Left Mansfield Park and Walked into a Time Machine

Grandone and I have not moved on to Emma as of yet, as July finished, and August moved in and is moving at a fast pace, and neither of us have had the time to crack open a book, and for myself, I have not so much as touched a notebook, a sketchpad or even crossed the room to my art table in weeks.

But I went to a concert, a week ago, Saturday.

Barenaked Ladies. Train. Matt Nathanson opening.

It was my first time seeing Nathanson or Train live, and my third time seeing Barenaked Ladies—the last time two years ago. Both concerts were birthday gifts from my daughter, two years apart. This one had been a long time coming. We waited from March until August.

Worth the wait.

Live music does something to me. It is uplifting and an adrenaline rush all at once, and apparently my brain decided to collect the bill afterward.

My brain has not been brain-ing this week, as I like to say. The walls of my head pinched in tight and the ceiling caved in, and not because I've done anything wrong, but because sometimes the aftershocks of a stroke from years ago, chronic migraines, and brain chemicals that don't always get along decide to have a meeting without inviting me.

So I've been crashing.

But that's not really what this is about.

Train came out on this current tour to celebrate 25 years since the release of Drops of Jupiter, and for months I had been saying, over and over, that when they played "Meet Virginia," I was going to be up on that stage, so somebody better bring bail money.

Same for "Pinch Me."

I was kidding.

Mostly.

"Pinch Me" was the third song Barenaked Ladies played.

The first time I heard it was on an autumn night, 26 years ago.

I was driving to my writers group when the opening lyrics came through the car stereo:

It's the perfect time of year, somewhere far away from here.

I feel fine enough, I guess
Considering everything's a mess.

Something hit me in the gut.

For a moment I was completely disoriented.

Where the hell am I going again?

I remember nearly pulling the car over to reorient myself to time and place, then shrugging it off with a very literal:

What the hell was that?

The next day, I got the call that my grandmother was dying.

Less than a week later, beside her on hospice, she was gone.

Pinch me, pinch me, 'cause I'm still asleep.

Please God tell me that I'm still asleep.

And somehow that song became the anthem for that strange, bittersweet, humbling season of my life.

So hearing it Saturday night, standing beside my second-eldest daughter while we sideways-hugged and danced and sang the words together, was yesterday once more.

And then some.

Twenty-six years of then some.

I had expected "Pinch Me" to be the gut punch.

It wasn't.

Then Train came out.

And yes, they played "Meet Virginia," and yes, I screamed.

I did not, however, make it onto the stage.

But it wasn't that song either.

It was the last song.

"Drops of Jupiter."

The band played, and suddenly my eyes filled with big, fat tears.

I turned to my daughter.

"Holy shit," I said. "This song came out 25 years ago, and I still had my old brain. Pre-stroke."

She gave me the I know look.

We hugged.

And the band played on.

Maybe that's when my brain fell down and skinned its brainy knees.

Or maybe it was all of it.

Because when Drops of Jupiter came out, 25 years ago, I was four months into grieving the loss of my grandmother.

She was, in every way that mattered, my mother-love.

Losing her was enormous.

During that first year without her, I somehow decided grief was an assignment. By the time the year was over, I thought I needed to have unraveled it and woven it into something I could carry forward.

I knew the cruel arithmetic of that first year.

Eventually there would be no more this time last year, we...

No more this time last year, she...

No more this was the day when...

Eventually the supply of this time last year memories would run out.

So I gathered them.

Held them close.

I tried to prepare myself for the day when I would have to stop looking backward and start making new memories without the old memories to fall back on.

And then, that same summer, years into my divorce, someone very special came into our lives, very near the anniversary of my grandmother's passing.

He taught me some things about grief and letting go.

Sage and ceremony.

Crying the real tears, as he called them.

On the anniversary of my grandmother's death, I sat in a circle with my daughters. We saged. We remembered. We cried.

And then we stood up and moved forward.

I welcomed the new relationship, and we formed a crazy little family.

Drops of Jupiter became my anthem that year.

I blasted it through my headphones at the gym and while biking.

Yada, yada, yada.

Life moved on, as planned.

Except we all know nothing ever really goes as planned.

The following year, I had a stroke.

One day I was flying high in the bike seat, and the next day my brain took an absolute shit.

I was who I was one day, and the next day I became a whole other person with an entirely new brain—one I had not ordered or expected, and one I did not wish to keep.

But one must work with what they're given.

That's all there is to it.

Except it's ten times more complicated than that.

I did move on.

I had to.

There were three kids, a full-time job, the relationship. All the things.

Life doesn't stop politely while you process what happened to you.

The following year, I lost the relationship, too.

And maybe I never really processed any of it.

Who had the time?

So Saturday night, when "Drops of Jupiter" came on, something else happened.

I was 25 years back.

I could see myself on my mountain bike, pedaling in high gear, standing up, wind in my hair, flying down the trail at dusk with music blasting in my ears.

Really, really free.

Which wasn't entirely true.

I had three kids, a full-time job, the relationship.

But I felt grand.

Centered.

Healthy.

Unstoppable.

Which, of course, is exactly when you get stopped in your own goddamned tracks.

So maybe I shouldn't be surprised that "Drops of Jupiter" was the song that got me.

All along, I thought "Meet Virginia" was going to be the big IT.

Instead, it was the song that carried me back to the woman I was 25 years ago. 

A woman who had just finished a year of grieving her grandmother and stepped into what felt like a year of extraordinary strength and freedom.

A woman who didn't yet know her brain was about to change.

I don't think I ever stopped to mourn that woman, the loss of my former self, a loss for which there was no sage, no circle, no ceremony.

Maybe Saturday night, I finally paused to do just that—to mourn her, with the blinking back of those final big, fat tears.

Did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

Did I miss me?

And maybe that's why I've been in a funk all week.

I don't think I ever stopped to mourn that woman, the loss of my former self, a loss for which there was no sage, no circle, no ceremony.

Maybe Saturday night, I took pause, to do just that, finally mourn the loss, with the blinking back of the final big fat tears.

Did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

Did I miss me?

And maybe that's why I've been in a funk all week.

Part of it is biology.

Part of it is situational.

Part of it is simply that sometimes my brain doesn't brain very well.

So I'm giving myself some grace.

This week, that has mostly meant doing absolutely nothing unless hard pressed.

Even writing these words is exhausting, though I know getting the words up and out of me will also lighten things up a bit, which will be helpful because I've got to get moving!

Tomorrow is a goodbye party for another grandone and her husband, moving to Canada.

I've tons of food prepping to do, chopping and dicing and making things happen. Music will be blasting. Maybe some of the same songs from Saturday night.

I suspect they'll sound different.

Because that's what happens.

The song stays the same.

We don't.

I'll work my way back into myself through a time crunch, which is where my brain apparently works best. I'll cook. I'll clean. I'll dust off the house. I'll do what needs doing.

Tomorrow, we'll gather. We'll say goodbye—for now—to a grandone and her husband until the holidays.

And then I'll move forward.

Not entirely forward, of course.

I don't seem to know how to do that.

I look backward before I look ahead.

That man, the relationship of yesteryear, once told me my Lakota name would be Woman Sees Twice.

Maybe that's appropriate.

To this day.

And all the way back to yesterday.

Maybe moving forward has always been a little bit backward and forward.

All the way to the first snow.

And as it turns out, Meet Virginia still resonates.

I just got the math wrong.

It's the aftermath.

Well, she wants to live her life. Then she thinks about her life. Pulls her hair back as she screams. I don't really wanna live this life …

I think I've been mad at myself and my brain for this last quarter of a century and I don't want to live that life anymore.