Month: August 2022

When My Mind Is Free, You Know a Melody Can Move Me

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

I’m getting into the little Honda Civic my step-in mom is letting me borrow for the two weeks I’m back in the place I was born, formed, and launched from almost six years ago–Madison, Wisconsin.  No longer home, but forever the soil where the seeds of me sprouted.  My roots.  This Civic is half the size of the truck I use to drive my home around now—a 32-foot travel trailer.

As I lower myself into a seat barely above the ground, I roar off down the main drag of East Washington Avenue and all the familiar sites: the crack house looking Smart Studios where Nirvana recorded Nevermind, my old rival high school, the place where the 24/7 diner used to be where I had my first full-time job.  It’s all familiar and alI different.  I’m different.  Used to biking now more than driving now, using mile markers rather than exit numbered signs where I’m now living and moving around a two-mile by four-mile island.  I’m unsure of myself as I merge onto the interstate, which is weird on a road I’ve driven millions of times.  I turn on the radio for the soothing yet empowering combo music provides.  Drift Away is playing.  Of course it is.

Drift Away is mine and my dad’s song.  It’s taken his place in my life, announcing his presence as spirit. It’s not only apropos because he always drifted in and out of my life, our relationship written in morse code: dots of time together broken by dashes of distance.  But because we’d both fallen in love with the song through the Canadian acapella group that wowed him so much, he brought them to America. The Nylons.  My sister and I would watch their first show with the audience and the second show backstage, feeling the heat of the lights and the red velvet curtain brushing our arms.  My eyes flitted between peaking out at the audience who couldn’t see me to my crush, the soprano Mark. After the show, we’d hang with them in the green room.  It was as close to fame as I’d ever been and it made my already cool dad even cooler to me.

The summer before my senior year, after finally lobbying my mother hard enough, I got to go live with my dad.  My job as a bagger at the nearby grocery store, where I packed up many pig’s feet and snouts wrapped in cellophane on a styrofoam tray, planted the seeds of vegetarianism in me.  I’d just been talking about living in this neighborhood with Cara as we walked from the festival to her car.  And now here the song was coming on to match it.  And right when I needed it.  

Memories come flooding back of that summer.  Dad taught me to drive and I got my license.  Cruising windy roads to his good friend’s country bungalow where we’d listen to albums of great music all afternoon.  Dairy Queen drive-thru on Sundays—the one treat his diabetic diet could afford.  He took me to his fancy hairdresser where the locks of my permed big hair style iconic of the 80s fell to the floor, half my head cropped short in some avante garde asymmetrical fashion I was emulating from a Rolling Stone magazine on his coffee table.  

When Prince’s Raspberry Beret video premiered, I ran across the parking lot from work, pounded up the steps and barged through the door to hear him yell from the living room, “I’ve already got it on!!”  MTV would play it every hour on the hour for 24 hours and I’d sleep in fifty-five minute increments that night.  Setting my alarm for each showing.  In my bedroom at home, a life size cardboard cutout of Prince on his Purple Rain motorcycle sat in the corner and directly in my eyeline as I fell to sleep.  It had been a display in my dad’s friend’s record store and he’d gotten it for me once the promotion was over.

Shortly after I graduated college, he drifted out of my life for the last time.  Unmooring me.  All the religious pomp and circumstance I’d invested in over the years, all the times I’d prayed or clung to a Bible story for comfort—it offered me no comfort when it came to the topic of death.  Dad’s dying kicked me over to the spiritual realm where I sought and found the only acceptable answer: there is no death. Uncle Kracker’s remake of Drift Away was released about the same time to announce his presence still with me—I could say to the ether, “I need my dad right now” and this song would come on the car radio. Dad’s presence would then linger like he was riding shotgun. Training my mind to go beyond the physical evidence of what I saw and touched, I found everyone I loved still here. Their bodies left, but their love stayed. Keeping step with me moving through life.

George Michael’s Faith follows as if God Himself is the DJ, reminding me of what it took to sustain such seeking.  The same thing it takes now driving this car. The same thing a life of adventure requires.

My dad wasn’t always there when I needed him, but he’s sure got a way of showing up now when I need him most.  Pumping me up, giving me company and confidence.  And no doubt it was his adventurous genes at play when I decided to live the gypsy life on the road.  

Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 2 Comments

I know you really want to tell me goodbye. I know you really want to be your own girl.

Every woman I know in a relationship right now is feeling oppressed. Are they more aware of what’s always been there? Or are men–consciously or subconsciously–acting out a ripple of Roe v. Wade?  Is the behavior ramping up or is the intolerance?

And it’s all the same complaints. Jealousy. Control. Anger. Micromanagement. Disrespect by infidelity, invasion of boundaries, and inability to express feelings without throwing shade. Over sushi I hear stories of men refusing to do the work necessary to save the relationship. Men in the middle ground–not exactly leaving, but not totally stepping in either. These women are willing to nurture their partner’s (or anyone’s) growth–even the slightest spurt of it brings encouragement from these loyal cheerleaders. Men strike me as oriented towards ownership, locking it down. Women seem more oriented towards change: in their relationship, themselves, their children, their jobs, their government. We exercise a broader field of thought. We have more crayons in our box. Can entertain a variety of possibilities. We can hold the desire for something we want and the not knowing of how it will come does not sway us.

My one friend recently said, “I’ve checked out books about how to separate financial assets, how to advocate with a mediator for custody of my children. I’ve scoped out locations where I can live.” Another, “I’ve put my foot down and if he does it again, I’m kicking him out to live on his boat. Which is where he’s supposed to be living anyway.”

These women (past versions of myself included) started to making exit plans long before making the move that stuns a man oblivious to more nuanced gestures. We inch away in small ways every day towards the door where a shocked look will watch us leave for the last time. We get told we’re overreacting–well, we’ve been micro reacting for days. Months. Years.

An astute divorced man once told me, he thought a marriage license was license to change someone. The women I’m writing about. . . they’ve turned that license on themselves. They are outgrowing their marriages and are not going to take this shit much longer.

Sailor’s Delight

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 2 Comments

We sailed for so long that second day, I felt the motion of the ocean while lying in bed–a joyous sensation.  While my body rocked, my mind rolled back over the events of the day.  The wind had been wilder this time, calling for more engagement from the crew. We began to keel and it took a lot to not fall over while filming as they rapidly trimmed the sails.  The snorkeling was better–we got the last mooring ball by the reef and visibility was clear.  Red coral, angel fish, parrot fish with pastel iridescent scales and light blue lipstick, some needle nose fish looking like a syringe with fins.  

I was also thinking about J.  He’d grabbed the check at the Happy Buddha Bar in the marina once we got back on shore–the unexpected move had evidently left an impression on me. 

Part of me thinks if he’s leaving soon, I should just throw myself at him and have a quick romp, riding it for all the good times I can–while I can. Part of me thinks I’m safe within his escape plan and I don’t need to do anything because why even start what’s got an expiration date stamped on it already?  I’m off the hook.  Besides, I’m off the market.  

The next day, my Facebook feed fills with sailboats for sale. After vetting them (okay, and picturing myself on them) I do my own little circumnavigation and text Pat about a few of my favorites.  They work together, so I figure he can tell him.  Pat tells me to friend J and tag him in it.  “He can be kind of shy.”  Feels like too big a step to take.  

I’m not sure what I’m doing when I reach out to him about coming to trivia at Waterfront Brewery the next night.  It seems pretty benign I tell myself, as I open then close Instagram.  Then open.  Then close.  

Then open. 

Pat had texted he’d be late, so I was preparing to wing it solo until he arrived.  Seeing J come around the corner of the bar truly startled me.  Since he hadn’t written back, and Pat didn’t mention him coming, I didn’t expect him and it caught me completely off guard.  

“What’s our team name?” Pat says when he arrives a little later. 

“Sailor’s Delight,” I say.

He laughs, “Leave it to the writer!”

“Actually, J came up with it, but I loved it.”

The TV screen with the questions is above us.  The scorecard on the bar below, I’m leaning over to write an answer when the next question comes on.  Fingers softly graze, then slightly rest on the inside of my arm, gently requesting my attention.  I lean back into this tender move as it withdraws.  Again I’m thrown.  It’s one of those moments you can feel getting recorded in the story of your life

J himself is a soft touch.  No big ego driven song and dance, no verbal billboard conversations.  His light teasing, when I make some comment about not minding mornings as long as no one’s telling me what to do during them, is: “Is that why I always beat you to the boat?” and a kidlike smirk.  It was more to say Hey, we have a history than, Let me use this to elevate myself.

After we come in fourth from last, Pat goes out to smoke and J and I swipe on the sailboats on my phone.  Island Woman.  Another one with a name we can’t read.  Again, I picture myself on each of them.  Again, I’m not sure what I’m doing or wanting to happen.  Left alone with him, I think I just panicked.  

Walking out into the humid locker room of a night, J makes another subtle move I find impressive. Pat’s first and we’re both in step behind him. Being closer to the door, J reaches out his arm and without missing a beat in word or step, he holds my gaze while he holds the door open for me via side arm.

I try to fall asleep for an hour, but I can’t because words keep coming, demanding to be written down. I write on three different pieces. Time with him hadn’t pinch off my muse, like I’d feared, it was doing the opposite.

Sailing, Takes Me Away. . .

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment
From the boat


When I was a little girl, I loved playing with paper dolls. Wardrobes made of paper hanging onto bodies formed from cardboard with little tabs folded over shoulders and around waists and legs. It was temporary, a strong breeze could render them naked once again. Easy to change if I changed my mind. 

J stepping into my eye line was a lot like that. Hanging there, against blue skies and cotton ball clouds, a fifty shades of aqua backdrop bordered by island sand. Did I say stepped into?. . . I meant sailed. The background and my friend Pat’s boat (and Pat for that matter) were all familiar–the cardboard constant. Making J the paper outfit overlaid on top.  New. Different.

But what I was really grooving on that morning–besides my love of water, boating and snorkeling the reef–was my essay placing in the contest I’d entered.  It would be published in the next few days.  I had champagne and was planning to celebrate with mimosas. 

Earlier I’d shared the news with my close writing friend and she’d offered to build me a website.  After the toasting and enthusiastic congratulations, I floated what I thought was a crazy idea.  I wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant a website.

Pat nods and J says, “You probably should have a website.”  

His words spread on me like frosting–a nice feeling on top of the nice feeling I’m already having.

The wind picks up the farther we get out, so I man (woman?) one of the winches adjusting the sails, prompting Pat to make a compliment about my strength in relation to my gender. To which I quip, “I like to be all the Spice Girls.”  I’m sporty, at times scary, other times posh, and have been ginger.  I’ve tucked my frilly dress up into the leg band of my underwear so it didn’t get caught in my bike spokes, riding in wedges for miles. 

I  break into a really bad cover of “If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends.”

J chimes in from his winch, “I never understood that song.  Sure, I’ll get with your friends.”

I laugh into the gap extending to let this new interpretation settle in.  Clever. Sexy.  I’ll never hear the song the same way again.  

Another tab of J’s paper folds over.

I watch his back muscles roll underneath his shirt.  The way a sleeve folds into the crevice of a flexed bicep. And I watch myself watch, wondering what I’m up to.

Two weeks later I’m climbing aboard again and as we get ready to sail, I go down to link my phone with the Bluetooth speaker in the salon.  At my elbow is suddenly J asking, “Need any help?”

My knee jerk response to this question is always, no.  Because it hits me like an insult, implying I’m somehow incapable.  But in that instant, I see how it pushes others away.  I turn away in the circumference of this realization, a fighter pilot who’s just fired a missile but wishes she could take it back. It’s early and I secretly hope for another chance to play it differently.

A tab folds over.

We sail on and he says other things I like and jive with. And I notice myself watching his lips as much as I’m listening to the words coming out of them. Sometimes he does a little smirk and it makes me smile. I like his lips. I think the smirk makes him look cute.

Coming from self-awareness, he shares about needing to have his own personal space and how hard it is to have it in Key West.  How it’s all cramped living quarters for this huge chunk of change and he’s not really down with it.  Neither am I, that’s why I have a camper.  Neither is Pat, he’s on a boat tied to a mooring ball.  J couldn’t find a boat he and an insurance company could agree on so he applied for a job in Indiana.

There it is, the eroding of our island community conversation I’ve had with more people than I’d like.

“I’m so tired of saying goodbye to cool people,” I stare past him in a quiet moment of memoriam to all those who have gone before him. I feel his paper flutter in the winds of change.