Okay, I’m going to give this a try. This subject has been bouncing around in my head for weeks, and I haven’t been sure how to go about writing it all out, but I’m going to do my best.
True friends in this life are very rare. I’m lucky enough to have a few, but there’s one person who is responsible for the biggest changes in my life, and without whom my life would still be the same as it used to be.
When I first moved to Portland, I got a job with the Postal Service, after seeing an ad in the newspaper. It wasn’t the usual back-breaking USPS job, we were told, but a computer-based data entry job. Not very stressful; listened to NPR and audio books all day; I even made a few good friends, some of which I still have to this day. (Hey, JohnReneeMarkRosemary!)
For the first few years I lived here, I didn’t have a car. My apartment was right down the street from where I worked, and I wasn’t playing gigs yet, so I didn’t need one. My rent was low, and my job paid pretty well, so it was time to start thinking about doing more music writing. I got a new computer, a new guitar effects processor, and a couple of keyboard sound modules, and then started dinking around with song ideas. Some were completely realized and polished songs, others were just little snippets of ideas, twenty seconds long.
I started taking the tapes to work with me to play for my friends. Without exception they said, “Enh. . .not really my thing.” I’d say, “Hunh. Well, you know I played all the instruments on there; that’s gotta count for something, right?” They’d say, “Well, that’s kinda cool, I guess.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Whenever I met someone new, I’d let them listen to the tapes if they wanted to, and after lots of similarly lackluster responses, I decided to just stop sharing it. But–credit where credit’s due–there were two people who were the first ones to really listen, and to take my music seriously; Mark and John. Renee and Rosemary did too, a little later on (Renee in particular has come to a lot of my shows, but that’s getting ahead of The Story), but John and Mark were definitely the first, and their confidence and kind words came along at a time when I desperately needed them. Thank you, to all four of you. I’ve never ever forgotten your kindness.
(Incidentally, all four–particularly Renee and John–are regular readers of this blog.)
One other thing you should know about that job. There were about three hundred people who worked there, on about six or eight different shifts. So it was possible to work there for quite a while without getting a chance to really meet someone, if they didn’t work on your same shift. You’d be in the same huge room at the same time, but your paths might never cross.
So, after working there for about four years, I was coming back from a break and made some jokey comment to one of my friends. This woman named Crystin, who I’d seen plenty of times but never met, overheard that and laughed. She told me later that she didn’t remember what it was I said, but that it was genuinely smart and funny, without being crude or sexist, and that’s what made her think I might be a Good Person.
So we finally met and started talking, and she asked what I do outside of work. I said I play guitar and piano, and I dink around and write some little songs. She said she’d like to hear some stuff. She told me she was taking voice lessons and learning the guitar so she could write songs. In return, she gave me a tape of herself singing along in the bathroom to a Heather Nova song. I thought it was good, I told her, but I really wanted to hear stuff that she was writing. She went and listened to my tape, and then came back with tears in her eyes and gave me one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever had in my whole life. “Oh my gawd. That music made me laugh and cry at the same time! Do you think you can make my stuff sound like that?”
From then on, it was full speed ahead. She brought me all kinds of songs, and we’d record them, and I’d play all kinds of instruments on them. She was married–and still is–to a great guy named Aram, and we became just as close. The three of us became inseparable friends, and Crystin and I took any opportunity to share with people this new thing we were creating.
After we’d worked on about fifty songs together, we thought, “Hunh. . .we should probably start a band.” The idea hadn’t occurred to us. So we went to find some female-fronted singer-songwriter bands to check out. The two that we were both blown away and inspired by–ironically enough–were Stephanie Schneiderman and Susie Blue.
Since I’m trying to keep this entry at a reasonable length, I’ll skip the band-related stuff because it’s all out there on the web anyway. Suffice it to say that we started a band, and that provided just the right kind of support that we both needed to get past our fears and insecurities. We still had plenty, of course, but always managed to talk them out. She’s the one who taught me how to really talk them out, by the way.
So. What’s the point of all this?
I dunno; guess I just felt like I needed to say thank you, Crystin and Aram. I wouldn’t be the person I am today, doing the things that I’m doing, without you guys. I learned what it’s like to have people see through my thorns and facades, and still like what they saw. I learned what it’s like to have people see me in a way I couldn’t see myself, because they didn’t have my internal filters saying, “What’s wrong with me?” all the time. I learned what it’s like to have people expect the best from me, and that in turn brought out the best in me. I learned what it felt like to always (okay, ALMOST always!) be given the benefit of the doubt, even when I didn’t feel I deserved it, or when I was frustrated with my life, or when I was depressed and despondent. You saw past all those things, and saw me for what I am.
Like I said; friends like that are extremely rare in this life, and I owe you everything for helping me transform into the person I am now.
THANK YOU, C and A.
Incidentally, if you’d like to listen some of the songs we did together, go check out Crystin’s MySpace page.
