Muchness and Light

A million lights are dancing, and you are a shooting star.

As I wrote about a few weeks, I have been seeing someone new. I won’t wax poetic here; it’s simply too early to exalt him to the status of Blog Fodder, in and of himself. I hadn’t necessarily intended to get into a relationship—though maybe it’s still too early to even call it that—while also trying to work on my own stuff, much of which was highlighted and exacerbated by the ending of my relationship with Rango. But the fact is he presented as an opportunity worth exploring while I was beginning the process of self-reintegration.

Whether coincidental or due to some meaning I have assigned (or even thanks to that fickle bitch Fate), there are things about him that remind me strongly of Bounder. He is not another alcoholic, though he may well be overcoming a history as a dismissive-avoidant. He is not Bounder, however, and it is unfair of me to make direct comparisons. They are two different men, with different histories and stories, but there are moments that are striking, to say the least.

Because of this thing with Finn (so named because he is my huckleberry) and because of the end with Rango and because I sometimes pass him driving on the road between our houses, Bounder has been on my mind a lot. A lot a lot. It makes sense that he would be, but it set me off on a path of re-analysis and overthinking (again). I think I’ve dissected that relationship for the millionth time over the last few weeks, still looking for where exactly I went wrong. Because his shit is his shit—I can’t control how he acts or reacts or fails to act—all I can do is try to figure out what I screwed up. He told me numerous times that it wasn’t me, and I generally believe that, but I always dissect to the point of vivisection, flaying myself to a bloody, psychoanalyzed mess.

I do remember getting a text from him, a couple of days after we’d met. He said he was glad we could take things nice and slow. Except we didn’t. We started intensely, quickly, and that’s exactly how it continued. Within two hours of that text, I was making out with him in the parking lot of his office, a quick drive-by on my way home.

And that is where I failed him. Hurricane Sassafras was coming, no matter what he did. I didn’t really hear him and slow down. It wasn’t terribly caring on my part, no matter how unintentional the push was.

Finn also said he wanted to go slowly, I have tried to honor that. I have tried to dial back my impulses to forge full-steam into his world. There is something there worth exploring, and I don’t want to do it all in hindsight.

Which brings me back to Bounder.

Working within the IFS model, I have become very mindful of my feelings. I don’t just mean my emotions. When I feel something—anger, grief, sadness, longing, affection, attraction, love—I take note of where in my body I am processing the emotion. There is usually a physical locus of that energy. Because my strongest emotions are often tied up with what a subpersonality is processing in a given moment, I feel them in different places, which is effectively where each of those subparts resides. Harley and Quinn and Stephie and each of the others sits in a specific spot and pulls on my center from her point of reference. When I feel a subpart whose name I don’t know (who maybe I didn’t even realize existed) pull at my center, the emotional and physical feelings are often coupled with anxiety.

Because there has been so much thought of Bounder over the last few days and weeks, my anxiety has been really high at times. It has often felt like a pull from the right of my stomach. Sometimes it has been so bad that I would get nauseated and irritable, desperate to make the pain stop.

“What is that she’s feeling?” my therapist asked. “She may just want you to acknowledge her feelings. Can you tell what she wants?”

“She wants relief,” I replied. “She is hurt and angry and confused. She doesn’t understand how anyone could have something so precious as that kind of love in their damn hand and just walk away. It makes no sense, and it’s infuriating.”

This, of course, is wholly indicative of my fear of emotional abandonment. While that’s rooted deeply in my childhood, the feelings of hurt and betrayal and confusion are never more profound than when I think of Bounder. While I’m still angry at Rango for how he handled the boys during our break-up, I have dealt with my feelings toward him, kept what I needed to keep and shed the rest. Same for DH and Rex and others whose names and memories don’t really matter or impact me all that much anymore.

I explained to my therapist that the feelings are seated in this very specific location, that they can be overwhelming at times. And when I am most overwhelmed by something, I tend to dive into it head first, hoping to reach the bottom quickly and resurface cleansed.

But that never seems to happen with him, and I am forever in a loop of self-flagellation.

“Well,” she said, “first of all, she needs to know that you are simply witnessing the trauma again, a memory of it; it’s not actually happening again. You’re not being traumatized again.”

Okay. Just a ghost. Not real. Not happening now.

“And,” she continued, “she doesn’t have to feel that anymore. You don’t have to feel that anymore. That’s a lot of burden to have been carrying around for so long. She can let it go. You can let it go. Let the elements have it—they can take it—they can take a lot more than that. But she doesn’t have to feel that anymore.”

Wait—WHAT?!?

Even I could tell that my facial expression shifted in that moment. I was stunned, utterly baffled by the idea that it was okay not to keep feeling those emotions over and over, effectively retraumatizing myself every time. I have dealt with it repeatedly, and there is no healthy in dragging the futility of it all around, night after night.

And it makes sense. I had stopped feeling similar things for others long ago, in a healthy timeframe and in healthy ways. Why is he so special that I should continue to carry that burden?

In part, I think, it’s because he wouldn’t. Part of what happens during the emotional abandonment is that I’m left to feel whatever with no support, and I’m the only one feeling it. Maybe the other person is feeling something, but it never seems to be anywhere close to what I’m feeling, especially when the other person is a dismissive-avoidant who is so well-versed in compartmentalizing emotions away to protect themselves.

I have often railed against feeling like I was carrying it for both of us, because that was sometimes the only way to prove that the thing had ever happened, with no acknowledgement of grief coming from the other person. I am sure Bounder felt it in the darkest of times, but I know that he never faced me to tell me he was sorry for hurting me. His not acknowledging me and the hurt he created, his ignoring of me when he damn well knew it was the worst possible way to hurt me, made me feel worthless, especially to him. But that flew in the face of his telling me he loved me, of his moments of showing me deep, incredible love, and I could never reconcile the conflict of extremes no matter how much I psychologized him and myself.

But to think, to realize, that I don’t have to do that was foundationally shifting. I could feel the anxiety and the tension to the right of my stomach abate immediately. There was a deep sense of relief. She’s there, and she’s a little antsy about what she’s supposed to do now. If her job was to hold all that baggage, what is she going to do now that still allows her to be of use to the Self?

I had a dream once while Bounder and I were dating, one of those lucid nap dreams. I was standing outside a tall, wide, stone tower, trying to figure out how to get inside. I could hear a knocking from the inside, and I needed to let whomever was in there out. As I looked more, I realized the tower was his face, the details of his mouth and eyes and brows built from each brick. I climbed some scaffolding and began to chip away at this one high, white stone. It was the speck of light in his left eye.

Months later, he told me that I’d been like this force knocking on his walls, over and over and over, until he eventually poked his head out enough to see what was in the light.

I let light back into his darkness, and somehow that wasn’t worth staying for. And it’s not that I wasn’t worth it; it’s that he didn’t see himself as worth me. So convinced that he would hurt me in the end, he made it happen, pushing me unaware into the dark pool so that I felt like I would drown before I could resurface.

But in the same way I did it for him, I must do it for myself. I get to be the disco ball for myself, to reflect light and shine it brilliantly into my own dark corners. Disorienting and distracting at first, yes, but eventually it becomes a beautiful swirl worthy of dancing.

It is odd, a little unsettling, to think of life without the possibility of him. I gave up the possibility of him as a romantic partner long ago. Our life goals are different, and he would never be able to consistently meet my needs. But he was always this driving force of emotion and thought, even when we weren’t together, sometimes in contact and sometimes not. Music, in particular, became a daunting prospect for me, because everything could remind me of him.

And that’s her job now, that’s what she is supposed to do, to dance. She is lightened of her load. And she gets to pick the music she wants to dance to. She’s not trapped by the years-long playlists of Bounder songs. She doesn’t have to be afraid of hearing one of them in the grocery store and bursting into tears. She doesn’t have to listen for him in every new song. She can move freely again, not weighed down by his burden or mine. She can find the path that she lost, can move toward light and laughter and love, because she deserves that.

This wasn’t her fault.

And if we pass him on the road again? I don’t know. I could feel something; I could not. I may well never see him again. I’m not going to dwell on what might happen. Now I have different roads to explore and a different Stephanie to discover.

And there is dancing to be done.

 

 

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Let's have a disco ball, and let's be happy.

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And a place in your heart, dear, makes me feel more real.

Last week, I was walking and listening to music, as I’m prone to do. I’ve been walking again a lot lately, both to try to lose the weight I regained over the last couple of years and to clear my head a bit. The last few weeks have seen a lot of processing about everything going on in therapy. I admit to there being a lot of overthinking, as well.

I was listening to the new Mynabirds record, Be Here Now. Their first two records were especially poignant for me during and after my divorce. I hadn’t had a chance to hear this one, so it seemed a great choice for a three-mile walk on a lovely autumn evening. The record is quite good, and I added several tracks to various playlists, as I’m also prone to do. But something—and I can’t be sure what—in the song “Wild Hearts” set me off. It’s as lyrically fantastic as any other song Laura Burhenn has written, but something sent me spiraling toward epiphany.

As I’ve said before, the goal of the Internal Family Systems model of therapy is to reintegrate the subpersonalities that are formed as the result of traumatic events. No matter how dysfunctional their behavior may (or may not!) be, my subparts are trying their best to protect me from hurt and further damage. Some have very simple roles, while others are complex and nuanced in their approach to what they see as their role. They are such an integral part of me that I don’t always notice when one subpersonality is controlling in a situation. (Just think about any time you’ve ever gone off and yelled at someone, had a full-blown tantrum, maybe not even realizing how out of control you are until the moment passes and you’re able to reflect on it rationally. You were always you. You always knew you were you. You were just… not really yourself in that moment.) This part of my journey ends when each subpart is reconnected fully with my Self, which is able to make healthy choices without the need to call on the managers or the firefighters to protect the exiles, perpetually trapped by a moment of trauma.

As I was walking and listening, I had the realization that there is another subpersonality I hadn’t noticed before. In my mind, she looks like a child, though she isn’t. I tried to reach out to her and let her tell me about herself, having an internal dialogue with this deep part of myself. I realized the others had crafted her, had created her from their own bits and pieces. She knows everything each of the other subpersonalities knows, though they don’t each know everything she knows. She acts as sentry for Cissie, a strong last line of defense of the exile, able to protect her (and thus me) with the full knowledge of every other manager and firefighter subpart.

Every time a subpart experienced any kind of extreme emotion, it was transferred onto Pearl. Layer upon layer of hurt and damage, of ecstasy and deep love, grief and agony, irrepressible joy and unflagging hope—all built up slowly to create their own scapegoat, much in the way I created them.

And if I created them and they created her….

Yeah.

Pearl is, essentially, my muchness.

She is the figurative embodiment of everything I’ve lived for the last seven years. She is the angry rebellion against being shoved into a box and denied reciprocal affection. She is the wild abandon that led to not-always-healthy choices. She is the late-night drives with the windows down and the same song blaring for thirty miles. She is the trail of glitter left in my wake. She is the frustration at loving someone so much and not being able to be any more entwined with them.

She is the shame that comes from needing so badly to be loved. She is the uncontrollable, make-me-shake-with-the-sick-of-it-all fear of being emotionally abandoned. She is the overwhelming sorrow from not being able to think of one more thing, the just-the-right thing, to prove that I was worth their love.

Pearl takes those hits, because even the others aren’t always capable of doing it. So they—I—created her, coating both good and bad carefully on an amorphous form disguised as innocence. At the center of it all is the exact hurt and shame that they all fight like hell to protect Cissie from.

Even in the depths of my fucked-up psyche, I tried to make something beautiful from something ugly.

Queen Frostine and I talked at length about it all, as we are prone to do. She was surprised to realize how much of what I do is tied up with self-protection.

“All these things I think about when I think of you, I always just thought of them as personality traits. Now I’m seeing that they’re defense mechanisms, and that is so fucking weird to see.”

And it’s not just the unhealthier traits, like redrawing personal boundaries to accommodate men who refuse to do the same for me. It’s also the gregarious and seemingly-healthy ones, like my openness and willingness to put all of me out there no matter what others think.

Pearl came about as a last line of defense. She’s the general behind my own enemy lines, telling everyone else what to do. And she mimics my voice so well that I let her be in charge.

But she’s not the one who’s supposed to be in charge—I am. I’m the one who gets to make the decisions about what’s best for me, for us. I can have an internal dialogue with these persona, assigned by me as a way to catalog and contain my emotions, to make sense of it all.

The irony is that in dividing myself into these intricate parts, I have compartmentalized my own emotions, segmenting them and locking them away until I’m ready to deal with them—the very thing I hate most when others do it to me. To be ignored, to be dismissed, to be relegated to the dark and dusty recesses of someone’s heart until such time as I am convenient is enraging to me.

But I’m doing it to myself.

It’s time to let them out of their boxes, to remove the walls of compartment and allow them to wander free, talking to each other and to me. It’s time to let them out into the light and the fresh air, to experience my life fully and mindfully, able to see more than the limited view from the bottom of a box.

 

 

 

What a beautiful mess.

I've been caught in a loop in my head for the last few days.  There's nothing new about that, honestly, but my heart has been especially unrelenting.

There's a lot going on right now.  Some days there are so many balls in the air that even a well-practiced juggler would have trouble keeping track of them all.  And if the actual logistics of my life weren't difficult enough, there is still my shredded heart to contend with.

Tomorrow is October 17^th.  That doesn't mean much, except that I have tickets for a concert.  Hunter Hayes at the Fox Theatre. 

Oh hell.

I have historically loathed country music, but something with that shifted in the summer, directly because of my relationship with Bounder.  I fought the twang as hard and long as I could, but when the man sang (quite off-key, mind you) country songs and danced to said songs with me on my deck in the middle of the night, it was hard not to get caught up in the emotional sap.  A couple of songs in particular became stupidly poignant—Jake Owens' "Anywhere With You" and Hunter Hayes' "I Want Crazy"—and they always seemed to start playing at just the right moment.

When tickets went on sale for Hunter Hayes at the Fox, I bought the tickets and immediately texted Bounder:

October 17^th.  I have plans.

You have an invitation to join me.

You are a brat.

Apparently he was about to buy the tickets himself when the text came through.  They were intended to be for our collective birthdays, which were just days apart at the end of the summer. 

"I'll give you your ticket," I told him.  "Just in case."

"Just in case we break up again," he replied, laughing in the dark on the deck that weekend, in the middle of the summer solstice.  "We'll meet up—"

"—at the show—"

"—October seventeenth."

Oh hell.

So here we are, and I have no idea what to do.  From the night we met, and then at every turn, there was a strange sense of Fate shoving us together.  Typhoon Bounder collided with Hurricane Sassafras in weirdly tragic, romantic perfection.  And every time we think it's over, something else happens that forces us into each other's orbit.  (Fate, you really are a raging bitch.)

We seem constantly drawn back to this place of choice to make, of some junkture in our path.  Is this the place of Fate (divine intervention) or fate (because of choices we've made)?

There are four primary scenarios:

1. I go to the Fox, and he doesn't show.  (In which case I will leave, because I can't see it with anyone but him.)
2. He goes to the Fox, and I don't show up.  (Like doing your homework the night before a possible snow day.)
3. Neither of us shows up, and we never know if the other did.
4. We both show up, which creates a whole new branch of this flow chart of possibilities.

Queen Frostine feels strongly that I should skip it completely.  Her position is that I have come so far (so she says) in getting over this man, that to open myself up to even a moment of heartache again has the potential to set me back.  She says I'm better, that I've shown progress in moving on, but it's hard for me to see it.  A step or two forward, maybe, but mostly I feel like I've stumbled ahead and am still trying to get up from this path with a skinned knee. 

No matter what I do, it will hurt.  My heart will ache, and I will still miss him.  I don't know that I ever won't.  I can remember feeling that way about other men, and I did eventually find a way to move on, given enough time.  But if the time to heal (as best as possible) is proportionate to the depth of emotion felt for another, it will take a damn long time to get over this one completely. 

I loved Bounder.  Deeply.  Maybe more than I've ever loved anyone besides my children.  I still love him and likely always will.  He is never not there, whether in my heart or my thoughts or my dreams.  Most days are okay, but some are hard as hell, when there's a reminder at every damn turn and I can feel him so intensely.  And the nights can be brutal.

No matter how I feel, there are substantial issues with us.  The perfect storm is at times decimating in its cleansing of our worlds.  As beautiful as the lightning is, it sometimes strikes too close and sets the underbrush afire.  Maybe it's just destructive, and maybe it was needed to clear away the dead wood and allow for new growth.  Either way, neither of us will ever be the same again. 

The thought of standing in that darkened theater, listening to those love songs that seemed to mimic our hearts, is terrifyingly beautiful, whether it's with or without him.  Something ingrained in me can't help but love the tragic romance of it all.  But love is not a love song.  My heart will still be racing and aching when the three-minute swell is over.  I just don't know if it'll be dancing with him in the dark. 

I've searched the world and I know now it ain't right if you ain't lost your mind.

For most of my life, I have fought country music, kicking and screaming. 

I grew up in a suburb of Birmingham near my paternal grandparents.  Deeply in love for their 50+ years together, they would notoriously sing old country songs to each other as they went about their day.  Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Kitty Wells... they were all a part of my extended family's soundtrack—sung in either of my grandparents' voices.  As the 70s and 80s merged together, Hee Haw and (the band) Alabama became staples of our life. 

As I started to experiment with my own musical tastes—breaking away from my parents' influence of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan and Billy Joel—I realized there was much more to music than what my mom and dad played in the car or stacked on the turntable at home.  By the time I got into high school, I was solidly entrenched in the Violent Femmes and the Doors and my beloved Concrete Blonde. 

But being in the South, country music was everywhere.  For years it seemed to be the go-to for rednecks and hicks; there was nothing redeeming in that genre as far as I was concerned.  Years later I would see the brilliance of Johnny Cash and Lyle Lovett and early Dolly Parton.  For the most part, though, modern country was just irritating.

As I so often do with new acquaintances, I asked Bounder what his favorite music was, just moments into our first real conversation. 

"Class rock," he answered.  "I love AC/DC.  Nineties alternative.  Lately I've been listening to a lot of country, though."

Oh hell.

For the same reason I loathe most pop music, I hate the simplicity of most country music.  I know there are notable exceptions, but the majority of it seems guileless and naive.  There's nothing special or complex lurking behind the twang and it usually just grates on my damn nerves. 

Like me, Bounder is a hopeless romantic, and there's a soundtrack to his own life.  This is, after all, the man who introduced me to the Clarks, whom I'd somehow never heard and instantly loved.  In fact, within days of our initial meeting, I created what would become the first of the Bounder playlists on Spotify. 

Fast forward to a month ago, when he and I decided to see each other again.  We started playing a game of I'll-play-you-mine-if-you-play-me-yours, in which we would play each other some stupidly appropriate song.  He tried for a while to stick to songs I would probably like.  The more esoteric I became, though, the more likely he was to play some twanging track while I grimaced and tried to downplay its poignancy.

There is nothing like a man who will dance with you and sing to you, off-key as hell, in the middle of the night on the deck.  Even if it's a country song.

A couple of weeks ago, I told the boys I had plans for a concert in October. 

"It's at the Fox," I said.  "It's a country show."

My 12-year-old stared at me.  "Who are you, and what have you done with my mother?"

Not only that, I added two country stations to the FM2 presets on my car radio.  Supposedly it was so that Bounder could find the stations easily when he was in my car.  In reality I find myself hitting those buttons way more often than I intend.

Last week, I realized I was driving my brother's truck while singing Blake Shelton's "Boys 'Round Here", a.k.a. the chew-tobacco-chew-tobacco-chew-tobacco-spit song. 

StephQJ driving a truck!

I find myself combing through country songs now, trying to find a new one that says something to me.  I'm also going back to rock and indie and alternative artists with their roots in country—Chris Isaak, the Mynabirds, Amy Stroup.  There is something solid in those roots, something that speaks to the basics of emotion that I'd rather hear with a twang than with a 120-beats-per-minute synth drum.

But there is sometimes this simplicity that just fits, that describes a moment or a feeling in a direct way that the rock and alternative I so love can never quite handle.  Hunter Hayes will never replace Greg Dulli, and Jake Owen comes nowhere close to doing for me what the Gracious Few or LIVE can... but I will be seeing him in October in Atlanta no matter what.  With Bounder.  To hear (godIcan'tbelieveI'msayingthis) our song. 

I may be getting sappy, but I'm totally still oozing glitter. 

 

I know they're watching, they're watching.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I'm often ignored by men when I go out, perhaps because I'm a bit intimidating.  It was hard for me to understand, even fully aware of my Amazonian brashness. 

The last couple of weeks, I've had some really profound experiences, where I fell back on my grown-ass-womanness and went out, either by myself or with the girls.  It turned out that not all men (or women) were so quick to ignore me. 

It started with a weekend of intense (if private) exploration of the kind I love the most, where I'm able to really delve into whatever has attracted me and seek that deep understanding I so love.  I went out by myself and found that not only was I capable of doing it, I was readily able to find enjoyment in that selfness.  I was utterly in control of my head, my heart, my body, and my choices—and I was quite content in that. 

The Girls

The girls—Hot Pocket, Growler, and Boogie Shoes—came into town this past weekend for what we cheekily named Stripper Weekend. 

Originally, we'd planned to strip wallpaper at my house—with steamers, scrapers, scorers, and the like—though Hot Pocket jokingly suggested we hire some hot, male strippers (or Cupid37) to do it while we watched.  We also talked of going to the Clermont Lounge for disco funk dancing on Saturday night. 

In the end, we saw no actual strippers, though we did get to see a shirtless guy while another guy took his shoe off just for us.  (That was Yahtzee, who was very sweet and brave to play along with the crazy of the inner circle.)  We also laughed and squealed and danced our damn asses off all weekend.   We never stripped a piece of wallpaper, nor did we get to the Clermont.  We did, however, hit Metalsome Live Metal Karaoke, The Basement Theatre, and Johnny's Hideaway. 

I was by no means the only one, but I got a lot of attention this weekend.  Really, almost more than I could stand.  Men and women looked, smiled, talked, asked me to dance or meet their friend, and asked if they could come home with me.  (Don't stare.  Flash the dimple.  Hi, I'm Stephanie.  Dance again already?  No, thank you, I'm with my girls.  No, you may not.)  I got lots of sweet and not-so-subtle compliments, which also meant I gave out my plastic surgeon's name to about a dozen women. 

I even had the never-before-happened experience of a guy picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder, all caveman style.  He's a 30-year-old personal trainer, who I promptly named Cavey, Jr., after Captain Caveman's son. 

I didn't even let DH carry me across the threshold when we got married, because I was so self-conscious about my body and my weight.  Even now, after the weight loss and the surgeries, I am no small thing.  No man has EVER picked me up.

Sass and Cavey, Jr.

Cavey, Jr. was sweet and adorable and very, very cute.  He stayed with our loud, bawdy group all night, even though he knew I had no intention of taking him home.  He asked me repeatedly how I got to be so adorable.  He sang while he danced with me on the crowded floor, all Johnny and Baby style. 

Between the mirrors in the clubs and the pictures on my friends' phones, I could see what other people see.  I could see how my hair and face and body come together now, reflected back in someone else's eyes.  I could really see how my body moved, with its new, flat stomach and surgically-enhanced breasts and the long, strong legs so often encased in the boots I bought myself when I lost 100 pounds. 

I was told many times that I was pretty or hot or beautiful or sexy.  What I could finally understand from an outside perspective, though, was the strength and the confidence in how and where and when it all moved, even when I klutzily elbowed a guy in the jaw or tripped over my own huge feet.  (I can't even begin to explain how I accidentally kicked a guy in the side of the head.)  It didn't matter that I utterly sucked at karaoke—I totally owned what I was doing. 

 

Maybe that is what's both intriguing and intimidating to others, my ability to be me—fearlessly and unapologetically and openly.  I know where I've been and where I am now, with no real idea of where I'm going.  I know who I was and who I am now, and I know who I will continue to strive to be, understanding that it could shift and change as the circumstances of my life unfold. 

In every single mirror and photograph, what I saw looking back every single time was simply Stephanie.

Now I get it. 

At Johnny's Hideaway

Well I know you will remember, 'cause the music is forever.

It's been a really busy year for me. 

• I finished losing 115 pounds.
• I had three surgeries to removed 120+ square inches of skin.
• I went to South by Southwest for the first time.
• I got to see both my beloved The Gracious Few and LIVE with their new lead singer on the same night.  (Plus some other band.  I forget.)
• I fell in love with the Mynabirds.  (Missing Patsy Cline song – "We Made a Mountain")
• I finally got to see the Afghan Whigs live and to meet Greg Dulli in a dark alley behind the Masquerade.  (And Ric McCollum and John Curley.)
• I filed for divorce.
• I released my first novel. 

Even with all of that, there's still something missing.

Wednesday night, I will finally get to see Concrete Blonde live. 

"What's the big deal?" you ask. 

Well, let me tell you. 

Sometime during my freshman year of high school, I went one weekend afternoon to the Southside Festival, which was a great little outdoor music and arts thing that used to take place in Five Points South in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.  Five Points is a funky little area, artsy and eclectic—and it was much less dirty then than it is now.  (At least it seemed that way.)  My friends and I hung out there on weekends and sometimes after school, sitting around the fountain, bullshitting and getting into far less trouble than we probably deserved. 

So this specific day when I was 14, some record label promo people were passing out albums to the crowd.  Yes, vinyl, in the 12x12 sleeve, and for free.  They handed me two: Pleased To Meet Me by the Replacements—who I saw play at Sloss Furnaces a couple of years later—and Concrete Blonde's self-titled debut.  I tromped up the rickety stairs to Charlemagne Records and also bought a Billie Holiday best-of collection, as well as Metal Circus by Hüsker Dü. 

(It was a very eclectic day.  For those in the know, I ran into Broderick Brakefield and Bryan Simmons, who'd missed their ride the night before and had been running around down there, barefoot, for a couple of days.)

I went home and locked myself away in my bedroom, planting myself on the floor in front my stereo.  I might even have stacked the records on the turntable.  I loved them all, each in their own way, but I adored Concrete Blonde. 

It was the first day of a now-26-year love affair from afar with the incomparable Johnette Napolitano. 

As I've discussed before, I'm an alto.  (Really, a contralto.)  I don't have a lot of patience for wimpy soprano voices.  And Johnette's voice was the farthest from wimpy I'd ever heard.  It was deeply female with the most amazing breath control ever.  Ever.  (Those booming notes aren't higher; they're simply bigger.) 

I was blown away.

So this goes on for years, but somehow I miss them live, over and over and over.  I was too young for the clubs they played.  My ex-boyfriend was an asshole who beat me up the night before we were supposed to go to Atlanta to see them.  I lived in Huntsville where they never played anymore.  They broke up. 

I was supposed to see them two summers ago during their Bloodletting anniversary tour.  I had ruptured two discs in my back and was in so much pain that I had to give the tickets away.  (I cried.  A lot.)

So when I went to Variety Playhouse with Growler and Mandypants a few weeks ago (for the Psychedelic Furs, thank you very much), I was thrilled to see that Concrete Blonde would be playing on December 19^th.  Finally, finally!, I get to do this shit after twenty-six years. 

It's the voice and the lyrics and the fact that she plays bass.  She does the most wonderful covers of Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, in part because her voice lends itself to that.  But my favorites, undoubtedly, are the ones with the complicated harmonies, where Johnette seems to wrap her own voice around itself. 

And, ultimately, I owe Johnette Napolitano my life. 

There are a couple of people who know this story.  If you're one of them and you're hearing (reading) it for the dozenth time, I apologize.  This anecdote was in the first draft of what would become Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture.  It was cut entirely when I fictionalized the book, though Concrete Blonde still made mention.  (page 81, at the end of chapter 6—you can search inside the book on Amazon, btw) 

NOTE:  This is still incredibly difficult for me to go back to, to put myself in the place where I felt the things I write about below.  I can deal with a lot of my shit, but this is one of the most personally-shameful moments of emotion in my forty years, and I'm not callous about this. 

The horrible ex-boyfriend (Damien) and I had broken up for what would be the last time.  After four tumultuous years with him, I was a mess.  I was devastated when we broke up.  For the third or fourth time since I'd known him, I decided that ending my life was the only way I would ever be able to deal with the pain. 

I had a plan.  I had the implements.  I was crying vicious tears while driving on I-65 north in Birmingham, determined to do it as soon as possible.  My little car had a cassette deck, and my very favorite tape was a home-recorded, 90-minute thing that had Concrete Blonde on one side and Bloodletting on the other—my two favorite Concrete Blonde records.  Bawling my head off, I intended to listen to "Bloodletting" and all of the subsequent tracks from that records, all so dark and somber.  It's an amazing record, but all I wanted was to let my own heart find its reprieve in that sadness. 

Instead, what I got was "True", the first track from the other side of the tape. 

Well when I've had enough

I'll get a pick-up truck and I'll drive away,

I'll take my last ten bucks just as far as it will go.

 

Well sometimes I'm easily fooled,

Take a painful step and I get knocked back two.

I do all I can and it's all I can do to be true.

And if I had the choice I'd take the voice I got

Cause it was hard to find.

You know I've come too far to wind up right back where I started.

And they tell me who I should be,

I'll never let those monkeys make a mess of me.

I am who I am and it's all I can do,

But I'm true.

One more sunrise

Open my eyes up – true

One more sunset

Lay my head down – true

They talk you up and then they talk you down

And you begin to doubt.

Sometimes the reasons seem so very far away.

But I'd stop breathing today,

Cause if I can't walk proud, I'd rather walk away.

I do all I am and it's all I can do,

But I'm true.

I'd give all I am and I'd give it to you.

So true.

That was what I heard, instead of a song of a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed, about being turned into the walking dead. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" I screamed into the otherwise-empty car tearfully. 

I went home instead.

So every time I get really down, feel really lost and can't find my inner compass, that's where I go back, to that piece of time (still so fresh inside my mind) and remember that moment of pause that saved my life. 

Was it really Johnette Napolitano that saved my life?  Not directly.  But I don't know that I would've been listening to anything else, or that I could've heard anyone else quite so clearly that late afternoon.  But I did hear it, thankfully.

So now, twenty-six years into this love affair, her music is still so often the soundtrack of my life.  And of Tierney's.  Six Concrete Blonde songs were included in my playlists.  All of my friends know how much I love her.  Half of them love her, too, because I introduced them. 

Tickets for Concrete Blonde at Variety Playhouse are still available.  Wednesday, December 19^th, at 8:00 p.m.  I'll be the first show for me and Growler, as well as for Tierney.  Come say hi.  I'll be the glittery Amazon belting out every last song. 

Where the clouds pull apart and the moon changes faces, in the quiet, secret places, are you there? Are you there?

I am kind of petrified of the dark. 

I always have been.  I went to sleep every night with my light on until I was in my early teens. 

It's not the darkness, per se, that's frightening; it's what may be lurking inside those shadows that scares the bejeezus out of me.  Too many horror movies when I was far too young to be watching them did nothing to help allay my fears.  Rousing in the middle of the night, I always imagine I see some indistinct, humanoid shape in the corner of the room.  And if I have to go into the hallway or (God forbid) the basement at night, it's always Pinhead that's waiting at the end of my path. 

But the darkness itself... well, that's kind of a different story. 

I love being comfortably in the quiet shadow.  I feel like I can bend and twist the shade into the cover I need, be it a lot or a little.  It's always been the place I was most free to dismiss my misgivings and shortcomings, to release my inhibitions and let my own inner light pulse dimly or brilliantly, as the moment demanded. 

To take away so much of my most used sense forces the others to compensate.  While I may be myopic in shadow, sound and touch become much more keen.  Music and sensation feel electric, and I am wholly entranced by that feeling. 

But that darkness also holds a silence that's begging to be heard.  The stillness contained therein demands a certain consideration, and I am enduringly willing to let that hold my attention, to envelope me in its secrets and dreams and fantasies. 

Inevitably, though, the light returns.  The daylight isn't by default a terrible thing.  It is beautiful and comforting in its own right.  It can also be harsh and terrifyingly revealing.  But I can't hide in the light.  There's little room to be covert when you're illuminated.  Somewhere, between the dark and the light, is the place I am most balanced and most erratic, feeling the tug of two different kinds of truths, their constancy pulling in opposite directions and holding me firmly in momentary stasis. 

Sex, lies, and rock 'n roll!

About six years ago, I finally started writing down sketches of some characters who'd been trolling around in my head for at least six years before that.  There was a girl, Tierney, and her best friends, Tessa and Jules.  There was also a boy, Alex, who was a singer in a band.  They were young—in their early twenties—and had all met up in college, at the University of Montevallo.

Two years ago, I started actively writing again.  I went back to my old Word documents and a dusty, purple journal, to find notes and ideas about these characters.  Tierney Cavanaugh was an Art major, dating a rich boy named Lawrence Neely.  There was a non-specific break-up, and Lawrence got another girl pregnant.  About the same time, Tierney met and fell in love with Alex Wheeler, a burgeoning rock star with a history of cocaine addiction.  The book was titled Junkture, named after the band.

In my head, there was a backstory that the band had chosen that name one night when the guitarist Paul, was doing an impression of Dana Carvey as George Bush, talking about how something "wouldn't be prudent at this juncture."  Alex retorts that it's just a clusterfuck, this junkture, and the band is finally christened. 

I was in rewrites on this book about a year ago, and there were things I just couldn't get happy about.  I really didn't want another insipid young girl as my heroine.  While a lot of the issues Tierney deals with were taken directly from my own past, I was having a hard time relating to her and writing her.  How I saw the world in my late 30s was nowhere close to how I saw it in my early 20s.  I wanted a protagonist who reflected that, and I felt confident that grown women wanted some of the same.  I couldn't be the only one who wanted a woman who was complicated and made mistakes and swore and drank and told dirty jokes with her friends.  I wanted to be emotionally and sexually frank, like a grown woman.  My own friends confirmed that they also loved Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, but that they really wanted someone like them.

During that process of writing the original Junkture story, I lost 115 pounds.  I came to difficult and hard-fought and sometimes painful terms with my past and my own history.  I had to look my choices in their almost-middle-aged face and acknowledge them.  Why?  Why did you decide to lose this weight?  What made you want to do this?  You should write about that!

Driving from Charlotte to Atlanta in the spring of 2012, the idea of marrying these two stories came to me.  I loved the heart of Tierney and Alex, but I didn't love the actual mechanics of them.  It was sweet, but it wasn't right.  So I changed it.  I wrote what would become the last scenes of Persona Non Grata as I was driving toward the Georgia state line. 

In a whirlwind, I rewrote the book.  Again.  And again.  Every time I thought it was done, something would come along and suggest I change it.  It could be a comment from the inner circle, or maybe even suggestions from my editor.  But it was culled down to the 600-page kernel of story that it now.  And it's done.

Persona Non Grata is fiction, though it does blur the line between realistic fiction and memoir.  Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson and I share the same birthday.  We share the same amazing, purple-on-blond hair.  She likes to raid my shoe closet from time to time.  But Tierney is not me.  She's a painter, whereas I can barely handle paint-with-water books with my kids.  I have a brother; she doesn't.  She's prettier than I am, and I am louder and more impetuous than she. 

No one in this book is exactly anyone else, but I certainly wrote what I knew.  Conversations she has with her friends mirrored exact discussions between me and the inner circle.  I did hours of interviews with multiple musicians to get a feel for the rock stars, to find out the difficulties of their lives as professional musicians at varying stages in their lives and their careers.  Mostly, it's just made up.  It's what I do.

And the music... almost everyone I know has had some band or artist that they just adored.  If they'd been given the chance to not only go to show after show, but to hang out with those musicians and get to know them, they would've jumped at it.  Like me, Tierney is no exception.  Her love of music is integral to who she is. 

But Persona Non Grata is more than a story about a groupie and a rock star.  At the heart of the book is the problem so many women face: how to be comfortable in your life as a wife and mother and a woman, fulfilling all of those oligations while still retaining some sense of self.  That dilemma is part of what led me to start really writing again in 2010, including Muchness and Light.  Finding my own self and my own muchness helped make me brave enough to finish this book and sending it out into the world.

Now I'm launching my Kickstarter campaign, to help release Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture.  You can go to my Kickstarter page and watch the video, check out the rewards that are available, and maybe you'll even decide to make a pledge to donate to my campaign.  It's a great way to pre-order the book and maybe even get yourself some Junkture swag while you're at it. 

 

Here's the thing, though: if I don't get the minimum amount of $1,200 worth of pledges by the time the Kickstarter ends, I don't get any of the money.  I have to get at least that amount to get the funds.  If I get more, great.  There are a lot of things to pay for to release this book—ISBN numbers and copyright fees, printing and conversion to eBook.  I believe in this project and am willing to take on the entire cost.  I'm hopeful that I won't have to.

If you're interested in seeing what Persona Non Grata is all about, you can download a free six-chapter teaser from my Junkture store.  Use coupon code PNGTEASER.  If you like what you read, consider pledging.  Also share it with your friends!  Chances are, if you like it, so will they.

I want it too, so see it through. @theafghanwhigs

I'm two nights away from checking Greg Dulli off my list.

No, not that list.  (Okay, he's on that one, too, but just don't even get me started.)  This is more of a Bucket List thing.

See, I have loved the Afghan Whigs for a very long time.  Since I first heard Gentlemen, in fact—sometime around 1994.  Loveloveloved it immediately.  That love didn't waiver, even when they broke up in 2001.  Somehow I never got to see them live, and then they were gone.

But Greg Dulli kept going.  He did multiple records with the Twilight Singers.  He did some stuff with Mark Lanegan as the Gutter Twins.  He did some fabulous solo stuff, too.  I finally got to see the Twilight Singers live last year at the Masquerade, front and center.  All I can say is... ungh.

"I don't get that whole Greg Dulli thing," Mandypants said to me.  "I just don't see it."

I know the Afghan Whigs (and Dulli and his music in general) tend to be something you get or something you don't.  There's no in-between when it comes to this; you love it or just... don't.

Yes, I know the Afghan Whigs are more than Greg Dulli.  Rick McCollum and John Curley are just as integral to that soul-punk sound that I adore, but I'm such a vocals and lyrics girl that I tend to focus on the singer.   

There is something about that voice and those words that I just can't get enough of.  Somehow there's all this simultaneous love and hate and sex and grudge and God and fear and sex and loathing and... did I mention the sex?  It's there, always.  No matter what the subject of the song is, no matter the inspiration, there's always this element of brutally honest, broken down carnality that's utterly mesmerizing to me.  Every record, from beginning to end, is a painfully poignant vocal fuck that just wears me out and makes me blissful in an aftermath of emotional obliteration.

So my friend, Adam, texted me early this year that the Afghan Whigs were doing All Tomorrow's Parties.  I seriously debated skipping South by Southwest to go to ATP instead.  My plans for surgery wouldn't allow it, and then it was announced that there would be other select tour dates. 

Then there was a download of a new track.  And then another. 

And then came the news that they would indeed be in Atlanta.     

I squealed and did a little dance of joy in my office when I got the presale email. 

So now I'm just two days away from seeing the band I've most missed being able to see for the last ten years.  I can hardly stand the anticipation.

I've spent the last couple of weeks listening to their entire catalog, over and over.  I've immersed myself in that base voice and those wrenching lyrics.  And, yes, even in the guitars.  Looking over the setlists from each show, I can't even begin to guess what they'll play.  I would love to hear "Let Me Lie to You" and "What Jail Is Like" and "Somethin' Hot".  Oh, and "Neglekted".  Always "Neglekted".  (And Tierney's favorite, "John the Baptist", which she says might be the most perfect song ever.  EVER.)

Don't look for me Saturday night.  Don't call me or text me.  Don't expect me to come up out of that Greg Dulli-induced fog of terrifyingly beautiful groupie-love exhaustion until sometime on Sunday.  Or Monday.  Or maybe next month. 

The Afghan Whigs will be at the Masquerade Music Park with Wussy on Saturday, October 20^th.  Limited tickets are still available. 

 

NOTE: AN hour after I posted this, The Afghan Whigs updated their Facebook to say that the show is now sold out.  Too bad, doodad.

Give Wesley Cook your lunch money. Please.

Wesley Cook is a busy, busy bee.

It seems impossible to live within five hours of Atlanta and not have seen or heard of him over the last year.  Following his travels on Facebook and Twitter, it seems that he's constantly playing some local festival, or fundraising event, or last-minute show at a local bar, or somebody's Aunt Janey's backyard birthday party—basically anywhere that he can be heard. 

Wesley Cook at Terminal West at King Plow - 9/21/2012

He is always on the go, and that's exactly how he likes it.  He jokes that there's an intense pace about his nonsense but says, "I don't like staying put because I have a lot to say."

And now Cook is asking his fans to help him get his word out—in the form of a new record.  He launched a KickStarter campaign on September 24th to raise funds for a third album.  His goal is to raise $11,000 in 21 days.

Cook's first record, We've Been Here Before (2005) was simply Wesley and a guitar, imagining scenarios and writing stories about how he thought things might be.  2010's New Ground featured a matured Wes talking about love and sex and lovely heartache of all kinds, with his sense of prevailing positivity backed by a full band. 

"Some of the heavier stuff that I've written really jars a lot of people," he says.  "I have a very consistent light, positivity thing.  You know, it's like, that's the whole point.  Even if it's through dark things and it's not extremely obvious, I'm saying, 'Hey, it's up to you, man.  Get your act together.  It's really up to you.'  Stuff happens.  Real bad stuff happens, and I'm not saying be immune to it.  We're all human.  But it really is up to you.  You can let it tell you what to do, or you can be strong and work through it and work it out."

Cook knows a little bit about ups and down.  In the last year, he's gone from the personal high of appearing in Rolling Stone as a finalist in the Rolling Stone Street-to-Stage competition, to what he calls the hardest tragedy of his entire life—the suicide of his brother Doug earlier this year.  All of this fresh life experience has led the 31-year-old musician to write a personally cathartic record.

"This is the most honest I've ever been.  So far it's been theoretical.  I'd pick a really shitty, eloquent situation and be like, 'It's up to you.'  But now, I've just lived a lot of some of the shittiest stuff that I've ever experienced, so this is the most personal it's ever been.  It's not theoretical anymore, 'cause I'm writing about my situation."`

But Cook isn't losing sight of the positivity that is so pervasive in his music.  With titles like "Give Me Something to Believe In" and "Lucky" and "It's You", it's hard not to see exactly where he's going with his simple honesty.  He says that even the most personally jarring and cathartic songs that he's written for the new record have the same positive message. 

Cook plans for the third record to be "a good marrying" of his solo acoustic work from We've Been Here Before with the full sound of the band and the positivity featured on New Ground.  Based on his own musical influences, he wants to hire a producer who will be able to extract something Wesley wouldn't think of himself, to help make it better. 

"That's one of the reasons why I'm shooting for a much bigger budget than I'm accustomed to," he explains.  "I want to work with production, with somebody whose job it is to elicit the best music out of me.  I've produced and arranged everything to date.  I will still be the guy calling the shots... but I wanna have somebody who historically can deal with artists like me, based on my sound or whatever." 

 

 Regardless of the business side of recording, he stresses that he's predominantly an artist.  He wants to make sure that he's still making good music and producing a good product.

"I'll know, yes or no, that is or that is not what I'm going for.  And it's ultimately my call.  At the end of the day, I gotta have control over my kid.  I just wanna have help with what school I put him in.  I can't hear everything; I can't think of everything.  It's not about Wesley Cook being right.  It's about my kids being the best they can be."

The record is 80% written.  He's been playing out some of the new songs for a while, but some were written as recently as a week ago. 

Cook says he has a compulsion to play and that writing just kind of has to happen.  Usually he'll be playing on his guitar, then adding lyrics. 

"For every kind of chord progression or groove or something, there's a natural feeling that's embedded in it.  So I typically try to write based on what that feels like, and try to mimic it with a story so they marry, so they gel." 

But, he goes on, lately these songs have been showing up his sleep, just making themselves known to him in full, completed form.  He admits it's strange to be marrying the guitar to a melody that's just already there. 

He says he's grown more into that process of writing.  "Every artist evolves and gels into clumsy bits and pieces of what they were, and they kind of come together and you kind of trim the fat, in a way."  He's also worked hard at being a better vocalist and is writing around his expanded range now, letting that matured warmth and depth help dictate melody and key. 

Cook loves that fans tell him they're never sure what they'll get from him.  It could be one mood or another, but it's often unexpected.  They like his catchy melodies but then really like his songs when they listen to the lyrics. 

And his fans will be a big part of this KickStarter campaign.  His social media will be a big part of getting the word out about his fundraising.  There's been substantial growth in his number of Facebook and Twitter followers over the last two years, but it's hard to gauge how much of the growth is from people who may contribute. 

"I'm gonna see exactly what my social network is made of," he says, cautious and optimistic.

And if it doesn't fund fully, it doesn't fund. 

The entire goal of $11,000 has to be reached by Monday, October 15, 2012, or Wes doesn't get any of the pledges. 

"Give me your lunch money," he jokes.  "Please, give me your lunch money."

Cook's work as a musician is starting to really pay off as a job, as a career, and he wants to continue to be successful, in part, so that he can go back and help the people who've helped him.

"I know that people who are contributing to KickStarter are helping me for me.  It's not so you can get the MP3 before everybody.  It's because you care about me and what I'm doing.  And hopefully it's because you believe in the music more than anything."

Maybe more importantly than his fans believing in him is the fact that Wesley Cook believes in himself. 

"I've never been so firing-on-all-cylinders, in a confident way," he says.

Even in the face of everything that's happened in his life over the last year and the last six months, he says it hasn't changed him.  "I'm still very, very much me.  If anything, all it does is reassure me that I've been right the whole time.  It just makes me stronger and gives me more perspective.  And I'm glad about that.  I'm irrevocably myself, and that's a good thing."

There's no bravado, no braggadocio.   Wes Cook does not live in defiance of his life; his confidence is very much rooted in reality.  He says that attitude determines everything, and he tries to learn the lessons from life.  He says he leans into it, accepting that there is good on the other end, because he knows he'll come out better.

"I'm always happy," he smiles broadly, "but I'm not complacent.  There's stuff that I want to do.  I'm very, very goal- and mission-oriented.  Wesley Cook is incomplete without really hard work.  I need to work my ass off at something; I have to."

You can learn more about Wesley Cook and his project on KickStarter and at www.WesleyCook.com.

Heavy - The Wesley Cook Album Mission