I tell Hadley if she punches in the address to where we are going on her phone, we can listen to her music. It’s an intimidating gesture. We’re driving somewhere we’ve never been, and I’m not sure I’m ready to take on all the words I’ll hear. But, she’s never said, “It’s just a song,” and we both listen to music at window vibrating levels, so at least we have that going for us.
Her playlist is a mix of genres – rap, dance, even country, and a few show tunes. She doesn’t say why she likes the songs, though I can tell which tunes are for tic-toks because she puts her phone in the cupholder and starts moving her arms in what I can only describe looks like the scene in Karate Kid when Daniel is practicing “Wax on/Wax off” and all the rest of it. Or, when my teammates and I would mark a routine a few minutes before we would perform. The music would play – loudly – but the Drill Team would just make slight movements to get our minds and bodies ready for the real deal.
We listen to Lizzo, Post Malone, Yung Gravy.
“You Say,” sung by Lauren Daigle comes on next. Hadley loves this song. I do not. I think it’s a girl singing about how pathetic she thinks she is until a boy comes along and tells her otherwise. This song makes me nervous, but Hadley sings along quietly. It’s a different singing then how she sings along with Lizzo, and because of this, I listen to the lyrics carefully.
“You have every failure, God, You have every victory,” Daigle sings.
“Ah, ha!” I say. “So this isn’t a song to a boy. It’s a song to God!”
“Huh?” Hadleys says, turning away from the window she’s looking out of, and facing me.
“She’s saying all this to God, and not to a boy. She’s not defining herself because of what a boy says about her.” I am triumphant and believing that I’m driving home this fantastic lesson about self worth and also Christianity.
Hadley turns the song down.”What’s wrong with a boy telling a girl he thinks she’s strong?” she asks. “Or that she’s beautiful?”
I look at her for a moment, then look at the road. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” I say, and we drive for a bit while a million memories float by. “I want this girl to know it for herself. I want her to believe it herself.”
//
We are driving to a high school in Livonia, Michigan, Hadley and I, for her first Solo and Ensemble performance. She is playing in a quintet and a duet. When we get there, the halls are filled with middle school kids carrying their instruments, several of them wearing pants that don’t fit them anymore, though I bet they fit three days ago. Hadley is wearing black pants that are essentially leggings but with four pockets so they’re legging-pants and it’s either I don’t have an argument, or I’m too tired to argue, but these are the pants she’s wearing with a white blouse with buttons. That she’s wearing a shirt with a collar and buttons is a Saturday afternoon miracle.
She has on a pair of red, white, and green socks with Birkenstocks. The shoes she’s supposed to wear are stored in her backpack. “I’ll put them on right before I play,” she tells me.
High schools, I think, all feel the same way and I don’t mean this to be an insult. There’s something reassuring about the writing on the walls in the girls’ bathrooms, the hand-made bake sale posters, the solid smell of something old and new, of something being shed and something being grown, of something being lost and something being found. It’s all mixed together and I think it’s sacred, and I think standing in the hallway while Hadley warms-up, we parents cannot claim any of this. It’s a tricky lesson to learn and learn again. Being their chaperones doesn’t give us an in. This experience is theirs to hold, if they wish.
I’m thankful to be able to be in the classroom when Hadley plays though, and even though she can’t smile while she plays, I can see how exuberant she is. Her favorite thing in the world besides chocolate and her phone is to be a part of something that’s bigger than she is. I can tell from her posture how much fun she’s having. It’s the same stance she has when she’s on the soccer field, or when she says goodbye to me as she’s getting out of the car, pivots, and walks into the school for play rehearsal.
I know none of this is mine, but I am happy to listen to the music she is playing.
//
Back in the car, I give the same offer to Hadley – punch in our address on her phone, and we’ll listen to her music. She obliges.
“Well, what’s taking so long?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t drive until I know where I’m going.”
“Sorry, I was checking my texts.”
I roll my eyes. Hadley hits, “begin route.”
“What about the music?” I say putting the car in reverse.
“I’m not concerned about the music, I’m concerned about getting us home,” Hadley tells me.
“OK, Mom,” I say heading for a street called Joy.
Darius Walker’s version of “Wagon Wheel,” comes on next, and we both make a move to turn it up. I wonder if she remembers when I would play this song at least once a day when she was 3 or 4. I know she doesn’t know the attachment I have with this man’s transformation from being “Hootie,” to Darius.
“Do you know I once stood as close to Darius as I am to you right now?” I tell her.
“Really?” Hadley asks, and she faces me to listen for more.
I start to tell her, but Siri begins to give directions, and so I say, “Hang on.” Half a minute later, Hadley has lost interest and is singing, “Rock me Mama like a wagon wheel/rock me Mama anyway you feel…”
I join in, wondering if I’ll have a chance to tell her the story one day, but enjoying the fact that we both know the words to the song, and we are singing it together.
Right now, that seems more important than hoping for what will happen in the future.
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