nakedjen

Like Story Time in Preschool

 

"Our stories don’t fit on a newspaper page. I’m tired of newspaper pages, Elisabeth. Life is a spiral, not a line."

• What I am reading I read my first John Irving novel when I was in high school. Setting Free the Bears is still one of my favourite books although, of course, so many of us have a soft spot in our hearts for Owen Meany and Cider House Rules and Garp. I have read all of his words that are published. I feel a bit about John Irving the way I feel about Tom Robbins. It's almost like putting on your favourite onesie and knowing that there's a hole in the elbow but it doesn't matter, really, because you know exactly how it got there and that it still fits and it is soft and it will keep you cozy while the world burns down around you.
• What I am eating  Tea. Cookies. Couch. Black dog. The rest of you can go get your lives sorted. Or come and join me for tea and cookies on the couch. I'll share.  

• What I am Listening To  Give in to love and just listen. 

• What I am watching  We're bingeing this as a family.  So we only watch every other week when the teenager is actually present.  We're almost caught up and then we'll actually have to wait and watch it in real time with the rest of you! 

• What I am thinking about Last century when the Grateful Dead was still the Grateful Dead and Jerry was still alive, I found myself one evening standing in a parking lot in Sacramento, California just after all the songs had been sung looking at an empty VW Bus that had once held all my worldly possessions.  The VW Bus was not mine, but my backpack that held my life at the time, had been locked inside and while we were inside the venue dancing like hippies dance someone had decided to avail themselves of all the things in the bus and, well, that included my backpack. 
  
  It was the late 80's and so this meant that inside my backpack were things like a big wad of cash from selling my cookies and a checkbook with blank checks and even a plane ticket.  I stood there and cried and felt sorry for myself until NakedIan, who owned the van and had lost far more than I had lost, put his hands on my shoulders and said, "Nakedjen, you can stand here and cry or you can think of this like a gift!  Someone else just took all of your problems!" 
  
  It's all about perspective.  The next morning while we were standing in the police station to report that someone had taken all of our stuff from the VW Bus, NakedIan looked at the officer and said, "I mean, honestly, everything! The only thing I have left to my name is this fluffy pink skirt I'm wearing right now."  
  
  When times are tough, I always think about that moment.  Sometimes you find yourself standing in nothing but a pink fluffy skirt and those are the moments when there's nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile. xo

• What I am really feeling: I wish people could be grown-ups and own their own bull shit.  I understand that it's hard to do and I also understand we're making it far easier as a society to award BAD BEHAVIOR.  However, there's no need to be an arrogant asshole. Ever. 
   

Still grateful...

If you had told me in the summer of 1995, on that August day, when Jerry Garcia died, and my whole world crashed down around me and I thought that the songs could not longer be sung that in the very late spring of 2017 I would find myself standing barefoot in the grass on a hill in Salt Lake City dancing and singing out loud with a twelve year old boy and his professor father who have their hearts all tied up with mine and who call me their own, I would have wiped my crying eyes, tilted my head sideways like a small puppy, and told you to eat another wacky cookie because, well, Jerry was dead and the music had stopped and there was no one left for my heart to love and no way I was ever going to be in Utah.

It's funny how life finds other plans for your foolish heart while you're busy living it.

Wednesday night I shook my hips to Sugaree with that small child who shares his heart with mine and he smiled and he laughed and he has asked me if he can please, please, please go to another Grateful Dead concert. Yes, well, Jerry may still be dead, but he absolutely loved his very first concert experience. At one point he asked me if every single Deadhead just knows one another and I explained to him that, well, yes, we kind of all do because it's like one, large, very happy hippy family. 

My professor asked me if I was going to dance through the entire show? I explained that, well, yes, I might. The set list was a bit mixed up (for my very picky particular tastes), but I have to admit that they played well and I specifically at one point said, aloud, "Well, it would be really great if they played Masterpiece next...." and then, yes, they did just that.  Thank you, Bobby. You made my little heart explode in that moment.

I loved sharing every single tiny and big and special moment with those two who hold my own heart so very gently and deeply in theirs. Even the set break was magical in my own very Nakedjen way and that filled my heart with glee.  Utah served up a perfect evening for a Dead show. The crowd showed up, the band showed up and we created a very tangible new family memory. 

I am still and always forever grateful. 

*****

As a quick addendum to this story: When we fell into bed late that night (it was actually more like 1:30 a.m) my professor turned to me and said, "You actually DID this every single day for like YEARS of your life? Night after night?" And I sighed, happily, and said, "Well, yes. Pretty much. Until the music stopped."

"I don't know how you did it?!"

"It's the music and the family and all those love bubbles..." xo