This is a story about abuse and music and art. So far, it has a happy ending.
Once upon a time I lived in a place that was far better than it had any right to be. I went to good schools, with diverse classmates, I had friends, we went out to coffee shops and smoked cloves--it was the perfect 90s adolescence.
Then, when I was 16, my parents moved the family to Clay County, West Virginia. Whatever you think you know about that place, you’re almost certainly wrong. It’s worse than you could possibly imagine, and that was years before the opioid epidemic.
I was surrounded by people I didn’t understand, who didn’t understand me. Mostly they assumed I was some version of queer (true) and hated me for it. But there were a few weird kids like me, less than 10. They had all been a group of friends for years and had recently split into two factions in a pretty bad break-up.
I picked the wrong ones.
Her name was **** and she listened to punk music and danced ballet and wrote and was massively better read than me. I thought she was the coolest girl I'd ever met. We got along like a house on fire for awhile. We considered each other sisters, and got matching tattoos. We planned on being crazy old cat ladies together some day. She didn’t hit me often, but she did. More than that she constantly derided me. She was mostly recovered from an eating disorder and felt infinite social pressure, and I don’t think it ever occurred to her to not apply that to me. So I was dumb for being a geek, I was stupid for missing a social cue that may or not have happened, I was such a fucking idiot for anything that didn’t please her. She was my maid of honor, and in her toast to me she called me, in front of all my friends and family, “the smartest dumbass I ever met.” She was bitter as the day is long, and had a chip on her shoulder that colored everything she saw or did or said.
She introduced me to so much music. She was nearly as poor as me, but this was in the days of $3 punk samplers at Hot Topic, and of Napster. She taught me about The Get Up Kids and The Anniversary, The Bouncing Souls and why they were called that, Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris, Bikini Kill, Rancid, Alkaline Trio, Catch 22...ska and punk and emo when it was new and raw. No one goes to West Virginia on purpose, so we drove to DC, to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, even Indianapolis to see bands. Cowboy Mouth goddamn near saved my soul one night.
It finally ended in 2005, not long after I got married. I didn’t listen to music for at least five years, maybe more. I slowly started easing back in. I started with Scottish bands--bands that couldn't possibly have anything to do with her, and which would never appeal to her. Frightened Rabbit, the Twilight Sad, There Will Be Fireworks, We Were Promised Jetpacks. I finally went to my first show in 2015, and Frightened Rabbit helped heal my battered heart. But I still couldn't listen to punk and all those bands I'd loved.
Last night (Jun 19) I learned that El Generico came out to Ole by the Bouncing Souls--I hadn't seen a video such that I could really make out the song. I remembered how much I liked them. Today at work I spent 8 hours with a massive headache, so my boss let me listen to music as we closed. I pulled up a Bouncing Souls playlist on youtube.
I haven’t felt music move my heart this way in years--even the bands that I have found and loved on my own haven’t hit this part of me. I listened to them sing about friendship and loyalty and the limitless power of music and hope, and I wondered at the grin on my face and thought, “I’m not broken…”
In spite of everything, in spite of her and worse in my life, I haven’t yet become too cynical for punk. In other words, I’m still alive, I still have hope and fight in me. I haven’t given up, on my life or my dreams or my ideals.
I think it got really close there for awhile. I think I’ll be ok. I think wrestling has saved me at least twice this year--first through itself, and now through music as well. It's such a strange thing to say thank you for--'your walk-out music in the indies brought me back to myself'--but I am nothing if not compulsively grateful. I know he could never have known and certainly didn't mean to. But this is why we do art, isn't it? For the beautiful, salvific coincidences that we could never plan but which give us life and joy and hope. And that, I am certain he gets. Yours, Autumn
Once upon a time I lived in a place that was far better than it had any right to be. I went to good schools, with diverse classmates, I had friends, we went out to coffee shops and smoked cloves--it was the perfect 90s adolescence.
Then, when I was 16, my parents moved the family to Clay County, West Virginia. Whatever you think you know about that place, you’re almost certainly wrong. It’s worse than you could possibly imagine, and that was years before the opioid epidemic.
I was surrounded by people I didn’t understand, who didn’t understand me. Mostly they assumed I was some version of queer (true) and hated me for it. But there were a few weird kids like me, less than 10. They had all been a group of friends for years and had recently split into two factions in a pretty bad break-up.
I picked the wrong ones.
Her name was **** and she listened to punk music and danced ballet and wrote and was massively better read than me. I thought she was the coolest girl I'd ever met. We got along like a house on fire for awhile. We considered each other sisters, and got matching tattoos. We planned on being crazy old cat ladies together some day. She didn’t hit me often, but she did. More than that she constantly derided me. She was mostly recovered from an eating disorder and felt infinite social pressure, and I don’t think it ever occurred to her to not apply that to me. So I was dumb for being a geek, I was stupid for missing a social cue that may or not have happened, I was such a fucking idiot for anything that didn’t please her. She was my maid of honor, and in her toast to me she called me, in front of all my friends and family, “the smartest dumbass I ever met.” She was bitter as the day is long, and had a chip on her shoulder that colored everything she saw or did or said.
She introduced me to so much music. She was nearly as poor as me, but this was in the days of $3 punk samplers at Hot Topic, and of Napster. She taught me about The Get Up Kids and The Anniversary, The Bouncing Souls and why they were called that, Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris, Bikini Kill, Rancid, Alkaline Trio, Catch 22...ska and punk and emo when it was new and raw. No one goes to West Virginia on purpose, so we drove to DC, to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, even Indianapolis to see bands. Cowboy Mouth goddamn near saved my soul one night.
It finally ended in 2005, not long after I got married. I didn’t listen to music for at least five years, maybe more. I slowly started easing back in. I started with Scottish bands--bands that couldn't possibly have anything to do with her, and which would never appeal to her. Frightened Rabbit, the Twilight Sad, There Will Be Fireworks, We Were Promised Jetpacks. I finally went to my first show in 2015, and Frightened Rabbit helped heal my battered heart. But I still couldn't listen to punk and all those bands I'd loved.
Last night (Jun 19) I learned that El Generico came out to Ole by the Bouncing Souls--I hadn't seen a video such that I could really make out the song. I remembered how much I liked them. Today at work I spent 8 hours with a massive headache, so my boss let me listen to music as we closed. I pulled up a Bouncing Souls playlist on youtube.
I haven’t felt music move my heart this way in years--even the bands that I have found and loved on my own haven’t hit this part of me. I listened to them sing about friendship and loyalty and the limitless power of music and hope, and I wondered at the grin on my face and thought, “I’m not broken…”
In spite of everything, in spite of her and worse in my life, I haven’t yet become too cynical for punk. In other words, I’m still alive, I still have hope and fight in me. I haven’t given up, on my life or my dreams or my ideals.
I think it got really close there for awhile. I think I’ll be ok. I think wrestling has saved me at least twice this year--first through itself, and now through music as well. It's such a strange thing to say thank you for--'your walk-out music in the indies brought me back to myself'--but I am nothing if not compulsively grateful. I know he could never have known and certainly didn't mean to. But this is why we do art, isn't it? For the beautiful, salvific coincidences that we could never plan but which give us life and joy and hope. And that, I am certain he gets. Yours, Autumn