What You Lean On

And so, follow me low/ You are what you lean on. --Trey Anastasio

I've been waking up in the mornings with T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alred Prufrock" in my head like a song, the words streaming like lyrics monotonously read in the voice I've fabricated for Eliot, having accidentally memorized the lines from my old Norton anthology. And indeed there will be time/ To wonder Do I dare? And do I dare? floating sleepily through my own vacant expression as I straighten my unruly brown hair. It's abundantly clear to me that I am not ready to face this day. The murky post-Thanksgiving semi-Seasonal depression has set in, the way it does every year for me and nearly everyone else at this latitude. The warm, sleepy sense of nostalgia faded with the cooking-smells from the corn-yellow kitchens of Michigan and we're left with nothing but the sullen pressure of The Holidays. I grow old, I grow old...

Last weekend, after the last of the leftovers were wrapped I had long since had my fill of my family's signature Thanksgiving dish (read: double Kahlua and Coffee), I headed West to Chicago to catch two nights of my favorite band, Umphrey's McGee. The epic two-night run loosely replaced a New Years tradition, which, this year, is being held in St. Louis. While I love my boys more than life, the trek to ol' St. Louie is a long one and I, alas, will not make it-- not to mention Umphrey's in Chicago is always must-see anyway, so this weekend was a no-brainer. Meeting up with fellow Umphreak Steph, who I happened to meet in the bathroom at this show, I hit I94 running, and we rocked into the Central Time Zone at about seven on Friday, ready to rage. And rage we did, hitting the run like a 2-woman storm of musical bliss and nerdery. From classic Umphrey's staples to soaring jams backed by the Chicago Mass Choir, the two nights of music left stars in my eyes and I can still feel the resounding amazement in my soul...

Still, as I sped back toward home on Sunday morning, wolfing down my requisite hangover Sausage McMuffin, the warm, fuzzy memories of the shows faded with every mile past the Windy City. The memories echoing through my head from the weekend-- the smooth bump of "Booth Love," the sought-after ecstasy of "All in Time's" climactic end, and the kaleidoscopic swirl of the stagelights melted into the horizon of the putty-gray Indiana turnpike, and it was increasingly hard to deny that we were truly headed back to real life.

So, increasingly clear to me was something I hadn't bothered to tell Stephanie, or anyone else, all weekend: on the following day was my first appointment with a therapist. Having stubbornly fought therapy my whole life, I had decided it was time to reckon with some issues I had noticed lurking from my dad's passing when I was a child. The only thing stronger than my stubbornness to talk to anyone about what had been on my mind for years was my staunch vow of secrecy I had taken towards the whole thing; I lived under a strong facade I had created over the years to convince everyone that I had somehow escaped the pain altogether (There will be time, there will be time/ To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.). I was determined to have triumphed over my dad's death, and the rest of my past, without a single scar; like the Blues Brothers in that scene where they survive Carrie Fischer's flamethrower, standing up and merely brushing the dust from the wreckage off of their shoulders.

But the truth is, I didn't. And I've spent every year since filling the void created by my father's absence with everything I could find that brought me the smallest amount of happiness or joy. Most of all: music. I'm coming to the strange conclusion that maybe every song I've ever liked, every band I've ever loved, was-- at least in part-- replacing a small part of what I lost when I lost my dad. Maybe that relief I felt from that soothing shelter of the most amazing pieces of music was a replacement of those times I wasn't able to curl up in my dad's lap as a little girl, and let him tell me everything would be ok. Maybe those gentle words of wisdom from my favorite rock stars and poets replaced the lessons I knew I should have learned from my father.

I guess that's what I'm trying to reconcile. And I guess getting a little older, and a little wiser (ideally) is going to help me sort out all of this... because I guess sixteen years isn't long enough to reconcile the excruciating pain of losing someone you love. Regardless, I'm back in the real world (post-therapy sesh, and by the way, it went great!) and the view from here isn't so bad.

Hope is an amazing thing.


There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Writing "Spots"

Sitting in my office of the radio station cluster where I work, I'm tuned in to one of our stations during an ad break, wincing at a commercial advertising a "Diva"-themed holiday party at Wayside (for you out-of-towners, the most notorious BroHo bar in Kalamazoo).

My face is contorted as though I've actually just eaten something sour, my left eye squeezed shut and lips and nose pursed into one big wrinkle; against the dull hum of the office in the late afternoon, the morning DJ's nasally chirp sounds especially shrill, reaching stratospheric pitches with each and every fun, frilly, and oft alliterative verb. So while I'm wincing for an ostensibly very good reason, it might not be the reason or reasons you're thinking.

The truth is, I wrote this commercial. I wrote this commercial and a ton just like it, hawking everything from theme parties to air quality control to trailer repair to gourmet pizza. This is what I do: market research, commercial copywriting and a plethora of related sellout, ex-writer tasks.

A genuine queasiness set in as I listened to the rest of the commercial for the diva party, and I came to the sick conclusion that this is my life not only as a professional, but as a writer now. I guess the reasons for this are sundry. Looking back, my creative volume had decreased significantly as my blog neared its second birthday, and to make matters worse, West Michigan Noise-- not only a creative stimulus, but a network of friends and readers that create a huge support system-- scaled back from obscure print 'zine to its Internet roots and eventually withered to nonexistence. And I'm continually haunted by the fact that I've all but completely deserted my blog; not on an "ego" level, or out of a sense of any sort of obligation (as I've long since accepted that no one cares anymore, if they ever did [ed. note: not a cry for help or attention! A simple statement of facts.]) But the fact that I simply don't care anymore is what's truly disturbing.

So what does this mean? Is it simply that I'm almost 24, and I simply can't reconcile my current self, who gets paid to write public broadcasts (no matter how low-quality), with my twenty-year-old self, who struggled financially while pouring hours into a blog for no pay and next to no recognition, for no reason other than passion?

I guess that's the trouble with blogging. Blogs are started by people with nothing but time and passion. Those people are, more often than not, kids. Kids grow up into adults, whose supplies of time and passion are inversely proportionate with their practical needs. Like paying rent. And so it goes: the "I have to pay my rent" creative alibi. The groovy thing about it is that no one can shut it down. We all grow up, and reach the only thing more cliche than being a starving, hated artist: being a sellout ex-artist content with paying rent and a marginal amount of professional recognition.

So it's after five on the day before the Thanksgiving holiday; my boss and I are the last ones in our half-dark office and all this has got me thinking. He's in a band and as soon as part of me wonders if he gave up his dream to work here, I realize that he must have. If you're an artist, if you've ever known what it means to create anything, part of you truly wants to do that, and only that, every day for the rest of time. I'm reminded of something I read in a Martin Scorcese interview recently; he'd said that, realistically, anyone who creates anything just wants to be remembered. And I think that's why I'm weirdly fulfilled by writing radio spots. Because I know that even if people remember my clients' businesses, or if they remember having a good time at some event I planned or a silly party I promoted, part of me-- at least a small part-- is satisfied.

So I'm still here. Working. With the boss. And with every click of the clock past five, all I can think about is wondering what I'm waiting for... What I'm hiding from.

But at least I'm writing.