Music from Lost Time

Tucked way in the very back of my upstairs hallway closet, there's a storage bin filled with pictures, maps, brochures, coins and other bits from the year I lived in Cardiff, Wales. I filled that bin when I returned to my parents house after the year studying abroad and have moved it from house to apartment to duplex to apartment to at least three more houses over the past 15 years.

My intent, of course, was to make a series of photo scrapbooks that would capture all the beautiful places I went and all the things I accomplished that year. I planned to have albums that I could flip through to treasure the memories or share stories with my children of the great adventure mommy had before they were even an idea.

And yet, more than a decade later, everything is still shoved into that same plastic bin -- much to my husband's chagrin.

Thankfully, treasured memories aren't dependent on neatly organized photo albums. Sometimes, a particular scent or sound -- or even a cartoon glass -- can be enough to conjure up the most vivid picture of a day long gone.

Today it was Spotify that served as my Proustian madeleine, courtesy of a playlist built around a mix tape that had been my sound track during that year in Cardiff. A fellow American scholar studying at Oxford became one of my favorite friends that year -- we visited each other and marveled that we, with our parallel lives and similar tastes, hadn't crossed paths sooner. The mix tape she made for me offered an entire Gravity's Pull album on one side, harkening back to the days when we didn't know each other at UNC, and a collection of tracks from Nancy Griffith, Nikki Meets the Hibachi, Shawn Colvin, Del Amitri, Shannon Worrell, Soul Miner's Daughter, Rebecca Riots and more on the other side.

I listened to that tape, my walkman tucked into the pocket of my weather-proof coat, every day for months as I walked to class, to the city centre, to a friend's flat, to the train station, to museums and galleries and castles and pubs. The songs rang of strength and friendship, searching and wonder. They were my constant partner as I found myself able to live so far from home, able to succeed on my own in a way I hadn't been sure was possible.

When I came back to the U.S., I was still listening to that same tape as I walked the halls again at UNC, where I found myself surprisingly ready to meet the man who would be my husband.

This morning, more than a decade gone by, I listened to Dave Matthews hum out his "Christmas Song" on the Spotify playlist that I finally built based on that mix tape. There's no tape deck in my car anymore, but I didn't want to give up the tape -- iPhone to the rescue.

Although I was driving roads in Raleigh, running ordinary errands on this ordinary day, I had the extraordinary sense of being transported through space and time I thought were lost. I felt the blessings of being known by a friend discovered in a moment when I needed that connection more than ever. I recalled the confidence borne out of finding my own way. I pictured the path I walked from my flat toward the capitol, the details of my room, the oceans of daffodils filling the gardens, the faces and voices of people I haven't seen since I returned home after we completed our degrees.

And I smiled to myself, holding the treasure of that year and that entire dusty storage bin in my mind.

Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

Home.

All I could think about in that moment was getting home. As fast as possible.

I'd been sitting in my Tuesday morning graphic design class in the basement of Carroll Hall when some journalism student ran past shouting something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.

Silly undergrads, I thought. Those kids will do anything for attention.

And then I could hear the news coverage suddenly playing live on the big screen in the classroom next door. Not a joke at all. Not even close.

A quick check of my email showed a message from my almost-husband sending me to CNN's website, but by the time I clicked the link the internet had screeched to a halt along with the rest of the watching nation.

Home. If I can just get home, I said to myself, I'll be okay.

As classes ended abruptly across campus, I stepped outside into the bright blue day and called P to come get me. I didn't think I could walk the mile back to our house.

Looking back on that moment, I'm struck by how many people just wanted to be home at that same instant and weren't able to call someone to come get get them. How many people were waiting by the phone to get that call, but it didn't ring.

P and I spent the rest of that day hugging each other and watching the news and cleaning our house, as if eliminating the dust bunnies from our hardwood floors would somehow eliminate the threat of terrorism in our country.

Then four days later, we got married.

It's a strange thing to share the week of my wedding anniversary with a day of national terror and destruction. But it's also a powerful reminder of how blessed and lucky I am to have been able to call my true love that day and have him scoop me up and take me safely home.

Sending prayers for all those who are missing loved ones from their homes today.
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In Case the Birthers Ask

Given that everyone is all hot about the President's birth certificate these days (really? like there's nothing else we need to be talking about?), I feel I must make a confession.

I am not a Tar Heel born.

There, I said it. It hurts a little, but it's true.

I am still a Tar Heel bred. And when I die, I'm a Tar Heel dead. But when I was born, my parents were living in (...wait for it...)

...Pittsburgh.

Gasp! Shocking, I know.

My dad took a job with U.S. Steel after he graduated college, so my parents were living in Pittsburgh, PA, when their first bundle of joy arrived. Because I was only nine months old when they packed up and moved us to North Carolina, I've always considered myself a life-long Southerner.

But if you asked me to prove my NC pedigree, I'd have to show you something other than my birth certificate. Things like... eating barbecue and Krispy Kremes, loving sweet potatoes (the state vegetable!), saying "y'all" regularly, having two degrees from Carolina, drinking sweet tea and Cheerwine, knowing how to shag (the dance, people -- get your British minds out of the gutter).

You think if I go to a NASCAR race, that would be enough to silence any birther questions?
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An Ineffable Decade

Ten years ago this week, I walked into my first class as a grad student at UNC and met my husband.

Of course, he wasn't my husband at the time. He was my professor.

Okay, I was a master's student and he was a doctoral student, so technically we were also classmates. But at that first moment, he was still my professor -- and I knew immediately that there was something different about him.

When he handed out our "welcome to class" forms to fill out, he asked all the usual stuff (name, email, website, etc), with some additional questions thrown in. I spent a lot of time on that form -- way more than should have been necessary. It seemed suddenly very important to make a good first impression. The two questions I remember focusing on most were:

1. What is one word that describes you?
2. Is there anything else I should know about you?

My answers were:

1. Ineffable.
2. I drive a convertible. 

The next day, we were flirting in the halls of the journalism school. Two weeks after that, I switched into a different section of the class so that we could start (officially) dating. One year later, we were married.

Ten years later, I'm still amazed at how it all happened. I might not be ineffable anymore, but I'm still driving a convertible and still trying to impress him. 

The good news? It seems to be working.

Photo from UNC.

Commencing with the Commencements

In honor of graduation season (and because I can't seem to carve out time to write much these days), I'm pulling a post out of the archive today -- this is the speech I shared with classmates at our J-school graduation eight years ago. Apologies to any of you who heard it the first time -- feel free to skip this post and wait for the next one.

Hi – my name is C... and I am a super geek.

I have spent about 25 of my 29 years in school, either as a student or a teacher. But I think the past two years that I have spent in the master’s program in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication have pushed me over the limit.

I can no longer watch the evening news without critiquing the quality of the content or the wardrobe and mannerisms of the news anchors. Should that meteorologist really be wearing a brown shirt with a navy blue suit?

I cannot read the newspaper without grumbling about widows and orphans left dangling alone in columns of text, misspelled words leaping out of cutlines, and statistics that simply don’t add up. I comment as much on the layout of feature stories as I do on the content of the material.

I am a supergeek.

I am incapable of looking at business cards or letterhead without wondering who designed the company’s logo and why they chose to use Times New Roman instead of a nice, clean sans serif font. I find myself analyzing the design of annual reports, worrying more about whether they used color in sidebars than whether Arthur Andersen was the auditor.

I feel compelled to ask business owners if they have a crisis communication plan and whether they know their three key messages and can communicate their brand in a single, easy-to-remember phrase. I can spot a video news release in about two seconds.

I am a supergeek.

If you’re laughing, then my sympathies go out to you – because you, too, are a super geek. You may not be ready to admit it in front of the world, but trust me – you’re a super geek too. And admitting that you are a super geek is the first step.

But I believe there is hope for us all. As we leave the fantasy world that is Chapel Hill and go out to jobs, internships, more schooling or plans yet unknown, we can actually use our super-geekness to our advantage. For those of you staying in academia – as graduate students or professors – you will be permanently surrounded by fellow super geeks and will find yourself basking in the glow of geekdom. For those of you leaving the ivory tower for industry, you may have to learn to hide your geekier qualities, but the knowledge will certainly come in handy. Our years at Carolina have trained us well. We will be good at the careers we choose. And we will always remember this place, these people, these years with warm hearts and happy smiles.

So before I say farewell to my life in Carroll Hall, I’d like to thank all of you – my friends and family and classmates and teachers – for helping me along the way. I would particularly like to thank the Park Foundation for their generous fellowship program, my parents for always believing in me and for trusting my decisions, even when they didn’t seem financially sound, and my wonderful husband, whose presence single-handedly made this whole graduate school experience worthwhile.

Photo from UNC Virtual Tour

Remember me? I'm Your Wife...

What with all the ranting last week, I ran out of days to write about the glorious 27 hours I spent with my husband over Thanksgiving weekend.

That's 27 hours alone. No kids. No parents. No work. No deadlines. Just us. Overnight. For the first time in three years.

Crazy, crazy fun.

We left the kids at home with my parents on Friday morning at 9:30 and returned home the next day around noon. Picasso and Warhol at the Nasher in the morning. Pepper's for lunch. Afternoon nap at The Franklin. Dinner at Mediterranean Deli. Movie at The Varsity. The Franklin's special breakfast in bed. Brunch from Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen. Plus some lovely details in between that I won't write about because my parents and my in-laws read my blog (and it's not that kind of blog anyway).

Did I mention it had been three years?

Oh, and my favorite part about staying at The Franklin? The "do not disturb" button right beside the headboard -- you don't even have to get out of bed to hang the tag on your door.

Could it be more perfect?

Hark the Sound of Basketball (and Rugby) Season

I know for some of you out there, it's still football season (hi Dad!). But this Carolina girl has already moved on to basketball. The Tar Heels played (and won) their first game on Monday night -- okay, so it was only Florida International, but it still feels good to know the blue and white are back on the court.

In honor of the start of my favorite sports season, I'll share one of the first pieces I wrote for my magazine course while I was studying in Cardiff. We were assigned to cover the local reaction to the start of the Rugby World Cup, hosted in Cardiff that year. Given that I knew absolutely nothing about rugby, I had to take a different approach than traditional sports reporting.

In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, we celebrate March Madness, a month devoted to the great sport of college basketball. As college teams from across the United States compete for the NCAA title, Carolina fans flock to arenas and television sets, decorating their bodies, their homes, their cars, even their pets in support of the Tar Heels.

The enthusiasm reaches a fever pitch during the first weekend in April, when the last teams standing compete the The Final Four. If the Tar Heels have survived from the original field, every bar on Franklin Street, Chapel Hill's main street, welcomes a standing-room-only crowd of blue face paint and Carolina cheers.

In Cardiff, Wales, they celebrate the World Rugby Cup. And althought it's quite some distance across the proverbial pond, the enthusiasm of openting day, as Wales hosted Argentina, felt just like home for this Tar Heel alum.

On Friday, 1 October 1999, I was amazed to see the usually drab, grey Colum Road awash in a vibrant shade of red. Bright red rugby jerseys boasting the WRU [Welsh Rugby Union] logo had replaced the typical full-black European ensemble. Cabs flew Welsh flags from their antennae. Even the bank clerk at Barclay's sported a temporary face tattoo in support of her team. The trains passed by, filled to capacity with more red jerseys to spill into the city. Students wearing Welsh flags as sarongs cheered in the streets. And there were still six hours until kick-off.

By the time the opening ceremony began, every pub in the City Centre fortunate enough to possess even one television was bursting with rugby enthusiasts. The pub crowds joined with fans inside the newly built 72,500-seat Millennium Stadium singing anthems and folk songs, cheering for celebrities and waving their inflated daffodils and red-and-green scarves.

When Welsh performer Max Boyce took the stage, even the rowdy crowd at O'Neill's Pub hushed each other to hear the original verses in his song, then erupted with the familiar refrain in his obvious crowd-pleaser.

The volume of enthusiasm only increased when the players took the field. The crowd around me began chanting, "Wa-les! Wa-les!" But another hush came over the group at the sounds of the Welsh anthem, a patriotic tear trickling down the televised face of one of them team members.

Although it seemed impossible, the start of the game brought even louder and rowdier cheers, But as the game progressed, not all of the cheers were friendly. At the sight of an injured Argentinian player on the field, one pub fan shouted, "Let 'im die!"

As the WRU fought for their 23-18 win and their ninth-straight victory, the cans at O'Neill's never stopped their energetic support of "Henry's Army." And although I understood little of the game of rugby, I did understand the sense of pride felt by the crowds there and throughout the city of Cardiff.

The face painted and jester hats, the radio station ticket-giveaway contests and the closed-off city streets are all symbols of something that every Chapel Hill fan recognises: a true love and loyalty for a sporting team that serves to unite the community. Whether young or old, male or female, city professional or country worker, everyone who cheered for the WRU on Friday enjoyed equal status: victor.

First of Many

Marking milestones with Junius when he was a baby is what got me through that first year of craziness -- first smile, first food, first word, first steps and so on. In the early months, time seemed to move so slowly and I remember wondering if we would ever get to a point where he didn't need me every second of the day.

Now it seems like there's a milestone every week, and he's growing up so fast that there are days he doesn't need me at all. It's exciting and sad and amazing -- and although I know I'm not the first mom to feel this way, it's my first time and it sometimes makes me lose my breath.

Since his first camping trip at the end of the summer, Junius has tackled several more "firsts" that I want to document here:

• First time riding his bike to school... This actually made me cry a little bit as he was literally and metaphorically pedaling away from me. He was crazy proud of himself (and I was, too). It's about a mile from our house to his preschool, with several very big (up) hills. He needed a push now and then, but he made it the whole way. Now he rides to school (while I push Pippi in the stroller) at least three times a week.

• First football game... My cousin and brother-in-law will be proud to know that Junius's first time attending football game was at N.C. State's Carter-Finley Stadium. He had fun, but (as you can see from the photo) was a little sensitive about all the noise. Pippi, however, was not the least bit bothered -- she's definitely our party girl.

• First UNC football game... As a double Tar Heel, I couldn't let that NCSU game be the end of it, so we took the kids to their first UNC game in Kenan Stadium. Amazingly, the Heels won, but I think Junius's favorite part was watching the trombone players in the band.
  

• First movie in the theater... Watching Junius take in his first movie theater experience was almost as big a deal as watching him ride his bike to school. We couldn't have asked for a better set-up -- a limited release of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 (double-header with a 10-minute intermission) in 3-D. My husband took the afternoon off from work (shhh, don't tell), we left Pippi with a sitter, and went to the noon show. We were the only people in the theater. Literally. Popcorn, sippy cup and your choice of any seat in the house -- it just doesn't get any better than that.

Next week's milestone? As the ring-bearer in a wedding, Junius will sport his first tuxedo. Mommy will be bringing her camera -- and lots of tissues.

Pizza Nostalgia

Even though Thomas Wolfe, himself a Tar Heel, said you can't go home again, I always like to try anyway when it comes to Chapel Hill. I spent four years there as an undergrad, then returned five years later for graduate school.

Over the years, one restaurant retained my unfailing loyalty:
Pepper's Pizza.

A couple weeks ago I had a work-related meeting in Chapel Hill, so I took the opportunity to head to the Hill early and treat myself to lunch at Pepper's. It's been a few years since I had eaten there, and I knew that the restaurant had changed locations, moving up Franklin Street a few spaces from its original site (shown here). I was nervous, hopeful, a little skeptical -- but I needed to know if it was still My Pepper's.

As I enjoyed my lunch (my "usual": diet coke, side salad no peppers no onions with ranch dressing, and a slice with zucchini and feta) which was thank goodness exactly wonderfully like it had always been, I had to laugh about how much things have changed.

Of course, the space is new -- much brighter and less grunge than the old space, with four televisions mounted on the walls. The wait staff still looked college-town-quirky, but none of the employees had multi-colored hair, large tattoos or excessive piercings. And even the music was different -- instead of head-banging alternative noise, I actually heard "Walking on Sunshine" (although, to be fair, that is one of my all-time favorite songs -- seriously, click the link and thank me later for putting that feel-good tune in your head and a skip in your step).

But what had really changed? Me.

Instead of walking up to Franklin from class or the dorm with a group of friends, I drove to the parking garage and ate alone with a magazine (and enjoyed it! how else would I get to read The New Yorker in peace?). Instead of wearing jeans and a t-shirt with birks, I was in suit trousers, dressy top, pearls and heels -- professional attire for my meeting, of course. After lunch, when the waitress shooed me back to my table (apparently you don't pay at the counter in Fancy Pepper's), I handed her my AmEx card instead of a wad of change and bills out of the pocket on my backpack.

But the salad was still the right balance of lettuce, tomatoes and mozzarella with just the right amount of dressing. And the pizza still has that perfect-not-too-thick-not-too-thin crust with just enough sauce, thinly sliced veggies and salty feta cheese. And the diet coke, refilled at exactly the right moment, still comes with that delightful pebbly ice.

So I decided I'm okay with the changes at Pepper's because the food is what matters most. And I'm more than okay with the changes in me because it's a good life I've got here -- even if I did look a bit dorky at lunch.

Photo from UrbanSpoon.com.

Let's go... Tar Heels!

Like most parents, we've been working hard to raise our son right since the day he was born -- maybe even before then. We try to teach him about the big stuff, instruct him about the difference between right and wrong, help him to make good decisions, tell him about the importance of saving money and getting a good education. At our house, that means being brought up in the ways of Dean and Roy, of Hark the Sound and the Old Well, of Pepper's and Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen.

We are a Tar Heel family, with three Carolina degrees between us, and we want to be sure our children understand the significance. We also teach him about the Pirates (he's very good at saying "Argh" for his father's alma mater) and the Hokies (his grandfather's alma mater), but even his Daddy and his PopPop pull for the Tar Heels in most settings.

So it pains me greatly to share the following stories.

The first sign of failure occurred last Thanksgiving. Shortly after arriving at the grandparents' house, Junius was playing with the old Fisher-Price cash register (those old-school toys are still the best) when my sister-in-law asked him what he was going to do with all his money. He promptly responded, "I'm saving it for college" (so far, so good on the parenting). But when she asked him where he wanted to go to college, he quickly and clearly replied, "NC STATE!"

What?!

This is not what we've been teaching him. This is not what we talk about when we read I Want to Go to UNC. This is not why we bought him a Tar Heel National Championship onesie when I was six months pregnant. No no no, NO...

At first, I convinced myself it was a fluke, that he had the school names confused. Then I decided he must be spending too much time with our Wolfpack neighbors -- should have known those boys would be a bad influence. Now, it's happened enough times that I'm afraid he might actually mean it.

Okay, so I'm willing to cede a little ground to N.C. State. I actually like the Pack, as long as they're not playing the Heels (or the Hokies). We know some very nice, smart, successful people who went to school there. And if he decides he wants to be a graphic designer or an architect or an engineer, I'm all for sending Juni to NCSU.

But we draw the line at Dook. And we were pretty proud of ourselves for teaching him to say, "Boo Duke!" (although it sounds strangely like he's saying Bo Duke, as in the Hazzards, but I digress into my own childhood). There's even a Duke Street in our neighborhood and he says "Boo Duke!" every time we drive by. It was all going so well.

And then we went into Omega Sports over the weekend. Junius saw the Tar Heel display and said, "Look, Mommy -- it's Ramses!" (very nice, focused on our mascot). Then he ran to the Wolfpack display and announced, "It's N.C. State!" (Okay, fine). But then, as he walked past the Blue Devils paraphernalia, he said, "Yea! Go boo Duke!"

Argh. Back to school.