Notes From 30

“The enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one has reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you could never become a difference person; that even if time and faith were still left for you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.”* 

 There’s a thing on the internet right now where it takes pictures of you and tells you how you’ve changed over the past ten years...yeah. I don’t want to fuck with that. Every year around my birthday I spend enough time going through pictures and trying to figure out how I’ve changed. I’ve looked the same for so long...but there’s been subtle differences, it can’t just be a hair cut, right? The tattoos add up. My breasts got bigger (how). My shorts and dresses, shorter, as I got comfortable in my body. Usually the same boots, the same half grin, two dimples before I broke my jaw, then just one after. 

 The constant in most of my pictures, as I look at them now, almost 30, is the people in them. The same friend in front of a band, or playing in a band, or in a van. It’s usually Austin, Scott, or Adrien. Two friends I met at a funeral for another friend (I still remember your name Doug, even though I can’t remember most) who I ended up playing in a band with, after high school (we made it though). I had a drink with Austin the other day. Scott texted me. I called Adrien. We are still connected, by our memories and our lives, for better or worse. We grew up together. I am not sure, a hundred years ago, if we ever would have known each other. We certainly wouldn’t have had the experience of playing in a punk band together, and we wouldn’t be talking now, after I moved across the country (up the country?) to go to graduate school. I am grateful for these things. 

 I understand that turning 30 as a woman is kind of a “big deal.” Like we’ve reached some age where society usually at some point dictated something for us...but I’m pretty lucky to live in an age where that isn’t true. At 30 my mom was sailing a 36ft sail boat around the south pacific, about to finish a trip around the world, and was two years from having me (I was born in South Africa, toward the end of the trip). She raised me, with the privileged of the age we live in now, to focus on books and school and “doing my own thing” so that, over the past several years, I haven’t felt pressure about getting married or having kids. I understand that I’m lucky in that regard. I got an IUD a few years ago, which has worked great for me, and has helped me, during my various relationships to prevent becoming pregnant. I could never have been the kind of mother I wanted to be, and despite wanting to be a mother now, I doubt I’ll ever be financially stable enough (student debt, the horror!) to have a child before it’s “too late.” I’ll be 32 when my IUD expires, the same age my mom was when she had me. And I’ll probably get another one. A mix of privilege and luck. 

 So these are the things I’m grateful for. My friends and my mom and I recognize that a lot of my agency is a product of privileges most people aren’t afforded. But I’m also grateful for a sense of understanding and sympathy that I have now at thirty that I didn’t have when I was starting my twenties. I know what I like, and who I am, but I don’t find the opposites threatening to me. I don’t view things I don’t know as “the other” and I have come to understand that everyone, mostly, has something to offer. As a young punk kid I thought the teller of the bank was my enemy, now I realize she just made different choices than me. I’m happy with the choices I’ve made, and I don’t resent regular everyday people for theirs (cue Pulp’s “Common People” please). 

 “Sure, we’re poor in some surface, dirty clothes way. But I stake faith in our instincts and intuition, our abilities and the strength of our friendships. If this isn’t progress or wisdom, at least it’s survival.”**

 There’s friends who aren’t around. People who committed suicide...or just got married or had kids and took different directions in life. I haven’t really grown up yet. I understand both choices. I don’t look on other people with disdain like I did at nineteen. I try to be understanding. I try to have sympathy even when I don’t understand. I’m incredibly proud of turning thirty this year, for feeling like a smarter person. And also, happy that I’m still connected to my friends. When Travis killed himself a few months ago I ended up at a punk show, crying and getting drunk, and then spent all night in bed with my friends, crying and laughing. The simple pleasure of a band, and a shoulder to cry on. I still find comfort in these things. 

 *Dostoevsky “Notes From Underground”
**`Travis Fristoe America #12

The Future is a Slow Panic

"things are still the same, they're still not ok
we're clocked on and strung out on the day to day.
there's more to life than love and comfort,
there's more to life than books you know. 
don't give up on the big fear-
the one that brought you here.
the future is a slow panic, 
a necromantic, pedantic, reaganomic legacy
that still pits the organic vs. the machines.
so don't give up on nihilism.
there's more to life than love and comfort
college won't get you off the hook.
there's more to life than self-satisfaction,
there's more to life than books (yes, much more).
you were right when you were angry and scared,
don't second guess your fears-
it's still you and me against the coming years."

             I spent a few days alone in my apartment. Thinking I'd be out of town, it felt a little like a treat to stay inside and look through books, listen to records I'd forgotten about, and drink wine in the bathtub. I found the Scenery zine (#14) Fire as a Metaphor and read it this evening, with no plans and a that creeping feeling of nostalgia (dangerous, I know). The last time I read it was probably a year or two ago, but I remember reading it at 19, before I ever lived in Gainesville, and it striking a powerful chord with me because of it's topics of gentrification and where the punk community intersects with classism and economics (the zine is an illustration of an academic paper about those things). Reading it later, after I'd moved to Gainesville, it meant something different, since I'd heard most of the bands it referenced and met some of the people. Recently I went to a wedding with some friends and we ended up hanging out with Mike Taylor (the artist, look him up!) and trying to sneak into pools long after they were closed. The lyrics above, from the back of the zine, are from a True Feedback Story song, a band I'd listened to long before I moved to Gainesville, before I even met Travis Fristoe, long before he'd end up writing me my letter of recommendation to an MFA program I didn't get accepted to (no fault to him). The zine reads so differently to me now, so many years later. Reading about the intersections of NW 3rd ave & 8th St (hey I went to a party there the other night) and Pleasant St. (oh I lived at that one shitty house over there for years). Just like the stories and the people intersecting in the zine, my stories have intersected with those people, those places, and this town. 
            Living in Gainesville I spend a lot of time thinking about it. Thinking hard about it. Why do I live here? The original pull that brought me here- punk music and a good job, still seems pretty worth it. It also has a funny way of bringing people together- like that the person I traded mix tapes with in college works with me at the bar. My bandmates from the early 2000s still play in bands I can sing along to. I can walk into a crowded room, bar, show, anywhere, and know someone and feel mostly at ease. I like my stories; separated into our two seasons: summer and winter.

Winter: climbing on the roof of Wayward Council (RIP), looking down through the skylight at my friends going wild for a show. Innumerable punk bands, fireworks, too much beer, fingerless gloves and  biking home to houses I could see the ground through the floorboards. Biking sometimes not home but just to a friends bed, crawling in just for any sort of animal warmth, knowing who's doors were always unlocked. The first time I did XTC and waking my friend up to talk about punk music until I felt better. The block, rows of punk houses, at least Josh Rey still lives there. 

Summer: sneaking into apartment complex pools. Swimming at night, alone, the cops showing up and not even caring, but usually swimming at night, with too many people, and the cops still not caring. Biking down SW 2nd ave to the Junkyard at 3am when the show is still going on, at least for a few hours, somehow everyone is there, not surprised to find each other at a punk show on a Tuesday night. The whole town being at the junkyard on some nights. The whole town being at Wayward Council some nights. The brick falling on my head during Crazy Spirit and watching the rest of their set anyway, blood pouring through my hair. Sitting on a porch, quietly, watching people pass by on bikes. Finding random parties and walking in and making friends with everyone there. Summer storms coming through at the worst times, every day. The rain and the thunder and the heavy oak trees, weighing everyone down until the weather breaks along with the tension. 

            I could write so many stories about living in Gainesville. I know a lot of people have. I try not to romanticize it too much, I know that way lies only danger. Still...I can appreciate how other people's stories about Gainesville have intersected with mine, and how the Ark, Wayward Council, and the Junkyard (we still have the 911 house at least) will eventually get replaced with other stories, other characters, and other nostalgia.     
            Summer in Gainesville isn't just oppressively hot. It's also when the students from the university are gone (most of them, thankfully) and the town sometimes becomes unbearably small. There's swimming, at least. Biking across town at night can be beautiful without traffic, and the late evenings are cool, bright, and quiet. The town sort of feels like ours, just for a little bit. There's also an anxiousness that comes from your friends leaving in August, moving to New York or Portland, Austin or San Diego. Everyone eventually leaves, the stories disconnect. And another year I stay behind, biking down the same streets, singing familiar songs.