Kids

Passing Notes with Lenny

/ Deb / 1 Comment

I started packing my daughter’s lunch again this year. Somewhere around middle school, my kids had taken over primary responsibility for packing their lunches. But now my son is away at college, it’s my daughter’s senior year and she’s returned to school after 18 months of remote learning, and I am keenly aware of the fact that we soon will be empty-nesters. So packing her lunch just feels right.

We’ve settled in to a nice morning routine. I pack her lunch, we chat about our upcoming day, and I help her get out the door to school. Taking a page from my dad’s playbook, sometimes I’ll go out and warm up her car or scrape her windows.

Yesterday morning we were listening to KEXP over cantaloupe, and an old Lenny Kravitz song came on. Our day was now off to a great start! I thanked John Richards out loud, turned it up, and told my daughter of my Lenny memories. In what must have been my sophomore year in college, Lenny had just released his first album and was doing a publicity tour. He was doing an autograph session at Tower Records on The Ave of the University District in Seattle, barely a block from our apartment. My bestie/roommate was the driving force in getting us there, as she owned the album. There was a line that snaked along the aisles, and there he sat, at the rear of the store under a poster, oozing coolness. When it was our turn, we mumbled hello, Lenny signed her cassette tape, and we went on about our day, which likely included a muffin at Muffin Break, or a slice at Pag’s. Years later, I saw Lenny Kravitz in concert at the Paramount with my sister, and he was just as fabulous as I wanted him to be. I recall that he did a Jesus pose at center stage (which you absolutely should always do if you are a rock star), and the crowd went wild. My daughter chuckled at the story, and off she went.

I recently started my annual cleanout/purge/re-organize effort. I’ve previously admitted that I am a sentimental hoarder, and I have boxes of things from my childhood and young adult life. But I’m trying to be more intentional about what I save, so it was time to go through a bin of old high school items and see what could go. I had a box of old notes from friends that made for a hilarious afternoon of reading about things I had forgotten (oh, the drama of the senior year Homecoming dance! How on earth did we ever make it through?). Most were mundane day-to-day musings about lunch plans and classroom events, prompting my daughter to ask, “wait, did you write these during class?” I said of course we did (duh), and when you saw your friend in the hallway between classes, you would pass the note to them. It was the 1980’s version of texting, before anyone could envision that something like text messages would ever exist.

With my hoarding habit exposed, I was surprised when my daughter observed that it was cool that I have these physical items as a snapshot of my life back then. Her communications with her friends exist only in the ether of electronic messages, and there will be no box for her to sit and go through someday with her daughter on a rainy afternoon. I told her that she can always change that, and write a note or letter to her friends. Maybe she will.

I texted with my friend yesterday, asking if she remembered the Lenny autograph session (she did), but I forgot to ask if she still has the tape. I hope she does. I still buy physical copies of albums, and I have all of my old vinyl, CD, and cassette tapes. After going through the box of high school things, I tossed all of the notes from old boyfriends, but I ended up keeping the ones from my friends. And OF COURSE I have a box of letters from my college days — hometown news from my parents and younger sisters — that I will never get rid of. So look out, college kids and soon-to-be college kids who are related to me…..old school letters are coming your way.

With all of this nostalgia for pen and paper rattling in my head, I wrote a note to my daughter in our old write-and-pass-back journal from years ago. In honor of the tradition of high school note writing, I penned my first new entry with “W/B”, but of course was careful to include a notation to her, explaining that this means “write back”. And she did.

Insight from R.E.M.

/ Deb / Leave a comment

True story.   This song came on the radio while stuck in LA traffic after dropping our oldest off at college.  In heavy air, it clicked with both my husband and me right away, and I pulled up the video on YouTube to explain to our daughter.  Ironically, it provided us all with a much-needed laugh.   

Although tempted, I did not get out of the car and start walking on the freeway.
 
 

College Apps with Pete

/ Deb / 1 Comment
Lovely, acoustic evening with @peteyorn last night.  His “musicforthemorningafter” is still one of my favorite albums.  I recently rediscovered it (and Pete), and it was great to see him live again.  The very first time that Scott and I saw Pete, our life was about to change in all the best ways, and we didn’t even know it yet.  That little baby (who we would find out about shortly after the show), is now working on college applications.  So much love, appreciation, and reflection for me during the show last night.  Thanks, Pete.  

Keep Hope Alive

/ Deb / Leave a comment

It always amuses me when a song that has no meaning to me jumps in to tell me something.  And I usually listen.  I mean, if a totally random song to which I have no emotional attachment shows up out of nowhere at the perfect time, there has to be a reason.  Right?

Anyway, yesterday I was on the campus of my alma mater, the University of Washington, to hear a Political Science faculty panel discussion about next week’s midterm elections.  I took the light rail from my office downtown, hopped off at Husky Stadium, and walked up Rainier Vista to campus.  On a clear day, true to its name, Rainier Vista provides an unobstructed view of the mountain, framed by the Gothic architecture of campus, with Drumheller Fountain lying at its base.  It’s beautiful.  Yesterday was cloudy though, giving no hint of the mountain lying behind the clouds.   Seemed more fitting, somehow.  The past few days have been strange.

I was wearing headphones, but my playlist had been exhausted, and random songs began to appear from, I assume, some sort of Spotify channel.  My phone was in my pocket, and I was too indifferent to change the music.  I wasn’t really concentrating on it anyway.   Instead, I was thinking about my son, and how he is starting to look at colleges.  How I hope that he will find a place where he is as happy as I was during my time at UW.   How he will be in college, and able to vote in the 2020 election, and that I hope the political climate will be better than it is now.  I remembered seeing Jesse Jackson speak on campus, in what must have been the fall of my freshman year, right on Rainier Vista where I was now walking.

One of the things I always love about being on campus is that it is a touchstone — a reminder of my younger self.  I mean, music always does that anyway (“Express Yourself, 2012 Style”).   Of course, back then, it was hard to picture that I would ever be as old as I am now, but here we are.

My mind clicked back to the music for a second, in time to hear that Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train” was playing.  Just in time to catch the line:  “How on earth did I get so jaded/Life’s mystery seems so faded”.

I sat with that one for a moment.  I have been in my head a lot lately.    And while I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as jaded, I do have my moments.  I can always use a reminder to focus on the good things which are always there, even if they are momentarily obscured.  Just like Mount Rainier, behind those darn clouds.

The Everlong of Being a Kid

/ Deb / Leave a comment

It was a show that we had no business going to. My husband was building a new deck for our recently remodeled house, and his brother was in town to help. The tickets had been purchased long ago, but as deck work progressed and deadlines of rainy weather loomed, we were prepared to cancel and sell the tickets. My brother-in-law, though, urged us to go, as they would be done for the day anyway.

And so that is how we found ourselves at the Foo Fighters concert at Safeco Field, and for once I was relieved that we had reserved seats instead of GA. Still grungy and tired from a day’s work, we scurried in with just a few moments to spare.

Near the back of the floor section, some fans had moved to an open area that was less sparsely populated. My husband and I spotted her at the same time – a little girl, maybe four or five years old – and had the same thought: it reminded us of our daughter.

With her dad, this little girl was fully engaged and rocking out – dancing and doing air guitar and drums, in a way that our daughter had done so many times, both in our kitchen, and at concerts (“Quiet 13”). Other fans were walking by, and many of them came up to her, giving her a fist bump or a high five. Sometimes, they would say something to her, or to her dad.

If any of them were parents, I wondered if they said what was going through my head. What I wanted to say to that little girl was:

Remember this moment

Keep dancing

Keep your fearlessness

Her dad was filming her moves, and what I wanted to tell him was — show this video to her in about 10 years, when she needs a reminder of the fiery spirit that she has always been. And then again at 20 years, and 30, because we all need a little reminder of that, even as grownups. Except for maybe Dave Grohl. I think he’s already got it figured out.

Big Sky Gratitude

/ Deb / 2 Comments

I want to tell you about my girl.

We recently dragged her all the way to Missoula for a Pearl Jam show, which was our third show in the span of a week.  With her brother out of town doing camp counselor duties, she drew the unenviable experience of a solo seven-hour road trip with her parents.  (Silver lining — at least she got the back seat to herself?)

She playfully joked about going to a concert with “old people”, and, lucky her – the town was filled with us!   She marveled about how, all over Missoula, we ran into Pearl Jam fans and had the same conversation — where are you from/did you go to the Home Shows/how long have you been a fan, etc…..   At a fan fundraiser for Jeff Ament’s Army, she was a good sport when we offered to share our table with a dad and his son (about her age), who were from Portland.   Both she and the son were understandably mortified at this arrangement, but she smiled and politely answered their questions.

I had brought along a few different Pearl Jam shirts for her to choose from, not sure if she would really wear any of them to the show.  But she did! (10 Club Analog shirt from 2016; an excellent choice).

We got in the GA line in the middle of the afternoon heat, and settled in with camp chairs, a deck of cards, and snacks.  More chatting with fellow fans….more listening to us talk with others about shows we’d been to, and telling others, “It’s her first Pearl Jam show!”   She smiled and went along with all of it, nodding politely when asked by strangers if she was excited about the show.

Hours later, we filed in to the stadium.  Although I always prefer GA, it is challenging when you are short like me.  And she is four inches shorter.  My husband and I tried to move her around for a sight line to the stage, but I know that for the majority of the show, she couldn’t see much.  Of course, she knew more songs than she realized she would.  (All of those years of music in the kitchen and in the car; how could she not?).  She danced a little bit, flashed smiles at me when she recognized a song, and raised her arms in the air along with the crowd.

At the end of the show, a woman nearby asked how old my daughter was.  She said that her daughter is a few years younger, and that she would love to bring her to a show.  Turning to my daughter, she said, “Your parents are awesome for bringing you to this show!”   My girl smiled and politely agreed, but in my head I thought — No, SHE is the awesome one.

She had put up with all of this.  Never once a complaint, or even an eye roll.  She was such a trooper about all of it.  (And did I mention that, due to a reservation mistake, our hotel room did not have a bed for her, and she slept on the floor for two nights?).

I later told my daughter how much it meant to me to see Pearl Jam with her, and how much I appreciated her being such a good sport about it.  How their music has been such a big part of my life for 27 years, and to see a show with her was beautiful and surreal for me.  I think she heard me, but I don’t know that she yet understands.

We drove to Glacier National Park after the show, and my husband flew home early, leaving us on our own for a few days.  My daughter and I went on a hike, and when we encountered a dad carrying his young daughter, we talked about how, when she was younger, all of our hikes ended that way too (including one where she begged us to keep hiking, she wanted to go ‘straight to the top’ of Mt. Rainier).   But there’s no carrying necessary for this girl anymore, at least not in the physical sense.

On the long drive back to Seattle, now in the front seat, she navigated and played DJ.  I got to hear all of her current favorite songs, with commentary on what she liked, and she brought me up to date on all current gossip about the artist.

I pretended to be offended by songs with cuss words and racy lyrics.  But the truth is, I loved every single mile.