Category: Fiction or Not

I’ve Earned My Badge and I Wear It Proudly

Sitting in a rainy co-worker smoke break at the mall entrance today, I surprised myself.  It wasn’t that I was doing anything so spectacular or beautiful or stunning.  It wasn’t even that I was doing anything stupid or embarrassing or cheap.  No, I was proudly displaying my age badge.

We were having a conversation about some mid-twenty’s troubles (boys, weird health issues, retail stress) and I chimed in saying, “When I was twenty-four…”  One of the girls chirped, “Oh, so long ago” to which I proudly replied, “I’m twenty-nine.”  And my eyes sternly said the rest.  She was quiet and listened to my yes, oh so wisened wisdom.

The rest of the meaning in my eyes was that five years really does make a difference.  Things smooth out with the guys, you get a hold of your health (if you haven’t already; I hadn’t at 24), and you stop stressing about how your manager doesn’t know what she’s doing.  You go with the flow.

Unlike P.H. who consistently says, “I’m thirty now.  It’s time to start growing up.” I believe the time to start growing up is generally eighteen and you should be finished by the time you’re thirty, at the latest.  Most girls I know in their mid-twenties have real jobs and careers ahead of them, but then something dramatic happens and they really solidify their grown-up selves.

Big events that have impacted girls I’ve known ages 23-25: marriage, first real-man boyfriend, a significant break up, terrible health issues like inexplicable daily vomiting for a year, a promotion, resigning for the first time from a stressful job, graduate school begins, graduate school ends, moving back with parents, moving out of parents’ house (again), moving to an unknown city for a guy, first no-roommate apartment, and transcontinental single living…In fact, these things have happened to multiple girls I’ve known.

So when I’m twenty-nine and chatting with a group of colorful, stressed out, mid-twenty’s girls, I am proud to be able to tell them to hang in there.  Keep your head up and your heart soft.  Make the changes now.  Now is the time; this is the age for troubling troubles so go ahead and deal with it.  You’re growing in ways you’ve never expected.

What surprised me most today about myself was the ease with which I shared my age.  I’ve known these girls for over a year and I never told them my age (expect for the one who is twenty-eight, so she doesn’t count).  But somehow today, I was okay with it.  In fact, I almost said, “I’m thirty.”

(Maybe I should say that anyway, just to practice.)

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Beleaguer Me Boston

There is a sneaking song in my life.  It’s the one that consistently makes me turn to whoever is near and say emphatically, “I love this song.  I just love it.  And the music video.”  I say it like I really know what I’m talking about and everyone should feel my heart pounding as the song starts.

Today the song came on the radio and I let my real confession breath.  I confessed to the nearest chica that I don’t own the original love of this song.  I confessed that I don’t really feel it’s mine to love.  Truthfully, I only love it [my heart only beats its rhythms] because a boy introduced me to it, however many years ago that was.  And now I confess that I love that and I hate that.

Love: I really do click with this song.  It’s probably for the same reason I clicked with that guy.  Not that he was piano-based and covered in ocean waves and angsty or anything.  But he was real and honest and heartfelt.  And that’s how I like to be.  And that’s how I like my music.  Hate: I wish I’d found this song on my own so that every time I heard it, I didn’t think of…him.  He’s not with me; I have no leads on him these days.  He legitimately checked out and that’s okay.  And I hate the angsty vibe and the crying spirit it dredges up in me.  Love: I love that I have a story with this song.  However personal and tiny.  However intangible and bittersweet.  However many times it makes me sigh.

Augustana: Boston

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Looking Up and Looking Down

While I was looking at this, everyone else was looking at the variety of plants on the trail. “Oh feel this one! It’s so soft! I was not expecting that one!” Etc.

My mind, my eyes, was just not on the details. It’s the big picture for me. The general goodness or the general badness. Others help me remember that little things make up the big things. And sometimes those little things need appreciation, too.

So yeah, I stopped rolling my eyes, walked back 50 paces and felt the surprising and unique little Coloradoan plants.

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Off

I’m taking off for Minneapolis, a show, a trip to Colorado for a real vacation, then back to Minneapolis for a wedding.  I may or may not post thoughts in the meantime.  Eleven days.

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Shadow Poem

I lost my shadow.
Where did it go?
Into the trees hanging below
me on the sidewalk
path.
I will meet him in the sunshine
soon.

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Life In 3 by 5 Cards

I really do live my life in 3 by 5 cards.  The above 3 examples are the result of tonight’s planning storm for the 2011-2012 choir year.  I have two high school choirs and three middle school choirs next year.  That’s a whole lot of repertoire.  I will tape these cards to my desk and find the best set of music I can for each group.

Earlier today I started digging through 50 years of choir music at the high school.  One quarter of the library is now covered in color-coded sticky notes.  Pink notes designate music cabinets that need new folders and new catalog number assignments due to illegibility and degree of askewity (if you will).  Yellow notes designate music that is labeled in a legible fashion and in order.

If I stick with the sticky notes, I may not need to order that much music this year.  I might be okay with singing music from the 70’s if we can do it from new student folders.  Well, maybe not.

Any lovely choir songs you once sang and still sing in secret?

Here is one of my favorite high school choir songs.  It’s a well-known, beautiful, piece of American choral literature by Aaron Copeland, “Zion’s Walls.”  Singing this song, I believe my junior year, made all the difference.

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Over Introspection

Over introspection, I will take:

freshly clean bedsheets
brie or paté: either, but not together
sweet tea
wearing two pairs of sunglasses at once
the psalms

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Show Me the Preparation

Tonight was plentifully full of conversations about preparation including, but not limited to:

Apertivo
Personal space
Wedding location scouting
Guest lists
Bridesmaids
The proper temperature to activate yeast
Kneading bread dough
Set lists
Harmonies
Bells
Dinner
Bed

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Chums

I have a bunch of chums that I hang out with all the time–seriously, it’s pretty much all the time.  These chums are non-interneters.  Except for checking for e-mails about the church volunteer schedule, shopping at Mario Badescu, and watching Secrets From A Stylist, these chums stay off line and off all modes of E at all times.  [Clearly, E stands for electronic in this setting.]

I, on the other hand, weave E threads into my life consistently, regularly, and usually through my phone.  Whenever I hang out with my chums [all the time], it’s also my job to photograph all the activities.  I happily snap away and then upload to my computer, edit the photos, and then show them off to my chums so they can say how cute they all look having fun together.  No body ever sees these pictures because my chums are off-line and what’s the point?   It’s a little bit like we live in the 90’s again [early 90’s] and it’s great.

But whilst at the local zoo on Monday [Independence Day], my chummiest chum, stole the camera and snapped this while I was indeed looking at some big cats.  I am thinking about this photo becoming my new super hero theme song, except that it’s actually not music.  Oh, well.  E-vent documented.  After taking in the heat and the sights, we did watch fireworks from downtown St. Paul, complete with flag-colored cupcakes and more beautiful friends.  I’m still talking about it and documented it because, well, it was special and important in some intangible, non-electronic way.

Como Zoo, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
photo by C.
(c) 2011

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