My parents owned Born
in the USA when I was a kid, but it was on Vinyl so I never heard it
played. Our turntable was long since broken by the time I was born. When the
music of Bruce Springsteen filled our halls, but it was the sound of Born to Run, Tunnel of Love and the Essential on compact disc (Born to Run had the distinction of being
owned on both formats, Darkness,
sadly, only vinyl).
Since then, I've been building my Springsteen library, and
it wasn't until today that I heard the eighth track on Springsteen's most
popular record for the first time.
And lo, came the tears from a dormant part of my brain that
I had nearly forgotten existed. A vault of adolescent loneliness and
abandonment was breached by a thirty year old song. Such is the power of Springsteen.
Growing up, I had three best friends: The first, was my
neighbour, who didn't go to the same school as I did, didn't really have any of
the same interests as I did, and whose friendship was based almost entirely on
geography. The second, was my best friend from school -- Laura -- who was funny
and energetic and strange in all the ways that I was. The third, and most
important was my cousin, Victoria. She had a single mother, and no idea who her
father was. It seems like she spent other week at my Grandma's house around the
block, and consequently we were nearly sisters. There were sleepovers almost
every weekend during the school year, and in summers by the lake we took joint
responsibility for looking after our unruly younger boy cousins. Thick as
thieves.
In high school things changed, and until yesterday I
understood these changes solely in terms of how they made me feel about my
friends. Best Friend #1 and I drifted apart, starting a little before high
school. We never had much in common, so it wasn't really surprising, and I
didn't give it much thought.
Friend #2 went to the same high school as I did, but decided
early on that I was not cool enough to be her friend, which is baffling still
because she was not cool. She was never cool. Our joint un-coolness was what
drew us together in elementary school. But, when high school began and it was
apparent that I did not represent valuable social real estate she moved on. I
remember with striking clarity the day I found myself sitting alone in the
cafeteria. It was the first day of a new semester, and the handful of friends I usually sat with now
had a different lunch than I. Laura approached and I, breathing a sigh of
relief, waved to her. I wouldn't have to sit alone after all, thank goodness.
She saw me, then pretended she didn't. I was hurt, angry and I never tried to
engage her socially after that, except perhaps a little bit some mornings, when
my mom drove her to school! I had all
kinds of opinions about her after that.
Friend #3 --the best friend, the family, the close-in-age sister
I never had, topped them all for cruelty. She'd had a difficult life, in case
you didn't pick up on that in her introduction as the bastard child who spent
every other week at her grandmothers. Her mother was sick a lot, and depressed.
Her family moved out of the city when she was just about to hit adolescence,
finding herself in a brand spanking new subdivision where every house looks
alike and she had to make new friends. When she did find out who her biological
father was, it was a major disappointment. Any one of those factors would be
enough to make a teen act out. Together, they were an H-bomb on her self
esteem, and she acted out in ways we never would have thought possible -
Stealing, lying, running away - the most egregious act of betrayal was falsely accusing
her loving step-father of beating her, and taking that accusation to the
authorities.
I can trace the trajectory of my feelings for her, like
lines on a map: from concern, to anger, to pity, to relief, and finally to
forgiveness (this is over a ten year period - and I'm happy to report that all's
well that ends well and I'm going to be her maid of honour next year). I can do
that for friends #1 and 2 also.
But until yesterday I never gave a thought to how all of
this made me feel about myself. Which is where Springsteen comes in. Bobby Jean tells the story of a boy
learning his best and only friend has left town without saying goodbye. "I wish I could have called. I wish I
could have talked to you, not to change your mind, just to say good bye, Bobby
Jean." Listening to it was like meeting my younger self, for the first
time.
I spent a lot of time thinking about other people - how they
were selfish, or stupid, or whatever - but I never had the perspective to see
myself for what they had made me - alone. As far as I could tell, I was still
the same person. It was them who had
changed - who had sold out or betrayed me, who were selfish or superficial, but
I never appreciated just what it did to me, how important it was to have one
close friend, how empty we become when they're gone, and we're listening to the
radio alone.
Something about this song took me back - A place, a time, a
fully realized moment that I thought was lost to me, but got the chance to
revisit. I listened to Bruce Springsteen and met myself.
This is why love music. This is why I pay money for music,
and rant about how the industry has taken over the art. This is why I'm a true
believer. If you're not, I feel sorry for you.
