How Wow Wow Wow Appropriate
More Than Music: Medicine
Long dark hair whipped wildly as she, clad in black skinny jeans and an oversized off-white tee shirt, stomped angrily, thrashing her head, screaming into a microphone I’m sure she didn’t need.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Mesmerized. Hypnotized. Entranced.
I don’t even like music. I especially don’t like loud music. And I especially, especially, don’t like loud, chaotic music. And I definitely don’t like screeching voices.
But I did not cover my ears. I leaned into the sounds vibrating in my soul.
I was in Celso’s living room watching him pour shots of 151 rum with frozen root beer next to a loaded bowl that sat beside loose leaves, ground flowers, and zig-zag papers on the upside-down lid from a tin of what once held butter cookies, while music videos played on his big screen tv.
I had just come in the door and hadn’t even taken my bra off when I caught the vision and heard the words:
“Did you forget about me, Mr. Duplicity? I hate to bug you in the middle of dinner. But it was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced, and are you thinking of me when you fuck her?”
What did she just say?
And that was my introduction to Alanis Morissette.
April. 1994.
I was in Celso’s house, but he wasn’t my three-month-old daughter’s father. No, her father left one night to “have a beer,” which translates loosely to eloping with his ex-wife while I was in the projects eight months pregnant with his daughter so that he wouldn’t have to pay his ex child support for the two sons he’d had with her.
“You Oughta Know” became my theme song for 1994, and I learned how to belt every note with every bit as much angst and rage as the brunette deity who had clawed my rib cage open so my heart could bleed on the floor while her musical notes ran their fingers through my hair.
Even better once I’d pounded a few of those shots and smoked that bowl.
Alanis.
I was 21 and carried enough luggage of fueled trauma to throttle me all the way through Jagged Little Pill as though it were the life support allowing me to breathe.
And then there was this:
“Do I stress you out? My sweater is on backwards and inside out and you say how wow wow wow appropriate… (and all I really want is some patience — a way to calm the angry voice)”
Nobody understood me. A blonde bombshell bartender in daisy dukes, barely in her twenties, with three kids to take care of and no fathers present or accounted for.
Slamming shots of 151, braless, in her new boyfriend’s living room.
I didn’t know I had bipolar disorder. I didn’t know I had an anxiety disorder. I did not know I had PTSD that was about to fold in on and layer itself.
And there I was… “with one hand in my pocket while the other one is flick’n a cigarette.”
Alanis, nevermind the weed and rum, was an out-of-body experience for me every time a chord of her music echoed in my core. I embraced every bit of her journey — from the bitter and bewildered temper-tantrum-throwing woman scorned, to the peace and acceptance of post-India “Thank You.”
They called my car “The Alanis-Mobile” because if I was in that car, then Alanis was screaming through the window to everyone in earshot.
I was the Alanis Karaoke Queen.
By the time my daughter was three, she knew every word of every song; that’s how much I played her music.
1996. May.
Celso took me to see Alanis.
He showed up so shit-faced that my instincts told me I should never get in a car with him driving, but I did it anyway because my unmedicated bipolar angst-filled self had no sense of preservation.
Drink it. Smoke it. Numb the pain.
But I didn’t want to be drunk or high that night, so I wasn’t. This wasn’t a concert. This was spiritual.
I should have known it wasn’t going to go well. “Not the Doctor” had become the theme song for that year as I watched Celso nose-dive into what would be the last year of his life before he committed suicide.
“I don’t want to be the filler if the void is solely yours. I don’t wanna be your glass of single malt whiskey hidden in the bottom drawer, and, I don’t want to be the bandage if the wound is not mine… lend me some fresh air.”
My tides were changing. I could feel it. I was growing up, and the life he was offering wasn’t aligned with where I was going.
We arrived at the Thomas & Mack Center and found our seats. We were two songs in when Celso leaned in and slurred, “I’ll be right back.”
Hmmm.
I belted every one of Alanis’s songs and cried my heart out next to an empty seat. Two hours after the concert was over, after the merch vendors had boxed up their wares, when there were no cars left in the parking lot, Celso came back to pick me up.
Apparently, “I’ll be right back,” loosely translates to going to meet a prostitute in a hotel while ditching me at a concert.
That was the night Celso and I broke up, four months before he killed himself (and his dogs) and left a note, “Tell Wendi I’m sorry and I love her.”
(The year before my daughter’s father put an SKS in his mouth on his in-law’s porch).
I listened to Alanis all the way through my thirties.
Then, silence.
December. 2023.
I’m a grandma now.
Nick and Amber brought the littles to my place on Christmas Eve. We were all going to spend Christmas day together at their house, but we were expecting bad storms, so to be on the safe side of life, they came for a visit to exchange gifts.
Amber: Open this one.
I unwrap the present to find a clear purse with a pink strap and a card inside. The purse looked inexpensive and not at all my style (save for the pink), but I wasn’t gonna judge. It’s the thoughtfulness. I know that and I was grateful.
The note read: “Put your makeup in this bag; I promise the night won’t be a drag.” And on it, there was a cut out picture of an airplane flying over a map from Nebraska to Nashville.
“What is this?” I asked, and then said again, “What is this?”
Clearly, the gift wasn’t a clear plastic purse.
My confusion permeated the room, and my son grinned knowingly while Amber said, “Open the next one.”
I opened the next gift, and it was another clear purse with a pink strap and a note inside.
I remember saying, “What is even happening right now?”
I was aware of a rift in the fabric of everything in that moment.
I opened the card, and tickets fell out.
Tickets to see Alanis Morisette in Nashville in June.
I stopped breathing.
This is not a concert.
This is not a show.
This is time travel.
This is spiritual.
This is turning me inside out.
June. 2024.
I am seven days away from standing in a concert venue with my now 30-year-old daughter and my daughter-in-law, belting out Alanis at the top of my lungs with, what I already know, will be a stream of tears leaving my eyes in waterfall fashion.
21 when I learned of Alanis. 31 when I lost touch. 51 to full circle.
I’m not angry anymore. I’m not full of angst. I’m not unmedicated or self medicated. I’m not drunk. I’m not high. I still have issues, but those aren’t them.
In seven days, 51 year old me will be slipping through the veil to hold the hand of 21 year old me, give her a hug, and tell her that everything turned out okay, for the most part.
I’m still here fighting the good fight.
We made it.
I’ve been in bipolar depression since January when Nick and Amber told me they were getting divorced and moving with the littles back to Kentucky, leaving me in Nebraska entirely alone.
I have not been handling the change well. But here’s a hole in the fabric of my reality that is going to shift the nature of things.
Not only do I get to go see Alanis Morisette, but I’m taking all of that week off to spend time with my son’s family, my grandkids, and my daughter, who I haven’t seen in four years.
Medium has watched me fall this month, although I’ve tried to do it gracefully. Insightfully. I knew I was falling, but did so with awareness, and did all the right things to keep myself stable and balanced amidst emotional turmoil.
And now, the pendulum swings.
Saturday, I will get on a plane and the woman who comes back is not going to be the same.
Watch me rise.
