Last Friday morning, I was upstairs reading the paper, having a lazy morning. I get up and leave the house on Saturdays (women’s meeting) and Sundays (church). Sometimes, I just want to hang out in my pajamas and read, like any normal person does on the weekend for at least half and hour. No, I was reading the book I was trying to slog through (gave up–I actually skipped to the end on Tuesday–more breakthroughs–next thing we know, having no Christmas lights up yet and no presents even planned will not bother me–Liz asked if the Simon Legree of Christmas was getting ready to make her annual appearance yesterday–so far, my inner Christmas Nazi has yet to rear her ugly head).Chris came home from somewhere (Pasha? Breakfast with champions? Another meal shared with another dynamic constructive person who not only believes but understands business–someone unlike his rather underdeveloped wife who’s in serious danger of following in the reclusive footsteps of her mother and step-mothers–another reason not to cross the line into writing.) He asked if I’d heard John talking about the tree?
My heart sank. Had I missed him discussing the emails he’d received, perhaps mentioning me by name? I’d been upstairs reading. I didn’t realize the time, but I also didn’t want to listen. It had all been too much and I’d written the email and I needed a breather. I had been obsessively checking my email to see if he’d responded the way he did when I wrote him about Neil Young and “Hurricane” back when the second hurricane was coming. No news.
I turned on the radio.
I think I’ve explained before that I listen to KGSR on the kitchen radio in the early morning. I like Kevin Connor and listening to local people talk about Austin stuff. It keeps me current, especially since I can’t stand the Statesman. But at 9:00, I turn KUT on the stereo. It’s become something of a ritual over the past month. And as you can imagine, a bit of a burden over the past month, as I’ve allowed myself to get swallowed up in SOTD.
Whatever song was playing ended and here was John A., talking about, you guessed it, trees. Chris had told me that he’d been talking about the crazy split tree on Burnet and 42nd (been there, done that), not the Chinese pistache. So John A. had moved on, left the pistache for the tree closer to my house but miles from my mind. Oh well.
“I got a lot of email yesterday about the list of banned plants–the Chinese pistache and the other ones you shouldn’t plant. And I got one letter I’d like to read to you. It’s from Elizabeth Burr.”
And then he read my email on air. I stood outside the purple bathroom door (where Chris happened to be, unable to hear). He skipped the part about “Take a Chance on Me,” but that was just a sentence that seemed to suggest that I might be a wacko stalker who writes about what he plays.
The rest of the morning was, cliched as it sounds, foggy. I was bowled over. I wrote something. I sent it off. It was read on KUT. Just three sentences, but I’ve never heard anyone read something I wrote before. Let alone, like I have to explain it here, to have John Aielli read my thoughts on the tree and banned plants and a song (a SOTD, even though he didn’t know it) and Austin and the war.
So, he ended the show with REM “Everybody Hurts” and, yes, I cried, and, yes, I thought it was Song of the Day because I was so overwhelmed and moved and exposed, just like the song. “Hold on,” Michael Stipe was telling me. “Hold on,” John was telling me. Don’t let go, even though you feel like you’re floating off somewhere and that if you keep doing this, you might end up singing in the Friday afternoon traffic on the Bay Bridge.
Transcendence was right there.
And then I picked up the girls.
Actually, I picked up Emma and her friend Sophie, because Mazie had already headed to the park with her friend Lauren. We went to meet them there. Perfect afternoon. Finally, the perfect afternoon. Playdates at the park, staggered, so we could conduct the Friday Afternoon Piano Lesson Relay. Got snacks and piano books, took them back to the park. Got Mazie in the car for the first leg. Made it ON TIME!
But wait, we were early.
The lesson time had been switched. Fifteen minutes later, don’t you remember. I knew there was something going on, but I was too busy transcending and crying to take the time to call Carol and ask her when the lesson was.
You can stay or come back, or even come back a little later.
Emma and Sophie were with the neighborhood rough and tumble association, being watched by trustworthy mothers, but I couldn’t leave them there for half an hour.
Mazie and I drove back to the park–you know–back along 45th Street to the park.
We drove back to Carol’s at 4:15. Leg 2.
I got back to the park to find Emma and Sophie on top of a dumpster full of gravel, along with eight other kids, fully outfitted with sticks or rocks, in case the dumpster were to come under attack from the toddlers playing on the new playscape under the extraordinarily watchful eyes of the young parents who find the sudden appearance of elementary school kids at the park extremely distressing (I know–I used to be one of them). I’m pretty sure Sophie doesn’t spend a lot of time playing with ten year old boys wielding sticks without the responsible adult actually watching, so I stuck around. They were having such a great time that we stayed until we had to get Emma to Carol’s, so we couldn’t drop Sophie off first.
That was too bad, because Carol’s standard poodle “Jumpin’” Gypsy “greeted Sophie with a bonk in her allergic to (and perhaps a little bit phobic around) dogs left eye. I had attempted to give instructions to Emma to stay on the other side of the gate with Sophie, but I was in the middle of Leg 3, and as anyone who’s read SOTD #18 (”And the Cradle Will Rock’) knows, I’ve lost it by the middle of Leg 3. No longer verbal due to intense weaving in and out of seriously heavy machinery’s handiwork and proximity. I had not only allowed Sophie to play on a dirty dumpster with the risk taking prodigies of my neighborhood, I’d made her come into contact with a dog. We’d taken Sophie to the park because she can’t come over to our house just for the very reason that she has no business being around dogs. It was finally not the hottest day of the year, and volleyball was over, and the was equality between Emma and Mazie, so the revolution would be avoided for one more day. But Sophie took it in the eye from Gypsy.
We got Sophie away from Gypsy and Mazie away from Carol and returned Sophie home (where the Christmas decorations are up–Simon Legree, take note). And Mazie and I got home, right around 5:15. End of Leg 3.
But on this day, this day when people heard my name on KUT, heard John Aielli say, on my behalf, “I am a writer,” Leg 3 was not enough. This was the first four legged Friday. I stiil had to go back to Carol’s and get Emma. Chris was stuck in traffic downtown somewhere; he couldn’t save me from Leg 4. Mazie wanted to stay home, but she didn’t want to be alone. We’ve all been there, but I had to go get Emma. What’s it gonna be Mazie? Oh you have to go to the bathroom? Well, you can watch TV until I get home. I’ve gotta go, Mazie. No, I can’t wait, No, Daddy can’t pick up Emma. I’ll be back soon, Mazie.
So I walked out the door and left my eight year old child alone.
Leg 4. Uncharted territory. It was getting dark and the machinery was parked. From KISS FM (by Mazie’s demand on the way back from Sophie’s) to KGSR.
I wish I were better at describing sound. I wish I knew how to write about rhythms and instrumentation and repetition in a way that you could know what the song was before I told you the name of the song. Then you’d know how I felt when I heard the drums–dah da da/ dah da da–and the funny accordian triplets. But you know what the song was already, because it’s at the top of this post.
We’re on the road to nowhere.
I just googled the lyrics and read them. They’re profound. They’re perfect. They sum up last Friday:
well we know where we’re going, but we dont know where we’ve been
and we know what we’re knowing, but we can’t say what we’ve seen
and we’re not little children, and we know what we want
and the future is certain, give us time to work it out
But last Friday, driving Leg 4, I didn’t hear anything connected to my 24 hours of transcendence. All I could do was laugh. The SOTD had changed. My weepy REM moment was crushed by the peppy nihilism of David Byrne.
My life was saved by rock and roll.
I had no control over SOTD except to accept it.
Turns out, I was on the road to nowhere.
Thank god.
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