I can't remember what I thought the first time I heard "September Girl." Isn't it funny how that happens? Some of the pivotal songs that you carry around with you over the years are so significant that you can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing the first time you heard them. "Carry On Wayward Son" is that way for me, and so is "Under Pressure." But for all of the meaning that "September Girl" has to me, I cannot remember where I was or what I was doing the first time I heard it.
I guess it's likely that it was in June of 2002 that I first heard it, the first time I saw Jupiter Sunrise at a festival in Altamont (New York). I had gone with a friend because he was into Dashboard Confessional and I had a thing for him. Jon Parker isn't in my life anymore, but if it weren't for his affinity for Dashboard, I may never have been exposed to Jupiter Sunrise.
Somehow or another the band became a part of my life in the months and years to follow. My first few years of college, my core and only group of friends revolved around the band. Greg and Dave, who I'd gone to high school with, fell in love with the band along with me. But if it weren't for the band, I never would have met Val or Kristine (still two of my best friends in the world), Scott (my first love), Mimi, Dan, Steve, Paddy, and, of course, the four members of the band -- Mark, Ben, Aaron, and Chris.
My life -- all our lives -- centered around them for years. They were originally from our area so although they toured the entire country they always stayed in our neck of the woods for more than a few days. And we followed them around wherever they went that was driving distance. We got to be friends with the band and immersed ourselves completely in everything about them.
The song "September Girl" became my favorite song. Maybe it was just because my birthday is in September that I felt like I could relate to it. But its somewhat esoteric lyrics struck a chord with me for some reason and that has never been more real until today.
Although I can't remember the first time I heard it, I can remember the most important. When I turned eighteen (can this memory really be ten years old already?) I walked down the driveway with Greg, Dave, and Andy to my parents' garage, unsuspecting of any pending surprise birthday party. As I walked down the driveway, the garage door opened. Drums and guitar kicked up, and there was Jupiter Sunrise, playing "September Girl" in my parents' garage.
Over the years it hits me at random points and certain words or phrases stand out to me. Sometimes I tried to force it to apply to my situation even when it didn't; other times the words meant something entirely different than what they'd meant to me the last time I'd sung it. The song became an essential thread in the fabric of my life, and it's always been there.
This year it's like I finally get it. Ten years ago when I first started liking the band, I wondered what the song would feel like when I turned twenty-eight. The second line of the song is "...already twenty-eight, still haven't saved the world..." As the years went on, I felt like I was getting closer and closer to the point where the song's meaning for my life would come to fruition. Now it has, and I completely missed it on my birthday.
I was a little distracted, but the reasons for the distractions are exactly why the song makes so much more sense now.
September in Skagway is a transitional month. It's the last month of the season. The last cruise ship day was yesterday, and all the summer people have been gradually making their way out of town. There was a mass exodus today as seasonals piled onto boats, planes, cars and trucks to head back to the real world. Town is about to get a lot quieter, a lot smaller, a lot slower, a lot more peaceful. This September has been more transitional than most-- four days in, a life came to a sudden stop, and our real world in Skagway will never be the same. This September's transitions included police reports and a funeral alongside the usual end-of-season chaos.
It's comforting sometimes in those trials and times of absolute change when nothing is recognizeable in your life anymore to reconnect with an old friend. Sometimes the old friend is an actual person; sometimes it's a book, work of art, hiking trail, or movie; and sometimes it's a song. In my case, recalling "September Girl" was strangely soothing and terrifying at the same time. The realization that I am, at last, 28 years old and able to fully realize a meaning of the song that feels like it was written just for me, makes everything hanging on my shoulders easier to bear while at the same time further engraining it all into my head.
All of the emotions that I've felt over the last twenty-three days of September -- guilt, anger, sadness, loss, grief, fear, pain, love, rage -- are, in one way or another, encompassed in the lyrics that I have always come back to over the years. The song has always made sense to me but now, with all that's been going on, with life and death suddenly made more painfully separate and defined, and with change suddenly being a much bigger word than one syllable, it's absolutely perfect.
Oh, September girl, I am so scared today
Already 28, still haven't saved the world
Woke up this morning to nothing I recognized
Everything changed and I never saw it coming
Now there are five billion disappointed souls
Scraping around in my disappointed mind
And for the first time in my life I am afraid of change because
Everything's changing without me
Oh, September girl, I am so scared for you
You finally decided to live on without me
Now I am forced to just swallow this heart
And for you to become the girl you already are
Now there are five billion disappointed souls
That will just have to wait 'cause I only dream for you
And for the first time in my life I am afraid of change because
Everything's changing without me
Maybe it's time for me to do the thing that I'm meant to do
'Cause you're getting older and I'm getting older
And even us good people die
The gifted never stop seeing the world for the first time
The good ones grow older, the poor ones grow older,
The great ones are never forgotten.
By some beautiful coincidence, the man who wrote the song is online at the same time as me while I write this blog. It makes me wonder... I've always known as a songwriter that my own interpretation of a song and its meaning to me personally may be completely different from someone else's. That's part of the joy of writing songs, I guess -- the knowledge that it may touch someone in a way that you never would have expected. I can only hope that someday, somewhere, something I create will have some kind of meaning to someone else, even if that meaning is entirely different than the meaning I personally ascribed to it.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Stimee's Gun
It came with us, naturally, to the rifle range on a lot of occasions. All the other guns came too.
It came with us to Haines when we went camping with Adam and Crystal and their kids. It was one of many trips that the gun made with us on the ferry. It stayed tucked away in the glove box instead of following the rules and being declared to ferry authorities. Stimee never was one for authority, particularly when it related to his guns. The gun saw some use that Easter weekend of 2011. Stimee, Adam, Steve and Brady shot up some logs by the river. I took a few shots with it myself but for the most part, for some reason shooting wasn't on my immediate agenda that weekend.
The gun stayed in the tent with us as we slept by the river those few nights. Part of the comfort of camping with Stimee was that he had all the best gear, but a greater part was knowing without a doubt that he would know how to use it when he had to. By the river in Haines there had been a lot of evidence of moose. Stimee and I once watched a documentary about moose attacks. Although I've never seen one except through a car window, Stimee's years in Haines had acquainted him with the giant cervids. He loved telling the story about being chased by a moose while on his bike. He dove into a ditch and held the bike up over him so the moose couldn't get at him. Animals didn't frighten Stimee but i guess that's partly because death didn't, either.
The gun came with me last winter on a snowshoe trip to the Denver caboose. In the parking lot with Rachel and Jodie, before I clipped it on, I asked, "do either of you have issues with guns? Because I'm taking one with me. Speak now or forever hold your peace." Neither of them did. The gun stayed on my hip for the trip except when we slept in the caboose. Inside it kept silent vigil beside me in the bunk, there for me if I needed it, a security blanket against anything I could imagine coming in and threatening my safety.
That was when we lived in Liarsville. Stimee surprised me that day by meeting us to hike back along the tracks. it was the dead of winter and everything was blanketed with snow. I had texted Stimee so that he could say hi from the other side of the river as we slogged back to town. When he did say hi, he was already on our side of the river in his Xtratuffs. I hadn't expected that. Stimee, during our three years together, wasn't much of a recreational hiker. It made my day that, in the middle of the most tumultuous part of our relationship, he'd come out to walk back with me.
When we met by the train tracks on our walk back to town, I unclipped the gun from my Carhartts and handed it to him. He carried it back the rest of the way. it wasn't because I was returning it; it was because my backpack was cumbersome and the gun got in the way. He trusted me with the gun, and that gave me pride.
I learned this in the spring of 2011 when I went on a camping trip with the interp staff for work. Stimee was out of town at that point with his job training program. As I packed my gear for the camping trip it was only natural that the gun found its way into my hands. It's just part of the basic needs of a human being. When camping you need shelter (tent), warmth (sleeping bag, clothes), food and ways to prepare it, water, and things to protect you in case of emergencies. That may include band-aids and it may include guns.
I kept the little pistol and its ammo in the glove box of the car as we sat around the fire drinking, eating, socializing. When it was bedtime in the midnight twilight, I went to the car to get it, hoping no one would see. I didn't want to have to deal with someone else's unfounded paranoia of firearms. I wrapped it in my coat and went to bed. I slept soundly that night, and a part of it was a result of knowing I could at the very least create a sound loud enough to frighten away a large animal.
I hadn't asked Stimee's permission to take the gun with me on that trip. It hadn't occurred to me that I should. our assets were shared by that point. At some point later I thought to mention it to him.
"I took the gun camping," I told him. "I hope that's OK."
Of course it was. "I would hope you'd bring it with you," Stimee said. "You know how to use it. There's no reason you wouldn't."
Stimee was particular about some things, guns being one of them. The fact that he trusted me enough and that I satisfied his expectations in gun safety and marksmanship really made me feel good about myself and my relationship with him. In a lot of things he was and always would see me as less than him, not always without reason. For how much more experienced he was than me, I was happy that I was equal enough to be trusted with the gun. I looked up to him in so many ways. He knew so much more than me about a lot of things. I was always beyond flattered when he'd taught me enough to trust me on my own.
But that wasn't always the case. The gun came with us once to the new rifle range and caused me a bit of trouble on one occasion. We were there with about twelve people, including friends who'd never shot guns before. Stimee and I unloaded all the rifles from the back seat of hte car and brough thtme out to the range. It was winter, chilly, but the sun was shining. It was one of those gorgeous clear winter days that Stimee really liked and always tried to sell to summer people.
I went back to the car to get the little pistol and one or two of its mates and some bags of ammo. As I walked back with the armful to the beautiful new wooden structure at the gun range, the gun fell out of my hands and hit the gravel. I was appalled. I looked to Stimee to see what his reaction would be. in situations like that, little accidents which happen to all of us, it could be hit or miss. He could explode at me or he could brush it off, but usually he did not accept mishaps.
His face told me nothing at first. Relief swept over me. Maybe he wouldn't see me as an irresponsible failure after all. I laughed nervously as I picked up the gun. Then it happened. Stimee was upset. He was upset I'd dropped the gun, and he was upset that I'd laughed. "There are people here who've never been around guns," he told me heatedly, softly. My laughter at dropping the gun did not set a good example of how seriously they should all view firearm safety.
I was devastated. Upsetting Stimee was twice as hard as upsetting anyone else. I loved him so much and always wanted to please him. I've been in abusive relationships and maybe that's part of it. But he really was an extraordinary person. I think a person's natural response to someone like him is, especially when you look up to him, to want them to be happy with you. In this particular situation I was more upset because I wanted him to trust me with his guns. I was interested in them and I love shooting. I learned all I know about them from him. His disappointment in me made me feel like he saw me as weak or unworthy.
The gun came with us on a trip to Juneau in autumn, 2010. It camped with us for a few cold and rainy days on the lake at the base of the Mendenhall Glacier. We'd planned the trip because it was when Stimee was supposed to have his hip surgery. As we were loading up the car that night in the dark to head to the ferry, Stimee stopped me in the doorway of our house to tell me his surgery had been postponed. We went anyway. When we got there he told me they'd actually called him a day or two earlier to tell him about the postponement but he'd wanted us to go to Juneau anyway.
It was one of our best trips. The campground we ended up at was a resort compared to the one we were at the first night. Flushing toilets and real showers made it a little more luxurious. We had campfires in the rain and fell asleep to the sound of raindrops on my blue Sierra tent. That trip was also when I got the AB tattoo on my arm. Stimee paid for it, telling me it was a late birthday present. As the years will go by and things will get lost in moves and fall between the cracks, there is one gift from Stimee that won't ever be lost.
The gun waited patiently in the glove box while I got my tattoo. That night, it was taken out again and brought into the tent with us. We slept peacefully, the three of us -- me, Stimee, and the gun.
On the morning of September 4th I came to the police station to see if there was any new information on Stimee. Lindsay had told me that a hiker had found a gun clip and ammo, and I assumed it was some ambiguous shell or magazine round. When i went to the station, I knew things weren't going to be all right. Sitting on the desk where I work was Stimee's holster, the holster I'd clipped to my Carhartts and that had spent so much time in our car and our tents.
That was the last I saw of Stimee's gun. Later, when I went with Adam, Matt and Crystal to move his guns out of his house, they were all there but one. I don't know where the gun is now. It may be in the building with me right now as I sit writing in the police station. It could be tagged in Evidence, or maybe in a gun locker. It may have gone with Stimee to Anchorage to be looked at by ballistics professionals. I don't think I'll ever see it again.
The gun was a part of my life for a lot of years. It gave me a lot of comfort. It made me feel prepared to handle whatever unforeseen obstacles may cross my path. Through it I learned how to be responsible with something more powerful than myself.
But maybe the most important lesson I learned from Stimee's gun wasn't how to use the gun itself. When I had the gun I knew I wasn't invincible, but I had more confidence. As a result, I became more aware of how vulnerable I really can be without it. Learning to use and carry a gun taught me how different everything is when not carrying one.
The challenge comes from here on out. I will see bears while hiking. I will hear noises while camping. Things will come my way that I won't be equipped to handle on my own now that Stimee's gun will never again be on my hip. My own mortality and vulnerability are exposed with the knowledge that it's gone.
There will be others. Certainly someday I'll attach myself to another little pistol and maybe it'll give me some comfort as I walk on through life and all its ordeals. But it won't be the same gun. It won't be the one that fell out of my hand at the range; it won't be the one that kept me at peace at the Denver caboose; it won't be the one that, for so long, looked out for me and took care of me.
The finality of it all has been hard to grasp. But life goes on. People and things will come and go in and out of my life. Stimee and his gun left my life as suddenly as they came into it. The gun made a lot of memories for me that, in one way or another, were pivotal moments in my relationship and in life. But it's the last moment I had with the gun that changed me the most -- when I saw its holster on the desk and the nausea that hadn't abated in eight hours threatened to knock me down again. That moment was the hardest, most significant moment I had with the gun, and the gun wasn't even in the holster.
And i think that's how it'll be with Stimee. The hardest and most poignant moments that I've had with him have been the moments that he has been noticeably absent. There could only be one, and there will never be a replacement.
I have a lot of memories of Stimee's gun giving me comfort and strength. But it was Stimee who empowered me to have those things. Now that they're both gone, I guess I have to learn on my own to have comfort and strength without them.
It came with us to Haines when we went camping with Adam and Crystal and their kids. It was one of many trips that the gun made with us on the ferry. It stayed tucked away in the glove box instead of following the rules and being declared to ferry authorities. Stimee never was one for authority, particularly when it related to his guns. The gun saw some use that Easter weekend of 2011. Stimee, Adam, Steve and Brady shot up some logs by the river. I took a few shots with it myself but for the most part, for some reason shooting wasn't on my immediate agenda that weekend.
The gun stayed in the tent with us as we slept by the river those few nights. Part of the comfort of camping with Stimee was that he had all the best gear, but a greater part was knowing without a doubt that he would know how to use it when he had to. By the river in Haines there had been a lot of evidence of moose. Stimee and I once watched a documentary about moose attacks. Although I've never seen one except through a car window, Stimee's years in Haines had acquainted him with the giant cervids. He loved telling the story about being chased by a moose while on his bike. He dove into a ditch and held the bike up over him so the moose couldn't get at him. Animals didn't frighten Stimee but i guess that's partly because death didn't, either.
The gun came with me last winter on a snowshoe trip to the Denver caboose. In the parking lot with Rachel and Jodie, before I clipped it on, I asked, "do either of you have issues with guns? Because I'm taking one with me. Speak now or forever hold your peace." Neither of them did. The gun stayed on my hip for the trip except when we slept in the caboose. Inside it kept silent vigil beside me in the bunk, there for me if I needed it, a security blanket against anything I could imagine coming in and threatening my safety.
That was when we lived in Liarsville. Stimee surprised me that day by meeting us to hike back along the tracks. it was the dead of winter and everything was blanketed with snow. I had texted Stimee so that he could say hi from the other side of the river as we slogged back to town. When he did say hi, he was already on our side of the river in his Xtratuffs. I hadn't expected that. Stimee, during our three years together, wasn't much of a recreational hiker. It made my day that, in the middle of the most tumultuous part of our relationship, he'd come out to walk back with me.
When we met by the train tracks on our walk back to town, I unclipped the gun from my Carhartts and handed it to him. He carried it back the rest of the way. it wasn't because I was returning it; it was because my backpack was cumbersome and the gun got in the way. He trusted me with the gun, and that gave me pride.
I learned this in the spring of 2011 when I went on a camping trip with the interp staff for work. Stimee was out of town at that point with his job training program. As I packed my gear for the camping trip it was only natural that the gun found its way into my hands. It's just part of the basic needs of a human being. When camping you need shelter (tent), warmth (sleeping bag, clothes), food and ways to prepare it, water, and things to protect you in case of emergencies. That may include band-aids and it may include guns.
I kept the little pistol and its ammo in the glove box of the car as we sat around the fire drinking, eating, socializing. When it was bedtime in the midnight twilight, I went to the car to get it, hoping no one would see. I didn't want to have to deal with someone else's unfounded paranoia of firearms. I wrapped it in my coat and went to bed. I slept soundly that night, and a part of it was a result of knowing I could at the very least create a sound loud enough to frighten away a large animal.
I hadn't asked Stimee's permission to take the gun with me on that trip. It hadn't occurred to me that I should. our assets were shared by that point. At some point later I thought to mention it to him.
"I took the gun camping," I told him. "I hope that's OK."
Of course it was. "I would hope you'd bring it with you," Stimee said. "You know how to use it. There's no reason you wouldn't."
Stimee was particular about some things, guns being one of them. The fact that he trusted me enough and that I satisfied his expectations in gun safety and marksmanship really made me feel good about myself and my relationship with him. In a lot of things he was and always would see me as less than him, not always without reason. For how much more experienced he was than me, I was happy that I was equal enough to be trusted with the gun. I looked up to him in so many ways. He knew so much more than me about a lot of things. I was always beyond flattered when he'd taught me enough to trust me on my own.
But that wasn't always the case. The gun came with us once to the new rifle range and caused me a bit of trouble on one occasion. We were there with about twelve people, including friends who'd never shot guns before. Stimee and I unloaded all the rifles from the back seat of hte car and brough thtme out to the range. It was winter, chilly, but the sun was shining. It was one of those gorgeous clear winter days that Stimee really liked and always tried to sell to summer people.
I went back to the car to get the little pistol and one or two of its mates and some bags of ammo. As I walked back with the armful to the beautiful new wooden structure at the gun range, the gun fell out of my hands and hit the gravel. I was appalled. I looked to Stimee to see what his reaction would be. in situations like that, little accidents which happen to all of us, it could be hit or miss. He could explode at me or he could brush it off, but usually he did not accept mishaps.
His face told me nothing at first. Relief swept over me. Maybe he wouldn't see me as an irresponsible failure after all. I laughed nervously as I picked up the gun. Then it happened. Stimee was upset. He was upset I'd dropped the gun, and he was upset that I'd laughed. "There are people here who've never been around guns," he told me heatedly, softly. My laughter at dropping the gun did not set a good example of how seriously they should all view firearm safety.
I was devastated. Upsetting Stimee was twice as hard as upsetting anyone else. I loved him so much and always wanted to please him. I've been in abusive relationships and maybe that's part of it. But he really was an extraordinary person. I think a person's natural response to someone like him is, especially when you look up to him, to want them to be happy with you. In this particular situation I was more upset because I wanted him to trust me with his guns. I was interested in them and I love shooting. I learned all I know about them from him. His disappointment in me made me feel like he saw me as weak or unworthy.
The gun came with us on a trip to Juneau in autumn, 2010. It camped with us for a few cold and rainy days on the lake at the base of the Mendenhall Glacier. We'd planned the trip because it was when Stimee was supposed to have his hip surgery. As we were loading up the car that night in the dark to head to the ferry, Stimee stopped me in the doorway of our house to tell me his surgery had been postponed. We went anyway. When we got there he told me they'd actually called him a day or two earlier to tell him about the postponement but he'd wanted us to go to Juneau anyway.
It was one of our best trips. The campground we ended up at was a resort compared to the one we were at the first night. Flushing toilets and real showers made it a little more luxurious. We had campfires in the rain and fell asleep to the sound of raindrops on my blue Sierra tent. That trip was also when I got the AB tattoo on my arm. Stimee paid for it, telling me it was a late birthday present. As the years will go by and things will get lost in moves and fall between the cracks, there is one gift from Stimee that won't ever be lost.
The gun waited patiently in the glove box while I got my tattoo. That night, it was taken out again and brought into the tent with us. We slept peacefully, the three of us -- me, Stimee, and the gun.
On the morning of September 4th I came to the police station to see if there was any new information on Stimee. Lindsay had told me that a hiker had found a gun clip and ammo, and I assumed it was some ambiguous shell or magazine round. When i went to the station, I knew things weren't going to be all right. Sitting on the desk where I work was Stimee's holster, the holster I'd clipped to my Carhartts and that had spent so much time in our car and our tents.
That was the last I saw of Stimee's gun. Later, when I went with Adam, Matt and Crystal to move his guns out of his house, they were all there but one. I don't know where the gun is now. It may be in the building with me right now as I sit writing in the police station. It could be tagged in Evidence, or maybe in a gun locker. It may have gone with Stimee to Anchorage to be looked at by ballistics professionals. I don't think I'll ever see it again.
The gun was a part of my life for a lot of years. It gave me a lot of comfort. It made me feel prepared to handle whatever unforeseen obstacles may cross my path. Through it I learned how to be responsible with something more powerful than myself.
But maybe the most important lesson I learned from Stimee's gun wasn't how to use the gun itself. When I had the gun I knew I wasn't invincible, but I had more confidence. As a result, I became more aware of how vulnerable I really can be without it. Learning to use and carry a gun taught me how different everything is when not carrying one.
The challenge comes from here on out. I will see bears while hiking. I will hear noises while camping. Things will come my way that I won't be equipped to handle on my own now that Stimee's gun will never again be on my hip. My own mortality and vulnerability are exposed with the knowledge that it's gone.
There will be others. Certainly someday I'll attach myself to another little pistol and maybe it'll give me some comfort as I walk on through life and all its ordeals. But it won't be the same gun. It won't be the one that fell out of my hand at the range; it won't be the one that kept me at peace at the Denver caboose; it won't be the one that, for so long, looked out for me and took care of me.
The finality of it all has been hard to grasp. But life goes on. People and things will come and go in and out of my life. Stimee and his gun left my life as suddenly as they came into it. The gun made a lot of memories for me that, in one way or another, were pivotal moments in my relationship and in life. But it's the last moment I had with the gun that changed me the most -- when I saw its holster on the desk and the nausea that hadn't abated in eight hours threatened to knock me down again. That moment was the hardest, most significant moment I had with the gun, and the gun wasn't even in the holster.
And i think that's how it'll be with Stimee. The hardest and most poignant moments that I've had with him have been the moments that he has been noticeably absent. There could only be one, and there will never be a replacement.
I have a lot of memories of Stimee's gun giving me comfort and strength. But it was Stimee who empowered me to have those things. Now that they're both gone, I guess I have to learn on my own to have comfort and strength without them.
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