The times, they are a-changing

In second grade, I became a Brownie. I have no memory of the decision behind this, but I’d guess that my mom signed me up so I wouldn’t be the only girl in my class not doing it. I can’t imagine that anything about it actually appealed to me—or to her—but it was the thing to do at that point, so we did it. My fondest memory from the experience was getting a really nice picture taken in my uniform; back then, in my free-time, you’d generally find me barefoot, with hair tousled by branches and briars from whatever outdoor pursuit I’d spent my day undertaking, so being captured in a photograph with such brushed, perfectly placed hair and a pretty smile was an exciting twist in my life. (I was cute, but I had a post-hippie-era mom; I was not fussy about my looks!)

That portrait, though, was about all I liked about the experience. I definitely did not enjoy the selling of cookies, which as Brownies, we did have to do (I think it was part of the initiation into Girl Scoutdom—a telling test of whether we could cut it in the green uniform). For a kid who was terrified by the prospect of talking to strangers (even if she had no trouble talking the ear off of people she knew), the idea of going door to door in my neighborhood and asking people to buy from me was not appealing. Thus I didn’t do it. I simply asked the handful of neighbors I knew and came back home.

Since this tallied to about eight boxes, I faced a problem. But back then, people didn’t take their little girls into their offices to sell cookies. My dad didn’t have employees who, like I would twenty years later, felt obligated to purchase three or four boxes from every Girl Scout who showed up at work in the late months of winter. My dad was, in fact, a professor, and I can assure you that the physics department did not contain many Brownie-friendly faculty. And back then, my mom was busy being a potter and a community activist, neither of which lent her sugar-hungry or kid-friendly colleagues. Thus I was left with the fewest entries on my order form in the entire troupe, and thus I quit. I’ve never regretted the decision, and I hold no hard feelings toward the Girl Scout enterprise.

I do, in fact, love the Girl Scouts, if solely for the sake of the cookies. Really, what in life compares to a freezer-chilled Thin Mint, eaten after a bowl of chili at home with friends or crumbled into a bowl of ice cream during a movie? I say, not much. Thin Mints are one of life’s little pleasures, and it’s always a treat to get to buy them once again. But boy, things have changed on the sales end of those cookies. I went the grocery store this morning, and two girls positively bounced up and down on their toes behind the card table out front that they had covered with all varieties of Girl Scout cookies. Mind you, their excitement related to some puppy, not to the approaching customers who were in fact trying to get their attention so we could each buy a couple of boxes. When finally a Girl Scout attended to me, I handed her a twenty, which elicited from her a set of squinting eyes and an up-tilted head. It had taken her a good thirty seconds to deduce that two boxes at $3.50 equal $7; clearly, coming up with change was going to be a challenge. So I told her the answer, and she frowned further. “Really?” she asked me. “Yes,” I said, doing my best not to say anything more. I swear, if they’re gonna make it this easy for these kids to sell the things (they didn’t even have on their uniforms!), they could at least use the process as an opportunity for a math lesson. But I went easy on her, because she had, in fact, convinced the woman next to me to give me the last box of Thin Mints.

As we walked away, I thanked this woman again, and she smiled and assured me it was no problem. She already had ten boxes at home, she explained, and she knew these girls’ mothers, so she was just buying more boxes to help them out—it didn’t matter to her which kinds she bought. This, I thought, this was the kind of mom I needed to know back in the day! Not to mention the next mom I saw. This one was unloading the car next to mine, and as she stepped away, with three cases of Thin Mints tucked under her arm, I asked if I could buy a few. She told me to meet her at her family’s table, which was all of six feet from the first one I’d bought at, and as I stood there, cash in hand, I witnessed an argument among five mothers and one father. Apparently, the first set had signed up to table until noon and the second set was early for the next selling period. But since they had Thin Mints and the others didn’t, they worked out a deal by which they could sell just those until their noon start time. Mind you, there were no children present for this discussion; the Thin-Mint-laden lady came with her husband but no Girl Scout. The eight year old inside me felt appalled.

But I still bought two boxes from her. I couldn’t help myself. Girls Scouts these days may have it shockingly easy, but give ‘em all a badge anyway. Those cookies are too good to pass up.

Movie Review: The Band's Visit

Years ago I read the novel “Waiting” by Ha Jin and thought it was a masterpiece. Others complained that a story that spanned a character’s 18 years of waiting to marry the woman he loved moved too slowly to be tolerated; but I felt the book captured such a wait impeccably—captured the reality of it, the reality of life. I just watched the film “The Band’s Visit,” and I’m left feeling similarly satisfied. The movie, whose simple plot could be summed up in a sentence or two, settled me into a resounding quietude; my heartbeat, as I watched the film, slowed to the pace it acquires during sleep. In the quiet space of the film—with no noise ever underlying a characters’ speech, with no movement ever taking place outside the major action of a scene—a pervading sense of human loneliness comes to life. Delightfully, however, as the painful conversations of strangers trying to find a comfortable space between them slowly deepen, the solitude evoked is, by the end of the film, mitigated. Replacing it is a sense of camaraderie among people with little in common—and it is that development that let me leave the theater feeling elated.

I don’t recommend this film to everyone; I’m sure some will find it dull. But for those of you who enjoy a close study of humanity and appreciate the simple artistic touches that can conjure that up in an image, a timbre of voice, or a statement, this may be one of the more satiating films you see in a long while.

just floating (together)

It was only the second time I’d ever gone to a bar alone. The first time I’d felt awkward, but I had a friend who was a musician (and I’ll admit I had a crush on this friend), and he’d invited me to come hear him play, so I went, even though none of my friends would go out with me at that hour on a weeknight or in such bitter cold. It was a small bar; a small gig. Maybe four or five people listened; another one leaned forward and chatted at the bartender. During the sets, I sipped my beer slowly and focused on the band. During the breaks, the friend sat with me and chatted, and so I, who had grown up excruciatingly shy, made it through this most public lone venture just fine.

Still, I didn’t repeat the pursuit until this week, a solid three or four years later in time. I’ve never truly understood sitting at a bar alone; never been into alcohol enough to want to drink on my own. But listening to music solo is a different story; I do that all the time. And I was in the mood for the dim lighting; in the mood for the buoyant tunes. Plus I had a theory developing, which was that at the particular bar I was heading to, I’d meet someone when sitting alone. Every time I’d ever waited for a friend there, some person on a stool next to me had started to talk. So I thought I’d see if I could will that to happen; if when intending to meet someone interesting that way, I might.

Of course, it took half an hour for anyone in the crowded room to even look my way. When he did, it was only because his date had hit the bathroom, but rather than cut my losses, I thought what the heck. So I answered his question, which was about the genre of music being played. And I smiled as he tilted his head to think and then said it made him picture Micky Mouse, from the old days, back when it was in black and white. With his fingers he mimicked a mouse scurrying around; with his glazed eyes he watched it run. An old French film, I told him, that’s where this music takes me. He shook his head slowly, saying no, no—then twittered his fingers again as he turned his back to me and kissed his returning date.

The next time she left him, he leaned in close and whispered something about a boat. I laughed and asked for an explanation, and he said now he and Micky were on a sailboat, not moving, just… and I contributed lolling, at which his eyes lit up, and he repeated it. Lolling on the Caribbean. Sails up or down? I asked. All up, he said, but there’s no wind, so we’re just floating, smoking some Mexican weed. Do we have hammocks on board? I asked him. And he said yes, he thought we should. Then I’m in a hammock, I told him; and he nodded. He looked me in the eye then, and his grin widened. This time the girl sat down and he stayed facing me. She tugged at his arm and he stayed facing me, the taste of the ocean breeze on his lips.

It wasn’t the encounter I was expecting, but it was hard to beat.

Valentine's Day reflection

I walked through the automated doorway and immediately regretted it. While everyone else was home primping for a date, here I was, alone in the grocery store. There was no one perusing produce. No one considering bottles of wine. The aisles were just too empty. It felt a lot like being in a graveyard—not a peaceful kind of calm. Why, I thought, had I gone somewhere that would be such a reminder of my currently being alone?

But earlier in the day I'd been thinking about Valentine's Day a bit, and I can't say I mind spending it on my own. Sure, it can be a lot of fun, but there's a pressure some people put on it that I think is a bit insane. I had a co-worker once who seemed very happily married until the day after Valentine's, when she stormed into the office with a red face and huddled in her cube. At lunch, one of us got the nerve to ask her what the problem was, and she blew up then, venting such a story it took everything in us to hold our mouths closed and bite our tongues. The night had gone down like this: She'd gone home from work and gotten a nice outfit on. He'd come home, asked if he could give her her present. She chided him, insisting that they stick to the plan: go to dinner with her brother and sister-in-law, share gifts all together then. Her husband pleaded; couldn't they have some privacy for the gift-giving; the wife insisted, no no no. At dinner, he was the last to hand out a present. She was beaming; she knew what it would be; she'd instructed him. She couldn't wait to put on the earrings. She couldn't wait to see how they glinted under the light. She beamed at him, but he hesitated, so she had to throw those daggers at him with her eyes that she thought she'd trained him not to require. He tried further to delay—"But honey, I only have half your gift." She didn't care; this was the good half, she knew. He would not have dared show up to this dinner with her family without the diamonds. Her eyes pressed into him; he had no choice. He handed over a bag. It was too big for a jewelry box, but he was a man, what did he know about wrapping? She dug into it; she put her hand in the bag and what did she feel but something an awful lot like his thing, except rubber, and larger, and so horrifying she had to pull it out of the gift bag, right there in public, in front of her family, and let the tears stream down her face as he explained it was a good thing, it would make their nighttimes more fun, it would help them have a reason to move their baby girl into her own room. He smiled helplessly, trying to explain that the earrings weren't ready yet; he'd be able to pick them up in a week. He smiled helplessly, not really understanding why she was crying, and all she could do was hold the dildo there in public and hate him.

Now I can't say there's much of anything about how to run one's life or marriage that I saw eye to eye with her about. I think her marriage was a mess because she had such ludicrous expectations for it. But I think the industry that is Valentine's Day, much like the industry that is weddings and engagements and diamonds, has helped to keep such antiquated approaches to love in place, and it's the suffering I've seen come out of the day that makes me grateful to get all my Valentine's lovin from within.

Remembering that, I had a renewed optimism as I picked an avocado from the stack and looked up to avoid bumping into someone. He was tall and red-headed and freckled in a good way, and I said excuse me and turned my head to get the full look. In the next aisle, there was another one; crew neck sweater over a t-shirt, jeans topping a pair of casual shoes; he was in his relaxing clothes, not heading anywhere after the grocery store but home to his tv and sofa. When I noticed the third one, I realized it: I should've put makeup on; I should've done my hair. Where better to be on Valentine's Day than a grocery store because there's no doubting that every last one of us in there was single and available and maybe even looking. It was a hunting ground. It was a revelation. Next year, I'll be prepared.

(why I am sitting here smiling right now)

It's the way my skin is warming in the sun. The aroma it has of coconut oil so I don't burn. The way my lips feel, desperate for chapstick but I can't bear to get up and relieve them because out here it feels too perfectly like a pool-side, like a patio by a sea. The long green leaves and branches of plants around me rustle gently in a light breeze; they rustle in my peripheral vision, and if it were a book or magazine rather than a laptop that kept my attention, I might almost believe that I was at the seashore in summer; that this wasn't work but liesure; that I could lie here through every inching of the sun across the clear, cloudless sky and think about nothing except how good this feels, how much I am like a plant in my need for sunlight and how tall I am growing in this climate that is so good for that. On a day like this after first moving here, I wrote an email to my friends back east and titled it "So this is January." Today I repeat that refrain. So this is February. This is heaven.

Ode to Grandma

In my grandparents’ house, the wind chimes hung indoors, in the dining room. Behind them a window separated a row of potted succulents and a gauzy shade from the small lawn beyond, its plush grass encircled by hostas and the low branches of hemlocks. A grapevine fell from the roof of the house in one corner of the yard. It would have been a lovely place for the chimes to live. They were long-limbed, made of a thick metal that rang out an elegant progression of notes in the octave right around middle C. When supplied a breeze by my fingers, they returned the favor with a melodious song.

My grandparents bought that house the year I was born; 22 years later, not long after I graduated from college a few blocks away, they sold it. In the coinciding of their departure and my setting up my first apartment, I inherited pots, utensils, tablecloths and placemats, a mirror, and even my great grandmother’s kitchen table. To my delight, included in the boxes my grandmother drove over to my new home were the wind chimes, wrapped in a blanket for padding. Why she didn’t want to keep them puzzled me; but then so did their placement in her home.

Today, years later, sitting in a patch of sun in my backyard on the first warm day of the year, I think I have it pretty good: leaning back in a butterfly chair, book propped open on my folded legs, Vitamin-D soaking into my skin, green vines dripping over the fences on either side of me, my place in the world seems pretty good. And then the wind rustles the still barren branches above me, and it’s warm so I don’t shiver; and it’s strong, so I hear those same chimes begin to twinkle their little song at me. It’s been too many months since I could sit outside; it’s been too many months since I have visited my grandma; but in this moment, I close the book and close my eyes, and I can see her standing in the kitchen, watching me bring music to the metal that has no wind to blow song into it. Each chiming note brings her nearer to me, and as I watch her watching me, I still don’t understand why she kept them indoors, but I think I understand why she gave the chimes away. It had nothing to do with her wanting or not wanting them; it had everything to do with wanting me to have whatever it is I love.

music and memories

Last night I had a drink with friends at a bar that managed to be playing the soundtrack of my junior high era life. Hearing songs like “There She Goes” by the La’s and “Here’s Where the Story Ends” by the Sundays, my brain explodes with images of posters, tape cases, and photographs of friends—the objects that filled my bedroom back then. In seventh grade, you could barely see the green-and-pink flowered wallpaper that was beginning to peel off my walls because I taped to it so many magazine-page pictures and posters of glam rock heavy metal bands like Poison, Guns N Roses, Skid Row (to each of whom I dedicated a wall and a door), Cinderella, Danger Danger, the Scorpions, Bon Jovi, and Def Leppard that I once counted and found I had 284 pairs of eye-lined and mascara-enhanced eyes watching me. (And if you think their makeup was bad, you should try to imagine how my parents felt about the amount of skin-tight leather worn in this montage of metal men.)

A year later, I made room to add posters of the Sundays, Luna, and 10,000 Maniacs. I turned to my Georgia roots and started listening to REM, whose guitarist Peter Buck I once sat a table away from at a restaurant and said hello to. I became fanatical about the local high-school-band-made-it-big (at least in Atlanta), Drivin n Cryin. And though mainstream radio stations and MTV didn’t yet give air to these groups, I also started listening to Soul Asylum, the Lemonheads, Live, and a little band called Pearl Jam. The Georgia State radio station was ahead of the game, and though Sebastian Bach and Bret Michaels (lead singers, respectively, of Skid Row and Poison) didn’t come down from my walls for another few years, I began to listen to a lot of music with a softer edge.

I still love many of those heavy metal tunes, especially the ballads—GNR’s “Patience” and Tesla’s “Love Song” will always seem to me to be perfect songs—but it’s the music I turned to after them that really conjures up memories for me. Maybe that’s got more to do with what was going on in my life at the time than with the music, but some of the songs I then began listening to now shoot me straight back to another place the second I hear them. To this day, if I hear even a chord of Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” I am transported to the school cafeteria; the lights are dim; I’m walking in alone; I’m looking around; I’m excited. Play Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven,” and I’m at the same eighth-grade dance, arms around the neck of one of my best friends, thinking for the first time that maybe I like him, and maybe he likes me. Not six months later, I’m in a movie theater with my first boyfriend, and if you play Bryan Adams’ very cheesy “Everything I Do, I Do It For You” in my presence, scenes of Robinhood will flash across my eyes, and then an arm will pass around me, and I will get my first kiss.

Last week I heard Pearl Jam’s “Black” in the car and couldn’t resist singing along; but as I listened—I know some day you’ll have a beautiful life; I know you’ll be a star; in somebody’s else’s sky, but why, why, why can’t it be mine?—it brought up a darker memory, one I think hearing that song always will: I am at one of my best friend’s houses; we are in her bedroom; we are writing on the wall. She has an artful handwriting and I’m trying to imitate it; I’m writing those lyrics with a dark marker and I’m dedicating them to one of our friends, who has recently driven off a roadside on a rainy day and smashed headfirst into a pine tree. We have not experienced death before; we’re unsure what to do with it; so we drown it out with music that touches us in a deep place. Later in life, U2’s “All I Want Is You” will be the song that most does this for me—that sets my heart throbbing with an intensity that comes from knowing the song has perfectly captured an emotion of mine and put it somewhere outside my body. Cowboy Junkies’ “Blue Moon” will do this, as will their “Bea’s Song” and “To Live Is To Fly.” Every single release by the Indigo Girls will do this, and thankfully, most of them will right my spirit; they will take it back to a summer evening at the Chastain Park ampitheater, surrounded by the leaves and branches of tall tall woods, watching the light dim in the sky, the bats come out, the stars begin to sparkle, listening to the lyrics of “Galileo” echo off the stage and into the night; back to the dock on Montsweag Bay by whose side I sit in the low branches of a tree and listen on my walkman to “Closer to Fine” and feel it to be so; back to Pigeon Mountain, where I have gone climbing and caving numerous times and am now for the last time driving away from on an April afternoon at the end of high school and thinking Emily and Amy must have been right there when they wrote the lyrics to “Southland in the Springtime.”

I have memories that are so intricately intertwined with music that I’m not sure I would even recall them if a wire in my brain weren’t tripped by the gentle chords or throaty lyrics of a particular song. I’m sure I would still remember the occurrences; but what these songs do is revive the emotions evoked by experiencing them—what these songs do is let me relive them. There is nothing else that could capture quite that smell of leather, that small dashboard and the river beyond, that warm air flowing freely at me, that exhilaration that came from cruising down the highway with my bare feet out the window as one of my best friends drove us to crew practice in her dad’s 1980 MG convertible; there is nothing else that could capture the sensation of that twenty-minute moment than the opening refrain of Etta James’ “At Last”—that solitary word, traversing the spectrum of notes, rising from her throat up into her head and opening out into a tone filled with all the hope a heart can feel. Many a bride agrees that that song is incomparable; but what gets me more than just the richness and the romance of it is the ability it and many other songs have to rekindle something in me that long ago was and then wasn’t.