The Normals

When vulnerability and fear cross paths with the desire to tell your truth. An essay about the current trip I’m on, if only in my mind.

“Shuffle can to can, nobody really gives a damn
For every living day, I give myself a hand
Now I’m scroungy as can be
I got all you normals looking at me”
Blind Melon “Paper Scratcher”

Look at you normals, just out there living your lives. Going places and doing things. Getting back into the swing of taking trips now that Covid doesn’t overrule every option to see the world. 

And that’s fine, really. I don’t resent you guys. I’m genuinely happy that you get in your cars, ride on trains, and hop on planes. You take whatever magic carpet ride you want to get where normals go. A week at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. A backroads car trip through the Dakotas. A weekend in wine country. A spur-of-the-moment excursion to the oldest neighborhood in Dublin. 

Me? I can’t do that yet. That last word is important. “Yet”. I have to believe that word holds water. I’ve spent years trapped in the limits and the feeling of just the first four words of that sentence. 

I can’t do that. 

I added the “yet” recently. A short little word but one born of hope. I’ve got trips to take. A saddle to mount so I can ride off with a dramatic flourish. But I’ve got work to do before I can get back to my old wandering self. Circumstances and age have taken their toll, but I can’t let them keep my proverbial bus up on blocks forever. 

I’m not looking for knee-jerk encouragements, however well-intended. Something about “You got this!” feels like an autofill to me most days. If I felt like I got this, I wouldn’t be expressing doubt. Normals don’t have to think about things like I do, so they already “got this” without even trying. 

Normals just book a flight or fill up their gas tank and hit the highway or plan a hike or paddleboard down a river. Not me. Some days I have trouble just walking down the hallway without something to lean on. The details of why won’t be laid out here because I tire of living in that headspace and am trying to believe in the future. Full disclosure: I also do not like talking about it. I gave up health insurance when I walked away from my job mopping up on the Titanic, so fully addressing my ability to hit the road like the old days has become murky again, date-wise.

I can’t do that. Yet.

But I do hold hope and make plans and move through each day looking for moments to write about in my gratitude journal. 

Still, it’s August and it seems like damn near everyone I know is on some divine vacation. Part of me feels guilty to even admit this can sting because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. My reaction has nothing to do with my friends who are doing things like sprawling on beaches, filling their suitcases with souvenirs, discovering divine hole-in-the-wall cafes, or grabbing their passports on the way out the door. This is all situation-specific to me.

I want so badly to be the one packing all three of my phone chargers because I plan to take a boatload of pictures of where I’m going. I want to find out what a dozen Amtrak stations look like on one long trip. I want to sit in my hotel at night, all the lights off in my room, staring out the window at the gleaming magic of a downtown skyline I’ve never seen before. I want to catch a nap on my flight that’s now only an hour outside of London. 

My friend is spending this week with her daughter in my favorite tiny coastal Texas town. A couple of normals on vacation. My friend is kind enough to always bring me postcards from her trips. But what I want so fucking bad is to be down there myself right now. 

Multiple reasons hold me back from that, so instead, I just work and hold down the fort at home and make do, making slow progress in order to fully rejoin the world. I don’t feel like I “got this”. I’m feeling sad, frustrated, and a little resentful. Not at anyone or anything tangible. More like being consumed by a feeling of “not fair”. 

My friend at the coast texted me a video tonight. The image was black, and at first, I thought it was a technical mistake. I could see nothing but I could hear a sound. Something sort of musical but sort of not. I called her to ask what I was listening to. Turns out she was sitting on an isolated part of the beach with her daughter in the dark. The sound came from her daughter playing a sound bowl she bought for the occasion. Part of the explanation she gave me over the phone was lost in the whipping wind coming off the ocean, but for those unfamiliar, it’s also called a Tibetan singing bowl. It’s purported to have healing properties. 

This was an aural postcard, the likes of which I’ve not received before. I’ve also never sat on a beach just after sunset, with sand between my toes, warm gulf air blowing through my hair, playing a sound bowl. Like the normals do, should the mood strike them while on vacation.

I can’t do that. Yet.

I Got Chills, They’re Multiplying

Not a lot of celebrity deaths get to me, but this one sure did. A celebration of what Olivia Newton-John (and Sandy) mean to me.

“Summer loving had me a blast
Summer loving happened so fast
I met a girl crazy for me
Met a boy cute as can be”
“Summer Nights” Grease

It feels like Sandy died. If I have to explain who that is, you can stop reading this right now. Earlier today, I read that Olivia Newton-John passed away. Nothing shocking in and of itself, if you think of it just in terms of a 73-year-old woman and a lengthy battle with cancer. 

But this is different. Sandy died. And this is not news that goes down easily for me. Me and millions of other fans.  

I spent ages three to thirteen in the 1970s. Growing up in that era mean exposure to some of the best popular music ever recorded. To this day, I often reach for one of my endless playlists and CDs devoted to this era. Olivia Newton-John shows up repeatedly on them. 

As a girl, she seemed like a princess to me, but not the Disney kind. Olivia had that 70s earth mother vibe; beautiful without ten pounds of make-up and gobs of photo retouching. She plaintively asked if we’d never been mellow. She expressed endearing vulnerability when she confessed that she honestly loved a man. She knew that you had to believe you were magic.

Olivia Newton-John lacked the Photoshopped, lip-syncing phoniness so prevalent in many of today’s female singers. She earned a recording contract because she had the vocal goods, not because she could half-ass her way through a concert filled with backing tracks while dressing like she was trolling for dick in a nightclub. I thought life as an adult would be pretty cool if I grew up to project the femininity this Australian superstar encompassed. (Spoiler: I did not.)

Then, came Grease. A friend had a birthday party at the North Star mall movie theater, and a gaggle of us packed into a station wagon and were chauffeured to see it right after it opened. This movie lit up my entire world, eventually becoming my all-time favorite film. It also sparked my interest in musical theatre, which didn’t fully take hold until much later. 

Ms. Newton-John enjoyed a long and storied career, but for me, it all boils down to two roles. The young, charismatic lady with a charming accent burned up the Billboard charts during my youth and won over the world with her amazing voice. And the good girl turned spandex-clad bombshell stubbing out a cigarette with her stiletto while instructing Danny Zuko, “Tell me about it, stud.” 

Which is not to reduce all of Grease to that one scene. Plenty of them stands out. There’s the one where she promenades through the lunch area explaining in song to her new friends about the dreamy boy with whom she went strolling and drank lemonade. The moment we all died a little when Danny pretended not to know her at the school bonfire. The time she tried to overcome being too pure to be pink at a teenage slumber party. The moment she turned and waved to us as the convertible she rode in with her dreamboat forever guy inexplicably took flight.

I’ve seen Grease countless times, but if I had to guess, I’d say around 30 times. I last viewed it just a few months ago. It never gets old. Never. It’s pure joy in celluloid form, and Olivia provided an irreplaceable role in it.

I find myself sad today reflecting on the loss of this one woman who spent decades entertaining the world. I even unexpectedly found myself crying a couple of times. Because Sandy died. And we were all hopelessly devoted to her.