"Everybody cut, everybody cut . . ."

I had a wonderfully euphoric and nostalgic moment several days ago, and I had planned to blog about it as soon as I got home. But I never did. It was late, and I was tired, so I didn't blog . . . and then life went on in the way that it always does, and the opportunity was lost. I've been busy, you know.

But this evening the blog gods have smiled.

I'll tell you why in a moment, so keep reading, but for now, I'll rewind to that lost moment.

I was driving to the Publix right around the corner, all alone in my minivan (some may call it a "grocery getter" or "Mom-mobile", images which will make my story all the richer), just me and my 38-year-old self . . .

. . . and my beloved classic 80's radio station.

I was just pulling out of my subdivision, casserole ingredients on my mind, as the next song began. It was "Footloose", my friends, and we, the young teenagers of the 80's, remember it as a rallying cry, an anthem, if you will, of our generation. Clearly the flux capacitor was . . . fluxing . . . and I was immediately slung back in time to seventh grade.

Now, I must note that I have conveniently blocked from my memory large portions of that year, because I was the typical awkward, painfully self-conscious, early pubescent near-teenager in seventh grade, and who wants to remember all that? But doesn't the music of the past so often create a positive vibe, rather than a negative one? Well, it did in this case.

So I cranked the volume. Loud, then louder, and then I was afraid I might damage the innerworkings of the stereo system, and I would surely regret it on our next family road trip when audio/video capabilities are necessities that rank right up there with water (which we try to ration - see "Notes from the Road", posted on April 7th) and cheap snacks. But I can assure you, it was seriously loud. And my voice as I sang along was equally loud. I was, as they say, rockin' out. Clapping, drumming on the steering wheel, dancing as best I could. Me and Kenny Loggins and the spirit of every person who was a teenager when Wren and Ariel dared defy the powers-that-were in their small town and beat the system by having their prom in an old mill just over the county line.

Sidebar: I'll never forget when that movie came to my small hometown in the Bible belt, and the night it opened there were people lined up practically down the street to see it on one of the two screens in the only theater we had. I know of that line of people, not because I was in it, but because the sight of it is indellibly impressed in my mind as I saw it from the window of the church van I was riding in with others from my youth group, making our way to the very same theater to watch a Billy Graham movie (what are the odds?). Yes, you read that right. Don't let the irony escape you, readers. It is truly funny. I'm not sure I can adequately describe my desire, in that moment, to be invisible, especially when I saw other, more "popular", kids from my school waiting in line to see the cool movie, while I was able, strangely enough, to just waltz right in to the Christian flick. Huh. Imagine that. Truthfully, though, the movie we saw was pretty good. It was inspiring and truthful and featured the great BG himself (and I'm truly not being sarcastic), but nothing could have made up for our sad little selves having to hear the shout of victory that erupted from the other side of the wall near the end of the movie (probably when Wren said "There IS a time to dance," or maybe when Wren knocked out Ariel's old boyfriend with one punch outside the mill, just before going in to get the party started for the sweet, sheltered country kids, delightfully irreverent and dangerously open-minded city boy that he was. And weren't we all so very much in love with him?). Fortunately, I saw the movie later, because my parents never got too bent out of shape about that stuff.

So I relished this moment in my van, and I "rocked on" in the Publix parking lot until the song ended. I really didn't care who saw me. If anyone in my general age range had looked at me sideways, I would only have had to utter the word "footloose", and all would be understood.

Fast forward to this evening when, as I mentioned before, the blog gods smiled. It happened again. Me, in my van, on the road. A U2 tune winds down . . . and there it is. That unmistakable staccato of the drum beat cuts through the air, followed a few bars later by the signature twangy guitar riff, and I can hardly believe it! Again, I twist the knob dangerously to the right. Again, I am drumming, dancing, doing the sideways bob with my head. Only this time, add to the mix two six-year-olds. Gillian and my almost-nephew, Will, whom we have just picked up for a sleepover, are laughing hysterically at my mommy antics, but they're still young enough to just join right in instead of hunkering low in the seats lest they be seen by passers-by with the crazy old lady in the driver's seat. They clap, dance, and giggle, and they might have tried to say something, but I couldn't hear them if they did. It was loud, y'all. And again, I was loud too, singing every word at the top of my lungs. And somewhere in the midst of it all, an icing-on-the-cake kind of thought . . .

Today I have time to write about it. Big smile. *sigh* Wanna share in my moment? You know you do . . .

Everybody cut, everybody cut (bowm, bowmp)
Everybody cut, everybody cut (bowm, bowmp)
Everybody cut, everybody cut,
EVERYBODY!
Everybody cut FOOTLOOSE! (bowng, bowng, bowng, bown-owng, BOWMP!)