As promised, this is what I wrote in response to last Wednesday’s musical prompt. And you? What did you write?
I got the Christine Kane CD at BlogHer’07, which happened not long after Dennis moved out. I was, to say the least, in a fragile state of mind. When I got back from the conference, I loaded Molly into my little black convertible and drove all the way up the coast to Seattle. This cd was my endless soundtrack, both up the coast and back down. 01 Right Outta Nowhere is the first track, and if it were a record, I’d have worn deep grooves in it. The words of it became something of an anthem for that trip–you’re free to go, you’re free to go. That I had been freed to go by Dennis’s decision to leave was how I heard it, even though I was scared and mad and sad. But I’m a sticker (even now I can’t quite complete the divorces proceedings) and however unhappy or constrained I felt in the relationship, I wasn’t going to give up. He did, and for that I’m eternally grateful. Albeit still scared and mad and sad.
When I hear this song, I’m back on the road–just Molly and me and Christine Kane–driving the endless interstate 5 from Sacramento to Seattle. Although I had done a lot of my trips to LA alone when D. and I were together, this was the first time I’d done such an extended road trip by myself. It seemed to presage my life from then on–alone, on the road, going forward.
“She hit that highway/
With every ounce of faith she could summon/
When courage find comes/
You never see it coming.
Yes, I was whistling in the wind, but that’s what I do when I need to. And music, quite literally, does it for me.
I have a whole string of songs that have provided the soundtrack over the years. “Different Drum” by Linda Rondstadt (circa her Stone Pony days) was a favorite breakup anthem in years past. Can you see the similarity–Jane on the road, hitting the highway, movin’ on. It seems to me now that I sang so loud because I was so not on the road, any road. Except that is belied by the itinerary of my life: Pittsburgh, London, Los Angeles, Jackson, Bethlehem, Los Angeles, Elk Grove. And within those places are any number of moves; I tend not to stay in one place for longer than five or six years. Then I get itchy, wanting to know what’s down the street or in the next house I’ll live in.
I was going to write, the next life I’ll live in, because I think that’s what I do. I create a scenario, a character and a setting, that I will inhabit in the next place I move to. I am sure that that play is exactly what I want.
Jane Gassner
Comments on this entry are closed.