There's a girl in my building who is a mini-me. She looks like I did at her age, she is smart and funny and math makes her cry. It's a strange thing to see someone so wholly reflected in who you were at that age; same thought processes, motivators, social problems. She sits squarely where I did in school socially; not popular, not unpopular, wanting everyone to like her, but also has her own personality. We spend some time together every week when I pick her up from school, and slowly but surely, I've slipped into the role that a dear woman named Eileen played in my life; at least that has become the goal.
Eileen was the cool, artsy, smart employee of the radio station a 30 second walk through the woods away. I don't know if you know much about my childhood but it was pretty privileged if you ask me (which you did by clicking into this blog). We lived in the woods on a dirt road, a quarter mile from school and beach and swimmer's itch. It was a small jaunt to my father's work, a public radio station out in the woods with a 555 foot tower that I may have gotten caught trying to climb once. Maybe. A woman named Eileen worked there, along with an eccentric group of hippies, conservatives, grammaticians, and musicians that I still think of with great affection. Eileen had the distinction of being super cool in my mind; she brought her dog to work, she made crossword puzzles from SCRATCH, without computer help, she had a rubber stamp collection and colored pencils that kept me busy for days, and she had one of those ergonomic chairs that I took to college because it was so unique and cool. Apparently I was a hipster before it was a thing.
Eileen encouraged every creative bone in my body, as well as both my brothers'. She'd take us for the evening or the weekend and we'd watch old movies and play games. Every winter we'd make gingerbread men that my brothers always turned into zombies or monsters and she thought everything we came up with was great. My parents never gave our cookies away, I'll just say that. Her family was the coolest ever - her dad was an Irish story teller who had played in a big band before writing for the Detroit Free Press, her sister was an animator for Disney when they still drew cartoons. She (Maureen) taught me to make hair scrunchies from any and all material laying around. Any and all. Upholstery scraps, panties, she never saw material she couldn't use for something.
Anyway, when I was a teen, I lost contact with Eileen and it was a real bummer, a hole that I felt for a long time. We were able to connect a few years ago, and it has been great to have her in my life again and watch her with her family, just as marvelous as I remember. Enough waxing nostalgic.
So, picking up this girl from school has been fun; on a few occasions she's come over and baked cookies or run basic science experiments in the kitchen like sucking smoke into a baby enema thingy and squeezing it back out, jello and food coloring experiments and the like. We also made cupcakes in the shape of dog doo because we could. I was asked to help her with math, and I hesitated because math always made me cry. My brother, Jeff, was about the only one who could help me without making me cry (her mom asked me how, and I can't remember). It was always so frustrating; math is supposed to be the same in every country, and I always got weird answers; I couldn't understand why I didn't get it. Lydz is the same. She can do it, she just doesn't see the point of doing the same kind of problem over and over again for the sake of doing it, and works better with story problems. We were working on long division and multiplying multiple lines, blah blah blah. She can do it fine, she just doesn't like it, so after 5 problems, she starts rushing through just to finish it (just like I did). So I went to Hobby Lobby earlier and bought some watercolor stuff and promised her we could do watercolor after we finished math. At the end of each section, we had a 30 second dance party. I played her favorite band on Pandora, we made it work. It was so crazy to watch basically myself. I knew when she was burning out, I knew what would bring her back, it was just nuts. That's when I realized I could possibly pass on the gift that Eileen gave to me. Having someone outside your family think you're cool when you're a kid is surprisingly confidence building. She deserves confidence. And she's MUCH better at watercolor than I am. Anyway...
Last week she had an ice skating recital, and of course we went. We brought JD, who was amazing, and also a hero. A lady was walking down the bleachers instead of the stairs, and she started to fall; her trajectory was terrifying; the raised bump where your neck meets the spine was aimed perfectly at the concrete floor. JD backed up and caught her. She hit his back and he sat down, and she slid softly onto the ground. Not only that, but for the next few seconds, as people were asking if she was ok before helping her up, he just sat there, with that stupid Aussie Grin, being adorable. Big day for pride! So that's what you do, as this kind of adult investor; you sit through a 2 hour recital because your goofball is at the end of the second half and you need a good seat while your awesome service dog sits in between your legs and is amazing, as each little girl in her skates and bathrobe stops to pet him on her way to her program. I'd do it again. She's the tall one, the anchor at the end of the line. Yeah, that's pretty apt.
So last week was the last week she lived in my building. I picked her up Thursday and realized it was the last convenient night to have her over, and she would be alone for a few hours if I left her at home, so I had her over and I pulled out a bunch of falling apart books and magazines. We made collages, she discovered fountain and calligraphy pens and is subsequently obsessed. I even pulled out my emerald and gold flake ink and let her go nuts. We had fun. I got a text later that night from her mom that said, "...I've heard 'Elle is SO cool' about 13 times, and one, 'Tim is SO lucky.'" So apparently it works both ways, in the confidence department.
I don't know how Eileen feels now that I'm adult, if she is as nostalgic about my childhood as I am, but I hope that Lydz is half as blessed as I was by that woman, who thought everything I did was so cool, and never told me something was a dumb idea or done badly.
So today's song (tune) of the day is contemplative; soft. Appropriately called "A Shadow and a Thought." An original Hanneke Cassel tune. If you don't know her, you should. You know that thing about me? The one where I've met a TON of famous people and only fangirled one? Well, now it's two. I couldn't help it; she was standing there, talking to someone else, and a million flashbacks of perfect and terrible moments set to her tunes went through my mind. And I just walked up and hugged her. I'm not even a hugger, guys. There were just no words to tell her how beautiful, complicated, simple, and meaningful her music is. She is a rare gift. You should know her. And she didn't TOTALLY freak out when I hugged her; just a little. She did become slightly more uncomfortable with the subsequent verbal diarrhea. Hopefully our next conversation made things better, because when someone's work is that personal to you, you'd hate to think that you personally but a wall up that will never come down between you. Because you're weird and overly attuned to the intricacies of tunes and songs. Always have been. Sorry not Sorry. If you've never stood in your kitchen, spinning around to a particularly good moment of loud piping or fiddling, or anything that touches you, you are missing out, my friend.
