Dang. I have now read all 64 essays for this year's @marchxness.bsky.social tournament for the saddest song of the 90s & I am sad & impressed in the most excellent way & grateful that this annual event gives us some of the best writing, reading, & community available on this godforsaken internet.
Ummm @moirajo.bsky.social and @marchxness.bsky.social … a convergence in worlds may have occurred and I dunno what happens next…
Our daughter, on the walk to school this morning, reached out and grabbed my hand and held it tight, and I thought of the story you shared in your essay.
Lowercase, uppercase aside ... thank you for sharing a piece of your path...
I am very much a lower-case “w” writer. I don’t have deep thoughts about “my craft.” My process is “sit down at the computer and write” and the most tragic thing in my @marchxness.bsky.social piece is my white-guy-with-dreadlocks ex, but I love attention so thanks to everyone who read & voted for it
Brilliant from @andrewarthur.bsky.social...
"That’s what makes the song’s emptiness so striking. It’s the opposite of melodrama. It doesn’t sound like someone clinging to love; it sounds like someone learning how to say goodbye to a version of herself who still believed the love was mutual."
This, so much...
"So many things in life aren’t on purpose. So much craft is instinctual, is punishing, is pushing its way through you. You are perpetually surprised by how old you’ve become. You never thought you’d."
Thank you @jygravley.bsky.social
Thank you for reading and the very kind words...
I can see our oldest toeing the line as she grows, and as someone who was predisposed to that, I'm trying really hard to help them find their wings to be their true self.
Confidence comes with time, and it's a continuum, right?
I witnessed Mom change so many times in her life. From a waitress to a cook at A&W to a day care volunteer to a preschool teacher & more.
Two kidney transplants, two hip replacements & chemo but never, ever lost hope or humor.
I tried to capture that in my essay: marchxness.com/1stround-amo...
Wow…
Tori putting the stops together & knocking down shots in the midst of a *checks notes* 24-8 run in the last 6 hours.
The Wilco team looks flummoxed but just needs to get back to its game plan. Get the ball inside & make their free throws.
Helps to think of these things in basketball terms.
I want to thank you all for nothing?
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing…
👀
Ummmm... What now?
And @modaviau.bsky.social brings truth in this essay, writing, "And in these last few years that he’s been in my life, I’ve grieved all the years I spent trying to survive with my hardened heart."
We learn to be what's reflected at us. Sometimes, it just takes a while to find the right mirror.
Oh @silashansen.bsky.social, thank you for sharing this and your story with us all, especially "Sometimes the only way to get through it is to address it head-on, to keep doing the hard thing until it’s not hard anymore, to not just bolt."
Great storytelling.
Cheers to the tears!
Whew this killed me in a bunch of different ways:
"They seem to believe that you can either stay at home or you can find your true self; you can't do both."
Christopher L. Keller on Wilco: marchxness.com/1stround-amo...
Thank you for reading and the kind words Erin...
And I have to say, what you did with your Paula Cole essay—the observations about the story being told—was so good.
Cheers to the tears!
Thank you so much for reading, Ashley.
It's so complicated because home is where one is made, but to grow, one needs things that can only be found elsewhere...
I, too, would love you to read your work if you have any links...
Thank you for reading Allison... I'm glad part of it resonated with you.
Cheers to tears!
"Nobody at school was telling me I was beautiful or smart or funny. But my father was. I didn’t believe these things were true, but knowing that someone out there saw me as the person I desperately wanted to be was a lifeline."
@nanette.bsky.social captures so much for me with this line.
I was not paying attention to the voting and I came home and Tim was like “you’re losing!” so if you have not voted yet please do so thanks
(and if you liked that little piece there is a lot more where that came from on my blog which is linked in my bio)
One idea that fell out of my final draft was how our possible selves are out there; we just have to reach for them.
Two decades ago, I had the chance to run the weekly newspaper in my hometown. But I had plans to move to Chicago with a girl I was into.
Who would I be now if I had settled at home?
Thank you, Chelsea, for the kind words. I know I found so many parallels in your essay to the time I spent with both my parents, never knowing, but assuming tomorrow would arrive.
Cheers & (virtual) hugs to the sadness that reminds us of what it means to have lived with special people in our lives.
Thanks for the kind words and the trip down memory lane.
Sometimes when we go to the local B&N, I take a look at the magazine stand and fight the urge to tidy things up and straighten out the displays.
Tomorrow I open in @marchxness.bsky.social. I wrote an essay to accompany Nick Cave's, Nobody's Baby Now, in which I never mention the song’s title, or Nick Cave. I do mention The Bad Plus, & Glenn Gould, & Jimmy Giuffre, & Ke$ha. But I don’t mention Cave. Vote your sad-heart-conscience on Tuesday.
I love how this year's @marchxness.bsky.social is mostly Gen Xers writing about our '90s youths. That will always be my favorite.
What a small world...and good memory!
Just like @levin.bsky.social, I recorded a cover of my song for the #MarchSadness essays, though it's largely a note-for-note version of Via Chicago.
You can listen here: soundcloud.com/cooler-by-th...
Then vote for one of the @marchxness.bsky.social essays here: marchxness.com/1stround-amo...
"I didn't know it at the time, but mom wrote a lot when we were kids." Christopher L. Keller's @marchxness.bsky.social essay on Wilco's "Via Chicago" is so sad and beautiful on the passage of time & parents aging, dying:
marchxness.com#/1stround-am...
Kathleen, thank you for reading and the kind words...
I have a similar, very clear memory... We listened to that album in our U.S. history class in high school during tests, which sure made it hard to concentrate when Clapton breaks into this song.
Like the song doesn't exist in some ways outside of that classroom.
