memories

Open Thank You Letter to the Dixie Chicks

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Natalie Maines.

Emily Robison.

Martie Maguire.

Three women I have never met yet who were instrumental in my survival during some dark days in my marriage and life.  Their voices and words from three albums in particular – Wide Open Spaces, Fly, Home – were on constant repeat mode in my iPod with my headphones plastered to my ears for nearly a year or longer back in late 2002 and all of 2003.

IMHO, Marriage is a journey with two people who at the base of their relationship love each other in such a profound way as to commit to share the rest of their lives together.  Sometimes the journey takes the couple to exotic locations where their minds and bodies become like intensely familiar entities who have been connected long before they met in this life.  Other times, the road darkens and couples get separated and lost in a dense jungle of terrifying emotion and doubt.  Mostly, I have discovered, the path is more like a hike up a favorite mountain trail – a bit rocky and steep at points but with long stretches of open terrain where we simply walk together holding hands, and now, leading our family.

It was during one of our trips to what seemed like the deepest part of the Congo where even breathing was difficult that I discovered the Dixie Chicks.  I had not previously listened to them, but heard a song on the radio and knew they understood what I was feeling.  So I bought the CDs in quick succession and played them over and over again alternately weeping, singing at the top of my lungs alone in the car, and dancing with my children in the living room.

It was as if their music was sent to me specifically at that time as an outlet for all of the unexplainable emotions my heart was breaking from.  They let me sing with them even though I had no idea how to join in a harmony or even match their melody.  When I sang with the Dixie Chicks, I was singing pure emotion and it was perfect.

I was reminded of this time in my life when I recently rediscovered my long forgotten, battery impaired iPod.

I was also sent others in this sisterhood who were not abstract voices purchased at the music store, but real women who had been to similar jungles, loved and survived their own harrowing trips and clung to my side, holding me up until I once again believed I could stand on my own.

I am still married and am grateful for it. I love my husband and am so glad we both decided to come out of the jungles together to proceed on our trek through some wondrous countryside that we might have missed had we given up.

I am, also, grateful for all of these women, their voices, and my ability to join them in this life.  I continue to meet more amazing women who share my joys, struggles and general love of the whole spectacular rave.

‘Cuz some days you gotta dance…

The things I don’t say, stay with me the longest

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I have forgotten what I have said in more conversations I have had with other people than I probably have hairs on my head. And not just the simple conversations where I talk with the checkout clerk at the grocery store or miscellaneous ones with my girlfriends in times of venting. Many important discussions that effected my life, marriage and/or children have all more or less escaped me once completed and resolved.

I don’t remember having a conversation with my friend in which I agreed that we should both transfer out of the schools we were going to and get an apartment together at University of North Texas where I not only eventually graduated, but met my husband. With the exception of my last career move, I don’t remember any of the times I quit jobs and only remember snippets of the interviews that got me there. I must have said something memorable, because I left on good terms with all of my employers and was hired after each interview. I have only the foggiest memory of the discussion with my husband to move back home from New York, but we must have because here we are in Texas.

I am getting more used to the randomness of my brain’s storage when it comes to memories, but I cannot seem to escape the loop I put myself in when I chose to NOT say something out loud when necessary. The conversations I have in my head with the various people that connect with me in this life do not seem to want to fade away like the ones where I actually said what was on my mind do. The questions I want to ask but never utter a sound out of my place of power stay around like angry graffiti able to survive a fierce power wash. All of the times I have refrained from speaking my truth linger in the not-to-distant background of my daily interactions and relationships.

It is not to late to begin living in the truth by using the voice I have so often suppressed.

“Please don’t make fun of me.”

“I would rather not have this discussion.”

“I cannot help you.”

“Do you still love me?”

“I am a good person and this doesn’t change that.”

“No formula.”

“Yes, I can.”

“This is not okay with me.”

“Would you please just stop bitching about everything?”

“No.”

“Why would you say something like that to me?”

“Please leave.”

“Please stay.”

“I am leaving.”

“I am staying.”

“For God’s sake – put your blinker on and don’t use a dish towel as a napkin!”

“I love you.”

There’s a good start…now I’ll have to test my atrophied vocal cords in real time…

Cliches, Asteroids and Hairy Knees

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Cliches are easy to remember but snobbishly frowned upon. The overuse of cliches could be the mark of incompetence. However, there are days when cliches and the embellishment of them are still the perfect way to express how a person feels. And often, all I can remember.

Sitting duck.

Caught between a rock and a hard place.

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Combine those all together and you have me, this morning. Maybe things weren’t all that bad, but I have a uniquely un-unique ability to let some moments in time feel as though that is all the time there is and the intensity becomes overwhelming.

This ability is a blessing when looking into the waking brown eyes of my daughter and knowing absolutely that she has somehow always been a part of me. Or holding hands with my son as he grows feeling a connection that has been around a lot longer than his eight and a half years on earth.

It’s not so great when you have a deadline to meet – a self imposed one, I might add – while trying to accommodate at least four different opinions. A span of thirty minutes morphs into a light-year’s journey of a wayward asteroid careening dangerously close to a black hole. The white hot intensity of the barreling ball of fire burns the memory directly onto whatever cortex of the brain that will allow me to recall these thirty minutes twenty years from now without effort.

Like when I was ten and we were living in Zionsville, Indiana and some boy made fun of the hair on my legs. That was thirty years ago and I can still clearly see my blue knee socks that didn’t actually cover my knees, thinking they had masterfully hidden all of my shameful hair. I can feel the cold metal of the doorknob of our front door that I was holding onto with my tight gripped yet tiny, sweaty hand trying not cry out in agony and embarrassment. I can even almost pinpoint the scent of the spring air bordering on the hot side of warm with a hint of rain.

And, yet, when I try to create moments of bliss that burn into my soul in the same way, I am not nearly as successful. My first kiss is totally lost to me (as is the boy’s name). My wedding day is pretty much a blur except for continually asking if my soon-to-be husband had actually shown up. I remember more the struggle of nursing our kids, not the awe and wonder I’ve heard so much about. The day my marriage almost ended is more vivid than the day he proposed.

I have spent countless hours in my head trying to manufacture the perfect, joyous moment in time that will never leave me but the ones I have I are completely random. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to trade my haphazard collection of happy moments – the warmth of my baby daughter sleeping on my chest; my son’s tiny, miraculous feet; the exact moment in time when I realized I loved the man who is my husband; or the first cognizant mental rush at getting to perform in a play even though I’d been on stage before.

I just remember more sitting as a duck in the rock place damning myself while getting stronger.

And the hairy knees.