Tag Archives: music

Under the Juniper Tree

Posted on May 4, 2010 | 9 comments

<play> for a better reading experience

“Meet me under the juniper tree,” was all that the note said, and so as she reached the summit of the hill on her vintage green bicycle, she saw a picnic blanket, basket, and an opened bottle of wine.  And, of course, her boyfriend.

“Cute,” she said as she approached him, leaving the bike propped against the tree.  The blanket, an old plaid one from the sixties they’d bought at a yard sale, was held down on each corner by different objects:  his journal, the wine, a stack of 45s, and the old battery-operated 45 player they scored at a thrift shop.  He moved the needle over the 45 already on the player, and Woman by John Lennon started playing as he stood up and reached his hand out.

“Care to dance?”

She took his hand and they danced under the juniper tree, the wind blowing through the prickly leaves, berries dropping here and there, one landing in her hair.  He reached out and pulled it out, fixed her hair where it was messy from his fingers, and then returned his hand to its original position on the hip of her plaid t-shirt dress.

“You’re something else, aren’t you?” she asked.  He smiled.  “Don’t get a big head over this.  It’s impressive, yes, but still, don’t get cocky.”  Her smile told him he was doing a good job.  “So what’s the occasion?”

He thought about it as they slowly rotated, moving from sun to shade and back again.  He finally shrugged.  “No occasion.  Just felt like it.”

Her arms squeezed a little tighter, making him exhale a little, move his hand up to the back of her head and into her hair, and he brought his lips to hers.  She made a tiny sound, letting him know the feeling of excitement in his chest was shared.

The 45 finished playing, and he stopped kissing and released her, returning to the blanket and opening the basket as she just stood there, a bit dazed.

“I got us hummus, pita, and of course, for you, green olives.  Blech!” he said as he opened the jar and some of the liquid spilled on his hand.  He placed everything on the blanket as she walked over, took her flip flops off and sat, knees together and feet under her.

“How thoughtful!  Try one.”

“No.”

“Have you ever had one?”

“As a kid, yes,  Gross.”  He squinched his face so she understood he didn’t like them.

“Just try one.  For me.”  He looked at her, she pushed out her lower lip, letting him know he didn’t really have a choice.  He opened his mouth, and she threw one at him, missing completely as it rolled down his vintage brown shirt, leaving a small trail of wet brine.

“Nice,” he said, smiling at her as he dabbed at the trail with a napkin.  He picked up the olive and threw it into his mouth.

She watched.

“Well?”

“What?”

She laughed.  “You like it, don’t you.”

“No!” he said with a sound of defensiveness in his voice.  She smiled.

“You don’t have to admit it.  But I know you do.”

He put out the food as she poured the wine into plastic cups.  They ate in silence for a while, taking turns removing the berries from the hummus as they fell from the tree.

“This is nice,” she said to him after a sip of wine.  He smiled at her and refilled her cup, and then his.  She spread more hummus onto her pita and then passed it over to him.  He took a bite and was surprised.

“There was an olive hidden in there!”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a curt smile.  He laughed.

“You’re trouble, you know that?”  She nodded.

He spread some hummus on a piece of pita and took a bite.

He thought about it for a few seconds, and after much deliberation said, “Can you pass me the olives?”

After a know-it-all smile at him, she passed him the olives, and a berry bounced right off the bridge of her nose, making both of them laugh.

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Homework Date (flash nonfiction)

Posted on May 3, 2010 | 2 comments

He sat across the couch from her, Broken Social Scene’s Feel Good Lost album playing quietly in the background, as she typed away on her computer, and whenever the clicking paused he knew she was taking a moment to look at him.  He knew, but didn’t try to catch her; he didn’t want to.  He wondered if she noticed that every time she looked over he was smiling a little.  And then he wondered if she knew it was because he knew.

She caught him peeking at her, only once.

“Sorry.”

“What for?”

“Distracting you.”

“You aren’t,” she said with her trademark big smile he was quickly falling for.

She reached out and took his hand and returned to her work, typing one-handed.  He didn’t even try writing a story, and not just because she took one of his hands hostage.

“Am I keeping you from writing?”

“Nope,” he said, trying to be coy.  He played around online for a bit with his right hand, and eventually gave up.  She kept typing, but her mind wasn’t really on the task at hand either.  It wasn’t long before she closed her laptop.

“Are you done?”

“Nope.”

“I promised you that if we had a homework date we would actually finish stuff.”

She smiled again, and he knew he would be losing this one.  He closed his laptop and put it on the other couch as she scooched closer.  She started messing with his hair a little, and so he poked her in the ribs, trying to find a ticklish spot.  It didn’t take long.

“Don’t!”

“Don’t what?” he said with a devilish smile.  He could see he’d figured it out…he’d been trying to tickle her feet earlier, with no success.

“Come here.”

They kissed, and he stopped her after a bit.  “Do some work.  I don’t want you to refuse other homework dates because we don’t focus.”

She smiled and started some paperwork, and he listened to her scribbling as he wrote a story.  When the scribbling stopped he knew she was trying to read the story he was currently typing on his Mac.  He looked up and caught her looking.

“What?”

“Don’t read it as I type!” he said, trying to cover the screen with his hand.

“Can I read it when you’re done?”

“Maybe…we’ll see.”

“Is it about me?”

“Mind your own business.”

“Well..if it is about me, doesn’t that make it my business?”

He thought about it for a moment.  “Nope.  And don’t worry, it’s not about you.”

She frowned and returned to her paperwork, and he finished the story about their homework date.

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And Adore Her He Did (flash nonfiction)

Posted on May 2, 2010 | 3 comments

Based on a true story.

The date had been great so far, and he was nervous when he suggested they head to his place to listen to records, but he knew his intentions were fairly innocent.  She accepted following some hesitation, and after a quick tour of the downstairs they sat on opposite sides of his plaid couch, chatting as the album Colours by Claudine Longet played.

They talked about all kinds of things people talk about when getting to know one another, and as the conversation continued, the record ended and he flipped it and returned to her.

It wasn’t until he’d switched to Donovan’s Greatest Hits, a few albums later, that he noticed that every time he got up to switch the record, she nonchalantly inched a bit closer to his side.  Once he realized this, his heart sped up a bit, but  started returning to the couch a bit closer as well, until their knees were touching during “God Help the Girl” by Stuart Murdoch.

It wasn’t until Astrud Gilberto’s “The Shadow of Your Smile” that her finger poked his hand playfully, and he opened it, inviting hers in.  She smiled, looked at him with her big, greenish-brown eyes, and their fingers intertwined as she rested her head onto his shoulder.

They talked about music, life, everything, as the needle played beautiful music into the air, and she pushed into him a little more, making the butterflies explode in his chest.  He put his arm around her and held her a little tighter as they discussed exes, quirks and other oddities that naturally came up in conversation.

The record stopped, and he didn’t want to get up this time.  He enjoyed having this girl in his arms, and she squeezed him, subtly telling him not to get up, but he wanted to put on one more record.  She’d mentioned a certain someone she liked, and so he felt it was his obligation to play it for her, to show her that he not only listened to what she said, but that he valued it.

“I really don’t want to get up, but we need more music,” he said as she gave him a sad look but released him from her hold.  He walked over to the shelf and searched for the one he was looking for, found it, and before she knew it the needle was lowering onto the vinyl and he was returning to his original position on the couch.

The song “Come Dance With Me” started and she smiled, recognizing his attempt to impress her by playing The Best of Frank Sinatra, and she held him a little tighter.  He felt that enlightened feeling boys get sometimes when they know they impressed a girl they like, and they talked and cuddled a bit more as the needle slowly made its way across the record to the last song, “Put Your Dreams Away,” at which point he made to get up, she sat up, and he kissed her.  Their first kiss, as the lyrics played, “Let your kiss confess this happiness, darling, and put all your dreams away.”

“Good timing,” she said.  He didn’t mention it was purely chance.  He didn’t even know the lyrics to the song, and listened.  “When your dreams at night fade before you, then I’ll have the right to adore you.”

And adore her he did.

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Remembering the Worms

Posted on December 11, 2009 | 1 comment

That was us back in the old days, The Worms, on account of Peggy having a huge crush on Ringo and insisting we be named after a bug, and the fact that Bobbie’s main claim to fame back then was that he once ate a worm at recess. So there we were, The Worms, in our first picture. I was holding my ukulele, the first instrument any of us owned. Back then, rehearsal consisted of me playing the three chords I knew, Stevey singing, and the girls just dancing. They even had these awful choreographed dances to go along with the first song I wrote, Do the Worm, eventually released as a b-side even though we recorded it as a joke. Our insatiable fans loved it regardless of how we felt about it.

So this photo is the first, as I said. Of course, Johnny isn’t pictured because he took it, our eventual drummer who, back then, would just bang on a trashcan lid with two wooden spoons he stole from his mom’s kitchen. He was as close to a rebel as we had; he’d even stolen his old man’s camera, his prized possession, to take this. Then we had to wait four weeks for his little brother’s birthday until the roll was done and they finally brought it to the store. His nervous tics, for which he eventually became known behind the drums, were apparent even then. His father always joked about how he wasn’t allowed to hold the camera because he wasn’t steady enough to take a good photograph. Which is clear from how blurry this one is.

But that was the day it all began. It was Peggy’s idea to start the band, and she was kind of the leader of our group of friends back then, since she was by far the tallest, easily a head taller than anyone on the block. I remember our first kiss and how awkward it was…but I digress. That’s not really what this is all about.

Everyone probably recognizes Bonnie right off the bat, since she was the only one of us with glasses. The kids around the corner used to tease her, call her four-eyes, so clever. Some of the same kids were following her around like puppies by the time we hit it big, in high school, begging her for dates. She turned them all down. Good for her.

Then there was Ruthie, before her three husbands, before the drinking, before she’d even picked up a guitar, but as beautiful as ever. And her voice, even back then, could move an angry mob to silence. Even back then, even in the blur that is this photograph, you can still see her trademark single barrette.

Then there’s Bobbie, a character in himself, eventually immortalized in a certain Christmas movie, you know it, the one where the boy sticks his tongue to the flagpole? Bobbie inspired the main character in that film; the author grew up a few blocks away from us. We all went to see the movie premiere, only to walk out, seeing how different the kid in the movie was from our good old buddy, Bobbie.

Those were the days, I tell you. I’m the lone Worm these days, living all alone in my mansion, my friends and my family all gone. And out of all of the memorabilia, the records, photos, magazine covers, famous movie stars, films, everything, this is the only thing I kept from the days with the band. I gave away the gold records to girls I dated, sold the rights to the songs, gave it all up. Once the worms were all gone, and we couldn’t relive the moments of stardom together, I didn’t want to do it alone. No point. The only thing I really want to remember after all of the fame and fortune is the simpler times when we all lived on the same block, were so close, and were only famous in our own minds.

Those were the days.

Don’t forget to check back regularly as I continue the series of short fiction based on random old photos I find!

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