Month: June 2020

Life’s Playlist

Jeanna G1 Comment

This past Mother’s Day, my daughter and I took a road trip to the beach. Every road trip needs music. My car, however, needs help in that department. The CD player is broken, and I don’t have the fancy Bluetooth business, the auxiliary port is finicky, and playing music through my phone speaker just isn’t loud enough. So, we listen to the radio. Not iHeart Radio or Sirius, just plain old local FM radio. To my delight, one such station replays Casey Kasem’s Top 40 shows on Sunday mornings! The sound of his voice turned my car into a time machine. So of course I then had to explain to my daughter who he was and what we were listening to, and how I would tune into his show every week so that I would be ‘in the know’ at school on Monday. It’s amazing to think of how many lyrics I had memorized by such a young age. Music is reminiscent.

I’ve always had a fairly eclectic taste in music, but there are definitely genres of music that I could label periods of my life with. Elementary was Top 40, middle and high school was hip hop and alt-rock, college was jam band, mid-20s went back to hip hop, and my 30s became Kidz Bop, Fresh Beat Band, and Disney. *Sigh* We’re moving past that phase and my daughter is discovering other tastes in music. Some I like, some not so much, but I’m still curious to hear her life’s playlist. Tik Tok, YouTube, and friends are among her sources of discovery, while I try desperately to influence her musical choices every chance I get. (“Repeat after me: John, Paul, George, and Ringo.”) It’s in those attempts that I have been rediscovering my love of music. Music is revealing.

I’m getting back into the hobby of making playlists. I was a mix tape maker. First there was the art of pressing record at just the right moment to capture a song off the radio. With the double cassette player came compilations from all of the tapes I could get my hands on. Then came mix CDs, which still line the door of my car because I keep hoping my CD player will magically start working again. And now I use iTunes and Spotify to get back into the groove of playlist making. I’ve got playlists for different moods and seasons, events and people, as well as different activities like working out, cleaning the house, and focusing on my job. Music inspires and music motivates.

To say my sister was a DJ for a period of time would be an understatement. She may have gotten paid to do it for a couple of years, but she’s been my DJ for life. Music influences.

Working and schooling at home during the pandemic required several graces, and music was a big one. So I committed an act of self-preservation by making a playlist of music from my middle and high school years. I started with my personal favorites, and then decided to reach out to my friends. I asked them to name their top 3 artists or songs from that period. Not only did that spur even more memories, but it was a fun way to connect, spread joy, and offer respite to my loved ones. Music unites and music heals.

As my enjoyment of popular music ebbs and flows with the times, my love of jazz remains constant. Improvisation provides a breath of fresh air, and I find hope in the blending of multiple rhythms and melodies. It evokes calmness despite the fickle world we live in. Music soothes.

There’s a song for everything. I get tired of telling my daughter to clean up or get ready or whatever, so now I sing directions to her. She rolls her eyes, but I know she likes it better than me yelling. And now she sings to me as a way to get me to pay attention. Music communicates.

Music is all around me and within me. It helps me tune into life, and allows me to escape. It accompanies the good and the sad, the major and the minor. Life is an ever-changing playlist of songs, but the music is a constant friend.

What makes your life’s playlist? What does music do for you?

A Trip for the Ages

Jeanna G1 Comment

As I’d mentioned in my post “Mementos,” watching the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving has been a tradition of mine since a very young age. In the early 2000s, the National Dog Show was added to my holiday routine. Every year I tune in to watch while surrounded by family, friends, and food. And every year I’d tell myself I would watch the parade in person one day, and I’d get a dog. Finally, in 2018, I did both. Thanksgiving just happened to fall on my late grandma’s birthday that year, November 22nd. It seemed fitting to finally see the parade in person that I had watched in her living room on Long Island for so many years.

On Wednesday, my daughter and I boarded the Silver Star in Raleigh, which had been delayed because of an accident involving a landscaping truck somewhere in Florida. Because of the delay, we were pushed back in the line going into just about every station along the route, changing our arrival time from 6pm to midnight. The delay put the kibosh on attending the balloon inflation event near the American Museum of Natural History. We’ll just have to go back another year, preferably when the weather is warmer. The parade first began in 1924, and the year my daughter and I went was the coldest in the parade’s history; 19 degrees in Central Park at 11am.

We pulled into Penn Station at midnight, walked to our hotel near Times Square, and slept a few short hours before bundling up and walking toward Columbus Circle. We settled on a spot at the corner of 68th and Central Park West, that also happened to be where a Macy’s employee was allowing ticket holders to cross to the other side of the street, where they could sit on bleachers for a better view. At 10 til 9, there were very few people sitting on the bleachers, so the employee turned to us and asked if we wanted to cross over. I hadn’t even grabbed my chair and my daughter was already halfway across the street. We were gifted with a front row seat over subway vents that blew up coveted gusts of hot air every time a trained passed beneath us. At 9am sharp the parade kicked off, and despite the potential for frostbite, my daughter and I had a ball. The clowns patted her head and tossed confetti all over her. We waved at the stars and were slack-jawed by the immensity of the balloons. And then there was Santa. Time slowed as he and I locked eyes. Always believe in the magic that is Santa Claus. Nothing can transport me back to childhood faster.

When watching on tv, the parade doesn’t end until noon, and you see a good hour of performances in Herald Square, including the quintessential can-can kicks of the Rockettes, before the parade marches through. We were so close to the parade kick-off at 77th street, that it wasn’t even 11am when Santa glided by. From our spot at 68th, we walked up to Strawberry Fields, where we climbed into a bicycle-driven carriage that took us for a spin through the park. It was expensive, but necessary because neither of us could feel our feet anymore. We got out at 7th and Central Park South to find a deli that had an entire roasted turkey as part of its buffet. I made Ellie a take-out box of Thanksgiving fixins, and ordered myself a turkey Reuben. We hobbled back to our hotel, only slowing to gaze at the Christmas displays in the store windows. We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner in bed while watching the Dog Show. After thawing out, we dressed up and hailed a taxi to take us to Radio City Music Hall to experience the Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular; a must-see.

The next morning we dashed off to F.A.O Schwarz to dance on the piano. I bought us both a lovie to cuddle on the train home. A quick stop at Junior’s for bagels and a cheesecake (not a slice, but a whole cake), and then we were back on the train headed south.

It was a whirlwind, but it is one of the most satisfying, memorable trips I have ever taken, and one that I hope my daughter will always treasure. I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

What’s that one trip you keep telling yourself you’re going to take? What’s stopping you?

The Importance of Play: Pt. 2

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I’ve been thinking back on the devotional that I wrote for my church last October (See The Importance of Play: Pt. 1). I wrote about the need for play in order to learn and grow. Now, less than a year later, children have been sent home from school, away from their playmates, and told to learn remotely. Meanwhile, parents are trying to work from home. What does this mean? Screen time, screen time, and more screen time.

I can tell you firsthand that working and teaching from home is mentally exhausting, and when I finally get to ‘clock out,’ I just want to turn my brain off. But, there’s my daughter to think about. She misses her friends and the playtime she had at recess so much. So what could we do that didn’t require thinking, but still involved a level of play? How could I help her to learn remotely without entering an online classroom? What could we do to reduce the anxieties caused by this pandemic? We’d go to various parks and trails where I would walk the dogs and she would ride her bike or hoverboard. We would paint on the back porch or color in her coloring books (both very good activities for calming the nerves). And we played every board game in the house, three times over. As enjoyable as those activities are, we needed more (I mean really, it’s been 88 days since the first stay-at-home order was issued!).

I started to think about the activities that I love to play and that also reduce stress, and hoped that my daughter would enjoy them, too. I love puzzles, so I bought myself a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and a few smaller puzzles for her to work on beside me. She would have me time her as she tried to beat her own puzzle completion time over and over. I finished my puzzle within a weekend. Ok, what’s next?

I love Norman Rockwell’s Illustrations!

I chose the first activity and she chose the second. She has been really into LEGOs lately (thanks to her juvenescent 53-year old uncle who plays with them regularly and sent her a bunch!), so I decided to take my own advice to act like a child and nurture my own imagination, and give them a try. I bought myself the Friends LEGO set of Central Perk, and I loved building it! I did not play with LEGOs much as a child, so I didn’t understand the draw. I mean there’s an entire LEGOLAND and a LEGO Masters show and LEGO Movies! But now that I’ve pieced a set together, I totally get it. For one thing, I love the show Friends. Secondly, I love working with my hands, piecing things together, fixing things, and figuring out how things work. Building a Friends LEGO set just made sense. After completing it, my daughter and I sat down and watched all 10 seasons of Friends together. While we watched, she played with the LEGOs, setting up the Friends in positions similar to where they were in the show’s scenes. This became our nightly ritual for several weeks.

Something that I spent a lot of time playing with as a child was a train set. That was a fun hobby that really is similar to puzzles and LEGOs; not only was I piecing something together, but the more I worked on them, the more I felt I was in them, like a part of the scene. It’s kind of like how Mister Rogers’ trolley would magically transport you to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Yes, I think my daughter and I will just have to build a set together.

My old train set! Complete with a shoebox tunnel.

This time at home has increased the level of importance of play even more. The kids have really been thrown for a loop, no matter how resilient their coping skills seem to be. Think about how stressed you’ve been during this pandemic and then fit all of that into a pint-sized version of yourself. Use this time to act like a child and be the best playmate your child could ever imagine.