Not quite sure what I was expecting, a twenty-something revival with all the head shaking excitement and beer buzz of my former self, perhaps. But there was little head shaking from my present day exhausted self, no care-free buzz from my non-alcoholic beer, no “the night is but a fetus” feeling stirring in my gut, just an exhausted mommy hoping the gig didn’t run too long for fear of only grabbing five hours of sleep before my 6am wake-up call.
But still, I went there expecting to recapture something. Something to remind me I’m still alive, that I still have what I had. But what did I have compared to what I have now? Two beautiful children, an amazing hubby, a simple, but fulfilling life. So why did my nostalgia get the better of me?
Before the gig my husband and I decided to head over to the new Highline on the west side. I say, “new” because anything that has been built in the last four years is new to me. A depressing fact since this is coming from a New York City inhabitant of twelve years. I find myself becoming the “visitor” I used to scoff at as they looked around the city saying things like, “That was never there when I lived here,” or, “What happened to my favorite pizza joint?!” (yes, in fact, I think I used the word “joint”) That’s another weird thing about parenthood. Suddenly, I find myself saying words I’ve never said but only heard on “Happy Days,” like “joint” and “Holy Cow.”
While at the Highline, I was overcome by the realization that everyone was at least ten or (hand to mouth) twenty years younger than me. This was not a new experience since I have been into the city several times since I migrated to the suburbs, but for some reason walking with my husband’s hand in mine, feeling less like an object (which every young woman in New York is, let’s face it, and we love every moment of it) and more like a grandma. Yup, a grandma. I may have had my new dress from Anthropologie on. I may have had a trendy cinched rope belt on, around a fairly slim waist, but I was no longer an option, if you know what I mean.
That’s ok, I thought, as I swung my husband’s arm back and forth as a child would do with her father. It was then I remembered something a friend of mine said to me several years back after admitting she’d been a bit depressed. “I finally came to realize,” she had said, “the world is no longer my oyster.” Oh, GOD! Those words found their way deep, deep into my no longer turning over skin cells. Perhaps it stung worse because my father used to say that the world WAS my oyster, all the time. He no longer does.
After we walked the Highline we decided to grab some food before we headed to the show. So, in all my humiliation, I had to whip out my IPhone to find a good restaurant. How far my finger is from the pulse. Even after searching, the only thing I could come up with was something familiar, “Pastis,” the 2005 hot spot (ironically, the very year I began to care less about where I drank my martinis). And as I expected, the place was packed with what seemed to be tour groups from everywhere outside of New York City. What a bust!
But I would be a real stinker (there are those words again) if I failed to admit that I could be anywhere doing anything with my husband and I would be having fun. And the truth is, the worse the environment the better, for us - more to make fun of. We laughed at the young off-the-bus Texan girls hoping to meet the banker husbands, and the bridge and tunnel couple who asked the waiter to sit in the corner seat so they could sit next to each other…wait, that was us.
As we got out of the cab, in front of The Bitter End, I was again reminded of my age, that being the oldest of anyone in a ten block radius. I was thrilled to find nothing had changed of my old haunt. The same blue awning, the same wood face, and the same gaggle of excited patrons out front smoking cigs. I darted across the street like a teenager.
I walked through the door forgetting I came with my husband, maybe even forgetting I had a husband, dead sober, but the buzz from the smell of music and beer gave me butterflies. I was twenty-four again. Living with five girls in a duplex apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. I was sexy, stupid, and drunk with possibility, and just drunk. And then my husband grabbed my hand. “Do you want to get a table? There’s a two drink minimum.” Wah, wah…back to reality.
The truth is I’ve been sober for close to ten years now. My husband was a lightweight and got drunk off two drinks, which he’d already consumed, so two drinks for both of us were out. Though back in the day, my roommates and I would plunk ourselves at the front row table to watch our roomie belt out ballads and exceed the two drink minimum by four, and this was after pre-game cocktails and possible cab roadies of brown bagged beer. How I missed those nights, but how I didn’t miss those mornings.
So we got a table, because my husband could probably sense my need to relive something special, and because he’s just awesome. He ordered his beer, poor guy, and I ordered my non-alcoholic one. There are really only so many of those you can have before you feel like you’re carrying a small baboon in your gullet. Which always amazes me because how had I once thrown back a six-pack of the real stuff and cheese fries without feeling any mild discomfort or need for a maternity dress?
Jen approached the stage with all the grace and beauty she once had, and again, I was brought back. But where was the cute sax player my best friend had hooked up with in the recording room? Where was the crazy drummer from Switzerland who walked around our apartment in his underwear (the Swiss don’t wear boxers, either)? Replacing them was her husband, an amazing acoustic basist, a forty something drummer, talented as well, and two guitar players of equal or greater age range. Don’t get me wrong, their talent lacked for nothing, in fact age refines art, but I felt old by default, as if the act of art appreciation made me older.
I wanted the younger Jen Chapin band, the one that blasted riffs and spliffs after gigs. The band who’s songs I sang out loud. “He’s just a manchild!” I can still see me now, standing front and center, eyes closed, buzz a-buzzing, singing my soul out. “Well, he’s handsome and he’s got a nice car. He’s straight out smart and he knows he could go far.” Back then I didn’t care what the song was about. I didn’t think much deeper than my beer glass, but that night, sitting there with my husband, thinking of my children’s bedtime routine and if it was done accurately enough to defend against meltdowns, I listened to “Man Child” in a whole new light. The dreadlocked boy, was my boy, grown up, and living like a Man Child, and I realized I will never be able to capture the innocence of my former self. I will never not listen to lyrics deeply, thoughtfully, and passionately. I will never be as carefree, as drunk, and as ignorant as I was at that first Jen Chapin concert at The Bitter End. That girl is gone, replaced by a stronger, more serious mother of two toddlers. Do I miss that careless girl? Of course, but the way a soldier misses wartime, with pride for having overcome, having made it out alive.
After the concert I briefly spoke with Jen, now the mother of two young boys. I felt the same sense of earned pride met with a humble approach to life. While we were once the center of our own universes, we are now deeply aware of the intermixing of all universes, and of the importance of this knowledge and how teaching our children this will be our legacy. I hope one day my children will go to The Bitter End and listen to music just like I did, I just hope they will be a little less clueless to the world around them and their responsibility to make it better. As I hailed a cab, my husband a foot or two behind me, I noticed a fairly, “fairly” is an objective word, young man checking me out. Bam! I still got it.
