Lipstick and Pipe Organ

Something happened last night that has never before happened in my adult life. I did not have to explain my Halloween costume.

In past years I'd been Kale ("why do you have lettuce for your earrings?"), or a Tillandsia species ("an ...air plant? What?"), or a Mad Scientist ("so you have sparkly hair and a lab coat, what show are you from?"), or Green Algae ("LG? Who's that?").

Last night I was Cruella Deville. (101 Dalmations childhood Disney classic) My hair was half black and half white; I had long red gloves, red tights, the bitchy black dress, heels. And my beloved Granny's decadent long furry coat (a true vintage gem). I carried a surprisingly convincing cigarette holder ("can you actually smoke that?"), which was actually part of a coat hanger with a bit of paper at the end. I was sweeping and tall and people would come over all knowing and chatty, "are you Cruella Deville, right!".

A childhood of Troubadour costumes, a crayon costume, pioneer dress that my mom sewed for me (now that is devotion)....I had never been a villain before, and tho I look like an earthquake in heels and didn't know how to apply lipstick, I had a blast of a time.

Not that I don't also love dressing as an obscure air plant, but last night I could feel a little of that attraction of Halloween that people rave about. The creativity and the play of putting together a costume, the imagination and experience of playing a part, the recognition and attention if it works.

Also Cruella Deville played the pipe organ in a concert of spooky music given by Ithaca organists and other musicians. Firstly, I was thrilled and honored to be included in "Ithaca organists good enough to perform in a concert", and secondly, I get a buzz of endorphins every time I play that toccata from suite gothique.  And to share it with  others pumped a whole drunken concoction of the best neurochemicals into my veins. The pride, the nervousness, the landed success of the last bombastic chord, the concentration to stay adhered to the bench when both feet were racing. Also to strut up there in red and black costume, cigarette holder at jaunty gesticulating angle, it was just like playing dress up and exploring the novelty of being something else...but just in front of a few hundred people.

I had help from a new friend, a particular yoga goddess in town who happens to have my birthday; we are sisters in the boldness hair and whenever I feel too loud or too colorful I can turn to her and feel comparably and refreshingly small. We clacked around my apartment, practicing villain-heel-walking, laughing like hyenas because my inability to walk in heels was abundantly apparent. I also didn't know how to apply lipstick. I snapped open the little stick and held it up, all important and red, and hovered at a loss over my face. Yoga Goddess explained the nuances of outlining the upper lip and then pressing into the lower one. Ta-da. Life skills to be gained at any time in life. 

The Everybody

That moment where I darken the lights in the kitchen, coax up the music, shoot an integral friend a specific look through the crowd, and soon there are all my friends dancing. A moment of YES, and I'd rather be nowhere else in the world, there among my pots and pans with the table pushed aside. It was all spontaneous and downstairs the curtains buzzed from the bouncing. The man from Sweden, my new grad student, the architecture history woman of soul, the indefatigable pal of southeast Asia, all those dear ones with whom I was 14 once. All of these dancing together. And I brought out hats, the red bowler, the white bro hat, and they were rotating around as dance props.

I was throwing an Everybody Party.

I have amazing friends and I am beyond blessed for all of them. And all my amazing friends were saying throughout the night that my other amazing friends were amazing. "SEE, right!"

I love being at parties, being among the buzz and the energy, but even better I love doing at parties. Meaning: the hostessing, the mixing of drinks, introducing people ("Annie, this is Ben; he knew me when I had long hair and was way less fun"). I always had a reason to thread through the crowd, allegedly to refill drinks, but it meant mingling with intention and seeing to everybody.

I had made a menu, The Annie (ginger, cider, whisky), The Holly (nutmeg whisky clove), etc, etc, all these friends and their cocktail spirit animals. I left out a pen and invited others to add themselves. We all stood around drinking Hollies at first, people rather intimidated perhaps by the black pepper lemon vodka sassy Mariahs. No solo cups for us, I was proud to bring out Grandma June's gold rimmed glasses on a tray (the tray, in fact, was a flat from the greenhouse for plant starts, but whatever).

It was all sort of a big experiment, all these mixing of circles (from my work team, to the beautiful yoga goddess I met randomly who happens to have my birthday, to the famous Big Ben I went to college with), and all these bizarre yet hopefully delicious cocktail ingredients. Cardamom, ginger, rosemary, cider, lemon, nutmeg, clove, lemon verbena. I love mixing.

Now is not the time of a shared house where parties would be a burden, not the time of living out too far where nobody can walk over. I love my apartment. It's third-floor height and tree-house-ness, that its two blocks from anything, that it can become Hotel Mansard for visitors. I write this in the early morning light of post-party glow, both couches and papasan chair holding my sleeping friends.

Smelling a Time Capsule

The biggest feeling as I rolled my aunt's car through town, the withered rustbelt dead end town--happening to hold my alma mater Allegheny College-- with the lights of the chain restaurants and the empty streets of downtown was this: "I am so glad I don't live here." Which surprised me; I was expecting something like "weeee I feel College again!" or "how different it looks!" I wasnt expecting a sweep of relief.

I was back for "homecoming", though I attended no sports games and reunioned with few class mates, I was there to do my own thing... which was really no different from when I attended school there. I had not been back in 5 years.

Five years in one's twenties is a critical growth stage, producing more leaves, fruiting maybe for some, certainly strengthening of core stem. Going back was like opening a time capsule, preserved in its original state of Old Sandra. The Sandra who was SAaaaandra, with normal hair, and too much timidity to deal boldly with the world, anxiety over little things.

So I was back to visit with myself, the self who couldn't imagine a life after college. Somehow, being back again, I felt taller now. Or that everything was slightly smaller. How much difference can be made by travel, biking, jobs, broken hearts, stolen bikes, music...

I wheeled downtown the first night, turning heads, purple hair on a bike, at night, waat?, had a beer in the one place I ever went out there, and reveled around in memories and reflections. I typed a bit of the following... 

This place has so many dive bars. Ithaca has maybe two, which may intend and work towards being dive bars. Here, it's by default.

But the very first thing when I rolled on campus was play the pipe organ I studied on here.  I was the only organ student for four years, the only organ student who studied for four years, and my lessons and practice time were sacred to me.

Opening the door into the chapel, and a big whoosh of memories was upon me. The new carpet smell in there flushed me back, my memories linked to new carpet smell unfortunately, smells being the strongest associations of the senses. And the memory was more of a  feeling, the feeling of safety and peace. Because I would come in after classes, and after trying to be social, awkwardly, and enter this space and then fill it with big music. I knew it was a special place, but smelling the memory 5 years later, I realized how critical that organ music and peace space was for my soul then.

So I approached the instrument like going back to an old lover, but found I had grown and changed, and that organ which had once been all-powerful and overwhelming now seemed smaller and obedient, compared with the gorgeous beast I play now at the first Presbyterian in Ithaca.

And wow, I love Ithaca. In Ithaca there's no smoking in bars and spitting (I even witnessed a small boy, no more then 10, spit on the street corner; he's learning from Pa? Getting started early for the snuff?).

I had a fascinating discussion with Professor Bread about this. About living in Ithaca, which is almost too precious with all its bike lanes and multiple co-op locations and community gardens. It's pretty well improved and is thriving with community.  Compare this with living in Meadville, where there is little community and so much work to be done. I could be living there, being the ONE girl on a bike going for groceries, supporting the farmers market, being an example. But I am not; I'm enjoying a really special place to live, and at least now I can fully see that.

How that such a mundane thing of going into buildings can be a charged and peculiar and meaningful experience. Again, it was the smelling. I went into the old dining hall (which smelled like Resignation: I never really enjoyed eating in the slamming and rushed environment there), I went into the student center (smelled like Opportunity: to meet people, and more importantly, to  "rescue food" from catered events), I went into my old senior year house (smelled like Coming Back After A Day, but not like Coming Home). I wandered the campus feeling flushed of memories and thoughtful and present. It was like a giant meditation on time changes and sense of self.

In this small rust belt town I never went out, except for here, "the penny bar". My friends were the ones who'd track me down, or give up on me since I lacked a phone. And now, I've been out all over Ithaca, and I'm the one bugging my friends to come spend time with me. Something happened to my social self since leaving this place, and I am pleased with it indeed.

After the beer I went for a slice of pizza, which they didn't have, but they made a pizza so I could have a slice of it, if I didn't mind waiting, so i hung around soaking up small town PA. Listened to them talking about "jeee-roes" (gyros) and making me cringe, talking with a man with a few teeth mourning his cat who had died.

Since I wasn't at the sports games or ribbon cuttings of homecoming, I had time to fill, and how splendidly serendipitous it was that there was a pipe organ workshop by one of my favorite composers! I joined the organists group of northwestern PA, decidedly an outlier (for being both female AND young; I've met only a few young organists but they have all been male), and felt like a little green alien who had finally touched down on a planet that spoke my language. Organists are an insular bunch, because we're all at our respective churches separately Sunday morning, and never play in ensembles (a pipe organ kind of IS an ensemble already), and there's few of us anyway. So to find all these people, all doing that same magical thing I do, was super exciting. I was talking to anyone I could, asking about hymns and congregations and the Worst Mistake You've Ever Made. I learned some gems of organist technique and the composer gave me a book of his music (!), looked me in the eye, and told me to keep practicing. I kind of have no choice; I love it too much. I caught up with my original organ professor, and we padded around the campus together (I found her a four-leaf clover by the path), running into the other organists not leaving campus either, all of us unable to not launch again into enthusiastic music nerd conversations. 

Then I had beers with my dearest Professor Advisor, realizing I had followed his footsteps and was also now a soil scientist, and that we picked up like I had never graduated, laughing about his terrible handwriting on my papers and talking about leaf decomposition. I rode the old bicycle trail I used to take as a student back when 12 miles was a long ride, I played organ for the college chapel service, a good closing of the loop.

I had visited my favorites, visited a self of mine, talked Organist, and went smelling. I'm so glad I visited.  But I drove back into Ithaca, in its newly-recognized preciousness, and there felt a sense of homecoming.