The Singer

It’s pretty killer when you meet a band who’s in town from California on tour in line for an open mic at the Bluebird Cafe, which, if you’re unaware, is famous and a big deal, and after having sat through two and a half hours of music, you go up and play and come back down at sit at your spot at your table with your new friends and they look at you wide-eyed and say, “Easily the best thing all night.”

I used to hear that all the time and I never believed it.  I was at school, in a music program, surrounded by a million other people who were just as good as me and probably working much harder than me.  And most of the people telling me I rocked were people who probably were pretty biased.  Or a lot biased.  Or just generally untrustworthy when it came to such things because of the SERIOUS BIAS HAPPENING.  Did I mention they liked me for ME so they had to tell me I rocked?  Yeah.  So yeah, heard it all the time and never believed it.

But to hear something like that in Nashville from people I don’t really even know and will probably never see again?

Killer.

The Happy Distraction

Do you ever walk into a room to do something simple  like, I don’t know, say get dressed, and get completely distracted by the ukulele laying next to the bed?

And then an hour and a half later you’ve sung your heart and soul to the Raggedy Ann leaning up against your pillows and you think to yourself,

“Wait…”

No?

Just me?

The First Time

October 29.

The date alone guarantees that no matter what happens between us and no matter what becomes of us, I will always remember the night I met him.

October 29.

Important things happen on that day.

I pulled my little white orphan car up to the coffee shop, picked up my ukulele by its neck and headed inside.  The girl behind the counter smiled and asked, “Are you our musician tonight?!” excitedly.  I nodded.  We introduced ourselves to one another.  I set the ukulele down on a chair sitting at the edge of a cleared out space near one of the windowed walls and headed back outside for the rest of my stuff.

I think he was already sitting there.

As the night went on, friends and coworkers filed through those doors into that place stuffed full with warmth and the scent of fresh coffee brewing.  They’d smile and wave, and I’d sing, and say hello between songs.  It was casual.  I didn’t have a microphone up, and sometimes the coffee grinder was louder than my electric piano.  I didn’t care.  I was singing.  These wonderful people came out to see me.

It was a good night.

I moved back and forth, behind the piano, to the stool beside it, holding my ukulele.  Especially when I sat on that stool, I was terribly aware of him.  My foot bobbed along with the beat and he gazed back and forth between me and what I would later find out was a book by Garrison Keillor.  I was torn between the performer in me, excited to make a connection in the audience, and the girl in me, who was pretty sure he was paying more attention to me than he was comfortable showing, feeling pretty uncomfortable and more than a little giddy about it myself.

I had invited somebody to come that night.  Somebody named Andrew.  And he’d said he probably wouldn’t make it, and that was fine.  It was fine as long as he didn’t want to see me again.  He hadn’t been able to make it for weeks, and I was fine with finally letting it go.  He didn’t show up?  I moved on.  Simple as that.

I finished up my tiny little hour and a half of music and bashful thank yous and I started to make my way around the room.

So many people showed up!
More than I would have ever expected.
That coffee shop was FULL of people I knew.

Except Andrew.

And that was that.

I went table to table.

I sat.  I chatted.  I drank coffee.  I talked business.  I thanked and smiled and made silly faces at the kids who’d had no choice but to tag along with their mom to see me.

And at the end of it all, he was still sitting there, gazing up from that book far too often to actually have been reading it anymore.

I smiled as I walked past him, on my way to talk to the one table of friends I hadn’t made my way to, yet.

He stopped me.

He complimented my music.
We started talking.
I sat down.

My friends waved and let me know they’d just catch up with me later, no big thing.

We kept talking.  Music mostly.  Other stuff too.  I found out he didn’t own a computer, which, considering the year I’d just had, completely intrigued me.

The barista approached us.  They were closing up.  No rush, but would we wrap it up?

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” he said.

I looked at him, bewildered.

I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.  Or a date to the sock hop on Friday night.  But I was still fairly new in town.  I was tired of trying to make friends and having them float away in front of me.  I was tired of people who exhausted me asking for my time, and people I could relax with just disappearing into my memory.

I needed him in a way I didn’t even know I did, until I met him.

No, until long after I met him.

So I said,

“Under normal circumstances, this would be my email address.  Or the URL to my Facebook page.”

He smiled.

“So, here.”  I handed him the piece of paper I’d ripped right from my songwriting notebook.

“I’ll give you a call sometime, ” he said, right before offering to help me carry my things out to my car.

I declined.  I just let him go.

And I loaded up my car and I drove home, caffiene and adrenaline pumping through my system.

Did I…

?

I did.

The Grape Tree

The other day, at the grocery store, I mistakenly picked up a bag of grapes with seeds.

I rarely pay attention to the grapes I’m buying, other than to make sure they’re in good shape and are reasonably priced.  I never pay attention to whether or not the packaging says “seedless,” because I have never, even accidentally, picked up a bag of grapes with seeds.

But you should never say never, I suppose.

Of course, I know grapes have seeds, duh.  But I guess considering that I’d never, even accidentally, picked up a bag of grapes with seeds, I kind of didn’t think they sold them that way.  Or at least, it didn’t occur to me that I could accidentally pick them up.

I bit into one and it crunched.  I looked at the bag.

Hmm.  Seeds.

So one evening I was sitting out in the yard under our starting-to-bloom-kind-of magnolia tree with a bowl of grapes, spitting out the seeds as I made my way through each juicy purple sphere.  I decided to call my mom for a quick chat.

“Did you know they make grapes with SEEDS IN THEM?” I exclaimed.

She laughed a little.  “Uh… yeah?”

“Do you think, since I’m sitting outside in the grass and spitting the seeds onto the ground, we might end up with a GRAPE TREE?”

She laughed again.

Sometimes I like imagining things might happen, even though I know they won’t.

I’m looking for magic tonight and that’s all I can seem to find.

Grape trees.

Would somebody find me one?

The Music

He switched the music over from the Radiohead CD spinning in the CD player to a Doris Day record under a needle.

“This is probably more your thing,” he said nonchalantly as he disappeared back into the other room.

I shrugged.  I could have listened to either.  Other than the fact that he really dislikes most modern country music and I’ll never (and I mean never) be able to play my bluegrass out loud around him, we really do have similar tastes in music.

Before I knew it, he’d reappeared and joined me on the couch, his head at the opposite end and his feet in my face.

“I’ll tickle them!”
“I’ll kick you!”
“Get your feet out of my face!”
“It’s my house!”
“I’ll tickle them!”
“I’ll kick you!”

We are, obviously, terribly calm and mature.  The ultimate picture of two perfect adults.

Things settle down slightly, mostly because he’s much stronger than I am and makes any attempt at self defense, tickling or otherwise, futile.  I start to relax back as “Que Sera Sera” wafts through the air to my ears.  Immediately, I perk up.

“You’re not going to sing,” he tells me.

“When I was juuust a liiittle giiiiirl,” I croon.

“Shut up!” he yells.

“I asked my mother, what will I be?” I sing a little louder.

“Courtney.” He gives me his fake angry face.  I get a little more obnoxious, on purpose.

“Will I be pretty, will I be rich?”

Now he won’t even look at me.

“Here’s what she said to meeeeeee!”

My arms are flailing and I am, for lack of a better term, couch-dancing.

“Que Seraaaaa Seraaaaaa, whatever will beeee will beeeee.  The future’s not ouuuuurs to seeeeeeeee.  Que Seraaaa Seraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

Gasp.

“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

His eyelids are low on his eyes.

“I think you can leave now.”

“I could, but I won’t,” I smile.  ”I’m done now.”

And he winks at me and we talk seriously just for a little while.

But we can’t ever talk when Doris Day is playing in the background.  Or Frank Sinatra.  Or anything I know the words too and haven’t heard in much too long, which, if we’re honest, is a good deal of his collection of music.

He’s in the middle of telling me some story or another (of course I’m not paying attention.  Like I said: Doris Day) when this song catches my attention and refuses to give it up.

When I fall in love, it will be forever
Or I’ll never fall in love…

I sit straight up again and in typical girly fashion (maybe just in typical Courtney fashion) I say, “Awwwwwwwwwh!”

He looks at me half quizzically, preparing himself to roll his eyes.  He can’t seem to tell if I’m simply reacting to a mushy song or if there’s a story to be heard.

“I sang this in high school,” I swoon.  ”In a restless world like this is, love is ended before it’s begun….”

I’m not singing, but I’m lip synching, and it might be a little silly and dramatic.

Maybe.

I realize I don’t remember the words as well as I think I should, so rather than continuing on, I throw my feet down next to his, put my head on his shoulder, and let him wrap his arms around me.

…and the moment I feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you….

We lay that way long after the needle has lifted itself off the vinyl, talking a little, saying nothing a little.  It’s not until we realize what time it must be that we pull ourselves up off the couch, and he hits play on the CD player again before wrapping me up in a hug and dancing me around the living room while we make shameless fun of Thom Yorke’s garbled up 15 Step melody.

We step outside and I sit on his brick steps while he smokes a cigar.  He kisses me on the cheek and sends me home.

I drive home wondering which of those songs is going to be “our song” to me.

They’re both ridiculously appropriate.