Beautiful

“Pasadena is my thunder vest and Big Bear is my diaper” is something I used to say too often because I thought it was cute and I lacked other things to say. The meaning being that I felt very safe in both places. Yet, all safety is a falsehood it seems. I am very chill and grateful to be living in a place as peaceful and family oriented as Pasadena, ( I have never been so engorged! It’s as though my body is reacting to family pheromones with every trip to Ralph’s or lap around the Rose Bowl. I need help with this. I cannot afford an immaculate conception rn.) though all semblance of permanence have left my current circumstances. Happiness comes in more granular things, like Folgers in my coffee cup in the morning, shopping at Sleepys mattress store, and sucking on chili dogs outside the Tastee Freez.

There’s a line in the book Girls Like Us about Carole King, Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell, where Joni Mitchell is breaking up with David Crosby because she has been living in a cave for  6 months and it’s just not gonna work between them and David finds a break up note that says: “Sometimes when you hold sand too tightly, it slips through your fingers.” Seems relevant now as we step into a new year steeped in uncertainty, and apprehension. We, like David Crosby, may have been holding on to Joni Mitchell or life itself, too tightly, and now it’s time for some bold surrender.

The music of Carly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell act as a holy trinity at different times in my life and were some of the first artists I was ever exposed to listening to thanks to my mothers obsession. Carly for heartbreak, Carole for daydreaming at home, and Joni when I’m on rock climbing on cocaine.

A few years ago, my sister, mother and I, went to the broadway show Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,  a musical based on Carole King’s dope ass life featuring her music and music of that time.  I dont know a more effectively stirringly simple lyric than when Carole King bolts “You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face, and show the world all the love in your heart” It still comes to mind when I am doing whatever version of prayer I do in my head, like a mantra. Her voice is so maternal and homey. All three women seem to embody  some combination of earth’s elements= Carly: fire, Carole, earth, Joni: water or air. I  thought they were witches as a kid and associated them wrongly with the film, Hocus Pocus (1993).

We had orchestra seats and had visited theater refreshment prior to the shows start. My mom, sister, and I were all drinking tall cosmopolitans out of big evil plastic straws when the show began. The musical was an emotional washing machine from the very top. Lots of joy and tears within the first twenty minutes. Why must there be a song as sad as “So Far Away”?? It revels in bleakness in such a plain way. “So far away. Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore.” Fuck! Any idiot can understand it, and yet so deep! Why did I ever pedestalize heady complexity? It’s boring as hell.

We were slurping down our cosmos, experiencing very potent emotional processes, as the musical did a tap dance on all our individual hearts when something weird began to happen. There was a scream from the middle orchestra. A chasm of confusion widened over the crowd. Some people began to hustle out of the theater instinctively. I felt my palms sweat which has always been my body’s way of saying either “you’re gonna die maybe” or “that’s a boner”. There was a lightening fast panic rippling through the aisles as well as people like my family, whipping our heads around. Oh, no. A shooting? A terrorist attack?

On stage,  Franki Valli and the other members of The Four Seasons, were belting “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin”. They simply wouldn’t stop, swaying and snapping their fingers to the beat as hysteria erupted in front of them. From the mezzanine a door opened, and a distressed woman screamed something that sounded like “attack!” Now, everyone was scared. The lights went down on stage after the Four Seasons finally finished their damn song, and the bright lights of the theater turned on.  My sister began to hyperventilate, people left hurriedly through the side doors. I felt we were already swallowed, now we just had to wait to see what horror was in store.

Then, ushers began to walk through the aisles. “Everything's Ok! There is someone who is having an emergency.” There was a delirium to the collective chaos, our emotions were already raw as hell from what was happening to Carole.

Everyone skeptically calmed down, still uncertain what to trust. Are the ushers in on it? Are they just trying to prevent a possible stampede? What’s really going on? No one had cell reception inside the theater. They called for a twenty minute intermission with a fully open bar, free drinks. We hypothesized someone had a heart attack because of the woman screaming “attack.”

No doubt everyone was pretty sloshed by the end of the musical. I could not tell you what wound up happening to Carole by the end, or what the fate was of the poor soul whose heart broke during the show. I believe we read they were rushed to the hospital and it turned out ok for them, but this might be a false comfort I made up to feel safe. Feeling safe is dangerous too.