100 memoirs project #13: No Walls and the Recurring Dream, by Ani DiFranco

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100 memoirs, 100 memoirs project, abortion rights, Ani DiFranco, feminism, memoir, music

YESSSSS. OMG YES. Ani’s memoir.

Sorry, all the other memoirs on my bedside table. I bookmarked all of you when I bought Ani’s book on its release day, because I have been FEELING lately, and returning to her music (and Tori’s, and Bikini Kill’s, and Sleater-Kinney’s, and 7 Year Bitch’s, and and and and) because it’s an angry-female world I live in and I need a soundtrack.

…Some guy designed this room I’m standing in,
and others built it with their own tools.
Who says I like right angles?
These are not my laws, these are not my rules!

The first Ani song I ever heard was “Dilate,” which a friend put on for me after a particularly bad breakup:

And when I say you sucked my brain out,
the English translation
is ‘I am in love with you,
and it is no fun.’

Hooked.

But this post isn’t about music per se. Well, maybe that’s untrue. It’s about a memoir by a consummate musician. Without music, there would be no memoir. There would be no Ani. There might be no Stacia.

Dancing with my son

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bonding, dance, dancing, music

This is gonna end sappy.

The great loves of my life are Jax, words, trees, and music. There is a lot of overlap: I take a walk on my lunch break with my earbuds in. Jax and I read books together every day. I hike through state parks writing poems in my head. One of the best overlaps has been Jax’s burgeoning love of music.

Many parents have a cute story about the first time their babies smile at a song, or the first time they find them shaking their tiny booties to a tune on a TV commercial. Saved on my phone, hopefully forever, is a vid of barely-2 Jax dancing with reckless abandon to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song…until he saw me with my phone and ran away. It made me momentarily sad that my son was already capable of feeling self-conscious. I never want him to feel self-conscious, probably because I feel that way all the time.

I’ve written before about Jax’s emotional response to music, but now that he’s older, he’s much more curious. Imagine this grungy mama’s pride the first time I caught rearview sight of him bopping furiously from his car seat to Queens of the Stone Age, or saying, “Turn it up mommy!” when Spotify shuffles to Pearl Jam.

One day, randomly, he said, “Rock and roll is my favorite!” Another time, a teacher asked him what kind of music he likes and he said, “Loud.” You get it honest, baby.

I meditate to loud guitars, so what?

Tags

breathing, calm place, distraction, grunge, meditation, metronome, mindfulness, music, panic attacks, Pearl Jam, regulation

How I ride.

If you’ve ever met me, you know I’m an early 90s girl through and through. Think flannel, think Bill Clinton buttons, think impassioned arguments about Pearl Jam vs. Nirvana (Just kidding. I don’t talk about Nirvana, ever.)

“Grunge” to me never meant a movement, never meant ONLY dirty, disheveled, disenchanted. Grunge was an evolution of rock and roll, a transition away from the glam and excess of the 80s and into a culture of DIY—homemade mixed tapes, friends designing posters for other friends in bands, garage punk, guitars around campfires with people you love. Basically, love itself, plus creativity and a healthy dose of cynicism. A reincarnation of hippie culture, with a world-wise edge. A consciousness, and a conscience, about being a good citizen, making art, helping others, and, you know, stickin it to the man. Beyond the music and the ripped jeans, those ideals are still my ideals, even if they got warped into marketing tools. Grunge 4eva.

A lot of people ask me why I listen to the same music over and over again.