Oldies and Goodies

You don't have to know me long or well to know that I have an affinity for vintage, especially from the mid-century modern era. I don't know what it is about the 50's and 60's that draws me so close; I gravitate toward the furniture, the fashion, the colors, and just about anything else that reminds me of that era. My house is full of mid-century items, repurposed and re-used; they made things to last back then. The look made a comeback in recent years, and companies like Joybird are taking off. If I had a couple hundred thousand dollars laying around, I would be inclined to customize my entire house with furniture from that store.

It should then be no surprise that I pretty much lost my mind over my birthday present this year. My dad gave me the most exciting item that pretty much ever existed for me. Check this out:

Is that the most amazing thing you have ever seen? Crosley makes a record player that looks so mid-mod you would think I found it in the attic upstairs. The only feature that gives it away is the auxiliary jack that lets me plug in my phone and stream music through the player. (AS IF someone would feel the need to stream music when the best sound quality you've ever heard in your life is available to you through an np5 needle at 33rpms.) 

Maybe you're like my husband and thinking, "Um, that's a RECORD player. We don't even have any records." And that would have been true, if my awesomely amazing dad had not then produced part two: a set of my parents' old vinyls, the records I listened to ceaselessly in my childhood, still in their original jackets. As I thumbed through them - The Carpenters, The Four Seasons, Janis Joplin, Carole King, The Statler Brothers, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel - it was like being transported backwards to my childhood. I couldn't get it out of the box and set up fast enough. 

I've listened to each album several times through over the past few weeks. Each one does something different to me; each one reminds me of a house, a moment, an outfit, a friend - something - from my youth. Once I got through my parents' music, I found albums from my teen years: Olivia Newton John and Starship. I found the Thriller album, The Bangles and Madonna's True Blue. Some are scratched terribly, some are still in reasonably good listening condition. But even the scratched ones take me back - in my head I could anticipate each skip and rub; somehow it sounded weirdly normal. 

One night, I was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, records spread all around me. As I moved from record to record, it struck me that a lot of my ideas about life and love were formed by listening to these old songs. Age and experience have changed how I interpret the words today versus age 9 when I didn't really understand what half of the songs actually meant. I think that maybe the draw to the past has more to do with a connection to innocence, to naivete, than anything else for me. Life was so much simpler when I could belt out tunes upstairs in my room and then hustle downstairs for supper, not a care in the world past whether my homework was done for the next day. Remember when your only real job was to do your homework? When you could wear whatever you want and someone else was in charge of your hair? Yeah, me too. Good times.

Dad even went an extra mile; buried among the oldies and goodies were two brand new vinyls. Chris Stapleton's Traveler, which may as well be dipped in platinum (it's THAT good) and Taylor Swift's Speak Now. That one's for my girls - we're gonna keep it on going, this appreciation for the good stuff.

I waited and waited to put Mom's Helen Reddy album on the player. I thumbed past it over and over, for no particular reason. Mom loved music - she loved it. I have so many memories of singing along to albums on cleaning days, doing the dishes, pretty much any chore that needed help getting done. We would sing The Carpenters and Dolly Parton and Anne Murray and I can hear her voice right now as I type this. But Helen Reddy - I don't know why, but that one was asking me to wait, so I waited. 

Last night I came home late from Musical rehearsals. The house was quiet, everyone was asleep. I sat downstairs in the family room, decompressing from the day and eating a very late supper of cereal and orange juice. I didn't feel like television, so I leaned over and opened the record player. I flipped through the albums and paused on Helen. I looked at the songlist: I Am Woman, Leave Me Alone, Delta Dawn, I Don't Know How to Love Him...all classics. I put on the record and listened to her telling me stories. It took me back to a farm house in Wells and I leaned back, eyes closed and felt calm and collected and at peace. 

Then song five came on - You And Me Against the World - a song my mother and I sang together, to each other, a hundred million times. Helen's daughter is on the track singing, and I used to just delight in that, when we would sing it together. I guess I know why I needed the right time and place to hear it. Mom was right there next to me, listening:

"You and me against the world

Sometimes it feels like you and me against the world

When all the others turn their backs and walk away

You can count on me to stay

And when one of us is gone

And one of us is left to carry on

Then remembering will have to do

Our memories alone will get us through

Think about the days of me and you

You and me against the world"

I love the old stuff. I love it. Best. Gift. Ever. 

One more thing - if anyone has a stack of old vinyls out there and you don't want them anymore, don't throw them away. Bring them over to my house, please!

    

The New Normal

Life right now is so vastly unlike anything it has ever been before, that I hardly know myself these days. I don't recognize a single aspect of my life as my own; it's like I'm walking around in a Salvador Dali painting. Life right now can be pretty much summed up in two words: unsettling and unfair.

It is unsettling to wake up in a house I didn't plan to live in, drive to work in a car I never planned to buy, and then go to work in a classroom that I've never taught in, teaching curriculum I've never seen before.

It feels unfair that because I didn't plant anything, I cannot harvest anything, can or preserve anything, and instead I must drive to the grocery store more often than any human really should.

Unsettling, that I have children who are growing faster than the rate at which I can purchase new shoes, who alternately love each other AND want to permanently maim each other, and for whom merely a change in the weather can sway their mood in either direction.

Unfair, that I spent the last nine years writing a beautifully well-planned curriculum on the American West, the Holocaust and Media Literacy, and I had to scrap it all for a Pearson-aligned curriculum that is probably amazing but I can't tell yet because I can barely stay a day ahead of all THREE of the new classes I have been assigned to teach.

It's unsettling, that I can't predict whether a request to pick up the shoes on the steps will result in cheerful complicity or a Scarlett O'Hara meltdown.

Unfair, that somebody in the country over by Sherburn is walking on new wood floors while I'm steam-cleaning shag carpeting from 1954. (Yes, yes, the view is amazing and the floors are the next project, I KNOW, I just feel like wallowing for a little while, so let me do it please.)

Unsettling, when your nine year old is talking about maybe wearing the football jersey of a certain adorable boy in her class to the Homecoming football game.

And unfair, that when a person discovers that a bag of potatoes in the back of the cupboard has gone bad and the smell is more than a grown person can handle, there is no mother to call and complain to who will show up and clean the kitchen and make fun of how pathetically weak I still am when it comes to gross things and domesticity.

Throw into the mix a husband who has emerged as launderer of the year, (seriously, he does a load of laundry a DAY, every day...what??) and I don't know what the heck to make of this new life. When is it going to feel normal? When is that going to happen, exactly? I'm craving something solid I can stand on. Something that makes me feel like myself.

I wonder if it ever will feel like that again? Will I ever wake up again and say to myself, 'You got this'? I used to say that to myself in the mirror before walking out the door every morning. I used to walk around with this confidence of self, like I had the answers to life in my back pocket guiding me through my day.

Will it ever feel like that again? I suspect that it probably won't. I think that in the middle of all this change, I am changing too. I find myself thinking brand new thoughts, like "I wonder if Aaron will remember that the new towels need to be washed in cold water?" and "I wonder if I let Emma babysit again, will she be able to keep my other two kids from killing each other?" I also wonder if my dad is too lonely, if my kids are as sad as I am and just better at hiding it and if my mom is watching me stumble through my days saying, "Get it together, for heaven's sake, Sara Jane."

I hope it's just a passing season. I find myself fumbling when people ask, "How are you doing?"

Truly? I have no idea. I have no frame of reference for how I am doing. Still walking around, bewildered, I guess, is my best answer. Looking for the new normal.