Lori McKenna

One of the coolest women I know gave me the tickets. So, I traveled, what with depositing the kids at their reluctant grandmother’s house and then from there to the city where she was playing, about 6 hours in one day. I remember traveling this way for rock shows for work, and also for Dead shows. That Man met me there, after doing his own two and half hours on the road. He was late as always, but he was eager. Most men would not be so game. It’s a bonus for us both that his passion for music – and taste – equals mine. And I love her songs, and he knows that, and as it turns out, he loves what I love.

So we hooked up, two unencumbered grown-ups, in some town we had never been before and found ourselves in a standing-room-only crowd listening to Lori McKenna. Lori McKenna is the singer-songwriter, who of all the favorites that I have either worked with or worshipped, staked her claim in my heart and held on so tight that I will, even now, drive all that way just to see her. She is, after all, just a mom, like me – so if she can, I can.

People say she writes about all things “domestic” and to some degree, that’s true. It’s also a lazy critique. She is domestic (duh -- five kids, suburban Massachusetts housewife, married at 19), but to assume that every one of her songs is about that? It makes the domestic in me (who also married young, has three kids, lives in suburban Mass) close to crazy and downright offended. Listen like I have to every song she has written: this isn’t Cascade and Calgon -- this is poetry, plain and simple.

Just listen to “Falter” or “Pieces of Me” or “One Man” or “Swallows Me Whole” or “Ruby’s Shoes” or “Bible Song” or “How To Be Righteous” or “Monday Afternoon.” You’re a mom? You’ll hear yourself. A dad? You’ll hear yourself too. A human being? Yeah, she’s got something for you, too.

Her story is true and compelling, and so the publicist in me knows why it makes sense to talk about it. She finds a way with five kids and a high-school sweetheart husband in a small town like mine (yours?) to make music. She wears the same clothes as me. She loves Target like me. And somehow, when the time comes, she makes a space in her life to let her poems creep out.

After all the life I’ve lived (which so far has been quite massive frankly), this woman has the one thing I still want. It’s not her rock n’ roll life I covet – I’ve been there, I left that – it’s the balls she’s found to get up and tell it that I envy. So, it’s no surprise that when I feel compelled to explain or exclaim in words the way I do, it’s usually her singing in the background that I hear.

As the night in Northampton wound down, and after I hounded that poor woman for a picture of us both together (sickeningly embarrassing looking back), I remembered how much I missed that feeling, the one I had as a kid for the musicians who ultimately changed my life: Elvis Costello, The Cure, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Band, the Grateful Dead, Nirvana, The Jayhawks, Morphine, Wilco, Josh Rouse, Johnny Cash, Kristen Hersh.

God, I thought, here I am all kinda grown up, and still laid down like a kid by a great song and a guitar -- and loving it. When she hauled her own equipment out the door, in an old sweatshirt zipped over her sexy top, and flung that stuff into the back of her minivan (!!), I was sold for good.

When it was time to go, I held my husband’s hand so I could yank off the too-cool-sneakers that were blistering my feet and walked home barefoot to a hotel where we would spend the night without our kids, her music still echoing in our ears, our beer-buzz lingering like the one we had when we were teenagers falling in love.

It occurred to me then that nothing changes that much after all. What you loved when you were little, you’ll probably love when you’re old. I haunted record stores once; now I plunder ITunes. I have always loved music and songs, and well, not to be sappy, but I have always loved him too, and I still do.

And I love Lori McKenna.

I Don't Want To Stay Here

As in, “Mama, mommy, ma – Idunnawannastayheeere!”

This has been the perpetual complaint, the perpetual wail in fact, of the Giant Three Year Old today. Apparently, time alone with me has lost its luster for him. His sisters were both out with friends; one will even be gone until morning on a sleepover. The extent of his adventures were a couple of neighborhood visits and a trip to the library. Apparently, it wasn’t enough. My face and this place are intolerable for him now.

(Just ask the neighbors: they were victim to his vocal opinion most of the day. I am grateful to live on a street where this nonsense passes with some sympathy. Afterall, the sight of me chasing the screaming wailing kid down the sidewalk, screaming “Idunnawannastayheeere!” might have alerted the authorities in some ‘hoods.)

His displeasure is nothing new really. In the past, he has found our car to be insufficient. He would prefer any giant truck, and since I would prefer a Mini Cooper, I feel his pain. Our house has also not met his needs – it is “old” he says, which is true, more than 100 years old in fact, but I think by old he is not expressing his genius in antique architecture, but instead implying that hanging out within these walls is passé. He’s over it.

He is a classic third child. He was born into a house of siblings – they were barely three and four when he was born – so naturally, he has grown up used to the constant presence of people in his life. As a result, he alternates between loving the game-playing and chatter of us and wanting to escape from it all. When the girls were home only three days after the end of school, he implored, “Why are they still here?”. Now, five weeks later, it destroys him when they leave.

He’s my riddle, such a funny joke, and I never know what to do or what to make of him. He can play for hours making voices for a million inanimate objects alone and wanting no one, or switch to the raging social monster of today, incapable of finding anything worthwhile that involves being here, alone with me or himself.

“Idunnawannastayheeere!”

That Man suggests a nap for him, which almost makes me choke on my ice coffee. I have considered locks on his door and used a host of bribes, but for the last few months that Big Boy will only snooze when we are in the car, about ten minutes away from Target or the grocery store or wherever it is that I cannot legally or ethically let him stay alone. Since I do prefer him alive actually and would rather not be splashed across the front page of the Globe or in jail, I haul his half-asleep ass out and carry on.

(Still, don’t you believe the world would think more kindly of the parent who left her sleeping baby or toddler outside the grocery store than the one who left her kid outside the Casino? Neither is good people, I get that. But c’mon: priorities.)

I digress, and that’s a good thing (and the strange and welcome benefit of writing it all down…)

I concluded this wretched day the way… well, maybe not the way some Professional Mother would, but the way I would. I threw some ravioli in a bowl and sent him to watch TV in another room. His eyes were still puffy from his most recent distress (having to leave the neighbors at 6:00pm – late by any standards I think) but he was quiet. In that moment, he was the beautiful green-eyed, long-haired, long-lashed hunk of a Giant Three Year Old that I love. He said “sanks Mom” for the grub, sniffled, and then squeezed my leg. It wasn’t quite sorry, but for now, with him gone and not screaming in my ear, I’ll take it.

I don’t care if he spills the food or if he eats any of it. Also, if he returns, food uneaten and whining for ice cream, I will, just for today, give it to him.

Sue me. I don’t fucking care, because today, after this day and the way I feel now, when I don’t really want to be here either, his ice cream eating might buy me the ten minutes I’ll need – to breathe, to remember he’s just three, to remember he is the last baby I will ever have.

It’ll be the ten minutes I need to find my way back to loving this shit.

She's Old Afterall

I planned to post something different, but because it's my sisters birthday, I will delay the egomania.

She has always hated my poetry ("can't you write something happy?" she says) and would probably prefer a new pair of shoes.

Anyhoo, no shoes, but happy I hope, and Happy Birthday nonetheless:

Sister:

When I was little
I watched you
walking behind you:
how you moved,
how people looked at you.
I haunted your room
when you lived there
and more after
you left.

It’s not so simple, leaving.

I still can’t talk back to you
the way I want to
but I won’t take a dime
for a message now
or be conned into a backrub either.

My secrets,
for them you are insatiable.
But yours are all locked up
and nothing I do or say
will change it either way.

I am all grown up,
like you,
with no one to push around,
or tell on,
or teach.

There are myths
that people make up.
But mostly:
it just hurts sometimes
to be part of a family.

You taught me that.

It’s just a little bit
that a little sister
can say or do.
What you expect from me
and when the mood strikes
get from me --

A good song, a cheerful voice,
and the proof that we are all
okay.

Bombs Bursting

Catching up after That Man was home for FIVE WHOLE DAYS over the Fourth, which was great, a culture shock in some ways, but ultimately, really nice for us all. Lots of family beach outings ensued, and soccer in the back yard and movies, and That Man being helpful with all things domestic. But lest you think me/us perfect in some, um, perfect kind of way, there was also much boozing that kept the grown-ups laughing and carrying-on. And there were fireworks. Which I chatted through.

So now life is back to post-holiday normal, and by that, I mean messy house, less than nutritious dinners, a whining three year old and That Man gone again on a business trip.

Did I mention that I have forgone camps this summer? The notion started one crabby morning at the end of the school year, when lying in bed, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to go nowhere today? Wouldn’t it be nice to do nothing?”

(Note to future self: not ALL thoughts are meant to be acted upon.)

But the notion hung on (and the bank account confirmed) and so the mantra “no camps will be good for us all” remained the mantra. My kids want to be with me most of the time, after all, so until they don’t, let’s go for it. Let’s spend some time without distraction. I’ll practice what I have preached too often: kids need to learn how to play – with nothing, with grass, or dirt, or a pad of paper and some tape.

It is grand ideas like these that make one realize how much bigger the word “practice” is than “preach”.

So... I find sneaky ways amidst the not so gentle admonitions of “I am not here to entertain you, remember?” to get my proverbial ya-yas out. My glue gun works wonders with fabric (I can’t sew), so after trips (with all three kids – fun!!) to FancyPants textile store ($109 a yard?? who buys that?) and Wal-Mart (with a trip to the pool along the way), I get my voila! I also get some burned fingered tips, but the two-day transformation is complete -- apparently only for me, as no one said a word about the living room re-do. But that’s beside the point.

The brussel sprouts, given to me by Annie in tiny 2-inch pots, are gigantic now — a not-so-subtle reminder that summer is underway and maybe even passing faster than we think, but mostly an awesome architectural feature in the garden. Which needs weeding and pruning. Maybe tomorrow.

Right now I need to disinfect the musty towels, gather up all the toys and garbage and what-not that is splattered across my driveway, remind my son not to pee in the trash can (wicker one, no less), empty the dishwasher, fill it up again and see if I can find two kids’ shoes that match.

And figure out what to do tomorrow.

Goodbye to Anger

I wrote this, and I need to be done with it.

Anger:

Rage is such a silent thing
most of the time.

But inside the blood and guts,
the tissue and bone,
of every good decent human being
rage looms.

It’s a threat of a threat,
and a chance that the chance might come
to take over: become
an attack
a scream
a thrust of some violent words or
fists or who knows what.

The urge bows down at the feet of our humanity.
It only needs one lazy toe
to let go.

You fuckinloudmouthedbitch
justshutup.

For instance.

>>>>>>>>

I wrote that desperately.

I am less desperate now, for reasons that partly include this place: it has never been a bad idea to write "it" down.

So the anger is becoming an old friend and like all old friends, it feels funny to let go, but I do.

(Not funny ha-ha, like the Gigantic Three year old who, newly-potty trained opened up the front door of our house, dropped trou and pissed all over the steps for every neighbor to see. Not funny in that way.)

By funny, I mean the funny that happens when you sit up and see how fruitless all your anger has been. That kind of funny, as in -- wait, that was wierd: I wasted so much time.

So guhbye to that. Buh - bye. See ya. So long. Bye.