I always felt myself just on the edge of things back in the day—in this case, day refers to music-career moments. I put myself there, mind you. While to anyone else’s eye, I was in it. Squarely situated in the room, side of stage, face to face. But in my mind, I was adjacent. Waiting. Waiting to be seen, talked to, recognized.

This wasn’t a new sensation as I remember it. I was always peeping from the side. When I was little, I watched. Even though as an only child, I was the subject of all the childhood attention, in my memory, I was observing: my mom, my dad, my classmates, my world. I’m sure I was trying to figure out how it all worked. Obviously, with hindsight, I can call it whatever I want: watching rather than doing. And with therapy, I can even access and name some of it. At the time, it wasn’t like I had the words or self-awareness to call it anything other than my life.

When I stepped into the world of music though, it was through a door marked side-stage magic. I purposefully didn’t enter the door marked main magic because … hrm, this will take some thought but the first thing that comes to mind is that I didn’t feel equipped or capable or worthy to carry all the attention. Some clues: (one of) my favorite song(s), Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” appealed because of the lyrical thread woven around the “seamstress for the band,” an ethereal muse who travels with the guys and is the love interest (to my mind) of the singer. Of course back then I had a raging crush on Bernie Taupin, EJ’s lyricist, who, despite his weird mullet, was to me the sexiest guy in the band (in an altogether unseen/adjacent way). During the scene in Almost Famous (my absolute top-fave movie) where the band sings that song on the bus, panning shots on Penny Lane whose own storyline is that of a tragic groupie-muse, my heart swelled, my ears rang, my soul shrieked ME, ME, I want that to be ME.

But the thing about a muse is the adjacent location and the expectation to always be waiting. I knew how to wait. There was a satisfying pain in it, an almost martyr moment of stillness. Back in that day, I was actually always waiting for something, whether the final details of where I’d meet the band or artist for the interview or whether they’d leave me a backstage pass for after the show. And usually I never believed any of these things would ever happen. Those were just the tangible waiting things though because what I was really waiting for was deep connection. I was hoping for the thing I’d been wishing for since I’d been prone on my bedroom floor with Zeppelin, Bowie, et.al. That the band, whether as a whole or an individual, would see me and say, “You. You clearly get it. Let’s never be apart. Come with us and I’ll/we’ll tell you everything, all the secrets, all the sins.” In my young day–fantasies, that would happen from the stage when the singer would look out and spot me in the audience. When I became a journalist, it would happen during an interview. Sometimes it would happen in a very minor key. I would look someone in the eye and they would look back. Say things intimate, whether for publication or not. I would stand backstage knowing I’d gotten inside this human and been privy to some inner workings. It felt thrilling. Of course it did. It was thrilling. Then I’d go home.

I didn’t know then how to name the thing that would happen inside me in the days to follow but I understand now that it was an expectation for more and a disappointment that the more didn’t arrive. If I’d even given attention to that at the time, I’d have thought I was just being silly and soft and wanting something way beyond what I deserved. But back then, I’d wait for it. There were a few times I became intimate with a band member—not always physically, although that did happen—staying up all night convinced a bond was being made that would last forever. Then I’d wait by the phone (because cellphones? no, Virginia, not yet) for a call that would prove that to be true. The phone rang exactly 2% of the time in my memory. This is why the scene from Singles where our hapless heroine waits for the cliché rock dude to call made me look around the theater (because yes, theaters. No, Virginia, DVDs/streaming, not yet) and wonder how Cameron Crowe had gotten direct access to my inner life—naturally Almost Famous convinced me he was living inside my dreams and heartaches. (Sidenote: Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder had told me that the wig Matt Dillon wears as random rocker dude Cliff in Singles was modeled on his hair, which in and of itself is a complete Spinal Tap thing to say.)

Dreams and heartaches and what I thought I didn’t deserve. Well, there’s a tidy little emotional pie that at the time I didn’t look at the ingredients of. I did exist on a steady diet of it though. Here&now, I’m actually in the mood to plumb around and get all mentally chef-y with it. Parsing out the two ounces distancing, five cups denial, twenty pounds expectation will help me understand how to mix up this next step toward feeling music again. To ingest it as I’m already starting to do with this particular band that has me shaking it up with a pretty big slice of abandon. The question: Am I fine with loving them from a distance, being a fangirl, a part of the crowd (see Belgium/should I go)?

Hoo-diddie, what would I get out of a face-to-face? Cuz that suggests I’m still cultivating property in the fields of see-me. ME. That fallow stretch that’s been sown hard with past disappointment. Where my ego was worked into the soil so deeply. The overgrowth of expectation proliferating like… zucchini (isn’t that a gone-wild crop of crazy?). I know it doesn’t need to go like that. I just want to figure out how I do want it to go tho. What will nourish me.

I’ve got seeds of stories. And I aim to drop them here in the coming so&so as I ponder what I plant in the future. Thanks for being a part of this growing season!