From Nashville, With Love

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Nicki

(hit play – turn it up, way up)

“Hot, fried, and awesome. You know you’re in the right place when there’s live country music… at the airport!”

I’d been in Nashville all of four hours when I sent this text back west to California. Four hours. Hardly enough time to fall properly in love with a place. I’d glimpsed the muddy Cumberland River, deduced that the tall AT&T building was the Nashville skyline, looked down a hot, still 4^th Street and wondered where the hell everybody was on a Thursday afternoon. Downtown Nashville. Not a soul in sight.

But I was. In love.

There’d been that live country band serenading me as I walked my red boots through the Southwest terminal. The best devilled eggs I’d ever tasted at lunch. The only item not fried at the friendly Southern where the hot chicken burns, and the cocktails go down way too easy. There was that southern accent flirting with me in the hot, steamy air, the twang that melts every bone in my body, and enough y’alls to send me to heaven and back again. And there was Johnny Cash. Just there. On the street. In an abandoned parking lot.

We have murals in Oakland. They’re beautiful. They brighten the darkest underpasses, and bring colorful life to bare street corners. They’re of typical Oakland-ish scenes: Lake Merritt and the geese, Fairyland and the famous Grand Lake Theater, and the most iconic are the giraffes on the structural pillars holding up the 580 freeway. I don’t know what they symbolize, but in Oakland we have giraffes. In Nashville they have Johnny Cash. And Willie Nelson.

Tennessee calls itself “the state that made country music famous.” This was my dream trip: Music City.

I’m not usually the trip-planner – I leave that to my husband. I don’t have a list of places I’d like to visit, or sights I must see. We’re a large, beach-lovin’ family so most vacations we pile into the minivan and motor down the California coast. If we have an opportunity to go somewhere adventurous, he and the kids have the strongest opinions. I let them decide. We always have fun.

I’m also not a milestone-marker kinda gal. Birthdays are birthdays – whether you’re 10 or 25 or 37 or 60. Yes, celebrate, feel special: party, balloons and cake, happy birthday, the end. (Except if it’s your bar or bat mitzvah – then it’s a really big deal, spiritually, religiously. Or if you’re 70 plus. That seems like more of a reason to go all out to me, having loved and endured and lived, really, for decades).

But suddenly never-turning-40 me was almost turning 40, and it felt like some kind of milestone. And my country-music-loving heart was starting to long for a visit to just one dream destination: Nashville.

Screw not marking a milestone – I wanted to go to Nashville. For my 40^th. With my husband. And my friends. And absolutely no kids.

“It’s going to be like a dream come true,” I emailed a friend a few months ago. And it was.

I had imagined watching country music greats perform live. Dreamed about seeing those large, bearded guys with sunglasses and enormous cowboy hats pulled down so low you could see only their mouths move, tapping their weathered boots and playing the fiddle faster than a train hurtling down a track at midnight. I had wondered about this seemingly mythical southern city, where a guitar was practically the state emblem and whiskey flowed like water. Fantasized walking in my red cowboy boots past a honky-tonk bar, catching a tune and tapping my own heels to the country beat.

But I could never have imagined it would be so perfect.

The Charlie Daniels Band at the Grand Ole Opry May 9, 2014

I never dreamed it would be The Charlie Daniels Band singing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” that I saw live at the Grand Ole Opry. A speeding midnight train had nothing on that fiddle. Could never have imagined that the honky-tonk bar from my fantasy was every few doors on Broadway, with a live band downstairs and a different one upstairs and where guys and gals of all ages turn out in their country finest – classic to hipster – and dance the night away: two-stepping, hip-swaying, clapping, spinning and twirling to more country music I could ever have hoped to hear.

And I could never, ever have imagined how it would feel to be in the City of my Dreams, with people who love country music, Nashville, fried food and classic cocktails like I do, who wanted to buy boots and go to the Johnny Cash Museum. With people who had arranged kids’ schedules, and sitters, and skipped work on Friday, given up Mother’s Day with beloved kids and moms on Sunday, schlepped from New Jersey and Oakland (and damn it’s a schlep), and who wanted nothing more than to celebrate just like I wanted to celebrate, who wanted to celebrate me with me. People who know me, who love me (or maybe know me yet still love me!), and whom I love.

I could never have imagined how that would feel. Like the first lick of caramel ice cream, water-skiing on the lake, tight hugs, love letters, warm pajamas, bonfires and marshmallows on the beach, winning a trophy, sweet juicy peaches, kisses and a breathtaking purple sunset all at once.

Josh and Lisa sang to me in the hotel lobby, a song they created specially for me, to the tune of Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five” – they were nothing short of foot-tapping, finger-snapping a-ma-zing. Deb and Larry crooned the beautiful tune “A Life That’s Good” from my favorite show (Nashville, obviously!). Amy stopped Jared, The Matte Gray Band’s lead singer, on his way to the bathroom so that Bill could take a photo of all of us with him. When a country band can play Garth Brooks, White Snake and everything in between, that’s fantastic to the max. It was perfect. All of it.

I hate when trips, any trips, come to an end. I get moody and sad when it’s time to pack. I sigh heavily. Mooch a little. Ryan usually shoots me a warning look, one that says: “Don’t go down that wishing road.” He knows how much I hate to go back to “real life.” How I “wish I could stay here – wherever here – forever.” He reminds me that even the any “here” of my wishes would eventually become “there” – the place I have to go back to.

But I sat on the plane heading back to California so full of happiness I probably could’ve floated the whole schleppy way back home. I wasn’t sad it was over. I wasn’t wishing I could stay “here forever.” Because it was a dream come true… in ways I could never have dreamed.

From Nashville, with love.

(thanks, Deb, for this line)

Thanks a Windmillion

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Nicki

source: talloula.deviantart.com

Turns out I’m not so good at gratitude. I mean, I know how to express it and I send thank you notes and emails and say it out loud to people all the time. I drill my children to say thank you, to show their appreciation for kindness, helpfulness, compliments, gifts. Not only is it polite and good manners, but the giver feels lovely when thanked and – perhaps most important of all – actually saying or writing thank you feels great for the givee too: a time to feel the intention behind the gift, to accept the warm love, kind thoughts, pure heart that almost always accompany an act of giving.

I love to say thank you, and to be thanked, but it’s always instantaneous. In the moment. Right when the delicious deed is done. The gift received. The compliment heard. The assistance appreciated. And I feel great globs of something way beyond gratitude for all the good in my life: my family, my health, my friends, my body that works. That I can open my eyes in the morning, see a sunrise and a lunar eclipse, enjoy the sweetness of mangoes and eat marrow bones, feel love and give love, smell woodsmoke and jasmine, have memories, talk and read and write and hear my kid say things like “We share the world.” This greater-than-gratitude is inherent. With me, in me, always.

But I rarely think about the smaller godsends in my life. The tiny, almost imperceptible openings between the marvelous moments of giving and the greater goodness. The barely noticeable happenings that evoke nuances of emotion, leave me feeling different, with a perspective altered not only in that second but for the rest of the day, the week, or for always.

Last night’s late-night phone fest with my friend Lisa yielded such an opening. In between giggling bouts of hysteria – the release of both husbands away, too many kids too little time for each of us, the intensity of daily A to Z writing that we’re both enveloped in – she suggested I use this color and this topic for T.

“I have no gratitude right now,” I half-joked, half-sniffled, completely dismissed. “Oh well then,” she replied sagely.

Couldn’t get it out of my head. Fell asleep thinking about it. Woke up thinking about it. What does that mean: No gratitude?

So with tremendous thanks to Lisa, who often inspires gratefulness in me, especially in her writings at Flingo, here are my Windmills of Thanks for today:

To my friend J who gives me the biggest hug, whenever she sees me, and tells me, “You look fantastic.” I see her at least twice a week, sometimes two days in a row – we work out together – and I look a lot of things at those times (harried, tired, irritated, pained, hair too long, sweaty, unshowered) but definitely never fantastic. I choose to believe her though. And that hug sure feels fantastic.

To my kids, who started today in that can’t-be-beat way: fighting. Because he wanted to sit in that chair, and how dare she finish the cereal, and he’s an idiot because he breathed. One of the cruelest ways to kick off a Wednesday, listening to their whingeing and whining when I’ve barely taken a breath. But the silence they left in their wake as they argued their way out the door and down the road to school was serene to the extreme.

To same storm-out-the-door son who called me at 8.17am from school to apologize. Truly a breathtaking moment and one that obliterated the day’s sticky start. Thank you, love. (And also thank you to the school for allowing the kids to call their parents no matter what – this time, anyway. It’s not always something to be grateful for).

Thank you to Matthew Weiner for creating the greatest show on TV ever: Mad Men. Yes to Don Draper. Yes to Joan. Yes to fabulous sixties fashion and design. But mostly, yes to amazing writing. And scenes like the one of Betty shooting the pigeons in Season 1. Life-changing (for reasons that deserve a piece of their own – stay tuned. And watch Mad Men).

Thank you Kind Driver for backing all the way up on Clarendon Crescent – possibly the narrowest street in Oakland, made all the more so by the cars, trucks and minivans parked on either side. No mirror is safe on this street. Whether he sensed my impatience at having to navigate this obstacle course or not, his unconditional willingness to help me out, to make life a little easier this morning, restored not only my faith in human kindness, but strangely in myself. When I raised my hand in thanks. When I slowed down. And smiled.

To my sister T (how perfect!) who shows me every day that it is possible to live life with humor and abundant compassion even when it’s all kinds of tough.

Six letters left, one week to go in this A to Z Writing Challenge and I am feeling so much gratitude for the experience, the creativity, the purest joy of writing words so often. I am blessedly thankful to have the opportunity to read the wonderful work of others, and to connect so meaningfully and relevantly with other writers taking this challenge. But I am mostly grateful for all who have read what I have written, who have taken the time, hit like, shared, tweeted and retweeted, sent an email or a text, posted a comment. I could write reams on how much that means to me. But I won’t.

I’ll just say: a million thank yous.

Thanks a Windmillion by OPI

This post was written as part of the April A to Z Challenge. To read more of my A to Z posts click here.

Quarter of a Cent-Cherry

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Nicki

Great conversation, loud laughter, fun stories. Inside jokes and quick-witted comments and the type of easy, comfortable banter that comes from many years together, from shared experiences and milestones, difficult times, tears, proud moments, pure elation and happiness. From close friendship.

The air is dry, and the trees are tall, and it’s rustic and gorgeous.

Tahoe, California. Spring. 2014.

South Lake Tahoe

Was it really twenty five years ago that I was half a world away, breathing air as dry, amongst trees as tall, hanging out in somebody’s rustic bunk, cocooned by esoteric jokes and hysterical laughter and the closest of friends?

Lapalala Wilderness, South Africa. Fall. 1989.

Fifteen years old, on a week-long wilderness program in the Limpopo Province with my tenth grade class, it was the very best of times. I loved all those school retreats to simple, woodsy places in the Highveld, where it was very, very cold in the early morning and at night, sweltering hot in between. When we were woken at the crack of dawn, and saw the mist rising with the African sun. Ate cornflakes and toast with thick peanut butter and bananas for breakfast, and then packed it all up for a long hike to learn about the Toothbrush Plant, and how to belay down a mountainside. Walking in smaller groups of twos and threes, paired off with my crush of the moment, or sharing wild hopes and dreams with my BFF while the hadedas called to each other in the broiling heat.

Lapalala Wilderness

Mixed tapes played Men at Work and Phil Collins, Roxette and Milli Vanilli on portable boom boxes. We dismissed every rule late into the night, breaking curfew the very least of it. The girls snuck into the boys’ bunks (never the other way around), and we told secrets and broke promises and huddled together to keep warm.

My 25-year-old memories haunt me lately. I keep coming back to that year, 1989, when life just worked. For me. It wasn’t always like that before, and almost never again, but that year the music was right, and school was okay, and my siblings were fun and my parents understood (or they pretended to) and, most important of all at 15, my friends were perfect in every way.

Twenty five years later many of those friends are still perfect to me in every way. As I gaze out at the impossibly tall Tahoe pine trees, I ache to have them closer to me – we are scattered all over the Earth – to share inside jokes, and laugh at nothing, and sing Land Down Under out of tune at the top of our lungs.

A burst of laughter pulls me away from 1989 – I focus on the faces around me. They are warm and happy, smiling and talking. Faces I know and love. Here I am, twenty five years later, half a world up and away, with friends that are perfect to me… in every way.

Quarter of a Cent-Cherry by OPI

This post was written as part of the April A to Z Challenge. To read more of my A to Z posts click here.

Jinx!

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Nicki

“Jinx! Double jinx! Triple jinx! Personal jinx!”

They scream this out every time two or more of them say something at the same time. I used to play that game as a kid. There was something thrilling about being in sync with my friend or sibling. Like: how cool that we’re thinking about the same thing AT THE SAME TIME! No. Way.

It’s still cool.

I don’t like to feel alone (I wonder if anyone does really…?). I feel scared and sad, forgotten and neglected, when I feel alone. Like I have to face the big wide whole world by myself and it overwhelms me. Feels impossible. I am much warmer, calmer, happier when I know that someone is thinking of me, someone has me in mind, someone is empathetic toward me. And it’s even better if they’re thinking of me at the same time as I’m thinking of them. But that doesn’t happen often. No. Way.

Sometimes it does. It does happen. And when it does I am that eight-year-old kid again – thrilled and happy with a great big grin on my face because how cool! And also because I’m reassured that I’m really not alone.

The song a faraway friend mentions to me that is suddenly playing on the radio. The adorable muppet-like video saying hi I love you you’re awesome I’m so glad you’re my friend that shows up in my inbox on a morning that seems impossible – Toronto now feels like it’s round the corner, and suddenly the morning is not so impossible.

“So weird, was just thinking of you and wishing you were down the road and I could see you…”

She is my best friend from life. We’ve known each other since first grade, which is my whole life – I remember very little before then. We’ve been silly together, cried together, confided in each other, been mad with each other, and laughed and laughed and laughed together.

When I received this text from her, my heart filled with warm and happy. She had been on my mind, so I sent her a message. Asking how she was, when could we talk? And she had been thinking of me, at that exact moment. She was not alone. And I was not alone. Jinx personal jinx!

Our phone conversations are long and deeply satisfying. I wish we were lying on the carpet listening to Depeche Mode together but this is a close second. The time zones and miles between here and there fall away, and if I close my eyes and just talk, she is right here with me.

“Nick, remember when we sent Mr B a…” “Valentine’s Card!” I finish for her.

We are both shrieking with laughter, our words falling over each other’s. We giggle together for many minutes, remembering that gigantic card we sent our English teacher in high school. We took a proud photograph of ourselves with it, and somehow that photograph ended up in his hands. Busted!

She remembers a 16^th birthday party we had together – the social event of the year, she said – and I remember a Saturday night hitchhiking in Johannesburg (I know, so not okay). Sometimes our memories overlap, and sometimes they don’t, but always they are special, binding us together above the broadband that connects us.

Thinking of you. Sending love. You ok? Had a feeling, just wanted to check in… Messages like these join hands and hold me close. Whether it’s a day of smiles and sunshine, or one that is dark and difficult, these missives to and from those I love and who love me feel all kinds of wonderful. As if I stretched out my hand, and felt those warm fingers interlace with mine – from across the Bay, from down the road, to the North and down South, and over the ocean.

Jinx!

Jinx by OPI

This post was written as part of the April A to Z Challenge. To read more of my A to Z posts click here.

I brake for manicures

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Nicki

I spend a lot of time in my minivan. I call it my office. It’s a Honda Odyssey and it can seat eight. It’s the perfect car to move my large family and all our gear and groceries around.

And on a daily basis there’s a lot of moving around – some days I drive nearly 100 miles, going almost nowhere. The kids’ activities are no further than two to five miles from my house, but somehow the up, down and around many times a day adds up. I barely stop the car to let one child out and another in, and don’t forget your backpack, and please don’t eat those crumbly cheese puffs in my car, and I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up so be ready bye!

Daily life might be a non-stop whirlwind of crazy carpooling, but I do slow it down on occasion. As is obvious by my A to Z theme, I love color and I love it on my nails. When I am blowing about in my whirlwind, with my hair unwashed and my shmootzy leggings, it does feel good to have fingers and toes that look somewhat cared for, in colors that make me smile.

“Pick a color, honey,” one of the manicurists calls out as soon as I step through the door of the nail shop. There is not an empty seat in sight but I am assured that in five minutes I’ll be relaxing in one of those big comfy chairs, with my feet in soapy hot water. “Five more minutes,” Tony, the owner, says every five minutes. That’s how he rolls. I roll my eyes.

In four sets of five more minutes I am escorted to my spot. As I sink my tired tushy into the chair, my manicurist and the one next to her start talking in rapid Vietnamese. I know they’re talking about me. About how impatient I am to wait. About the last time I was there, and didn’t like the color and she had to change it. I have no idea if that is in fact what they’re saying – it’s possible and probable they’re not talking about me at all! But there is always that little twinge of insecurity (or self-centeredness) that they are – it’s my “Elaine” moment every time!

I make friends in the nail shop – the mom who has her 3-week old in tow. Their first time leaving the house. It’s her second, her oldest is at Temple Sinai preschool, do I know it? They recently moved from Chicago.

“That’s fishy,” says the woman on my right. She’s having a loud cell phone conversation with… who I wonder? “And that’s fishy… and that’s fishy too. The whole thing is fishy.” What on earth? But she’s not that chatty off the phone, so I’ll never find out what was so fishy. Probably just as well.

I glance over at the woman sitting across from me. Suddenly she grabs her boobs and looks straight at me. “They still there?” I ask innocently. “Just making sure I’ve paid everyone,” she huffs. Okaaay.

It’s like being in a choose-your-own-adventure story, inside that nail shop. A micro-world of plot lines, and characters, and words. Mom-from-Chicago and I exchange email addresses. Fishy Lady tells me she likes my toe color (Fly, of course) and decides to paint hers the same.

My minivan and whirlwind are waiting… but for now, I brake for manicures.