1 photo, 1 song: #3

A little over a month ago, I left the Anaheim Marriott to walk to the car rental place where I’d be picking up a vehicle to take us back to LAX after my first ever romance convention (and my kiddo’s first trip to Disneyland). The rental place was pretty close, according to the map, but everything around Disney—everything in Southern California, really—is big and takes time. I figured it’d be a doable walk along the wide, busy boulevards I’d gotten used to after the last few days.

To my delight, though, when I requested walking directions from the Map of Google, I discovered there was a shortcut—a pedestrian path almost directly to the rental place, between the Anaheim Convention Center and another massive hotel, underneath the shade of perfectly manicured palm trees.

I’ve always been a bit obsessed with California. I grew up an East Coast kid who loved the East Coast but also listened to an inordinate amount of the Mamas and the Papas, dreaming of sunny skies and redwoods and the Pacific. So while I didn’t do it consciously, in retrospect, it was no surprise that in my first published book, I crafted an East Coast character who feels a bit lost and tries to find herself among Californian palm trees. (And that my second book featured a character who feels a lot lost and tries to find himself among Californian Joshua trees. I swear by the third book I’m mostly over the theme. At least…I explore the theme in a different state.)

And I know it sounds corny as shit, but when I walked underneath those palm trees in Anaheim, I felt Dahlia Woodson. And even though I’d just spent days at a publishing conference, overly focused on my books, it still felt like this unexpected, personal moment.

I’ve been in a bad spot, recently, with writing. I’m waiting on a few different publishing related things, and even as I wrote myself a whole journal entry the other day about how waiting on things is hard and naturally anxiety-inducing and this is not a normal way to live and I should be gentle with myself—well, it’s still fucking hard. And getting too in my head about publishing things has put an abrupt halt to my ability to actually write, even as I currently have an abnormal amount of time to write. Which leads to depression and bouts of thinking, “whatever, maybe I’ll never write again!! fuck it!!” and other totally healthy and factual things.

But I’ve been wanting to write about my Dahlia Woodson moment for a while, and how I realized underneath those palm trees that things I’d written, stories I’d made up—my childhood dream—had brought me to California—another childhood dream—twice this year. And no matter what happens from here, Little Anita would have been pretty impressed with that. That is a pretty special thing that somehow happened to me.

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Speaking of Little Anita. This weekend, on my way to a Cub Scouts pizza party for my kiddo, the radio played this live, acoustic version of “Mr. Jones,” which comes from Across a Wire, a double disc live album I listened to nonstop during a particular moment of my youth. As soon as the first guitar strings entered my car, followed by the accordion—the accordion truly shines in this version—I knew that I remembered every single intonation of every line about to come, even if I hadn’t heard it in at least ten years. From the different intro to the different outro to the sigh in his voice when he sings “Mr. Jones and me” in this version. Counting Crows were foundational to me, especially when it came to Adam Duritz singing things like this—

Can’t you hear me? ‘Cause I’m screaming

& I did not go outside yesterday

Across a Wire included an acoustic set, performed at Chelsea Studios, and an electric set recorded at the Hammerstein Ballroom, both in 1997. And man, the nineties and early two-thousands were a time for live albums. I miss that, this singular performance you likely didn’t get to experience but that could become this deeply personal thing via the recording. I’ve re-listened to the whole thing the last few days after that assault-of-memory from the radio, which has not really been a strong choice for my mental health, as this is a fucking depressing live album.

(For instance, the final line of the studio recording of “Mr. Jones” goes: Mr. Jones and me, we’re gonna be big stars. The acoustic Across a Wire version ends, in a somewhat defeated tone: Mr. Jones and me, we don’t see each other much anymore.)

But it reminded me of some other things I used to love, too, like the secret bonus track! I was a minute into the weird, irritating ambient noise at the end of “Anna Begins” today (I do not have the space or mental capacity here to even start to get into “Anna Begins”) and was like “wtf is happening here” and then I was like OOOOOH BONUS TRACK! The bonus track here, “Chelsea,” is a particularly depressing little diddy, but it has some gorgeous horns, so obviously as a teen I fucking loved it.

And I remembered, too, that maybe the only track I remembered just as perfectly as that acoustic “Mr. Jones” was the TEN MINUTE LONG electric Hammerstein version of “Round Here.”

I was writing fan fiction at the time; do know that all of my fan fiction included no plot but 100% of the vibes of this ten minute version of “Round Here.” Which is to say, mental illness. The good shit starts about four minutes in:

She said, did you think that you were dreaming? I said no

She said, did you think that you were dreaming? I said no

She said, did you think that you were dreaming?

I said, sometimes, I don’t know

Anyway, I’m sure soon I will stop listening to 1997 Counting Crows, and I’ll start writing again, and everything will be fine. But I also like holding onto these memories of who I used to be, for at least a moment, when they suddenly pop up to meet me.

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& 1 podcast—

I have, in the slowest and most halting version of the verb, returned to listening to some podcasts lately, and The Memory Palace remains one of the finest pieces of art I have ever experienced. I listened to The Six Triple-Eight the other day on my walk back from dropping kiddo off at school, and proceeded to sit on my couch when I got home and just bawl my face off.

It occurs to me this newsletter is making me sound super unstable, but the episode is eleven minutes long, and you should listen to it. That’s all.

Much love to everyone (except Adam Duritz, who I’m pretty sure is not actually a good person, but you know…yeah, even you Adam; hope you’ve found some peace)—

anita