic timing and charm that took me to Mankato, MN and eventually into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame. But I digress;
I needed to spin, to become so off balance that my inner compass, literally, pulled me into a wave of vertigo so intense I lost 4 days while lying in a papasan propped up next to a TV with a trash can under my dangling fingers for the unexpected waves of nausea and vomiting accompanying my self-aggrandizing stunt that I told myself I knew how to hogtie life without a rope.
I needed peace. I craved calm. I dove from that papasan into my safety net of Elton John.
"When I think of those east end lights
Muggy nights the curtains drawn
In the little room downstairs
Prima donna Lord you really should have been there
Sittin' like a princess perched in her electric chair
And it's one more beer and I don't hear you anymore
We've all gone crazy lately
My friend's out there rolling 'round the basement floor
(Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh...)
And someone saved my life tonight
Sugar bear (sugar bear...)"
Track 9:
When attempting to master anything in life, Malcolm Gladwell posit that you had to commit 10,000 hours to the endeavor to achieve mastery.
That timeframe, 10,000 hours, is equivocal to just over 415 days.
I call bullshit.
In hindsight, anecdotally, three years, 1095 days, 26,280 hours, are needed to even reach the ground floor of the Mayan temple one builds as someone attains a standard of success no one is able to quantify but self. And that is just the first level.
By the time you have made the executive and fully cognizant decision to rebuild yourself, yet again, the emotion swells and time bends as a slingshot to get further and farther.
This undulation needs a rhythm to lead the way, no matter how crude the lyrics and sentiment. My thought process was devolving as I was emotionally evolving. Time to question all and answer to none. Thank you for validating me, Jenny Owen Youngs.
"Love plows through me like a dozer
I've got more give then a bale of hay
& There's always a big mess left over
With a what did you do and what did you say
What did you do and what did you say
Skillet on the stove
It's such a temptation
Maybe i'll be the lucky one
That doesn't get burnt
What the f-ck was i thinking
What the f-ck was i thinking
What the f-ck was i thinking
What the f-ck was i thinking"
Track 10:
There are so many more between these liner notes of my life. So much more I needed that appeared in time to keep my ears above the waters of living, even if my nose and mouth dipped under for extended periods of time.
The summation of me is not complete, yet, I am now able to see the equation and not be fully confused by the process.
Brandi Carlile's Story is not mine but I’ve hugged these words with such vigor and hope that I am now able to move forward with belief that tomorrow will come and I will be lighter and more loving in spite of what I forgot, fell for, or just planned ignored.
I’m once again singing to myself, off-key, warbly, but no longer afraid.
"All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true, I was made for you
I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines, and I broke all the rules
But, baby, I broke them all for you
Oh, because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do
I was made for you"
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