A Mid-life Crisis of Sorts:Part 1

Am I really old enough to have one of those? It is kind of early, but I am sure compounded by the fact that I have yet to complete my first year of the empty nest.

It started inadvertantly as these things are wont to do. I was watching this movie. It is a sad movie, but I was more compelled by the era, that it was a time I clearly remembered and it seemed like ancient history. It made me reflect in a way I haven’t, seeing my young adult life in parts, sections, compartments, as I turn to a future full of possibility.

While the movie is about people slightly older than me, while had I heard of the Gits would most likely not have been a fan. I was into Las Negresses Verte, Zydeco, Hungarian Folk Music for the most part, oh of course I owned a lot of what sub-pop published too. Socially, I was pretty much on my own in re: music, although Magisco kept me company. I saw Mudhoney, Mary’s Danish, were they grunge? I don’t even know. My boyfriend was in probably what would have been classified as a grunge band, I just thought they were unbelievably awful, which of course is awkward.

I remember being late to one of his shows, Molly and I had gone to study for an art history exam, then decided to study at a bar with a pool table. He was confused, why was I so late. “Oh the time change still has me turned around” I burped. “That was three months ago!” he wasn’t buying it. I couldn’t stand his band really though, so repetitive, no complexity, no structure and the lyrics were sophmoric even though we were juniors. I couldn’t exactly say that.

He lived in a house, like the one they describe in the Gits movie, we called it Hellhaus. I hated it, I found it dirty, loud and discordant. I didn’t wear flannel shirts and got a fair amount of grief for being a bit prissy. Which I am not, I just preferred really short dresses with long stockings that came up to almost the hem, and I didn’t pick my nose at the dinner table.

At my house, my roommates and I hosted things like strawberries and cream parties where we would engrave invitations, literally, ourselves and serve —-strawberries and cream, we weren’t kidding.

Still, I was part of the zeitgeist of my generation, which was very much related to the world of the Gits.

I found myself agitated and jealous a bit while watching the movie, because like the participants in the movie, a bomb went off in our small insulated world. A cluster suicide. They got to talk about it though, acknowledge it.
Our response was to never talk about it, ever. I mean how do you navigate something like that? My world was populated by creative introverts, we rejected drama. How do you awknowledge something so devastating without being dramatic? We confused drama with theater though.

We should have allowed ourselves, there was a lot of weird, really weird too tender weirdness surrounding that time period. I also remember a lot of not crying, suicide is a special kind of death. I didn’t cry for a long time, not until I had to visit my university on an unrelated matter years later.

There was a large wake, one of the only times I have ever had whiskey, I remember my band-boy with tears in his eyes telling me he hated himself, and asking me if I thought we as a group were doomed. I said “No” He asked why not, I laughed, “because we are not that special”

The day after the wake, I dertemined that I would turn my back on all those people. I would get in my car and drive away and never to speak to anyone again. Problem was my car, an old 60’s relic, broke down before I had driven two miles. I walked into a cigar bar to have a beer and call band-boy to bail me out, he came and someone had broken into my car.

“Well they left my copy of Emerson” at least I commented as I picked up “Self-Sufficiency and Other Essays” . “Obviously, they already read it” he retorted.

I did make it out of that world though. I did jump into a pool with a lot of overly ambitious busy-with-themselves people who looked toward the future and did my usual patch work over the past. I had plenty of practice pretending that truama didn’t exist by that time.

Years later at a wine country fete, I was enjoying myself immensely, ( I don’t know if I have mentioned but being a guest at a dinner party is my greatest talent) talking to a new acquaintance. She and I were very close to the same age, had been in some of the same places. She started connecting dots, “So you must have known Bxxxx Mxxx”

“Yes” was all I could say.

“Oh I am sorrry” she knew I was uncomfortable. You know what I did? I lit up a cigarette, right there inbetween the main course and the greens. Unless you have been to the same kind of party, you have no idea what a faux-pas that is. I didn’t give a fuck though.

By this time we had the whole table’s attention. “Are you smoking because I brought BXXXX up?” she asked.

“No” I lied, you know I have always thought of myself as a clever liar, not so sure anymore. “I grew-up with her” dinner guest continued. By this time the host was looking at me concerned, “What is going on?”

“Nothing” , I smiled and turned back to dinner guest, “I will talk to you about this, not now though, this isn’t dinner conversation”

“Okay” she answered, then added, “The kids of the hippies sure didn’t have an easy time of it did we?”

I ashed my cigarette and said nothing, I don’t think I had to though, as I was shaking.