We were asked to write a childhood memoir for my English class, and I'm actually ok with how this one turned out.
:::
J
I had a best friend at the age of 7, although the role has a new actor now. Back then, she was played by a girl the same age, with chubby cheeks and glossy, dark brown ringlets. She was essentially a life vest that floated herself over to me, when I was thrown over the side of the boat into the waters of second grade at a new school, in a new town. Things didn’t end neatly and peacefully, but I owe her my gratitude for reaching out to a shy, new girl.
The friendship was lovely at first. Our first argument was over who would get to play the princess at recess, both insisting that the other was more deserving. Playdates abounded then, on a kid’s snowmobile in our pasture or out on her grandparent’s farm. Shyness dissolved into unbridled joy, her family became mine and mine hers.
Back at the beautiful beginning, I remember a formative playdate. Fall at her grandparent’s farm, the chill that precedes the first snowfall hanging in the air. We sat in the dark, linoleumed basement, watching YTV’s The Next Star on a tiny old box of a TV, fascinated by the tweenage Canadians competing to be the next Shania or Avril. Inspired by the episode in which they wrote their own songs, we clambered upstairs to the wooden dining table.
With leftover paper and her grandma’s kitchen pens, we sat down to compose our own songs. The first song I ever wrote was with pen on borrowed paper in someone else’s home, the outline of her hand in pencil on the corner of the page. Pens were forbidden in elementary school, and we were both very excited to get to use them for the first time. Now I make a point to use pencil writing songs, as it’s easier to correct mistakes, to change my mind. Perhaps it’s fitting, however, that such a formative experience used ink. There is no eraser that can scrub the experience from my memory.
We tried our best to recreate the pop songs of the 2000’s we heard on the local radio or Disney Channel. As far as songs go, it was terrible. As is to be expected of a second-grader, and to be expected of anyone’s first creative endeavour. At least a third of my lyrics were ‘ooh’s, ‘oh’s, or ‘yeah’s, Hannah Montana’s influence evident. To be technical, it was actually two songs, on one page, distinct to me despite the identical melody. We performed to each other in the living room, the other pretending to be a panel of judges from the show. I think this was followed by a trip to the trampoline outside the front window, but I’m not certain.
I say often, now, that my memory is terrible, and I’m afraid it’s the truth. A small piece of me, to my surprise, feels guilty that I don’t remember any of her song. I spent years memorizing August 10th, to not forget her birthday, I remember so many parts of our friendship I no longer have use for, but I’m struggling to remember a formative part of my own childhood to achieve a mark in a university English class. I feel a sadness, as if I’m forgetting my own self in doing so, never mind any complicated feelings trying to rise in the background as if I haven’t buried my emotions regarding that friendship.
Inspired by how Taylor Swift used her songs as therapy, I returned to song writing as elementary school progressed. It was how I charted and dissected my own overwhelming feelings, and I’d like to think that over time, I did get better. Pages and pages of my songbook have been dedicated to the collapsing of our best-friendship. Even now, in my comparatively old age (21, I’m truly over the hill), I return to that friendship to mine it for fool’s gold, feelings to put into words to soothe myself.
When I went to yet another new school, song writing had become such an important part of my identity that it was how I introduced myself to new people. From this passion grew my interest in creative writing and music, which I now pursue an education in. Writing songs was a lifeline through almost all my years of schooling, all my tumultuous emotions, until it stopped working.
Now, the pages of my songbook are like my little secret I keep close to my chest. Far from introducing myself as a songwriter, I refuse to bring it up to my musical peers. I know they don’t write songs how I did, and I can’t trust anyone so skilled with something so terribly important to me, lest it receive unsolicited critique. I don’t wish to be good at writing songs. At this point, I wish for the ability to simply write a song, work through my emotions, feel better, back.
I still have the paper I took home that day, tucked into the back of my old songbook. It’s one of the most important things I would want to save from a house fire. I kept diaries, but I think that songbook is the truest chronicle of my childhood, multicoloured ductape holding the spine together and all. Nothing fancy, or polished, or anywhere near perfect. So private, yet occasionally publicly performed. The pages where I learned to question my role in the falling out between me and the girl who started me on this whole journey.
I have no answers to any questions, not that any were explicitly posed. Despite the feeling that my back is curving over like my grandmother’s spine curved over her walker, I know I’m not that old. I’m sure one day I’ll look back on my twenties with the same bleary memory I look back with on second grade. There is no neat end to that friendship, there is no neat end to my days of writing songs. I hope that an end to one does not contain the end to the other.
-T
