Friday made me turn 30.
It snuck up on me while I slept.
Don’t quite know how I feel about the new decade. What I thought I’d be doing when I turned 30 is vastly different than the expectations of even 3 years ago. I thought I’d be married or at least thinking about it. 30 sounds bigger when it stands alone.
And so it was that I rented a 12-passenger van and filled it to the brim with some of the women who have loved me so well over this rocky and rough past year. Noticeably absent were Leslie (family vacation) and Katherine M, who is about to have a baby at any moment and was thus excused. I was grateful to have the group that we had: Tammy, Katherine B, Amy, Betsy, Emily, Robin & Tara. I asked my friend Wes to be our driver and he jumped for joy. What a great sport he was to handle a van that was not only full of women, but full of women who were celebrating a birthday with wine & cheese and loud, sing-a-long tunes.
Every woman came with their game faces on and the night did not disappoint. We were loud, we were laughing, we were talking over each other and we were supportive. Women who may not have known each other prior become friends. It was a community experience, which is my favorite part of any holiday. I don’t really like things to be about me (at least holidays) and it felt like it was a memorable experience for all involved.
The day had been threatening rain but the storms skirted around us, creating a halo. Above us was only stars. I felt bigger.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Six Thin Strings
I got my first guitar for my 15th birthday.
My dad had just moved out of the farmhouse where he lived after he and my mother had split and was looking for houses within our school district. I’d started playing two years earlier and had learned on my mother’s classical guitar and my father’s acoustic Guild that he owned due to an unpaid debt. Both my parents play (though not much and not particularly well) and I had been begging for a guitar of my own since I first started. Being one of five children meant this just wasn’t happening, so imagine my surprise when my reward for sticking with a hobby for two years was to get one of my own.
It was a Yamaha FG-401 and dad splurged on getting me a hard shell case.
It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was going to get me my first Grammy and the folk-rock chick status that would have the whole world at my feet. Or it would allow the guy I had a crush on who played guitar to see my skills and fall madly in love with me, instead of what actually happened, which is me teaching my good friend to play guitar and she using that feature to have him fall madly in love with her and then get married and have two lovely and amazing children and continue to be two amazing people. Whatevs, totally part of the guitar plan.
So guitar became my friend. More than my friend, it was the way for me to express myself. I wrote well over one hundred songs. I wrote songs about EVERYTHING. And everyone. I’d say 98 of them are terrible. Guitar was the way I got comfortable in front of people, pulled me out of the shy bubble I’d lived in up to then. When Natalie found out I played, I was pushed to the front of middle school YL club (or Wyld Life) every other week to lead songs. The very first night of college I ended up playing guitar in the hallway while my new floormates sang along to ‘Closer to Fine.’ It was like a scene straight out of ‘Felicity’ but on happy pills and with less Scott Foley sad puppy eyes.
Over the years I’ve collected a few more guitars. I have three of them in my house now, with another in storage. That old FG-401 is still with me, though I haven’t played it in years. What guitar means to me has morphed. It isn’t the primary way I express myself anymore; somewhere along the way I discovered my own voice. I still play and still very much enjoy the process. I even write the occasional song (still terrible). But I never knew when I got that first guitar 15 years ago how much of an impact it would have on getting me out of me.
(I've been playing this song quite a bit lately. I forgot how good it is)
My dad had just moved out of the farmhouse where he lived after he and my mother had split and was looking for houses within our school district. I’d started playing two years earlier and had learned on my mother’s classical guitar and my father’s acoustic Guild that he owned due to an unpaid debt. Both my parents play (though not much and not particularly well) and I had been begging for a guitar of my own since I first started. Being one of five children meant this just wasn’t happening, so imagine my surprise when my reward for sticking with a hobby for two years was to get one of my own.
It was a Yamaha FG-401 and dad splurged on getting me a hard shell case.
It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was going to get me my first Grammy and the folk-rock chick status that would have the whole world at my feet. Or it would allow the guy I had a crush on who played guitar to see my skills and fall madly in love with me, instead of what actually happened, which is me teaching my good friend to play guitar and she using that feature to have him fall madly in love with her and then get married and have two lovely and amazing children and continue to be two amazing people. Whatevs, totally part of the guitar plan.
So guitar became my friend. More than my friend, it was the way for me to express myself. I wrote well over one hundred songs. I wrote songs about EVERYTHING. And everyone. I’d say 98 of them are terrible. Guitar was the way I got comfortable in front of people, pulled me out of the shy bubble I’d lived in up to then. When Natalie found out I played, I was pushed to the front of middle school YL club (or Wyld Life) every other week to lead songs. The very first night of college I ended up playing guitar in the hallway while my new floormates sang along to ‘Closer to Fine.’ It was like a scene straight out of ‘Felicity’ but on happy pills and with less Scott Foley sad puppy eyes.
Over the years I’ve collected a few more guitars. I have three of them in my house now, with another in storage. That old FG-401 is still with me, though I haven’t played it in years. What guitar means to me has morphed. It isn’t the primary way I express myself anymore; somewhere along the way I discovered my own voice. I still play and still very much enjoy the process. I even write the occasional song (still terrible). But I never knew when I got that first guitar 15 years ago how much of an impact it would have on getting me out of me.
(I've been playing this song quite a bit lately. I forgot how good it is)
Thursday, May 19, 2011
My Dogs Are Tired
I haven’t been writing lately.
Haven’t felt too interesting.
Or maybe I’ve just been too exhausted.
I have six puppies in my house right now. It wasn’t my idea to have them (thank you, whore dog) and as they’ve aged they’ve become more work than I had even imagined. The heaviest is currently around 12lbs, or the same weight as a newborn baby. Multiply the waste of a newborn baby by six, and you have what I am cleaning up every day. I pray you never have to deal with that much poo. They scream like they are being beaten whenever they want anything. And they try to escape. This morning I decided that as a group I shall call them, “The Screaming Houdinis” and now think it’s a good band name.
These puppies have consumed my life.
And I love them so much it is distracting.
I don’t have much that is ‘mine’—don’t have a boyfriend and haven’t had one in quite a long time. The people and living loves in my life I share. I share them with their significant others or children, or their parents, or their ‘real’ owners. I love in the collective. Patsy Cline is the first thing I’ve ever had that was mine. She’s mine to love, mine to care for, mine to worry about and mine to throw money at all her problems. Having her has opened up parts of my heart I didn’t know I didn’t know. Strange to say it about a dog, but it is nonetheless true.
If the world doesn’t end on Saturday then next week holds my 30th birthday. I’m wholly engrossed in the unmet expectations that such a milestone brings. I’m not where I thought I’d be when I was 16, or 20, or even 25 and in that I’m melancholy. But on the whole I’m happy. I drink less than I did, because I go out less. And I feel good about myself. I’m starting to like the way I look. I’m good at my job. I’m healing from the losses of the past year. Slowly.
There is a subtle little mustard seed of restlessness that has taken root. I’m quietly considering leaving Asheville, but don’t know where I’d go instead. It feels like my time here is coming to a close, but the great What’s Next has never been more murky. Maybe I stay.
Haven’t felt too interesting.
Or maybe I’ve just been too exhausted.
I have six puppies in my house right now. It wasn’t my idea to have them (thank you, whore dog) and as they’ve aged they’ve become more work than I had even imagined. The heaviest is currently around 12lbs, or the same weight as a newborn baby. Multiply the waste of a newborn baby by six, and you have what I am cleaning up every day. I pray you never have to deal with that much poo. They scream like they are being beaten whenever they want anything. And they try to escape. This morning I decided that as a group I shall call them, “The Screaming Houdinis” and now think it’s a good band name.
These puppies have consumed my life.
And I love them so much it is distracting.
I don’t have much that is ‘mine’—don’t have a boyfriend and haven’t had one in quite a long time. The people and living loves in my life I share. I share them with their significant others or children, or their parents, or their ‘real’ owners. I love in the collective. Patsy Cline is the first thing I’ve ever had that was mine. She’s mine to love, mine to care for, mine to worry about and mine to throw money at all her problems. Having her has opened up parts of my heart I didn’t know I didn’t know. Strange to say it about a dog, but it is nonetheless true.
If the world doesn’t end on Saturday then next week holds my 30th birthday. I’m wholly engrossed in the unmet expectations that such a milestone brings. I’m not where I thought I’d be when I was 16, or 20, or even 25 and in that I’m melancholy. But on the whole I’m happy. I drink less than I did, because I go out less. And I feel good about myself. I’m starting to like the way I look. I’m good at my job. I’m healing from the losses of the past year. Slowly.
There is a subtle little mustard seed of restlessness that has taken root. I’m quietly considering leaving Asheville, but don’t know where I’d go instead. It feels like my time here is coming to a close, but the great What’s Next has never been more murky. Maybe I stay.
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