A three-room apartment, the embodiment of claustrophobia. Somehow there was never enough light in that place--it was as though the eternal gray layer of city dust filtered out pure light, as well. Four of us lived there, with one bedroom shared by myself and my older brother, and the living room's pull-out sofa the designated domain of Mom and her boyfriend (we called him a stepfather, for propriety's sake). There was a pervasive unease about that living room, because it was the site of unpredictable outbursts by my stepfather. Usually these were late-night, though not always; typically they were provoked by alcohol; frequently the blasting verbal barrage would be followed up by slaps, punches, or outright hurls of my mother's birdlike form from one side of the small room to another. How she never broke a bone remains a mystery. If there were bruises, she managed to conceal them and retain her 9-to-5 secretarial post without anyone being the wiser.
Incredibly, considering the dearth of space in our home, the single bedroom was rarely entered by my mom, and never by my stepfather. It was lighter in there, and it had a magical escape pod: the back window. No ordinary window, this was a prewar portal about five feet tall. Its width perfectly cradled my sitting form...thus, I would sit at my sixth-floor perch, big Radio Shack headphones clamped on my head, staring out over the patchwork roofs, sparse trees, and sidewalks of Astoria, Queens. Behind me was a scuttled scrap pile of domesticity. Ahead of me was the world of my neighborhood, shimmering in dusk light or glinting in sunshine. My senses were wide-opened by this window vision: breezes nuzzled me; interspersed trees popped a brilliant green into the grays and browns of city life; I smelled other people's food, sweet outdoors air, the occasional hint of exhaust...
...and what did I hear, planted in that window, gazing and escaping? Well, in 1979, among many of my favorite artists, I heard the Knack. And the Knack became the shining sound of my freedom.
My heart lifts even now when I think of Get the Knack. I had long since established myself as a Beatles fan, and suddenly a band of my era was building something new and edgy on that familiar power pop foundation. That made me feel championed and upswept into my own hopeful now. The album's packaging was slick black-and-white, with its black portions gleaming just like the inner circle of vinyl. The band photos and even the rainbow Capitol record label mimicked the Beatles' heyday, at once parody and homage. As such, this LP was easily dismissed upon its (admittedly hyped) release; I recall many jaded critics and even my own brother giving it the one-handed brush-off. That only fueled my ardor. Not for nothing did the band title their second album ...But the Little Girls Understand. The men didn't know, indeed.
Plunked onto the turntable, the Knack's sound was percussion-driven and propulsive right from the get-go. (Bruce Gary was vastly underrated.) Berton Averre's guitar rang clear, banging and clangy. Prescott Niles' bass bottom was thick and supportive. And there was Doug Fieger's indelible voice, by turns bratty and manly. He teased, yearned, scored. The band's lyrics conveyed impatient sexuality and a simmering anger that spoke volumes to my 15-year-old thwarted self. I had a knowing inside me that was--I can say now--deeper than many of my peers'. Forged by my home's strife, perhaps, but also by my voracious reading habit and my writer's sensibility. I gathered shreds of learning and quilted them immediately. And oh, I wanted wanted wanted.
A fatherless girl (my stepfather was a straw man, and my own father long disappeared), I craved touch, warmth, and companionship. I wanted to learn someone else's ways, and thereby, to believe there was a better life to be had than what was behind me in that apartment. I wanted to be understood, surely, but even more so, I wanted to understand someone else completely. Immerse. Leave.
As such, I was governed by crushes that burned hot at the front of my mind. Not unlike the Knack's protagonists, who sang things like:
I don't expect you to understand
The thrill I feel when I hold your hand
But this is something I never planned
You're thinking of me as just a friend
My heart is breaking, I can't pretend...
and
I don't want much, uh-uh,
I don't wanna be her boyfriend forever...
I just wanna...touch
and
She's gonna take you by the hand, lead you to the promised land
She'll make you weak and out of breath, feeling like you're done to death
Oh, I wanna hold you
Oh, and then enfold you....
She'll be pulling the string
But she'll tie it in a knot before she'll give you anything!
(Yeah, go ahead, replace the she's with he's. Worked for me.)
I listened and memorized and craved for weeks. And then I experienced a Knack-engineered moment that was transcendent.
The place: my friend D.J.'s garage. D.J. had what most of us Queensites lacked: a full-sized, freestanding house. Its two-car garage had been made over into a 1970s extravaganza of a wood-paneled bar, complete with pool table and a real pinball machine. As I think back, I can't understand why I didn't just buy a sleeping bag and move in. But whenever I could, I would loose the tether of home and hang out in that den of easy laughter and play.
We were a crowd of friends, back then, each with our own demons to wrestle (again, something I can say now...then, I might have wondered, but mostly never considered it). Among us was a boy I desired mightily. He and I were friends on an intellectual level--not to sound overstuffed, but we discoursed about poetry, politics, and religion along with our pop-cultural musings. Yea verily, I had crushes abounding, but he was my strongest focus, the catch I strained to yank into the boat.
D.J. was a man of disco and cheesepop, but somehow one afternoon as we gathered in celebration of Labor Day, Get the Knack was successfully slipped into his boom box cassette player. Wooo! As a pool game lazily unrolled, and the conversation with it, I rocked around the room to the first few cuts on the album (no single among them, yet I knew them each by heart). Cut number five was the first resting moment, a true ballad that I had taken to heart with desperation, always pining for this crush-boy:
I don't know why I never said it before
I dont know why i waited so long to be sure
but I...everything's humming,
Something is coming, maybe tonight....
Funny to think I had to clown and pretend
You never knew I saw you as more than a friend
but I...come hold me tighter, come make it right,
maybe tonight, oh maybe tonight....
Of course I knew every word. And for some reason, I dared myself to sing this track out loud, there among my best friends. It felt liberating...and far more so, as I heard crush-boy's voice singing with equal fervor alongside mine. My heart raced and my mind wobbled, but I stayed cool and sang it out with him.
Did he touch me that night? Well, no...not for a couple of years, at that, and even then only fleetingly. But it didn't matter, and it still doesn't matter. That song has silken threads woven around it to this day. You could say, I started to grow a wing right then, in D.J.'s garage. That would be entirely true.
Freedom. I'm indebted to the Knack for helping foster that. And I escaped, oh yes...largely unscathed, and fully myself.
There's a further Knack-related coda to this story. How many of us have the good fortune to gather new best friends in our full-on adulthood? I know it hasn't happened often for me; after the safe haven of D.J.'s garage and the all-embracing arms of college, I haven't connected with many people. Adulthood's definitely had more of a lonely cast about it, which I guess accompanies responsibilities like dinner and paycheck and nurturing. Not so much freedom to be discovered in those, moreover.
Well, five years ago, I came to know a group of wonderful women on, of all things, John Mayer's fan club message board. (I'm sure my family's memories of that year involve the staccato tapdance of my PC's keyboard as I kept up with messages and tales from all over the U.S., literally from friends I had not met.) One by one, these women had been meeting up at concerts (where, I might add, they managed to score amazing seats right in front of Mayer). Those meet-ups were then retold on the board, and they sounded exhiliratingly fun. I dithered for awhile about whether I should head out on a Mayerventure...and in so doing, crest years of fear about airplane flight. 'Cause to be sure, Johnny boy wasn't hitting up the state of Maine.
In September of 2004, one of our friends tragically lost her husband to a horrible industrial accident. The Mayer friends banded together as we had been doing for other sad situations among us, sharing messages of support on the boards. From our disparate locations, we each began crafting quilt squares to express our feelings and share love with Mary Ann. Later that fall, the quilt was to be delivered in Chicago.
Never been to Chicago. Hmmm. And one of the Mayer friends, Karen, was a southern Mainer who wanted me to fly out with her. We had never met in real life, despite our relative geographical proximity. I knew she had recently lost her mom and was really looking forward to a little escapism after a sad, painful year. I pondered for a few days, and did not manage to persuade Karen that maybe we could drive...? No, she said firmly on the phone, we are NOT driving halfway across the country in December. I guess the train...? NO.
So...I gave in, leaping into quite an unknown. We flew. Got to know each other through revealing conversations, crammed next to each other in commuter jets. On one of the flights we were seated at the rear, and after we landed, there was a lull in the crowded line waiting to disembark.
"Let me out," I sang impatiently under my breath.
Karen was right alongside me. Her deep brown eyes went large, and then she smiled knowingly. She sang back: "Let me out, come and get me out, 'cause I've been stuck in for too long."
Now it was my eyes that bugged. That was the opening lyric of the Get the Knack album, a jaunty ode to, yes, escape. It turned out that Karen had accompanied her own emergent adolescence with the selfsame soundtrack.
We'd been enjoying each other's company, before. Now, we were insta-bonded. Karen is the Lobsta with whom I've since ranged all over the map in search of microbursts of freedom, to decorate our motherhood lives. And because of her, I found the innate bravery to fly south to New York multiple times the following spring, caring for my mother in her final illness. Karen always knew exactly what I was feeling...a gift that still hasn't stopped giving.
I was moved to write this by the generosity and artistry of Doug Fieger and Berton Averre, who've friended me on this amazing planet called Facebook. Thank you, thank you, for also knowing exactly how I was feeling, spanning three decades and going strong.
10 March 2009
23 February 2009
Risking my life for the blues
The weather forecast could have gone either way, really. Rain...or snow. (Well, I guess it could have gone three ways, this being Maine...the third option being the dreaded mix.) Lobsta and I perused yesterday's weather websites like trained meteorologists, scrutinized the New England map with swirling green/pink menaces bearing down, looked at the iffy temps, shrugged, and pretty much ignored all of it.
Because it's Buddy Guy and BB King. And Lobsta scored these tickets Friday after weeks of prodding Ticketmaster.com to no avail. You know the drill: tickets not currently available try again closer to the date of show x 100, and then improbably, she snagged floor tickets. GA, scramble for position...our favorite kind. Even better: at the brand-new Boston House of Blues (which used to be the Avalon, scene of one of our great John Mayer Trio escapades).
Let me briefly pause this narrative. The blues did not come to me via my storied musical DNA. I cannot recall any instance where my mother extolled this genre, except when one of her heroes performed blues in a shinier, more glamorous jazz context (cf. "C Jam Blues"). Truth be told, I think the blues were too soaked and earthy for her. Not to mention, the electric guitar was never a clarion call to her musical ears.
I have come to the blues entirely on my own. Clarion call, siren, seducer, compulsion: the myriad tones of a wailing electric guitar are all of these for me, and muse besides. When those tones are slowed, bent, and rhythmically pounded in service to blues music, I am literally physically moved (Lobsta, Marcy, and Gret would correct that to mov-ing. Herewith a quickie public apology for making them endure my dancing, swaying self.)
I feel like I've backed into the blues, though. Accessed them through a nondescript side door that whiteboy rockers opened to me, from Cream to Zep, Hot Tuna to Stevie Ray, and then this whole John Mayer thing. Over the course of 20 shows since 2003, Mayer has spoken to me most clearly in his blues voice of guitar rambles and strokes that lay bare raw emotion. I've come to understand how that voice is something he learned from others, whose output and stories I should know better.
Back in 2005, Lobsta and I were blessed to have attended a John Mayer Trio show in Chicago with an unannounced special guest: Buddy Guy. I knew who Buddy was, but it was in a distant, yes-he's-a-legend way. Seeing Buddy perform snapped me right to attention. "The woman I love, man, you know she's kinda big and fat. And what I like about the woman is kinda...gooood like that." Toss the skilled guitar work in with those lyrics, et voila: sex on a stick! I was galvanized. And grooving in my GA floor space, you bet.
Given the opportunity to see Buddy again--and with BB King added in, a stone legend--I was thrilled. Ergo (back to the narrative), pffffft to the weather, let's get into Daisy (Lobsta's trusty VW Bug) and point her south.
We arrived just 30 minutes before the doors opened. Quite a long line already snaked outside the venue despite the drizzly, freezly rain, and we added ourselves to the end. (This constrasts with various JM Trio outings, when we arrived by noon in order to be as close to first-in-line as possible.) Circumstances hadn't allowed us to get there any earlier, so we were fine with that--just to be in the room and witnessing these players was going to be enough.
Fast-forward to showtime. For reasons I still can't quite get my head around (as they did not involve pushing, elbowing, or even insinuating), Lobsta and I ended up one person away from the stage, immediately to the right of the mic. As close as you can get without touching wood, as I like to say. This was always a good-luck spot for our GA Mayer shows, and Lobsta and I stood there incredulous to have scored it at this more-historic blues moment. Buddy Guy and his band took the stage, and we were looking right in Buddy's eyes, watching his hands work the guitar neck and strings, in his space. Buddy combines leer with lilt, aggression with caress, insouciance with authority. Sometimes he howls, and other times he brings up his fists and oooooweeees with glee. And he's agelessly sexy, something I first witnessed in Chicago, but realized more fully last night.
His set included "Love Her With a Feeling," "Best Damn Fool," "Someone Else is Steppin' In," and "Feels Like Rain" (the latter is a song that Lobsta and I both associate with our mothers' passing, and his emotive performance brought us to to tears). He played "Skin Deep," the thoughtful title track to his newest LP, and there was reverent silence in the capacity-filled House of Blues. But after about an hour of burning up the stage with his tight band, he added one more player: a 9-year-old prodigy named Quinn Sullivan. "Who's Gonna Fill Those Shoes" is the duet they play together, but Buddy backed off many times and let an unassuming, fantastically gifted boy own the spotlight and the crowd. This extended what I've already seen with Mayer and Guy together, and I can assure you it's not about master and student. It's about legacy and camaraderie, and hope besides. I was able to look Quinn in the eyes just as easily as I'd been doing with Buddy, and as I grooved along to his playing, I could see an endearing acknowledgement on Quinn's part that he was having an effect on the crowd. He was authentic, not a show pony.
One last tidbit from the Buddy portion of the show: he noticed me and my ceaseless, blues-fueled dancing. I may not be a looker in traditional ways, but it's fair to say I do have fine rhythm. So I'm proud to report that Buddy sang this bit to me: "I'm the one and only...I'm the one man that you won't forget. I can make a bulldog kiss a pussycat, I'm the best damn fool you ever met." Awww yeah.
When Buddy's set was done, the stage crew effected a rapid and surprising transformation to get ready for BB. I didn't have any foreknowledge of BB's concerts, so I didn't realize there'd be a horn section and a formal feel to the unit. Every player to a man was attired in a bespoke suit or a tux. The atmosphere in the club shifted, and I'm not sure I can explain quite why. Buddy commands a roadhouse, to be sure. For BB, something closer to a concert hall takes shape around his stage. What I did know to expect was the folding chair that his crew member placed exactly in front of me. What a thrill just seeing that!
I wondered whether BB might be diminished these days. I had just seen him on the Grammys, and he hung back a tad that night, letting fellow soloists have more axe time. Well, wonder no more. He was an astonishment from the second he took the stage. Among my surprises were the timbre of his voice--rounded, nuanced, not rattled by age at all--and the tastiness and invention of his playing. (Very Count Basie, that.) And again, the eyes had it--I could see them so well from my vantage point. Not dimmed, his eyes flash when he's passionate (and he delivered a few monologues in addition to his singing). And his eyes frequently warm with sentiment. He has a fatherly bearing, and his joy is evident.
BB's band was smoking. His rhythm section was funked up and supple, and the horn players are locked together. His keyboardist was not as audible from my side of the stage, but he looks to be a contemporary of BB's, and he played some sweet solos. My mom's chief complaint against classic blues might involve a statement like, "It doesn't swing" (she unpacked that one a lot). Well, BB's band swings, syncopates, and jumps. I wish Mom could have heard it (but from much farther away--the volume where I stood would have overwhelmed her).
Another thing that surprised me about BB: his sexiness factor is right up there with Buddy. When he sings about how to love a woman, a lifetime of learning-by-doing is in his voice and on his face. The guitar licks that accompany him are knowing indeed. And the fact that he must sit to play means nothing, nothing at all.
At one point, BB enticed the entire crowd into singing along with him, and the choice of song was stunning...a lullaby. He explained that this song is how he feels about the woman he loves.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
you make me happy when skies are gray.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you,
please don't take my sunshine away.
Hearing a full house of jaded concertgoers sing so sweetly, and so surely, was amazing. The fact that this was a set piece, as are many of BB's asides and monologues, does not undercut its power.
BB moved me the most with a Blind Lemon cover, "See That My Grave is Kept Clean". His delivery reminded me of other elders I've known whose relationship with mortality was honest and unsparing. BB brought that home by acknowledging that his children do not like to hear him play this song. It is the distilled essence of blues.
At 11:15, more than three hours after the show started, BB stood up with assistance, and slowly bade the crowd farewell. His band filed off the stage, and the room emptied remarkably rapidly. Lobsta and I stood around for about ten minutes, dazed at the expanse of concrete that had moments ago held scores and scores of people. We felt privileged to have experienced this show at such close range. Gradually, we made our way to Daisy, and commenced a death-defying drive north into a full-on blizzard. The roads were chunky with a layer of ice, then coated with blowy, greasy snow. Eighteen-wheelers and 4WD trucks swept past us at ridiculous high speeds, as Lobsta kept the speed at 40 and gripped the wheel. Getting from Boston back to Portland took us four agonizing hours. We saw multiple accidents and did not see many plows or sanders. Hence, the title of this piece is as true as the music I'm honoring. And it was worth the trip...in every sense.
Because it's Buddy Guy and BB King. And Lobsta scored these tickets Friday after weeks of prodding Ticketmaster.com to no avail. You know the drill: tickets not currently available try again closer to the date of show x 100, and then improbably, she snagged floor tickets. GA, scramble for position...our favorite kind. Even better: at the brand-new Boston House of Blues (which used to be the Avalon, scene of one of our great John Mayer Trio escapades).
Let me briefly pause this narrative. The blues did not come to me via my storied musical DNA. I cannot recall any instance where my mother extolled this genre, except when one of her heroes performed blues in a shinier, more glamorous jazz context (cf. "C Jam Blues"). Truth be told, I think the blues were too soaked and earthy for her. Not to mention, the electric guitar was never a clarion call to her musical ears.
I have come to the blues entirely on my own. Clarion call, siren, seducer, compulsion: the myriad tones of a wailing electric guitar are all of these for me, and muse besides. When those tones are slowed, bent, and rhythmically pounded in service to blues music, I am literally physically moved (Lobsta, Marcy, and Gret would correct that to mov-ing. Herewith a quickie public apology for making them endure my dancing, swaying self.)
I feel like I've backed into the blues, though. Accessed them through a nondescript side door that whiteboy rockers opened to me, from Cream to Zep, Hot Tuna to Stevie Ray, and then this whole John Mayer thing. Over the course of 20 shows since 2003, Mayer has spoken to me most clearly in his blues voice of guitar rambles and strokes that lay bare raw emotion. I've come to understand how that voice is something he learned from others, whose output and stories I should know better.
Back in 2005, Lobsta and I were blessed to have attended a John Mayer Trio show in Chicago with an unannounced special guest: Buddy Guy. I knew who Buddy was, but it was in a distant, yes-he's-a-legend way. Seeing Buddy perform snapped me right to attention. "The woman I love, man, you know she's kinda big and fat. And what I like about the woman is kinda...gooood like that." Toss the skilled guitar work in with those lyrics, et voila: sex on a stick! I was galvanized. And grooving in my GA floor space, you bet.
Given the opportunity to see Buddy again--and with BB King added in, a stone legend--I was thrilled. Ergo (back to the narrative), pffffft to the weather, let's get into Daisy (Lobsta's trusty VW Bug) and point her south.
We arrived just 30 minutes before the doors opened. Quite a long line already snaked outside the venue despite the drizzly, freezly rain, and we added ourselves to the end. (This constrasts with various JM Trio outings, when we arrived by noon in order to be as close to first-in-line as possible.) Circumstances hadn't allowed us to get there any earlier, so we were fine with that--just to be in the room and witnessing these players was going to be enough.
Fast-forward to showtime. For reasons I still can't quite get my head around (as they did not involve pushing, elbowing, or even insinuating), Lobsta and I ended up one person away from the stage, immediately to the right of the mic. As close as you can get without touching wood, as I like to say. This was always a good-luck spot for our GA Mayer shows, and Lobsta and I stood there incredulous to have scored it at this more-historic blues moment. Buddy Guy and his band took the stage, and we were looking right in Buddy's eyes, watching his hands work the guitar neck and strings, in his space. Buddy combines leer with lilt, aggression with caress, insouciance with authority. Sometimes he howls, and other times he brings up his fists and oooooweeees with glee. And he's agelessly sexy, something I first witnessed in Chicago, but realized more fully last night.
His set included "Love Her With a Feeling," "Best Damn Fool," "Someone Else is Steppin' In," and "Feels Like Rain" (the latter is a song that Lobsta and I both associate with our mothers' passing, and his emotive performance brought us to to tears). He played "Skin Deep," the thoughtful title track to his newest LP, and there was reverent silence in the capacity-filled House of Blues. But after about an hour of burning up the stage with his tight band, he added one more player: a 9-year-old prodigy named Quinn Sullivan. "Who's Gonna Fill Those Shoes" is the duet they play together, but Buddy backed off many times and let an unassuming, fantastically gifted boy own the spotlight and the crowd. This extended what I've already seen with Mayer and Guy together, and I can assure you it's not about master and student. It's about legacy and camaraderie, and hope besides. I was able to look Quinn in the eyes just as easily as I'd been doing with Buddy, and as I grooved along to his playing, I could see an endearing acknowledgement on Quinn's part that he was having an effect on the crowd. He was authentic, not a show pony.
One last tidbit from the Buddy portion of the show: he noticed me and my ceaseless, blues-fueled dancing. I may not be a looker in traditional ways, but it's fair to say I do have fine rhythm. So I'm proud to report that Buddy sang this bit to me: "I'm the one and only...I'm the one man that you won't forget. I can make a bulldog kiss a pussycat, I'm the best damn fool you ever met." Awww yeah.
When Buddy's set was done, the stage crew effected a rapid and surprising transformation to get ready for BB. I didn't have any foreknowledge of BB's concerts, so I didn't realize there'd be a horn section and a formal feel to the unit. Every player to a man was attired in a bespoke suit or a tux. The atmosphere in the club shifted, and I'm not sure I can explain quite why. Buddy commands a roadhouse, to be sure. For BB, something closer to a concert hall takes shape around his stage. What I did know to expect was the folding chair that his crew member placed exactly in front of me. What a thrill just seeing that!
I wondered whether BB might be diminished these days. I had just seen him on the Grammys, and he hung back a tad that night, letting fellow soloists have more axe time. Well, wonder no more. He was an astonishment from the second he took the stage. Among my surprises were the timbre of his voice--rounded, nuanced, not rattled by age at all--and the tastiness and invention of his playing. (Very Count Basie, that.) And again, the eyes had it--I could see them so well from my vantage point. Not dimmed, his eyes flash when he's passionate (and he delivered a few monologues in addition to his singing). And his eyes frequently warm with sentiment. He has a fatherly bearing, and his joy is evident.
BB's band was smoking. His rhythm section was funked up and supple, and the horn players are locked together. His keyboardist was not as audible from my side of the stage, but he looks to be a contemporary of BB's, and he played some sweet solos. My mom's chief complaint against classic blues might involve a statement like, "It doesn't swing" (she unpacked that one a lot). Well, BB's band swings, syncopates, and jumps. I wish Mom could have heard it (but from much farther away--the volume where I stood would have overwhelmed her).
Another thing that surprised me about BB: his sexiness factor is right up there with Buddy. When he sings about how to love a woman, a lifetime of learning-by-doing is in his voice and on his face. The guitar licks that accompany him are knowing indeed. And the fact that he must sit to play means nothing, nothing at all.
At one point, BB enticed the entire crowd into singing along with him, and the choice of song was stunning...a lullaby. He explained that this song is how he feels about the woman he loves.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
you make me happy when skies are gray.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you,
please don't take my sunshine away.
Hearing a full house of jaded concertgoers sing so sweetly, and so surely, was amazing. The fact that this was a set piece, as are many of BB's asides and monologues, does not undercut its power.
BB moved me the most with a Blind Lemon cover, "See That My Grave is Kept Clean". His delivery reminded me of other elders I've known whose relationship with mortality was honest and unsparing. BB brought that home by acknowledging that his children do not like to hear him play this song. It is the distilled essence of blues.
At 11:15, more than three hours after the show started, BB stood up with assistance, and slowly bade the crowd farewell. His band filed off the stage, and the room emptied remarkably rapidly. Lobsta and I stood around for about ten minutes, dazed at the expanse of concrete that had moments ago held scores and scores of people. We felt privileged to have experienced this show at such close range. Gradually, we made our way to Daisy, and commenced a death-defying drive north into a full-on blizzard. The roads were chunky with a layer of ice, then coated with blowy, greasy snow. Eighteen-wheelers and 4WD trucks swept past us at ridiculous high speeds, as Lobsta kept the speed at 40 and gripped the wheel. Getting from Boston back to Portland took us four agonizing hours. We saw multiple accidents and did not see many plows or sanders. Hence, the title of this piece is as true as the music I'm honoring. And it was worth the trip...in every sense.
31 January 2009
I Expected
I'm at work on a winter Saturday, which means I'm basically alone and idle. Additionally, this means that I am Web-surfing like a fiend. I just had a sojourn at people.com where I stumbled onto a photo gallery of pregnant stars, starlets, and unknown star-spouses. (The title hook: "Who's Next to Deliver?") Click the mouse: new photo, another sideways-view of a magnificently rounded womb belonging to a beaming celeb (very few of whom seem to have gained the kind of poundage I did at that juncture).
Prior to the People pregnancy parade, I'd been at cnn.com reading up on the famed octuplets lady of California (who now finds herself a single mother of 14, living at her parents' house. My mind boggles.) That article prompted me to check the Duggars' website--in case you haven't heard of them, their 18th was born in December, in a televised special. They rushed that birth show to broadcast, and I'd noticed that Michelle Duggar--the indefatigable mumma, whose spirit and serenity I admire--seemed in physical distress during and after the C-section that brought her and Jim their ninth daughter. I've been wondering if all is well, but their website lacks updates since that time.
Soooo, motherhood's on my brain again. Specifically, the contrast between starlet pregnancies (conceived in households of too much plenty, with mumma's tummy concealed in designer cling, and baby's togs similarly priced out-of-reach) and the regular-Jane pregnancies of the rest of us. People does a disservice, perhaps. Pregnancy is hard work. Sometimes dangerous, and possibly even ill-advised. Don't even start me about the economic repercussions.
Issues of pregnancy still feel immediate and urgent to me for a reason: I got pregnant in September. I know, what are the odds, right? Just launched an all-consuming business, with four kids (one of whom we had just sent off to college), and seriously, I'm 44 years old. Saturated with changes already. Nevertheless, just after Zoë left home, some teasing symptoms arrived, unmistakable and strong. I am pretty much an expert when it comes to the subtle shifts and signs that nudge my brain into counting back and wondering if something might have, um, happened.
When I saw that diagnostic second pink line on the test stick--assertive and sure--I was impressed that my middle-aged physiology could piece together the logic of pregnancy, assembling the hormones and rallying the troops, as it were. Truly, I'd been convinced I was deep into perimenopause, well beyond the fertility gate. But along with the amazement, I was wrapped in a muted bewilderment, a veil of disbelief that did not clear up until mid-November. That was when the OB--a kindly, encouraging man--wielded an ultrasound wand and showed us on a flickering black-and-white screen that my egg--see the sac, there?--was not actually viable. The sac was a tiny, empty space...a vestige. Not a surprising circumstance for a woman of my age and in the early weeks, so my response was, basically, "Mmmm, uh-huh. Yes, I see. Yes. Um, thank you."
In between the pink line and the vestige, I will admit that I had plunged into this experience far more enthusiastically than I'd expected (and, truthfully, more than I knew was prudent). My pregnancy seemed to repudiate the recent losses I've suffered--namely, Mom and my best friend, D.J. I felt triumphant to have unwittingly generated a new life with Pete, exactly nineteen years after we had done so with Zoë. It was like an oh-ho! to (and from) the universe. Moreover, now that my genealogical family tree is completely filled in--with a passel of ancestors who bore children in their forties, I might add--I felt like my lost loved ones were alongside me, awaiting news.
Physically, I recognized the shifts instantly, and basked in them. Craved cereal and oatmeal and milk, saw my figure boosted (ahem), indulged my tiredness as much as possible, and started changing out the tight jeans on my shelf for the ultra-comfort ones. Queasiness and digestive sluggishness plagued me, but I could live with that ::: braaaaap ::: . Been there, done that plenty. I adjusted my sleeping position for heartburn and started silent communications with the fetus inside, willing it to be strong, welcoming it to my inner world.
Before I saw the OB in November, I'd been impatiently 'net-searching on a stream of keywords: midlife, pregnancy, perimenopause, spotting, progesterone, levels, 5 weeks. Let me tell you, the Web is jammed with voices of moms experiencing every possible symptom and the accompanying waves of emotion and fear. They pose vexing, plaintive questions and other moms find their messages somehow, answer them, or share similar experiences in fellowship and comfort. I never posted anywhere or interacted with anyone, but it helped me immeasurably to visit those cyber rooms and eavesdrop on scores of conversations. I learned a lot about what can go wrong with a middle-aged pregnancy, and about the daily hurdles that many women surmount to bring a new life into the world.
I knew full well that a 44-year-old pregnancy was practically miraculous, so feeling it coming to an end was a little less poignant than it might have been if I wasn't so blindsided in the first place. Of course, I already have four sweet children--with four birth stories to match. And I never had such doubts shadowing me during any of those pregnancies. This time, I couldn't throw off the black cloak of worry--until I miscarried.
It took awhile after the OB's diagnosis for the actual miscarriage to happen. I'd been spotting pretty much the whole time, but our childbearing machinery must be hardwired to hold on for success against all odds...it was blunted to the signals of non-viability for much longer than I would have anticipated. But I was equally fascinated by the unceremonious reversal of those familiar symptoms that caused me to reach for the home pregnancy test in the first place. One day you're subconsciously guarding a bump as you squeeze between a chair and a bookshelf; the next day your jeans fit better than they did before, and so does your bra. Just: over.
I miscarried without complications. I went into an odd mini-labor at dinnertime, a few days before Thanksgiving. I found myself restless and irritable, and even a shower did not warm my clammy skin. And then I had a few stark contractions, which felt very strange: reminiscent of earlier pregnancies, and yet totally alien. One of the labor pains made me grip a chair as I stood in the kitchen. In hindsight, why was I so surprised? Well, the answer to that is simple: I had no idea what to expect. All the reading, all the worrying...I just didn't know. The OB had no advice for me, because it's different for every woman.
About an hour into the mini-labor, I delivered my non-viable egg intact, as well as the tiny placenta, then provided those to my doc for analysis. (The pathologist deliberated over some possible complications suggested by the samples...finally, a few weeks ago, those issues were ruled out. More Web-cramming, followed by a bigtime whew!)
As December began, I walked around emotionally numb for awhile, and then as the holidays cranked up, pulled myself into now. For awhile, my usual tears about Mom's unfair absence (typically prompted by music, which squeezes me in a vise of nostalgia and regret) mingled with spasms of mourning for a tiny almost-life, and for a cascade of emotions that I never expected to have again.
Today's Web deliberations signaled to me that I haven't lost that insistent inner voice that was really pretty excited about another child, another new experience. All the rounded stomachs I saw online made me keen, a little, with wishing and hoping. (Call it uterus envy.) But the realist in me read each of those celeb captions from a distance, and paused at the mom's ages. Read them, absorbed them. They are each younger than I am.
I don't envy them their youth; I am happy with the stage I've reached. But I feel a funny tug, knowing that for a little window of time, I stepped back into their realm of fertility. Perimenopause has not overspread me yet. Regardless, as Peter said to me with evident relief as we drove away from the OB's office, "We're not going to do that again."
His cloak of worry had been cast aside, too.
Prior to the People pregnancy parade, I'd been at cnn.com reading up on the famed octuplets lady of California (who now finds herself a single mother of 14, living at her parents' house. My mind boggles.) That article prompted me to check the Duggars' website--in case you haven't heard of them, their 18th was born in December, in a televised special. They rushed that birth show to broadcast, and I'd noticed that Michelle Duggar--the indefatigable mumma, whose spirit and serenity I admire--seemed in physical distress during and after the C-section that brought her and Jim their ninth daughter. I've been wondering if all is well, but their website lacks updates since that time.
Soooo, motherhood's on my brain again. Specifically, the contrast between starlet pregnancies (conceived in households of too much plenty, with mumma's tummy concealed in designer cling, and baby's togs similarly priced out-of-reach) and the regular-Jane pregnancies of the rest of us. People does a disservice, perhaps. Pregnancy is hard work. Sometimes dangerous, and possibly even ill-advised. Don't even start me about the economic repercussions.
Issues of pregnancy still feel immediate and urgent to me for a reason: I got pregnant in September. I know, what are the odds, right? Just launched an all-consuming business, with four kids (one of whom we had just sent off to college), and seriously, I'm 44 years old. Saturated with changes already. Nevertheless, just after Zoë left home, some teasing symptoms arrived, unmistakable and strong. I am pretty much an expert when it comes to the subtle shifts and signs that nudge my brain into counting back and wondering if something might have, um, happened.
When I saw that diagnostic second pink line on the test stick--assertive and sure--I was impressed that my middle-aged physiology could piece together the logic of pregnancy, assembling the hormones and rallying the troops, as it were. Truly, I'd been convinced I was deep into perimenopause, well beyond the fertility gate. But along with the amazement, I was wrapped in a muted bewilderment, a veil of disbelief that did not clear up until mid-November. That was when the OB--a kindly, encouraging man--wielded an ultrasound wand and showed us on a flickering black-and-white screen that my egg--see the sac, there?--was not actually viable. The sac was a tiny, empty space...a vestige. Not a surprising circumstance for a woman of my age and in the early weeks, so my response was, basically, "Mmmm, uh-huh. Yes, I see. Yes. Um, thank you."
In between the pink line and the vestige, I will admit that I had plunged into this experience far more enthusiastically than I'd expected (and, truthfully, more than I knew was prudent). My pregnancy seemed to repudiate the recent losses I've suffered--namely, Mom and my best friend, D.J. I felt triumphant to have unwittingly generated a new life with Pete, exactly nineteen years after we had done so with Zoë. It was like an oh-ho! to (and from) the universe. Moreover, now that my genealogical family tree is completely filled in--with a passel of ancestors who bore children in their forties, I might add--I felt like my lost loved ones were alongside me, awaiting news.
Physically, I recognized the shifts instantly, and basked in them. Craved cereal and oatmeal and milk, saw my figure boosted (ahem), indulged my tiredness as much as possible, and started changing out the tight jeans on my shelf for the ultra-comfort ones. Queasiness and digestive sluggishness plagued me, but I could live with that ::: braaaaap ::: . Been there, done that plenty. I adjusted my sleeping position for heartburn and started silent communications with the fetus inside, willing it to be strong, welcoming it to my inner world.
Before I saw the OB in November, I'd been impatiently 'net-searching on a stream of keywords: midlife, pregnancy, perimenopause, spotting, progesterone, levels, 5 weeks. Let me tell you, the Web is jammed with voices of moms experiencing every possible symptom and the accompanying waves of emotion and fear. They pose vexing, plaintive questions and other moms find their messages somehow, answer them, or share similar experiences in fellowship and comfort. I never posted anywhere or interacted with anyone, but it helped me immeasurably to visit those cyber rooms and eavesdrop on scores of conversations. I learned a lot about what can go wrong with a middle-aged pregnancy, and about the daily hurdles that many women surmount to bring a new life into the world.
I knew full well that a 44-year-old pregnancy was practically miraculous, so feeling it coming to an end was a little less poignant than it might have been if I wasn't so blindsided in the first place. Of course, I already have four sweet children--with four birth stories to match. And I never had such doubts shadowing me during any of those pregnancies. This time, I couldn't throw off the black cloak of worry--until I miscarried.
It took awhile after the OB's diagnosis for the actual miscarriage to happen. I'd been spotting pretty much the whole time, but our childbearing machinery must be hardwired to hold on for success against all odds...it was blunted to the signals of non-viability for much longer than I would have anticipated. But I was equally fascinated by the unceremonious reversal of those familiar symptoms that caused me to reach for the home pregnancy test in the first place. One day you're subconsciously guarding a bump as you squeeze between a chair and a bookshelf; the next day your jeans fit better than they did before, and so does your bra. Just: over.
I miscarried without complications. I went into an odd mini-labor at dinnertime, a few days before Thanksgiving. I found myself restless and irritable, and even a shower did not warm my clammy skin. And then I had a few stark contractions, which felt very strange: reminiscent of earlier pregnancies, and yet totally alien. One of the labor pains made me grip a chair as I stood in the kitchen. In hindsight, why was I so surprised? Well, the answer to that is simple: I had no idea what to expect. All the reading, all the worrying...I just didn't know. The OB had no advice for me, because it's different for every woman.
About an hour into the mini-labor, I delivered my non-viable egg intact, as well as the tiny placenta, then provided those to my doc for analysis. (The pathologist deliberated over some possible complications suggested by the samples...finally, a few weeks ago, those issues were ruled out. More Web-cramming, followed by a bigtime whew!)
As December began, I walked around emotionally numb for awhile, and then as the holidays cranked up, pulled myself into now. For awhile, my usual tears about Mom's unfair absence (typically prompted by music, which squeezes me in a vise of nostalgia and regret) mingled with spasms of mourning for a tiny almost-life, and for a cascade of emotions that I never expected to have again.
Today's Web deliberations signaled to me that I haven't lost that insistent inner voice that was really pretty excited about another child, another new experience. All the rounded stomachs I saw online made me keen, a little, with wishing and hoping. (Call it uterus envy.) But the realist in me read each of those celeb captions from a distance, and paused at the mom's ages. Read them, absorbed them. They are each younger than I am.
I don't envy them their youth; I am happy with the stage I've reached. But I feel a funny tug, knowing that for a little window of time, I stepped back into their realm of fertility. Perimenopause has not overspread me yet. Regardless, as Peter said to me with evident relief as we drove away from the OB's office, "We're not going to do that again."
His cloak of worry had been cast aside, too.
28 January 2009
Grand City
In my college days, when I wanted a dose of real life--separate from the enclosure of Bowdoin's quad and the sometimes stifling atmosphere therein--I headed downtown. I was an inveterate shopper anyway, having grown up in a Queens neighborhood that was hemmed in by shopping thoroughfares on all four sides. And in my grandparents' hometown of Millinocket, Maine, I loved nothing more than an idle stroll through the J.J. Newberry's on Penobscot Avenue, clutching my allowance and deliberating on that week's toy purchase.
Downtown Brunswick, in the 1980s, had two stores that were instantly familiar to me upon my freshman arrival: a J.J. Newberry's, and Grand City. Back then, Grand City was perched at the periphery of a Shop 'n Save parking lot. Years before, it had been a W.T. Grant's--and when that national chain went under, employees preserved the store and renamed it Grand City. I believe they selected this name because it allowed them to continue using the existing store signage--all they did was eliminate the "T'S" from GRANT'S, replacing it with a "D" and then a circle that held the word "City".
Grand City was close enough to my campus home that I could easily walk it, even on a dark subzero February evening. I made that trek innumerable times. Upon arrival, one's nose would be greeted with a smell that I cannot describe. Roasted nuts mingled with merchandise and candy? Hard to say. It was a smell that triggered instantaneous shopping behavior in me, I know that.
Everything I could possibly want was in that department store. A lamp, underwear, earrings, candy, jeans, bean-bag chairs, board games, picture frames, yarn and needles, silverware, stationery, shampoo, mittens. And socks. I love buying socks, and I'm fussy about them. In Maine's climate, you need warm socks, and Grand City never disappointed--they had some kind of arrangement with a factory which meant they had piles of seconds in lots of styles. So my college-student budget could buy socks and socks. Awaiting me at the registers were memeres....French-Canadian nanas. Back then, I had no idea a) how French I really am, and b) that I had numerous distant cousins in Brunswick. No matter--I always felt like I belonged among the ladies who worked the registers, and genealogy ultimately showed me why.
After I graduated from Bowdoin, Grand City remained a go-to for setting up my first apartment in Brunswick. Some years later, the J.J. Newberry's went under, and Grand City pounced on this opportunity to get a more intown slice of real estate. (Then the Shop 'n Save overspread their original footprint.) I'd left town by then, but I return to Brunswick often enough that I was relieved to know I could still rely on Grand City's presence...for, well, socks. And whatever other bargains I might come upon. So I've remained a patron. As did a lot of Brunswick residents, especially the retirees (can't speak for College students, because by the 1990s, Brunswick's ratio of big box stores had started to soar, and Bowdoin had greatly expanded its on-campus store as well).
You know where this is going, don't you? Grand City's lease came up for renewal last fall. The owner decided that between the economic forecast and his own sense of burnout, he would have to close. Thus, yet another store that triggers deep memories for me was fated to disappear. I lament the lack of photographic evidence of places I loved to shop (Freese's and Sears in Bangor, Newberry's in Millinocket and Ellsworth, among many.) So this time I was determined to capture Grand City before its demise.
During an October 2008 visit (Parents Weekend for my daughter, talk about rites of passage!), I ranged all over Grand City and took pictures without anyone even noticing. I wondered if maybe I was not the first. Whatever the case, the longer I snapped away, the more tearful I became. It's not the store, my friends. It's the ghostly presence of my mom and my nana and so many others of a generation that is sliding away. The objects they would be drawn to in a place like this...so many things. The community that existed because this mercantile is what it is.
The photos haunt me. They comfort me with what they captured, but they also sadden me. I won't caption them because geezum, I have blathered enough, and you can go ahead and get whatever you would like out of them. I already have.
Downtown Brunswick, in the 1980s, had two stores that were instantly familiar to me upon my freshman arrival: a J.J. Newberry's, and Grand City. Back then, Grand City was perched at the periphery of a Shop 'n Save parking lot. Years before, it had been a W.T. Grant's--and when that national chain went under, employees preserved the store and renamed it Grand City. I believe they selected this name because it allowed them to continue using the existing store signage--all they did was eliminate the "T'S" from GRANT'S, replacing it with a "D" and then a circle that held the word "City".
Grand City was close enough to my campus home that I could easily walk it, even on a dark subzero February evening. I made that trek innumerable times. Upon arrival, one's nose would be greeted with a smell that I cannot describe. Roasted nuts mingled with merchandise and candy? Hard to say. It was a smell that triggered instantaneous shopping behavior in me, I know that.
Everything I could possibly want was in that department store. A lamp, underwear, earrings, candy, jeans, bean-bag chairs, board games, picture frames, yarn and needles, silverware, stationery, shampoo, mittens. And socks. I love buying socks, and I'm fussy about them. In Maine's climate, you need warm socks, and Grand City never disappointed--they had some kind of arrangement with a factory which meant they had piles of seconds in lots of styles. So my college-student budget could buy socks and socks. Awaiting me at the registers were memeres....French-Canadian nanas. Back then, I had no idea a) how French I really am, and b) that I had numerous distant cousins in Brunswick. No matter--I always felt like I belonged among the ladies who worked the registers, and genealogy ultimately showed me why.
After I graduated from Bowdoin, Grand City remained a go-to for setting up my first apartment in Brunswick. Some years later, the J.J. Newberry's went under, and Grand City pounced on this opportunity to get a more intown slice of real estate. (Then the Shop 'n Save overspread their original footprint.) I'd left town by then, but I return to Brunswick often enough that I was relieved to know I could still rely on Grand City's presence...for, well, socks. And whatever other bargains I might come upon. So I've remained a patron. As did a lot of Brunswick residents, especially the retirees (can't speak for College students, because by the 1990s, Brunswick's ratio of big box stores had started to soar, and Bowdoin had greatly expanded its on-campus store as well).
You know where this is going, don't you? Grand City's lease came up for renewal last fall. The owner decided that between the economic forecast and his own sense of burnout, he would have to close. Thus, yet another store that triggers deep memories for me was fated to disappear. I lament the lack of photographic evidence of places I loved to shop (Freese's and Sears in Bangor, Newberry's in Millinocket and Ellsworth, among many.) So this time I was determined to capture Grand City before its demise.
During an October 2008 visit (Parents Weekend for my daughter, talk about rites of passage!), I ranged all over Grand City and took pictures without anyone even noticing. I wondered if maybe I was not the first. Whatever the case, the longer I snapped away, the more tearful I became. It's not the store, my friends. It's the ghostly presence of my mom and my nana and so many others of a generation that is sliding away. The objects they would be drawn to in a place like this...so many things. The community that existed because this mercantile is what it is.
The photos haunt me. They comfort me with what they captured, but they also sadden me. I won't caption them because geezum, I have blathered enough, and you can go ahead and get whatever you would like out of them. I already have.
As I stood here for the last picture I took, I could almost hear the word: Goodbye.
27 July 2008
Accelerant
I have a lot of friends with kids. Sibs with kids, too. Only here's the thing: Peter and I were pretty much the first among us to have a child. So I feel compelled to share with you all that I am currently in the throes of what feels like a solar wind (you know, that phenom of waves that engulf the Earth and cause Northern lights?) Like, a momentary swirl of energy that seems to be changing everything. And in my case, accelerating it.
I have a son who is taller than me. He's grown 6 inches in 6 months, blink and you'll miss it. I just flipped through a bunch of photos I had posted on Facebook, and in none of them is he taller than me (or his older sister, for that matter). Suddenly, now: young man. Will shares a bunk bed with the thankfully-still-small Des, and when I go in to check on Des before I go to bed...there's this hulking guy whose feet don't fit in the lower bunk! Ack! Oh. Right.
Then there's this college business. I know, I wrote about this before. I've written a lot about Zoe this year. But from the slow, tortuous agony of getting applications in and visiting campuses and whatnot, I find myself the mom of a young woman ready to go to the next stage. She's not chomping at the bit, nor is she packing yet (she's my daughter, after all). But I tell you she is ready. Composed, whole, and so prepared to immerse herself in art-making and learning. This summer, she's juggling two jobs. In light of my own work-juggling life, this means we are the proverbial passing ships. I'm shaking my head because, again, it's as though a wand had been waved. Swoosh! Presto-chango.
And about those two youngers who are perpetually called youngers? Lydia is getting astonishingly tall and self-confident. She is comfortable with herself. I find myself wondering now whether that is the quality that sent all of her care providers into a she-needs-to-be-tested mode. She's just not like any of her peers. Never was, never will be. And as she ages, she inhabits that knowledge beautifully. There's awkwardness about her, don't get me wrong. But I am filled with pride at her emergence.
Desmond is still my "huggy!" guy. Unlike the others, his growth spurts have been modest (although size 6 pants are waaay in the past now). When he hugs me, he's still at my waist. His tangle of curls is right at the level of my hand to tousle it. He loves it when I do that. Still, stay tuned. The potential energy in him is vast. :)
I am changing, too. (That's the understatement of the year.) It roils me and thrills me. But as with the Northern lights, my bursts of color and creating feel as though they are out of my direct control...they're happening because they must. Also, to complete the family-unit analysis, none of my life changes can occur without the complaint-free adaptations of Peter. He is demonstrating grace and quiet support that I have seen many, many times: with my grandfather; in the labor room; during Mom's illness (and before it became obvious); pretty much every day, dealing with an absorbed, spacey, enthusiastic, broody wife. Peter = rock. I learned that in CCD, and it's still the truth.
I have a son who is taller than me. He's grown 6 inches in 6 months, blink and you'll miss it. I just flipped through a bunch of photos I had posted on Facebook, and in none of them is he taller than me (or his older sister, for that matter). Suddenly, now: young man. Will shares a bunk bed with the thankfully-still-small Des, and when I go in to check on Des before I go to bed...there's this hulking guy whose feet don't fit in the lower bunk! Ack! Oh. Right.
Then there's this college business. I know, I wrote about this before. I've written a lot about Zoe this year. But from the slow, tortuous agony of getting applications in and visiting campuses and whatnot, I find myself the mom of a young woman ready to go to the next stage. She's not chomping at the bit, nor is she packing yet (she's my daughter, after all). But I tell you she is ready. Composed, whole, and so prepared to immerse herself in art-making and learning. This summer, she's juggling two jobs. In light of my own work-juggling life, this means we are the proverbial passing ships. I'm shaking my head because, again, it's as though a wand had been waved. Swoosh! Presto-chango.
And about those two youngers who are perpetually called youngers? Lydia is getting astonishingly tall and self-confident. She is comfortable with herself. I find myself wondering now whether that is the quality that sent all of her care providers into a she-needs-to-be-tested mode. She's just not like any of her peers. Never was, never will be. And as she ages, she inhabits that knowledge beautifully. There's awkwardness about her, don't get me wrong. But I am filled with pride at her emergence.
Desmond is still my "huggy!" guy. Unlike the others, his growth spurts have been modest (although size 6 pants are waaay in the past now). When he hugs me, he's still at my waist. His tangle of curls is right at the level of my hand to tousle it. He loves it when I do that. Still, stay tuned. The potential energy in him is vast. :)
I am changing, too. (That's the understatement of the year.) It roils me and thrills me. But as with the Northern lights, my bursts of color and creating feel as though they are out of my direct control...they're happening because they must. Also, to complete the family-unit analysis, none of my life changes can occur without the complaint-free adaptations of Peter. He is demonstrating grace and quiet support that I have seen many, many times: with my grandfather; in the labor room; during Mom's illness (and before it became obvious); pretty much every day, dealing with an absorbed, spacey, enthusiastic, broody wife. Peter = rock. I learned that in CCD, and it's still the truth.
01 July 2008
Inspiration station
So far I've thought of a few clever catchphrases to launch this entry. I will share them in the aggregate, because I don't think any single one is clever enough to carry the weight:
Supplies, kits, workshops, ideas, digital printing, genealogy/heritage projects, support, inspiration: that's our business plan in a nutshell.
Erin and I went on a buying trip last week (feels like last month, that's how crammed every day is right now!) On the Internet, I had found this fantastic resource for fabric and goodies in Paterson, NJ:
Needlecraft is a wholesaler with 77,000 bolts of fabric and a helpful, supportive staff presence in their warehouse. We spent a whole day there, selecting fabrics and notions, learning about many different lines and designers, and discussing the business with Sam, Paul, and Jen.
At day's end, Erin and I had three cartloads of fabrics:
(Incidentally, we have toyed with calling the store Naivete. And our secret superhero identity: Chicks with Bungees.)
Yesterday the wealth of fabric arrived at our store space, representing our first influx of stock. Nothing else to say about that, except yay yay yay!
I called this post "Inspiration station" because our enterprise is located in a remodeled gas station (at left). I adore that incongruity...but maybe it's not so incongruous: a building that sits at the center of our village, which for decades served a deeply practical and unifying function, is now repurposed--yet still has the potential to unify and lead to tangible outcomes. Okay, so art/craftmaking is not always practical, but when you set about gathering materials into a new object--and that object was created using your memories, emotions, and skills that have been handed down over centuries...well, yeah. Not a gassed-up or repaired vehicle, but it might take you places anyway. And quilts can sure warm you up come January.
I started a store, that started the whole world...shopping....
When the going gets tough, the tough open a store.
Nessa Reifsnyder: writer, editor...business owner.
When the going gets tough, the tough open a store.
Nessa Reifsnyder: writer, editor...business owner.
Perhaps that last one is the best summation of what I'm trying to say here. With a business partner named Erin whose enthusiasm is, paradoxically, calming; and a collection of ideas that are designed to spark creativity in others (and in us); I have been incredibly fortunate enough to become a small-business owner.
Presenting...our logo:
Supplies, kits, workshops, ideas, digital printing, genealogy/heritage projects, support, inspiration: that's our business plan in a nutshell.
I think it's safe to say that I've never felt the mix of emotions that are brewed by this entreprenurial activity. I'm composed and serene, while also roiling with concern and anticipation. I'm ready and, simultaneously, unprepared. My creativity is feeling colorfully and texturally stimulated, yet my left-brain is wide awake (with columns of numbers and tax-code laws dutifully lining up to be analyzed and tabulated).
Erin and I went on a buying trip last week (feels like last month, that's how crammed every day is right now!) On the Internet, I had found this fantastic resource for fabric and goodies in Paterson, NJ:
Needlecraft is a wholesaler with 77,000 bolts of fabric and a helpful, supportive staff presence in their warehouse. We spent a whole day there, selecting fabrics and notions, learning about many different lines and designers, and discussing the business with Sam, Paul, and Jen.
Paterson is also the city where my grandmother Hazel resided for a number of years until her death in 1966. So I was able to merge this buying trip with some much-needed genealogy...setting my heart right, so to speak.
At day's end, Erin and I had three cartloads of fabrics:
(Incidentally, we have toyed with calling the store Naivete. And our secret superhero identity: Chicks with Bungees.) 
Yesterday the wealth of fabric arrived at our store space, representing our first influx of stock. Nothing else to say about that, except yay yay yay!
I called this post "Inspiration station" because our enterprise is located in a remodeled gas station (at left). I adore that incongruity...but maybe it's not so incongruous: a building that sits at the center of our village, which for decades served a deeply practical and unifying function, is now repurposed--yet still has the potential to unify and lead to tangible outcomes. Okay, so art/craftmaking is not always practical, but when you set about gathering materials into a new object--and that object was created using your memories, emotions, and skills that have been handed down over centuries...well, yeah. Not a gassed-up or repaired vehicle, but it might take you places anyway. And quilts can sure warm you up come January.17 June 2008
Leap, and the net will appear
I haven't posted a blog in months, because I unexpectedly became preoccupied with my occupation. It happened like this: suddenly in April, I learned that I was no longer classified as a writer/editor at my full-time, 14-years job. Instead, I was placed in a middle-management kind of slot, unceremoniously, with one boss instead of the variety of co-workers who've traditionally asked me for written pieces or editorial help. (And when I say variety, I mean it. I used to thrive on that constant swirl of interactions and work styles. I crave writing in different voices, for different audiences.)
This change-of-circumstances walloped me hard. I was stunned, actually, by the intensity of my emotions. I kept wondering: Who am I, really, to think that I should have any say in my professional fate? People get reassigned--and worse, downsized--all the time. I should be glad they want me at all; who cares what the position is. Right?
But it did not work that way. Try as I might, I could not convince myself that I was all right with this abrupt shift. I agonized, I seethed, and I felt bereft. And it took me weeks to really grasp why. I had held on in this office setting for 14 long years, through 10 bosses, unbelievable dramas, grueling deadlines, and demanding fundraising goals. At every turn, during each upper-level shake-up--and there were plenty--I was the one who would advise my co-workers, "Hold the boat." I'd say that with calmness and reassurance, and I meant it--because back then, I was a writer. Not the kind of writer that my kid-self had vowed to become...but at least I was a writer. Having made a career out of that skill was important to me and my self-esteem, down to my core. My surety had been grounded in it.
As this spring went along, it was clear that the change in my job was non-negotiable, and I despaired. I confided in some folks I know in our hometown, who don't work for my employer, and they described other professional opportunities that I, quite simply, had not allowed myself to consider. Liberating opportunities. Daring, also. And with no warning, I knew in an instant: I was ready.
I leapt.
Today was my last full-time day at the new-old job. I drifted through a day of mundane meetings, notes, hallway conversations, and strategizing. I didn't cry until I started writing this. But even though I'm sad to have moved on from a workplace as familiar as my own house, I'm proud that I made a momentous choice. Moreover, my family is supportive in every possible way, especially my older kids, whose own artistic selves are watching me closely. I won't describe my next-steps in detail, because it's all so new and evolving. Suffice it to say, creativity is at the heart of every choice I've made. My creativity. That was the net that was waiting for me, which I did not know when I decided to leap.
This change-of-circumstances walloped me hard. I was stunned, actually, by the intensity of my emotions. I kept wondering: Who am I, really, to think that I should have any say in my professional fate? People get reassigned--and worse, downsized--all the time. I should be glad they want me at all; who cares what the position is. Right?
But it did not work that way. Try as I might, I could not convince myself that I was all right with this abrupt shift. I agonized, I seethed, and I felt bereft. And it took me weeks to really grasp why. I had held on in this office setting for 14 long years, through 10 bosses, unbelievable dramas, grueling deadlines, and demanding fundraising goals. At every turn, during each upper-level shake-up--and there were plenty--I was the one who would advise my co-workers, "Hold the boat." I'd say that with calmness and reassurance, and I meant it--because back then, I was a writer. Not the kind of writer that my kid-self had vowed to become...but at least I was a writer. Having made a career out of that skill was important to me and my self-esteem, down to my core. My surety had been grounded in it.
As this spring went along, it was clear that the change in my job was non-negotiable, and I despaired. I confided in some folks I know in our hometown, who don't work for my employer, and they described other professional opportunities that I, quite simply, had not allowed myself to consider. Liberating opportunities. Daring, also. And with no warning, I knew in an instant: I was ready.
I leapt.
Today was my last full-time day at the new-old job. I drifted through a day of mundane meetings, notes, hallway conversations, and strategizing. I didn't cry until I started writing this. But even though I'm sad to have moved on from a workplace as familiar as my own house, I'm proud that I made a momentous choice. Moreover, my family is supportive in every possible way, especially my older kids, whose own artistic selves are watching me closely. I won't describe my next-steps in detail, because it's all so new and evolving. Suffice it to say, creativity is at the heart of every choice I've made. My creativity. That was the net that was waiting for me, which I did not know when I decided to leap.
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