It’s funny how music makes us think about our past lives. Just this week, my mom posted a video of Mel Carter singing “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” on her Facebook page. Now, I was nowhere even a thought of being alive when this song was popular, but it held a great deal of importance for my mom and her sister. So much so, that some time in my middle school years, much to my sister and I’s chagrin they actually belted it out at full blast in the car. How do I remember — the music. Music transcends time and brings you back to a time when you were a different version of you. I’m pretty sure it was in our brown Suburu (I’m talking crap color not that nice champagne color people try to pass off nowadays). I’m pretty sure thankfully I was out of my feathered hair/mullet phase that possessed me during my early middle school years (sorry K for the bad hair advice). Sidebar: Looking back on that haircut, my sister and I may have been attempting to join the band Winger or take David Spade’s job in Joe Dirt — you choose. It was after the deer incident, but before B went to Greece. I know if I listen to that song again I can find all the details I have forgotten and bring it back like it was yesterday. That my friends is the beauty of music. Two days ago, I felt I needed to have the song “American Pie” on my I-Pod. I couldn’t explain why for the moment, but then I remembered back to freshman year in college and a group of friends getting ready for Saturday nights on the town and how perfectly the song worked out that you could sing-a-long and shower in the time allotted. I think since I reconnected with some of those friends that song and memory came back. I can see dorm rooms, Tang, the climb to the fourth floor, and belting that song out at the top of our lungs. Of course, somehow all my friends were part of the chorus at school and well, I’m pretty sure I had flunked out of that a long time ago. Thank goodness they carried my off-tune self. Of course, the funny thing about memories — you can relive them in your mind, but when you try and attempt a shower in the 8:37 that American Pie is with an 11-month-old baby you get as far as “Now for ten years we’ve been on our own…” Not even halfway through the song. Ah, to be young again. Well, here’s to new songs and new memories AND my topic for this year’s NaNoWriMo Project. I will use songs to write about memories and stories from life. 50,000 words — who knows how many songs or memories, but I’m ready. Are you?
Tag Archives: Life Before Baby
NaNoWriMo
Again, it creeps up on us — the month of November. Lots of great events happen in this month including my sister’s birthday, a childhood friend’s birthday, and my son’s birthday. All that aside, it is also National Novel Writing Month. So, in the insanity that is my life I am actually thinking about doing it. Not because I think I will actually finish a novel (50,000 words) in 30 days but because it will get me back writing. I miss writing. This year, however, I am not going to write fiction. Instead, I think I will work on some non-fiction. Doesn’t matter what you write — as long as you are writing! So, are you up to the challenge?
Thoughts
In all this quiet, I have time for things or thoughts that have crossed the dashboard of my life in the last so many days. Since I have limited quiet time, I will recount them in no particular order, importance, or reason.
Death Wish — Turkey Style. Driving home yesterday, the largest most wild turkey flew directly in front of our windshield. Now, as a woman whose mother has hit a deer in her lifetime, you would think the sight of a bird flying extremely close to a window would be small potatoes, but in my case I nearly fainted. Out of nowhere on a highway connector came this bird with purpose. As the passenger, I saw it before my husband, but instead of warning him I merely closed my eyes and waited for it to all pass. You think it strange that I would not warn my hubby of this honkin’ bird that could probably do more damage to our car than it to us, but it seemed perfectly legit to me. See — my hubby told me I had to stop making noises or yelling if cars were too close or something was happening while he was driving because it startled him. So, in some zen meditative state, I remembered this piece of advice and calmly closed my eyes with my hands over them and waited. Of course afterward, my husband wondered why I hadn’t warned him, but like the good wife that I am I reminded him that he asked for less squeaks or comments and for the first time I actually listened to his request.
Running. The half marathon is a couple months away, but I am on week 3 of training and doing okay. Since I hadn’t been running since pre-baby by a long shot, I was a little nervous about starting with running. My friend told me that her doctor had told her no running until after she was done breastfeeding because of how loose the joints still are, but I assumed her doctor meant her and continued my quest anyway. I am glad that I have. I feel stronger. I feel faster. I feel more assured as a runner this time around. I don’t know if this is because my cross training is running after a little duffer who has recently learned to crawl or carrying him around (at least 25 pounds) or if because I am beginning to feel fit again, but I actually can say without reservation — I like running.
The Burlington Scene. In the last couple days, my hubby and I have had to be in Burlington doing things and for the first time we decided we are so not Burlington. We have definitely become part of a different scene which is really having no scene at all. Sitting at Breakwaters watching some really out there outfits while visiting with colleagues, we realized we are not 25 anymore. Burlington has this feel to it that seems like a time in our past. In addition, the news is reporting that we are getting a Whole Foods in South Burlington — ugh. Let’s bring more of corporate American disguised as some holistic food market to our small state. Interestingly, the comments on the news website embracing the chain are from the same people who condemn Walmart coming into other parts of the state. Hypocrisy? Plus, the driving in the Burlington area has gotten a little out of control in the last couple years. People drive like Jimmie Johnson–like they want to hit you in turn four right before you cross the finish line. In some ways, we could mourn the fact that we are not as hip as we thought we were once, but both of us agree that we are okay not being cool. In fact, we are enjoying it.
If I knew Picasso I would buy myself a gray guitar and play…
Vermont is a funny weather state. We don’t take anything for granted. Spring has sprung with weather cresting fifty and the promise of sunshine seeping through the clouds. My son’s trip to the farm was cancelled due to weather, but he was quite content playing with grains, cucumbers, and other farm like stuff at his school. Today, I am sitting on my couch with a delightful cup of coffee contemplating my run. I have run twice in the last five days, which I might add is more than I have run in the entire last year and a half. Pregnancy and a small child had a little to do with that piece. Now, with time on my hands, I should be racing out the door. Only, now I have a moment to breathe since my little man is at daycare and my husband is traveling back from dropping him at daycare. The sun is beginning to outline the trees. The birds are taunting me and calling me a wimp for sitting on my leather sofa watching them hunt for worms in still hardened ground. They are troopers and I am as lame as my dog who has gone back to bed for the eleventh time this morning. But, the coffee is so good and the house so quite. It is a little like the William Carlos Williams’ poem about the plums…
It is funny defining yourself after having a baby. Yesterday, I felt guilty leaving my son at school so I could go to work and get my professional development portfolio done (three hours I will never get back). Today, my husband brought him to play with his friends so we can enjoy a day of what I shall call “life before little man.” A day where I will hopefully go for a run, eat a nice breakfast with both of my hands and at a reasonable pace, go to a movie, and maybe even run an errand without rushing through it. I feel guilty about these things just like I do when I cut the tag off pillows and pieces of furniture even though it clearly says cut off if you are the one who bought it. I think it is healthy to work through this guilt because the reality is my son is learning more about life at school in these social situations than he would if he spent another whole day at home with mom. Although I am the apple of his eye, it is good for him to go and play with his friends. If anything, it is why when I pick him up after a day away he gives me this smile that says thanks for letting me hang with my peeps, but now let’s cuddle.
Ghosts
Every once in a while in life, we see someone from our other life. The one you had prior to the reality that is now. Most times these ghosts collide with your now life and for a moment you don’t know who the ghost is — only that you know he or she from somewhere. Last Sunday at our local brew pub, I was having dinner with my friend and my son at the bar. In addition to chatting, I was watching the folks come in and out the door. My husband and I’s favorite thing to do in life (prior to having a child) was sitting at bars watching the folks around us. A man walked in and headed towards the bathroom. We will call him M. Watching him stand there in regular everyday clothes (jeans, white button down shirt, and black jacket), I had this haunting suspicion I knew him from somewhere that was not my current location. Now, I am the type of person who doesn’t let things go easily (I am still reeling about where I lost my button off my jacket yesterday and it is killing me not to go back to the Kohl’s store and search underneath all the fixtures) so while having a conversation with my friend I kept staring (not obvious staring just enough to hopefully jog my memory). As he went to walk out the door, it hit me. He was from Retronome.
Retronome is what a local bar turns into on Saturday evenings where they play all music from the 80s and 90s (in other words, a dream come true for someone like me who loves this type of music). In my early twenties when I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up so I spent a lot of time at Retronome dancing. I think part of my exercise routine actually included the three to four hours I spent dancing there on Saturday nights. I must have been some kind of fixture because at an art show years later a woman actually said to me, “You used to dance on stage at Retronome” in front of my colleagues. I had to explain that the stage was just another area of the dance floor and it wasn’t what it sounded like. This part of who I was last for a year or maybe two. In the beginning, I went to Retronome with my friend D. He was always involved in some kind of drama with this girlfriend of that, but Saturday nights we would head up those dark stairs with some stamp on our hands in case we ever wanted to leave and come back and walk into the darkness with Michael Jackson beckoning to us “to be starting something.” When I went with D., we actually checked our coats. It made the time seem as if were in a high end club in NYC (not that I have been to anything but some dank jazz basement club). Usually we were a little early for the dancing to start so we would circle the bar and wait for others to show up. These were not friends of ours in the sense that we drank chai lattes on Church Street or any of that. These were the crew that stood literally up against the wall watching the scene on the dance floor, but we knew them in those moments. Once the floor was crowded and you were sure to remain anonymous we would begin dancing. D. and I were friends so we could dance the night away without any strings attached. We weren’t there to meet people. We were there “to dance if we wanted to. We were there to leave our friends behind. Because if your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance well their no friends of mine.” M. was a wall person. I never knew how D. was acquainted with him, but he was there. I remember that every three months or so I would actually get M. on the dance floor. He didn’t dance. He held the wall up in his uniform of slick hair, black clothing, and tattoos. He worked with computers, which I think meant during the week he didn’t actually talk to anyone. He had a serious look to his pale face and pitch black hair that echoed the look of vampire. I saw him once outside of Retronome during those years and it literally took me a moment to figure out how I knew him. Truthfully, I never really new what his deal was. My husband would probably tell me he is one of those people who have secret lives that we will never know about, which is probably very true in the case of M. Once I transitioned to a new group who went to Retronome (however, they threw their coats in corners and had a different routine then D. and me) I still talked with M. D. had moved on at this point and I think was living somewhere like Tahoe or Seattle. Once I met my husband, Retronome became a thing of the past. I brought him there a total of three times. The first two times we had fun and he dealt with public dancing (unlike me — not a big dancer) and then the last time I realized my world had shifted. In my current situation, I didn’t fit with Retronome. I had a new part of life.
Seeing M. at my local place really caused me to do a double take. With a kid in my lap, I definitely was in a new world. One that I am adjusting to, but one that is also very different than my previous ones. Having thought about that encounter for the past week, I realize that ghosts have a way of haunting you and reminding you of what you once had in your tank of memories, but also because they are transparent they allow you to see that where you are now is where you are supposed to be. Do I wish that I could take off some Saturday night and have dance offs to Billy Idol, General Public, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners? Sometimes. However, I also know that the memory I have will not be the same as the reality. Instead, I’ll rock out in my car or my living room that is cluttered with baby gear. In that moment I will be transported back to the past where I maybe want to visit, but not live.
