Migrainey today; probably because the temperature dropped again and the thermometer hovers at a chilly 47 degrees.
I've felt suspended in a weird state lately -- caught between an extreme reclusiveness and intense desire for conversation. Mostly the reclusiveness has won out, and it happened on a good weekend, with Mom visiting her relatives and Dad having to work, so I lounged around the house yesterday reading, watching Arrested Development and grading essays.
I really like my new job, by the way. As the first one I've held that directly relates to my degree, it provides a certain satisfaction; also I can work while sitting in my jammies and watching TV. As soon as my ancient-yet-hopefully-adequately-renovated laptop returns from the computer dotor's, I'll be able to grade while sitting on my bed in my jammies watching TV in my room. (For the first time in my life, I'm going to commit the unspeakable and allow a television in my bedroom. It won't connect to any channels, but I can watch DVDs on it and listen to music. I would much rather have a state-of-the-art stereo system, the better to appreciate my beloved music, but that will have to wait until I have earned considerably more money. As a quick fix, this will do; my taste in music differs vastly from my parents' and it seems best not to torment each other.)
On the practical side, the luxury of working from home eliminates travel time and fuel costs, so with great satisfaction I turned in my two-weeks' notice at the bookstore on Thursday. I got a snide remark from the manager, who, I think, takes it personally when people leave; but I just laughed. My heart holds no more love for retail than it ever did, and the casual attitude that characterized the bookstore and made it a comfortable working and shopping environment for everyone has vanished with the economic crisis, and most of the time I feel like a used car salesman, pushing books of which nobody's heard and nobody cares on people who suddenly hate me because I'm not allowed to go away. I enjoy customer service; I hate sales. So, now that I have a side job which pays better, gives me more (and much more flexible) hours, is astronomically more comfortable in both physical environment and nature of work, and requires no time or money lost in travel, I made sure I would always have at least four hours' work in the grading job and eliminated the bookstore job.
(I also, parenthetically, won't miss being hit on and leered at every damn shift by some guy who is either wearing dentures or diapers. One elderly gentleman wanted to take me out to Ponderosa after my shift; this last week featured a couple of -- I kid you not -- twelve-year-olds who were adorable in their geeky awkward way as they attempted to flirt, but were seriously twelve. Then this week too there was the seventeen-year-old who was laughing and talking easily with me as I rang up his purchase, and suddenly a skinny plain girl was standing at his elbow with her arms folded tightly across her flat T-shirted chest glaring at him. When I smiled at her and said hello, she turned her narrowed eyes on me and hissed, "Hi." I grinned more broadly as I realized to my astonishment that she was jealous. I felt sorry for her, because he hadn't even been flirting and she was clearly extremely insecure, so I continued to laugh and talk with the boyfriend, but I was easygoing and nice to her too, and won a tight little smile from her when I bid her a good evening instead of the blank-faced nonacknowledgment I know she was contemplating. Ridiculous. I wasn't even wearing makeup.)
So with the day job at the office, and the grading job on the side, I'm now only doubly employed again, and I heave a great sigh of relief.
I only have a couple more shifts at the bookstore, and then I can bid a not-so-fond farewell to rolling into the driveway at 11:15 on a work night, hungry and exhausted and drained from straightening an enormous store by myself and managing, solo, dozens of customer inquiries and phone calls. Most of the time by the end of my shift I can barely see straight to alphabetize, and if my eyes work, my brain doesn't. (One of the goals of this year's financial management is to save up for new glasses. My prescription has changed over the past two years.)
Today holds a morning of grading, and an afternoon/evening of traveling down to Grove City, my alma mater, to visit MP and David. It's a short road trip, only an hour and a half, and, in addition to seeing good friends, it will be marvelous to have that uninterrupted time to dedicate to the listening of Outer South. My favorite aspect of road trips is the intimacy of devoting a good length of time in such close quarters to music, which I view more as a discipline, like reading, than background noise to fill silence. This is part of what makes my car a sanctuary, and I love when the acquisition of new music and a road trip occur almost simultaneously. The commute to work is short enough that I haven't had a chance to listen to Outer South all the way through yet, and, especially in the beginning days of acquaintanceship with an album, a listen-to from start to finish is essential. Good artists have arranged their works deliberately, and it's sacrilege to dishonor their artistry by listening in bits and pieces. The progression from song to song, the cycle from beginning to end, makes the album. Pulling out singles for oneself is fine, of course; but I only feel comfortable doing that when I know the song's context within the album; understanding enriches the listening experience.
Reflecting on this brings a few things to mind. I've always taken music seriously, which I recognized particularly in college, when, if a person came into my dorm room to talk while I had an album in, I would have to turn it off so that I could pay attention to the conversation. In high school classical music held my heart, especially Debussy, because even then I wasn't crazy about the contemporary Christian music (with the exceptions of Michael Card and John Michael Talbot) which was the only "music with words" really allowed in our household. I bought a two-disc collection of Debussy's works on a chorus trip to Canada for four dollars, and listened to it as nonstop as possible; it was, in fact, the only music I could play while working or studying that didn't distract me, but sank right to my subconscious and enlivened me there.
I might always have restricted myself to the old dead dudes, and quite happily. But then, senior year, Hillori introduced me to a group and thereby changed my life forever: the debut album of a young newgrass trio who called themselves Nickel Creek. The fiddle, the banjo, the guitar, and, oh, rapture, the mandolin; the clear piercing blend of harmonies: I was captivated. And because when I like an author or an artist I follow everything they've ever created, as Nickel Creek progressed in their expression, I kept up with them, loved the changes they made to their sound, their artistic growth, loved the members' solo albums (mostly Chris Thile's -- genius), and when they crossed over into an indie sound which no one I knew really liked, I crossed with them.
But, not hanging out with many music heads in college, I stayed where I was, musically, listening to Nickel Creek and classical and Cowboy Bebop soundtracks (also introduced to me by Hillori), until I worked at the Center and met a couple of guys who bore a distinct stamp of intellectual snobbery in the creases on their brows, and who listened to fantastic music. They were "cool" in that bored, disinterested way of intellectual snobs, and we liked each other's sardonic wry humor, and we thought much too highly of ourselves for being young and broke and working in nonprofits for the betterment of humanity.
(Of course, I never lost an opportunity to rub it in that I had a better education than they did, and was smarter than they were. They had graduated from the Program of Liberal Studies at Notre Dame, which was supposed to be even more Englishy than the English major, the crème de la crème of all inclinations literary, and I, hailing from a humble backwoods cowfield ant-sized liberal arts college with a boring old English degree, knew all sorts of things they didn't think anyone knew. They would roughly quote from a book or a great poem, paraphrase the title, and shrug and guess about the author as the book related to their discussion, and I would toss in the exact text of the quote, the complete title of the work it belonged to, the author, the approximate year of publication and the surrounding sociopolitical and literary contexts that influenced the work, and the influence the work had on following additions to the canon. The guys would then stare at me, all but open-mouthed, and say, "How do you know all this stuff? No one remembers this stuff. We can't remember this stuff," and I would say, smugly, "I went to a better school." I usually refrained from saying, And paid a hell of a lot less money, too.)
Part of our egocentrism about our place in changing the world was going in to work extremely early every morning, and I stocked my office with coffee, a hot pot and a French press and offered them some of my java to get us going (the office coffee claimed a level of terrible reserved for things like hand-dug latrines and infanticide). One day when Andrew brought his wryly textuated mug for a top-off, he heard Chris Thile's Not All Who Wander are Lost blitzing out of my computer speakers.
"What's that?" he asked. I could almost see his ears perk up.
"Chris Thile," I said. "Nobody's ever heard of him, but I like him."
"I've heard of him," Andrew said. "But I haven't listened to him much. This stuff is cool."
"I'll lend you their latest album," I said happily.
Andrew proceeded to ask me if I had ever heard of a dozen unfamiliar artists, and I said, with chagrin, "No. My range is sadly limited."
"Oh, I'll have to hook you up. I'm a total music head," he said.
That was the summer I spent riding around in his silver Golf while we listened to all sorts of deep and lifechanging songs (I say that only partially tongue-in-cheek), and I started memorizing the names of new and soul-thrilling artists: Sufjan Stevens, Bright Eyes, Colin Meloy, Beck, Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter. I went on a Music Spree. Andrew played a lot of the songs on his guitar at friends' campfires and sang while I harmonized. Sharing music with someone was thrilling in ways I had never regularly experienced before, and in many ways I was completely happy.
But todo se pasa, says Teresa de Ávila, and that time came to its necessary end, and I took another big stride on the road to growing up, but I took with me, gathered to my heart like an armful of treasure, all the music to which he had introduced me, and that was my springboard. Music for every mood, bluegrass- and country-influenced indie artists, strange and compelling sounds, offbeat voices, mind-splitting lyrics -- a journey which I didn't start alone, but which I can now continue more or less independently.
Funny. I haven't thought about that time in awhile. Must be the leaves on the trees that take me back to the shaded brick-lined streets in South Bend's historic district where he and I lived a couple streets apart and spent a number of evening smoking cloves and singing on his screened-in porch. The good thing about the passage of time is that the years slowly leech away the bitterness like nutrients from slash-and-burned riverbank soil, and wash out to the sea of Jung's collective unconscious. I'm glad that things turned out the way they did; glad, too, now, that I had that time. I don't believe that I'd want it back -- I know that I don't want it back with the same person in the same circumstances; I've learned that much, at least -- but I can look fondly now on the simplicity of everything that seemed at the time so complicated, and appreciate the innocence. Even its anguish was idyllic, and the time was necessary for a part of the shaping of my soul, a part of my learning about love and non-love, action and inaction, speaking and silence, and carrying on. I look at who I was then, and who I am now, and I'm a little nostalgic, and at the same time deeply thankful. It is so obvious Who has directed my paths, turned my feet in the direction they needed to go, and strengthened my ankles for the journey.
And I'm glad for the memories, too.
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