I Missed the Music Bus

I missed the Music Bus.  I love music; there is music that has defined moments of my life and music that continues to define who I am at each stage in my life.  But the Music Bus?  The one where you know how to play music, how to read music, how to write music…yeah well that’s the one I missed.  I stood on the corner for a long time, even checked out a few books to pass the time (thanks to the books I even know where middle C is, though I once called it center C and a friend told me to never do that again) but the bus never came.

 I have a lot of strengths and I did get to ride a lot of other buses, the literature bus, the Geek bus (which led to the ComicCon bus…oh yeah Baby!), the conceptual math bus (you should see the passengers on that one, whew…), the organizing bus, the corporate bus, the owning your own business bus, the Crazy Cat Lady bus (can I interest you in a rescued cat?),  and for me the best bus of all, the MOM bus;  but I still occasionally stand on the corner and look for the music bus and I am drawn to those that have the gift of music.

 Oh sure I did the whole air guitar thing as a kid.  My clearest and sharpest memory of having a band was the three odd girls in school.  The too tall girl, the too chubby girl and the too poor girl.  We had banded (or was it bonded?) together because we really had no other choice.  The too tall girl was very wealthy and my mom’s poverty made her mom’s Mercedes very nervous.  The too chubby girl was actually perfectly shaped, but the 1980’s culture of skinny (and has it really changed that much?) told her that she might as well have Moby tattooed on her ass, and the too poor girl had a Mom that drank too much and that made everyone nervous.

 Well we bonded and banded together and we planned our future and our band.  Why a band?  Why not a corporate hegemony headed by all three of us?  Why not a chess club?  Why not a book club?  ‘Cuz those are lame when you are 12, all that matters is the BAND.  Even then I knew that I had missed the Music Bus and we all decided I would be the band manager but until our band filled out a little more I could play lead air guitar.  Too tall played air bass and too chubby sang with an actually crystal clear voice.  I had a broken down garage and we would play in there with dust motes in the air and rock out to the scratchy sounds of a cassette played on my small boom box. 

 I remember when we broke up too, we had moved out of the garage (it was too hot that day) and were playing in my barren, all dirt backyard. We had sticks as guitars and a mop handle as a mic and the little boom box was blaring out Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield.  We all loved that song.  It was about wanting what you couldn’t or didn’t have and all three of us were longing for something.  The memory is so clear I can still taste the hot and dusty dirt of my backyard.  I was wailing away on my stick guitar and too tall girl was banging away on her stick bass and too chubby was singing like a diva into her mop mic.   We were in the middle of Jessie’s girl, in the middle of singing our own longing and needs to the Universe when we heard laughter.  The neighbor girls in the big house next door had come out and scaled the fence and were watching us.  Watching us and laughing.  Laughing and pointing.  At us.  The brief elevating fantasy of being more than we were, of singing along to Rick Springfield, of wanting a different life as bad as he wanted Jessie’s girl had been given to us by the music.  The music had given us hope.  The mocking laughter of the neighbor girls took that hope away and left us cold.

 We never air guitared again at my house, or anywhere. The cold reality of being the outcasts that got made fun of even when trying to escape reality was too much for us.  Eventually the too tall girl found a too tall boyfriend and who needs an air bass when you have a boyfriend.  The too chubby girl always felt too chubby even when faced with pictures that showed her how beautiful she was and being a lead singer was not ever going to happen for her she reasoned.  The too poor girl refused to stay too poor but even after all her achievements and all her accomplishments and all of her degrees and all of her kudos, she still thinks about the Music Bus and how she was never able to catch it.

 Music is Magic even for those of us that missed the Music Bus and for those that did catch the Music Bus we thank you.  We listen to the strains of your songs and your life as the bus goes by, melodies and memories drifting from the windows of the Music Bus, and while we may never get a ride on that bus we are so grateful that you still share the journey with us with your music.  I missed the Music Bus but I at least now know its route.

 

Guest blogger, Erika B. Perkins,  lives in San Deigo, CA with her husband, two sons and more than the recommended daily allowance of cats.  She owns and operates Entropy Squared Consulting, a professional organizing service. She is  also the founder of  the unschooling group, San Diego Funschoolers.  A self-proclaimed Geek with more Star Wars knowledge than you can shake a womp rat at, she has an enviable collection of cool t-shirts and knows all the words to  Dr. Horrible’s Sing- Along Blog.