Be Sure to Touch the Ground - Ramblings While Staying at Home

Thanks Cole McKenzie for reminding me about the new Waxahatchee album, of which I'd heard three songs and loved: "Fire," "Can't Do Much," and "Lilacs," but yesterday the whole new album dropped and today I listened to its entirety.

Incidentally, I listened while on a five mile treadmill run, building back up to where I was at the beginning of this month, after a short period of taking it easy due to the current situation with the Covid 19 scare and a brief cold-like illness. I read that building up your natural immune system means working out but not overdoing it. I am still "taking it easy" but finding it imperative to push myself a little, because that's when I feel most healthy. It felt good to be out of breath and to pull beautiful air deep into my lungs and to appreciate that in a way that makes me want to cry. Another side note is that I am now able to run to all kinds of music, and find running the best time to really take in and absorb new music, whether fast, slow, whatever. For about four years it has been the case that I could only run to super upbeat pop music. Now I can run to disaster podcasts and mellow music. I've come a long way. ;)

In any case, listening to this album today had a profound effect on me, one that I did not expect. It was beautiful and sparkling and fresh, but beyond that it moved me in deep ways to reflect upon my childhood. It wasn't so much the Americana style of the music or the sound of Katie Crutchfield's voice, but her lyrics. I don't think she's trying to talk about what it's like to be a little girl growing up in the country with a happy family, but that's what is great about music: it makes us all reflect on different things.

The album reminded me of the things I will never forget because they are such obvious parts of me, but I spaced out and enjoyed knowing:

• That I grew up with a sister and little brothers who loved to play outside all day long; that we lived in the worlds of our imaginations, while fruit trees bloomed and our knees were dirty and we ate popsicles.

• That we were "free as the air" as Waxahatchee says in her song "Arkadelphia" and we were breathless with it and exuberant and wild

• That my dad would tell me "don't forget to touch the ground," because I ran and leapt and skipped everywhere, and later around age ten, after I started clogging, I clogged across the house and everywhere I went instead of walking.

• That grandma Georgie  used to make Easter egg shaped cupcakes sprinkled with coconut for us every spring.

• That we watched Voyage of the Mimi and pretended to be the voyagers at dinner time; our canned green beans were seaweed and our spam was deep-sea fish and our rice was some natural grain from the island. 

• That my favorite tv show was Reading Rainbow.

• That we always had cats. 

• That we ran around the neighborhood at Sage Oak Ct. and the kids came to our door and asked "Can Matt play?" or whichever kid, and the group grew bigger, and it overflowed into our backyard and out into the court, and parents weren't around. 

• That once I rode my bike to 7-11 with my friend Becky and her dad had given me a five dollar bill to spend there which was unheard of in my life, and I lost it, and I was devastated. 

• That my sister and I rode our bikes to piano lessons every week. I started lessons when I was six and I quit (by my own choice) when I was twelve. I remember that my piano teacher smelled like sweet flour dough. 

• That Grandma Cherie taught me how to take care of my nails but I was never very good at it. 

• That my dad played handball and we played around by the chain link fence and ran to grab the balls that were lost and every moment was an adventure.

• That we made a time travel machine in our closet and a haunted house in our bedroom and a lake out of a tiny plastic swimming pool and underground tunnels in the sandbox. 

• That the best person to play Barbies with was Addie because other girls just liked to sit around and brush their hair but we made our whole room (or backyard) into towns for them and created wild, elaborate stories for them with lots of romance and intrigue. Addie's girls were always "17" and thinking about throwing themselves over cliffs in desperation. I liked making families.

• That my mom ran a tight ship while also never once making us feel stifled, and I'm not sure how she did that to this day. Our house was clean and tidy and we always had clean clothes and good food and fun projects. Five kids. Five kids.

• That Saturday morning chores often led to fun trips to rollerskating or the library.

• That alone time with mom and dad was rare and special. And alone time in the whole house was even more rare and a nice time to listen to records. 

• That the land of make believe is right there, and you can get to it if you spin in circles long enough and believe in it.

My girls wear this outfit now. My sister and I had matching ones made for us by our aunt.

The other day, Darin's artist friend Skinner was in town. Before the show at Volution, he was at our house, and we were talking about small towns, coming back to where you're from, how a nonconformist gets silenced and ridiculed, dysfunctional families, traumatic memories, making peace, moving forward, coming back. And he and Darin were kind of sharing difficulties from their childhoods and he asked me, "What about you?" and I said,  almost sheepishly, "I had a happy childhood." and the genuine surprise and happiness reflected on his face to hear that, in turn surprised me. He was delighted. And I felt it. And in my 43rd year of life, I was grateful all over again to that beginning.

These words are for my siblings, my parents, and most of all my little girl self:

We can try to let stillness be

But if I spin off will you rescue me?

Or will I beg you to set me free?

I think that's what wild might be meant to be

You and me. 

-Waxahatchee, "The Eye" from Saint Cloud,  2020