one toe in the water

       Does the world really need yet ANOTHER blog?

That's a question I've been wrestling with since my daughter helped me to set up this little space a few months back.  And btw, yes, I am hopelessly non-technical and about as far from being cool, (read young,
savvy, and trendy) as one could be. My answer to the blog question is "Hell, no!"  Yet I cannot deny a lifelong and passionate need for conversation, dialogue, and the urge to engage. Couple that with an unrelenting need to hear, tell, and share stories...well, you get the picture...

So... at the suggestion of my lovely and smart friend, Quealy, I am posting the following essay that I wrote in a recent workshop on the personal essay. Enjoy.  And if you are so moved, feel free to share your comments, experiences, or whatever else you deem worthy of sharing.  And if you have been led to believe that  life's second acts cannot be as thrilling as the first, read  on....



Off My Rocker


Dinner was served, the last bits of crème brulee scraped from my bone china bowls when one of those conversations, born of late nights, waning candles, and multiple glasses of wine, unfolded. The subject was regrets, and the responses as individual as our guests. An accountant friend trapped in a windowless office who pines for the fresh air and freedom of the forest ranger, and the physician’s assistant who never quite scratched that itch to apply to medical school and have the autonomy she craves. There was a friend who long pondered parenthood but could not take the plunge, and my spouse, happily scoring game winning field goals in the NFL, if only that call had come. When my turn came to declare my heart’s unfulfilled desire, I did a quick mental inventory. A poet laureate whose words captured the weight and dignity of ordinary people’s lives or maybe a teacher changing the trajectory of a child’s life? But the true answer surfaced with both astonishing speed and a wash of color warming my cheeks. I would have been a rockstar!

Hardly the vocational choice one might expect from a woman firmly in the territory of late middle-age, right? But there is a bit of a precedent here, dating back to when that ambition was less jarring. The year after we graduated high school, in search of a place to exercise our independence (also known as excessive drinking and indiscriminate partying) seven friends and I rented a summer weekend cottage on Cape Cod. The small weathered house sat amidst scrubby pines, with a sparse lawn mostly overtaken by sand. It was divided into four small rooms, two of which contained twin beds. This body –to- bed deficit ensured a mad scramble for at least a portion of a mattress on every evening we were present. The only other place to crash was a tired looking plaid couch, whose springs had long ago relinquished any vestige of springiness.

Each Friday night when we hitchhiked from sultry Boston to the salty tang of the Cape, the smells of the house, locked up tight all week, archived the previous weekend’s stay. Hazy notes of smoke and the stale odors of fast food and beer had worked their way permanently into furniture and carpets. All played against the dominant note of mildew that thrives in seaside cabins. The acoustical backdrop of the summer emanated from a stereo system, cobbled together with someone’s turntable, another girl’s tuner, and orphaned speakers donated by assorted male admirers. The thumping bass line of Under my Thumb, the long, riff filled version of C’mon Baby Light My Fire, and the get-up-on-your-feet-and-dance soul anthem I Heard it Through the Grapevine were the vehicles we rode from our work week personas to women in search of a good time.

In my case, that good time materialized in the form of three guys in search of a girl – and particularly a “chick who can sing”. One late Saturday night at our place, John, a chubby and prematurely balding lead guitar, showed up and proceeded to play. Fueled by both excitement at having live music and a number of Singapore Slings, I volunteered to sing and belted out Janis Joplin’s Me and Booby McGee. At the tender age of eighteen with long, curly hair, a deep tan, the ability to carry a tune and enough alcohol to disinhibit my extreme self-consciousness, I was, at least in John’s view, a real “find”. I was quickly drafted to rehearse with his trio in hopes of getting a gig at one of the Cape’s numerous grungy nightclubs. I approached our first practice with anticipation dueling with dread, partially mitigated by the proffered glass of wine upon my arrival. John had apparently alerted his band mates to the need to ‘loosen me up’ before singing. I met Tony, the curly haired and dark eyed Italian drummer, who appeared alarmingly hyper, and Steve, the blond, blue-eyed and seemingly soulful bass player, who turned out to be a philosophy major from my university. Tony and John were diehard Beatles fans and obsessed with songs from Abbey Road. So we spent many long hours mastering tunes like Something in the Way She Moves, Polythene Pam and Here comes the Sun.

And in that space where we practiced, a cottage owned by John’s parents, I began to glimpse the kind of alchemy and intimacy that making music together bestows on people, who were, only recently, perfect strangers. John was the steady one, taking charge of practice and setting the pace. Tony was playful, given to tossing his curls around in manic drum solos, which I soon learned were partly related to the speed he ingested before practice. And Steve and I established a romantic relationship, much of it taking place after practice when we would stroll the beach and talk for hours, ending up with a steamy make out session. Privacy was woefully lacking in both of our living situations; in retrospect, maybe not such a bad thing.

But the genuine surprise was the depth of the bond the four of us developed that summer. We might arrive at practice sunburned and cranky, sometimes hung over, but when we started to play and sing, it was like completing an electrical circuit. Often we would lose all track of time as John struggled to perfect a riff, and I worked hard to tighten up my timing. It felt like we were zipped into a cocoon where only the four of us existed, and the enormous pleasure that came from getting a song to sound decent would spill over into whoops of triumph and bear hugs all around.

John had a friend who managed to get us an opening gig for a real band late in August and that evening was the culmination of our entire band summer. Nursing a bad case of nerves, I drank a couple of beers to take the edge off. When we stepped out from behind the mildewed curtain onto a tiny stage with very low light, the small audience, seeded with friends, was enthusiastic. I felt a surge of panic that receded the moment I opened my mouth and found my note. I was acutely aware of the receptivity in the faces that were only feet from mine and in this nondescript club, it felt like a conversation began that I had subconsciously longed to have. The thrill of performing for live bodies was intoxicating in quite a new way, and we were all sufficiently amped to continue practicing in hopes that other gigs would come. But things that happen in summer are as ephemeral and transient as the lightning bugs that dot the dark on balmy evenings and our little band did not reunite the next season or any thereafter.

Without the support of my band mates, singing was less a part of my life but whenever a guitar appeared, it still drew me like a magnet. On more than a few occasions I picked up an acoustic guitar and tried to decipher the mysteries of frets and chords, but I sorely lacked the coordination and discipline to master accompanying myself. While fine motor skills were never my forte, I had an almost savant like ability to memorize and mimic melodies, harmonies and lyrics, right down to the smallest inflections. Unlike visual artists who are trained to first master the rules in order to break them; my flirtation with music was gut level and emotional - hardly the stuff of which careers are made.

When some four years later I met the man who would become my husband, we promptly engaged in full disclosure regarding our musical pasts. Jose had also played in bands, he in Texas, during high school and college, and he trumped me by being paid in actual cash. We had each boogied to Houston’s Archie Bell and the Drells back when they recorded “Tighten Up” and that knowledge acted as a geographical bridge. Turned out he was a bass player – which had an amusing symmetry from my perspective. After marriage, graduate school, work, and then children took over our lives, outside of an occasional afternoon with the acoustic guitar, our musical flings were largely forgotten.

Until my husband’s fiftieth birthday party, that is. With a recently emptied nest, we decided to celebrate the event in grand style. Nodding to our new free agency status, I delegated to my guitar-loving little brother the task of selecting a shiny new instrument for Jose. The party was a smashing success, the seductive red guitar was “sweet” and the musical floodgates switched to the ON position. Additional guitars, amplifiers, sound systems and microphones began proliferating at an alarming rate in my son’s former bedroom. And since midlife bands don’t attract gorgeous young vocalists, I was pressed into service. At first the awkwardness of handling my thirty year old tambourine threatened to derail my long dormant aspirations, but gradually I began to enjoy our sessions with Jose, the lead guitar player (yet another Tony) and a drummer named Mark. When Jose proposed that my fiftieth include a gig at a local dive, at which I would get to sing a few songs, I showed up and plunged in. Our guests, ranging from seasoned rockers like ourselves down to little kids, tore up the dance floor and appeared to have an all around terrific time. Left that night with buzzing ears, and hopelessly sore feet from dancing in my heels, I was hooked once again.

One thing led to another and within months, I found myself en route to a large auditorium filled with hundreds of Jose’s coworkers for a midday gig. It was faculty convocation and the college administrators thought some classic rock would liven things up. In a stomach churning déjà vu experience, I was shot through with a mix of stage fright and excitement, which was producing heart zapping bursts of adrenaline. Luckily, our daughter Kate was our roadie/chauffeur and as I confided my growing angst, she took me firmly in hand. “Relax, Mom. Nobody really cares what you look like, how old you are or even how well you sing. If you just get up there and have fun, people will have a good time right along with you. So just sing your heart out.”

What a sage. Just as she predicted, when the music began, my nerves vanished and as we played, amazing things began to happen. People jumped to their feet, sang along and clapped and danced in the aisles. Jose, ever the impresario, had drafted folks to lob beach balls into the crowd and from the stage we laughed aloud as gray heads bobbed and arms stretched up to keep the striped balls moving across the hall. The hour and a half that had seemed so daunting earlier that day melted away all too swiftly and we were set to close with a slow song by Gwen Stefani, that demanded strong vocals. In practice I was hesitant to commit to singing it, knowing that if I blew it, this was not a crowd of strangers. But with a nod to Mark, who really loved the song, I took a deep breath and began.

I know I will never forget those three minutes for as long as I draw breath. Embracing Kate’s advice, I simply stood there and sang my heart out and in exchange I received little nuggets of pure joy. Moving through the audience afterwards, with people offering compliments, felt a bit surreal. But my blissful state was not about anyone’s reaction; rather it resulted from that loss of self that occurs when you give yourself over completely to something else. In losing my self-consciousness and laying aside the relentless activity of evaluation and comparison, I allowed myself the luxury of pure presence. It was like tumbling through a secret passageway into another place.

Almost without exception this has been our experience with every gig since that day. When you give yourself freely and fully to making music for people they respond in visceral ways. And the joy that we experience in our crazy little band is unique to each, yet shared by all. Just as it was back on Cape Cod, we sometimes grumble at practice, constrained by work, family pressures and job stress that can make getting together arduous. And just as in real life with wildly successful bands, there is always a certain amount of drama. People with enough ego to risk creating music together and then putting it out there for public consumption usually don’t lack strong opinions about what they do and don’t like. We have had our share of “artistic differences” and the sometimes bitchy behavior, reminiscent of about seventh grade, that the term implies.

Yet when we settle in and play, surprises abound. An improvised solo here, a quantum leap in a new song there; they lead once again to that place of pure and unexpected happiness. In the hours that we practice (often longer than planned, as a recent late night visit from a visibly amused police officer will attest) we shed family issues, physical problems and work together to produce something that satisfies us. For us children of the ‘50’s, making music in our fifties has been pure serendipity, a second chance to develop parts of ourselves necessarily submerged by early responsibilities.

We have now racked up a variety of gigs from campaign fund raisers to weddings to private parties. But in what has to be the sweetest of coincidences, we had an opportunity a while back to really step up our game. One of the guitarists who sometimes sits in to jam is a buddy of Archie Bell’s and casually mentioned that he had invited Archie to join us at an upcoming private party at a country club. We all exchanged skeptical glances, but allowed that this could be an interesting twist. When we arrived at the venue that night, to nobody’s surprise, there was no Archie Bell. But soon after we started, a portly figure in a blue polyester jump suit appeared. Instantly we broke into the Tighten Up and the looks of unfettered joy on the faces of my band mates mirrored my own as we chewed down on the fact that we were all about to play and sing with somebody who had topped the charts in our youth. Archie turned out to be an exceedingly generous and gracious guest star and as he and I harmonized on old standards like Broadway and Stand by Me, I turned to glance at my favorite bass player. It was a little bit like looking directly into the sun.

It took a while to come down after Archie. Yet it also helped me clarify that early fantasies of becoming a rock star were never totally about solo stardom for me. Rather, performing for others is really about camaraderie and communication. The non-verbal expressions we develop and share are a different and thrilling kind of language. As the vocalist, my challenge is using my voice, my body, and places deep in my soul to navigate some of the spaces between human hearts. Singing with the band, I can convey things that would be lost in translation on a page or even in spoken conversation. I never feel more vulnerable than when I sing – or more alive.

Every once in a while, Jose and I take stock, quizzing each other on whether it’s time to mothball our equipment or perhaps pass down his guitars to some of the talent now declaring itself in the next generation. Lugging heavy amps in the wee hours of the morning has increasingly less appeal. And then we remember how we feel after a practice or a gig – when we come home buzzing and wide awake and tuned into something vital that defies all rational description.. Not yet, we always conclude. That day will come, but not just yet.

And when I revisit my late night declaration, assuming far more talent than I ever actually had, I ask myself, “Do I really wish I had been a rock star?” Probably not. A long and satisfying marriage that includes a live in bass player, periods of soul feeding work, witnessing the surprises that unfold in the lives of adult children, my life is rich with near daily doses of small happinesses.

Yet, while driving down Montrose Boulevard on a recent sunny afternoon, I was seized once again with the ache of something still unrequited when the first notes of Layla caught my ear. Grabbing for the dial, I turned the volume up to levels associated with rebellious teens and felt my throat begin to constrict and my eyes film over as the song worked its way towards the soaring yet haunting piano solo, so familiar to all of us alive in that time. Flashbacks; joy, regret, a sweet longing and unnamed sorrow all converged in my chest as the song faded slowly into silence. I was both euphoric and spent.

What still happens for me in my lengthy and passionate affair with rock music and singing is hinted at in these lines from a poem by John Berryman, called Dream Song 14.



“After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,

we ourselves flash and yearn. “



Singing and playing…flashing and yearning.

Rock on.