Month: June 2013

Even Sadder Than a Wedding Dress in a Thrift Store….

/ Deb / 1 Comment
Just a few of the many treasures awaiting you at the Ballard Goodwill

….it turns out, is a mix tape in a thrift store.  I never realized this until I found a stack of them at my local Goodwill.  I was intrigued by the one called “Wedding Music/Favorite Love Songs #1″, so I picked it up (What happened?! Was the wedding cancelled?).  I glanced at the list of songs only long enough to see Mariah Carey well-represented, but then I felt compelled to put it down.  It was too much like reading someone’s diary.  I couldn’t do it.

Ah, mix tapes.  Our kids will never know the magic of a mix tape.  They will craft digital playlists, I’m sure.  But nothing so time-stamped and permanent as a mix tape with their handwriting on it.

I freely admit that I am a sentimental hoarder.  I’ve got all of my old tapes, even my earliest mix tapes made with my sister and cousin (if you can really call them mix tapes… really it was just us talking into a Panasonic tape recorder, telling stupid stories and singing songs).

Another gem is the “Workout Mix” tape that I made in college, with appropriate-tempo songs for a routine of exercises.   Given that it was 1989, of course the lineup included INXS, Prince, and Neneh Cherry.  The last song, the “cool down”, was – what else – “Nite & Day” by Al B Sure.

Then there was the mix tape trilogy made for a post-college road trip (“Driving Tape #1, #2, and #3”, of course.)   Number 1 has got you covered with your basic R.E.M, Pearl Jam, and U2, with some Naughty by Nature thrown in for reasons I don’t recall.  Number 2 was the mellow tape, with Luther Vandross and Johnny Gill – you know, for when the road asked you, “come on, let’s bring it down now….”.   Number 3, sadly, is no longer with us.  But it’s quite possible that it contained country music.

My favorite mix tape, though, is one that my long-distance boyfriend sent me in college.  Oddly enough, I only remember one song on it – “Cars that Go Boom”, by  L’trimm (wasn’t he romantic?).   But what I love about that tape is that, inter-mixed with songs, my boyfriend talked about what was going on in his apartment, or what he was studying.  He introduced each song like a DJ. “Cars that Go Boom” reminded him, he said, of me and my best friend/roommate (were we like “Tigra & Bunny”?).   I haven’t listened to the tape since then, but I love the idea that his 1989 voice is preserved on it.  I can’t even remember what his voice sounded like then.  I’m saving the tape like a fine bottle of wine.   Someday the time will be right, and he and I will listen to it with all the reverence it deserves (through a series of twists and turns, we ended up getting married years later.)

I really hope that the mix tapes I made for others never made their way onto a thrift store shelf (in the garbage = fine!).  And now I’m feeling like I should have purchased those thrift store mix tapes and given them a proper burial.  I need to think more about that one.   As should you — what mix tapes do you treasure, and what mix creations of yours might still be floating around out there?

In the mean time, though, welcome to McMahon Hall, and enjoy the mellow grooves of Al B Sure (closing your eyes and pretending that it’s on a cassette tape, of course).

I’m Still Alive, Middle School version

/ Deb / Leave a comment

Have you ever looked at a picture that filled your heart with so much love that it made you catch your breath?  This is mine.  THIS is my boy.  THIS is his essence.  This is a moment that I want to hold forever in my memory.  My boy, at the last of our weekly coffee dates that we’ve held for four years.

The Spring has flown by, and my thoughts have been so disorganized that there has been no moment to write about everything going on.  I’m so caught up in my head that I’ve even found it hard to lose myself on a run.  I’m not enjoying myself, I’m just compiling another To Do List in my head.

It’s like this every year for the last few weeks of school, but it still catches me flat-footed.  I’ve told my son to just take it all in, and enjoy the last few weeks at our beloved elementary school.  But I haven’t taken my own advice.  We’re in triage mode, in “drink from the firehose” mode (my favorite saying from my friend Morgan).  We are in “check another event/meeting/party off the list” mode.

And today was possibly the one item on the list I’ve been dreading the most – the last time my soon-to-be middle schooler and I would go on our weekly coffee date, our standing one-on-one time that we’ve enjoyed for four years.  (“Oh, There is My Mind”).

It’s not a sad event.  But it’s a melancholy one.  Things are changing, and I believe you should acknowledge and appreciate the change as it happens.   So I knew it was on the calendar, and I ticked off a mental countdown of our remaining coffee dates as they winded down.

And then suddenly, today was here.  He bought his usual donut, and I had my usual latte.  We kept it light hearted.  We chatted about small stuff.  We wrote in the journal that we’ve kept this year.   All in all, I held it together pretty well.  I thought I would choke up with tears, but I didn’t.  That is, not until I dropped him off, watched him walk into school, and I turned on the car radio.  And there it was – “Alive”, by my band.  There is really no other song that could come on at that moment.  And as much as I’ve come to expect it at moments when I’m lost in my head….as much as I rely on the shuffle gods to bring music to me when I need it, I was still surprised.  I actually said so out loud – “REALLY?“

My song. Pearl Jam’s breakthrough single, “Alive”.  It’s spanned the last 20+ years of my life, as I’ve gone from college student to law student, to lawyer, to wife and mother.  (“Alive, Encore Break”). If I was younger and hipper, I might describe it my ‘jam’.  But I’m old and the song is too, so I’ve just grown to think of it as my theme song.  My anthem.  It shows up when I need it.

Of COURSE this is the song that comes on.  When I think now about the poignant times it has shown up in the past, the crises of those times seem very far away.  Just like this one will someday.  Then, as now, I embraced the changes and made it through.

So I suppose that if the (Pearl Jam) universe could answer my question in the car, that answer would be – “Yes, REALLY“.  It knew that I needed a little nudge to remind me that everything works out, and that as things change and life keeps moving forward, I’ll always have music to help me through.