On Disability And Superheroes

It was the summer of 2002, when Tobey Maguire's "Spider-Man" came swinging into theaters. I was 12 years old, my best friend was Kelsey, and I had an on-again, off-again crush on my own Peter-Parker-type, Aaron.

I wasn't a superhero fan, really, but I was immediately drawn into the Spidey story. I understood how Peter Parker felt when he was bullied for being a skinny, wimpy geek in glasses, which made cheering for his friendly, neighborhood alter-ego all the more exciting. 

That was the summer after sixth grade, the first year of middle school, and the first year that I really experienced bullying because of my disabilities. My thick glasses, and pronounced gait didn't help the fact that being a pre-teen girl is already cruel and disorienting, and for the first time, I really began to grapple with what it meant to be different than my peers. I can still remember exactly where I was, when some older boy yelled at the bus stop, "Hey, there's the RETARD GIRL!" As I write this, the exact crow of his voice still reverberates in my mind twenty years later. 

So, Peter Parker became a character I wanted to befriend, and emulate. He was just this normal guy, who was really smart and got to save New York City. Great power, great responsibility, and all that. Spider-Man became my favorite superhero.  

Fast forward ten years later, and it's the summer of 2012. I'm now 22, have just graduated college, and have this final summer of my youth stretched out before me. There's a new cinema  "Spider-Man", and I don't want to watch it, because I don't like remakes. (This time, they claim he's "Amazing",  but he's some British actor I've never heard of, and he's not Tobey Maguire, so how amazing can he be, really?) But, my friends tell me that Emma Stone plays the love interest in this one, and she's recently become my favorite actress, so I'll go to see it for that fact alone. 

I am not prepared for Andrew Garfield. 

If Tobey Maguire's version of Peter Parker resembled the kind of person I wanted to be, Andrew Garfield's interpretation was the kind of guy I wanted to marry.  This Peter Parker was intelligent, sensitive, and witty. He was, at times, brooding and often  vulnerable. He was delightfully awkward and  disarmingly attractive. 

Plus, Andrew's chemistry with Emma Stone was "couples goals". I was hooked. 

And here we are today, another decade gone by. I'm 32 years old. I've watched all of the most recent Marvel Spider-Man movies. My affection for Tom Holland's Peter Parker is somewhat maternal. He's a cute kid in a "golly gee shucks" kind of way, and I LOVE all of the supporting characters in his universe. 

Tonight, I'm venturing to a movie theater for the first time in almost 5 years, to see "Spider-Man: No Way Home". I've stayed away from the theaters these last years because of my disabilities. Between my vision loss and Cerebral Palsy, the big-sound from the big-screen causes intense sensory discomfort, and I'm wound and jumpy and uncontrollably tense. But THIS movie, I think, deserves me to push beyond my anxieties, to try and move beyond the discomfort of my body. 

To quote Andrew Garfield: 

"I needed Spidey in my life, when I was a kid, and he gave me hope. In every comic I read, he was living out my -- and every skinny boy's -- fantasy of being stronger. Of being free of the body I was born into."

That's what Spider-Man does for me, I think. For  whenever I watch those films, for at least two hours, I'm free from the body I was born into. Free from my pain and my Cerebral Palsy. Free from the limitations of my vision, thanks to the unique angles of the camera.  Free to swing across skyscrapers, and save the day. 

So, I'm nervous about tonight, about what my body might do. But I figure that's how Peter Parker felt after being bitten by a radioactive spider, and look how he turned out. 

The "folklore" of Taylor Swift -- Part 5: "And I loved in shades of wrong"

When Taylor Swift released "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" as the lead single from her 4th album "Red" in August of 2012, I thought my days of fandom were numbered. The song was poppy and conversational, catty and unexpected. Her previous album, released in 2010, had ended in lush laments about first fights and last kisses. It was a slow, emotional burn. If this new song, with its Valley Girl snark, was indicative of "Red"'s aesthetic, or Taylor's choices as a lyricist, I was never going to buy another Taylor Swift record. Like, ever. 

But then I just couldn't stop listening to the song. It would come on the radio and I would ask whoever was driving to turn it up, and I would belt out all of the lyrics. I didn't want to admit it, but I kind of liked Pop Taylor. I was curious about the rest of the album. 

My first memory of the impact of  the "Red" album is a snapshot of me sitting in my living rom on a very sunny afternoon, late October. The day held the rare kind of weather where the sky is a brilliant memory of September-blue, and the leaves outside are still gold and crispy and everything in the air somehow smells of pine and maple, even in the city. Where it's still warm enough to leave your favorite winter coat unbuttoned, but there's enough chill in the air to warrant stuffing your hands in your pockets, a reminder of the winter to come.  

I was cross-legged on the couch, editing an article that was going to be submitted for a local non-profit where I volunteered. This was the fall of 2012, and while I hadn't yet begun my very short-lived career as a freelance writer, I was still motivated in the dream that I would someday earn my living by the written word. I was offering to edit anything and everything I could get my hands on, in order to build my portfolio. And, to inspire my work, I decided to put on some Taylor Swift.  I played the album from the beginning, energized by the kick of the drum beats and kaleidoscope lyrics in songs like "State of Grace" and "Red". I didn't pay much - if any - attention, to the lyrics in "Treacherous", but the lulling pattern of the music reminded me of what I dearly loved in Taylor's previous albums. It provided a steady, coffee-shop-calm to my work. I should have listened to those lyrics, because they may have prepared me for what was to come. 

Guitar strings filtered through my speakers, the introduction of another song. It was familiar Swiftian strumming. "....And I left my scarf there, at your sister's house. And you've still got it in your drawer, even now." 

Woah. 

I had missed something. Those lyrics grabbed me and I immediately clicked away from my work and back to the song. I settled back in and listened to Taylor weave a story of perspective gained and innocence lost, and in that first listen, I knew that this track -- track 5, "All Too Well"  -- would be the anchoring point for my experience of the entire album. From the hope-filled lyrics like, "It's been occurring to me, I'd like to hang out with you for my whole life" (from the lilting "Stay, Stay, Stay"), to the harmonized heartbreak in "You wear your best apology, but I was there to watch you leave" (as composed in the duet, "The Last Time"), every happy, free, confused and lonely moment on the album called forward to and pointed back at the devastating beauty of the relationship featured in the autumnal "All Too Well."  Each song was it's own shade of vulnerability, and though I knew that most of these songs were about actor Jake Gyllenhaal (I just had to look up the spelling of his name), and the level of physical intimacy he and Taylor shared, I still deeply connected with the lyrics to every song, even in my own singleness. 

There were 3 guys in my life during that first year of the "Red Era",  (October 2012 - October 2013) and while none of them were ever lovers of mine, the prospect that each of them could potentially be "the one" caused enough hope and heartbreak for me to play "Red" quite a bit that year. 

The first of these men was one whom I had dated very briefly in the summer before my senior year of college. He was different from me in every way that mattered, and in my immaturity and flair for the dramatic, I pulled him in and pushed him away one too many times. He eventually decided to date the girl who was waiting in the wings while I was flailing in my own insecurities, and by the time I decided that I wanted to be with him, they were a couple. I ran into him not once, not twice, but THREE times that year, and each time, I was a hysterical wreck of a person who couldn't figure out how to string two words together. And then, I'd run home as fast as I could, burying my flushed face into my coat as I walked, and I'd play the "Red" album while scrubbing my kitchen, sobbing my eyes out, and searching for my dignity. 

The second and third guys were both people I had known since college. Both thoughtful. Both charming.  Both bookish, and writerly and witty. Both were excellent friends of mine, and though I attempted to initiate cinematic beginnings of a longstanding relationship with each of them at various times between 2012 and 2013, I never got more than bourbon-tinged caresses. or first kisses laced with late night snow.

Musically, Taylor Swift has stated that "Red" was experimental and chaotic in its cohesion, deliberately cobbled together as a way to best express all of the extremes and contradictions that one experiences in the middle of heartbreak. And, I think that it makes sense that, at 22, she was trying on all sorts of different musical genres, and overall aesthetics. After all, what is your twenties, but a decade of trial and error - a time of excruciating self-awareness, unnerving contradiction and heightened - often misplaced - confidence? Of and triumph and tragedy and wanderlust in all its forms? Miserable and magical, oh yeah. 

I learned a lot of who I was at the time when I listened to "Red". I also learned about the woman I wanted to be. In addition to the battle scars retained on the heart-on-my-sleeve,  for me, the lasting legacy of Taylor's "Red Era" persona was the prominence of her (now-signature) red lip, and her mid-century fashion sense. For a brief, shining moment, in the summer of 2012, right before the release of "Red", Taylor Swift dated Connor Kennedy, a Camelot heir, and grandson of Robert and Ethel Kennedy. And she dressed the part marvelously for the rest of that era. 

I was obsessed. Though my own fascination with America's tragic royalty had not yet reached the intensity it is today, it was Taylor's preference for pearls, mid-length dresses and bold red lipstick which convinced me that a modern gal could dress like a "Mad Men" beauty and make it work. I've been committed to that style ever since. 

A lot has changed for the better in the last 9 years -- for Taylor and for me. Yet I still hold so dearly the lessons I learned when stumbling through that first-apartment, post-college year. I scraped my knees and bruised my ego with every new man I fell for, but I bandaged my wounds with plaid-shirt lyrics and the belief that someday,  everything would change, and I might watch my life  - and my love - begin again as a stronger, bolder version of myself. 

Like burning red. 

The "folklore" of Taylor Swift -- Part 4: "Flash forward, and we're taking on the world together..."

For me, the month of November holds significant sweetness. The beauty of fall lingers in the last of the curling leaves on bitter cold branches, and the vibrant reds and golds of October give way to the sleepy hues of coffee brown and mulled wine red, all chilled beneath a blue charcoal sky. Christmas is only a month away, and the world seems like it is finally nestling into a perpetual coziness. 

For Taylor Swift fans, November is always a pretty big deal. It's the month in which Taylor has given us a few of her albums (Fearless; Reputation) and some major press tours for albums released in the latter part of October. (Taylor Swift; Speak Now; Red and 1989). Of course, it is the month that, I'd argue, inspired her most autumnal album Red. (We'll talk about that album in the next post, but suffice it to say, I can never think of maple lattes, lost scarves, and falling leaves without thinking of the allusions to Taylor's romantic and bittersweet Thanksgiving spent in upstate New York, as presented in the fan-favorite song "All Too Well".) It seems that Taylor Swift really has a thing for the autumnal months. And can you blame her? It's truly the most wonderful time of the year. This is one of the reasons why I think she and I would be really good friends. 

November is also the time of year when I think most of my cousin, Brielle, who now lives in Boston. I haven't seen her in over a year, but I miss her very much. 

Growing up, Brielle was the closest thing I had to a sister. We were both the oldest of three kids, and both of us had little brothers, so our chosen sisterhood was really something special.  Brielle was the maid of honor in my wedding, and her Maid of Honor Speech chronicled the nearly three decades of stories that the two of us share. From handcuffing ourselves together at the end of one family gathering so that we wouldn't have to say goodbye, to endless summer days on my Uncle Dave's boat, Brielle and I have many incredible memories. And, for a brief stint, November was the time when the two of us would plan our yearly Girls' Weekends. 

We'd spend two full days shopping and giggling, spending way too much money, and lamenting our status as broke graduate students. Sometimes, we'd dress up and hit the town, flirting with strangers in bars, and dancing until closing time.  One time, we raided my too full closet to see how much we could sell to a second hand store that paid cash on the spot. We made $68, and promptly used that for cab fare and drinks at The B.O.B. Other weekends, we'd hunker down at my apartment in our pajamas, watch Christmas movies, drink fancy cocktails and decorate my living room in preparation for the upcoming holiday season. We always drank copious amounts of coffee, and ate too much lemon cake for breakfast. And, Taylor Swift always provided the soundtrack of the weekend. 

There are a lot of moments, specifically, that I connect with memories of Brielle and me and Taylor Swift. Belting out "We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together" in my apartment when Brielle broke up with that sleazy guy from Detroit who had been stringing her along for months. (2015)  Cranking up the Fearless album on summer drives. (2009) Using "Shake It Off" as THE anthem to bring me the courage to tell an incredibly rude bartender that, yes, blind girls go clubbing, too. (You can read that full adventure in a blog post from May of 2015 on this blog! Be warned, there is course language in that post.) 

Yet, this blog post, dedicated to the music of the Speak Now album, is one that is most fitting to talk about my beautiful cousin Brielle, and how this particular selection of Taylor's music is especially remembered on cold November nights. 

On Thanksgiving night 2010, Taylor Swift had a concert special on NBC. She was promoting her new album Speak Now, and Brielle and I couldn't wait to watch it together.  We were both on Thanksgiving break from college, and we rushed down into my parents' basement to watch the concert together.  The album itself had been released a month prior, so we both already knew quite a few of the songs. It is a beautiful album, the first in Taylor's career where she wrote every single song by herself.  The songs are beautifully diverse in both the stories they tell, and the genres with which they are told. "Haunted" and "The Story of Us" are both edgier in their gritty-guitar hooks and words of sharp-and-broken relationships. "Last Kiss", and "Dear John" rely on the familiar swooning of soft drum-kicks and acoustic guitar strings where Taylor is most at home. And songs like "Never Grow Up" and "Innocent" offer something akin to alternative folk, as they weave stories of childhood memories and the universal need for forgiveness and grace. 

For all it's variety, though, I still think of Speak Now as a country album at its roots, with experimental pop music on the periphery. And the lead single, "Mine" showcases that perfectly. That night, as we watched the the concert, we were swept up in the opening guitar strums and Taylor's sweet, "Ah-ah-a-ah-ah" of  the song's intro. Brielle clutched my hand. We both LOVED that song, "Mine". To this day, I still think it is one of Taylor's best "storytelling songs", and one that I found quite relatable. The lyrics detailed how I envisioned my future coupled self. Taylor sings about college, and leaving small towns, and taking on the world with the guy she would hopefully spend the rest of her life with. In the second verse, she hints at the "adult" nature of their relationship with: "And there's a drawer of my stuff at your place." But the most important lyrics come soon after that. "You learn my secrets, and you figure out why I'm guarded. You say we'll never make my parents' mistakes." 

Taylor's parents divorced was she was a young girl, and this song reveals that her fears about relationships, and her mistrust of love might just come from having a "careless father", and that she can't trust the stability of commitment because leaving is "all I've ever known." 

I'll never forget what Brielle said at this moment. "This song is my life," she said. "Taylor is singing about my exact experience." 

You see, like Taylor Swift, my cousin Brielle is a child of divorce. Her parents' marriage ended suddenly and unexpectedly in late summer of 2003. Brielle was just 12 years old, and as we sat in my parents' darkened basement all those years later, she was able to use the lyrics from the pages of a pop singer's diary as a tool for her own expression of grief and mistrust. 

"You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter. You are the best thing, that's ever been mine." Taylor sings to her imagined future lover in the chorus. 

"I want that for myself," Brielle told me. "I want someone who will fight for me and stay with me, even when I am so afraid that they won't." 

Since then, Brielle and I have had a lot of conversations about how divorce shakes a child's trust in the world around them. I believe that it truly is a trauma, even if mainstream society hasn't been quick to ascribe that weightiness to children from broken homes. Brielle and I have spoken about how living through a parents' divorce -- especially a Christian divorce -- thwarts belief in the possibility of lasting love and commitment. How it encourages the constant spiraling in and out of relationships with the "wrong guys" because of a fear of expecting something good. Divorce, in short, is incredibly painful for the children who feel forgotten and discarded by the promise of a stable, two-parent home.  

But there is hope after divorce, both for the parents, and the children, and Brielle has also been able to live her life as a testimony to that truth. The strength that she forged through this experience, has shaped her into the bold woman that she is today. I'm so endlessly proud of her. 

A lot has changed in the last decade. Brielle and I are both older and wiser in life and in love, but we still love a good Taylor Swift song. I have been married for nearly three years, and I can tell you that marriage is absolutely nothing like a Taylor Swift love song. And that's a good thing. But, sometimes marriage is absolutely everything like a Taylor Swift love song. And that's also a good thing. The beauty of a songwriter is that they are able to distill the whole spectrum of human emotions into three minutes, and make you feel as though you are not alone in the work, and the struggle and the triumphs and sorrows of a life willingly shared with another person. 

And this fall, my beautiful cousin Brielle finally gets to embark on this beautiful and hard journey of commitment and trust, when she marries the love of her life.  Adam, I am so thankful for you. I am so thankful that you point Brielle to Christ, and that you love her and challenge her; that you encourage her, and that you protect her. You learn from her, and you teach her. She is absolutely in love with you. 

Know this. Marriage is hard work. It will be some of the hardest work you will ever endure, and there is an entire culture out there that would lead you to believe that it's an archaic waste-of-time, worth abandoning at the first sign of unhappiness or discontent. Don't believe it. Because, marriage is also one of the happiest things you can ever have. It is good. Through marriage, God will sharpen you both, bring you unspeakable joy, and endless bouts of comfort and friendship. Marriage is a beautiful gift. It isn't the ultimate gift -- you both know that -- but it is a beautiful gift. I am thrilled for you both. 

The other day, I received Brielle and Adam's Save The Date. It was a picture of them, moments after Adam proposed. They are cinematic in their embrace, true love radiating all around them, as they stand by the water's edge. And I couldn't help but think of the engagement scene in the Taylor Swift music video for "Mine". The lyrics from that scene are below Brielle and Adam's engagement picture. 

"Do you remember 

all the city lights on the water?

You saw me start to believe, 

for the first time. 

You made a rebel 

of a careless man's 

careful daughter. 

You are the best thing 

that's ever been 

mine." 

Blessings to you both. 

"Mine" music video - Taylor Swift 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPBwXKgDTdE

The "folklore" of Taylor Swift -- Part 3: "To Live For The Hope Of It All"

In her newest album, folklore, Taylor Swift presents a trio of songs that she calls the "Teenage Love Triangle". These songs, "cardigan", "betty", and "august", are each sung from a different character's point of view about the relationships within the triangle. 

In the song "august" one character sings: 

Back when we were still changing for the better
Wanting was enough
For me, it was enough
To live for the hope of it all
Cancel plans just in case you'd call
And say "Meet me behind the mall"
So much for summer love, and saying "Us"
'Cause you weren't mine to lose. 

In this particular song, the narrator is "the other woman" in The Teenage Love Triangle, yet as I listened to these lyrics in particular, I couldn't help but resonate with the pulsating rush of infatuation. It took me back to when I was naïve and nineteen, "still changing for the better" and living for sun-drenched dreams of romance and fairytales. 

****

"It's your freshman year, and you're gonna be here, for the next four years in this town." 

Taylor Swift sings these lyrics on the song 'Fifteen', the second track on her second album Fearless. It's one of the examples of writing that I like to think about whenever anyone accuses Taylor's music of being singular in focus; that she *only* writes about the boys who broke her heart. This song, much like others in Ms. Swift's collection is autobiographical, but instead of naming names and seeking revenge, she's simply giving us a picture of her high school experience that is both personal and universally applicable to the challenges of being fifteen and the crushing blows of a first love gone wrong. In this song, she speaks to the loss of virginity ("And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind. And we both cried.") and identity crisis ("I find time can heal most anything. And you might find who you're supposed to be." ). I remember what it felt like to sit with girlfriends as they shared stories of first sexual experiences, and of course, holding closely to my dear friend, Aaron, who was struggling with every ounce of his identity. 

Taylor Swift released her second studio album, Fearless, in November of 2008. I was nineteen years old, and in my freshman year at Calvin College. 

 I struggled with leaving high school behind me. The loss of that familiarity sent me into my own depression, one from which I didn't have the tools to come out of readily, or the knowledge to ask about. So, I threw myself into my studies, and played Fearless over and over and over again. Hearing Taylor sing about high school and small towns, was really comforting for me. This album became the soundtrack of that academic year. 

It certainly helped that this was also the album that catapulted Taylor Swift to the top of the charts, so it seemed like her music was everywhere. I was so excited when her break-up song "White Horse" was featured on an episode of Grey's Anatomy (which was my favorite show at the time), and the first single, "Love Story", became the song that my roommate, Tiffany, and I most often played when we needed a study break. We always sang our loudest during that key-change in the final bridge-to-chorus: ("He knelt to the ground, and pulled out a ring and said MARRY ME, JULIET! YOU NEVER HAD TO BE ALONE!") The high-school anthem, "You Belong With Me" (which became one of the top songs of 2009), was a second favorite and, to this day, I think it has one of the best melodies that Swift has released. It's just really fun to sing along with! Also, I'm really fond of the lyrics, "And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town." When I first heard those words, I couldn't wait to sing that about someone I really loved. 

Of course, Fearless was also the first album that gave the public fodder for the celebrity "Who's Who?" behind the lyrics. In her first album, Taylor sang about guys named Drew and Cory, fellow classmates of hers. You know, before she was famous. It was on Fearless that Taylor wrote about her relationship and break-up with Jo Jonas (of the Disney-endorsed boyband The Jonas Brothers), but I didn't really care about her dating life at that time. I was too busy figuring out my own heart. Freshman year of college brought multiple new crushes and heartbreaks.

As I attended a small Christian college, there was always the buzz about "freshman frenzy", "ring by Spring," "MRS degree", and the coveted "Calvin walk". Though I didn't grow up in Christian culture, where marriage was viewed as something that should be pursued in your early twenties, my incurable romanticism was absolutely encouraged in the setting where so many spoke about finding their husband or wife by twenty-two. I don't know that I necessarily yearned to be a wife or a homemaker at the time, but I desperately wanted love. I wanted to be loved, and to give it. This was a fervent desire that lasted for much of my twenties (and one that led to some pretty disastrous life choices), but when I was at Calvin, my feelings were just exposed and raw, all the time, it seems. 

I fell "in love" quickly, and often. I imagined every chance encounter to be the beginning of my own grand love story. I lived as though walking through the pages of my own romance novel, hoping that I'd just causally bump into my soulmate on one of Calvin's picturesque lawns, and I'd forever tell the story of meeting my one true love. There were a lot of guys who caught my attention that first year at Calvin, and all of them had their own Taylor Swift song in my playlist.  There was the junior who offered to take my arm and walked me to my dorm one night. And there was the boy I *literally* fell for on my first day on campus, who preferred the company of my roommate. Then there was a guy from my past -- we had gone to church together as kids, and our parents knew each other. (Maybe we'd fall in love and get married in our home church!) And then I met the brooding young writer with soft eyes, and a smoking habit that he was continually trying to break. That one, in particular, was an unrequited love that lasted years. And of course, Taylor always provided the perfect words for my broken heart.

Musically, and lyrically, I don't think that Fearless is the best album that Taylor Swift has to offer. It's definitely the least played in my collection of her music. But I deeply appreciate what it did for her as an artist -- allowing her a more public stage -- and what the album meant for me at a time when everything felt like constant transition and anticipation. And, there are certainly some treasured gems in that tracklist. In 2015, when I met my husband, everything about falling in love was terrifying. Yet David made me feel safe, and treasured. I felt... fearless.

So, one night, while the snow fell around us, we sat in David's car, and I played him the title track from the Fearless album. I told him, before we listened, "These lyrics are exactly how I feel about you." 

We're drivin' down the road

I wonder if you know

I'm tryin' so hard

 not to get caught up now

But you're just so cool

Run your hands through your hair

Absent-mindedly makin' me want you

And I don't know how 

it gets better than this

You take my hand 

and drag me head first

Fearless

And I don't know why

but with you I'd dance

In a storm 

in my best dress

Fearless

So, thanks, Taylor. 

The "folklore" of Taylor Swift - Part 2: "Peter Losing Wendy"

In her newest album, folklore, Taylor Swift presents a trio of songs that she calls the "Teenage Love Triangle". These songs, "cardigan", "betty", and "august", are each sung from a different character's point of view about the relationships within the triangle. 

In "cardigan" one character sings: 
"I knew you, tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy."

That lyric, Peter losing Wendy brought to mind my own high school experience. How I first fell in love with my own boy from Never Never Land, and how Taylor Swift's first album provided the soundtrack for that season of my life. 

***

I hated country music. 

Unfortunately, because I had to take the public school bus for seven years (middle school through high school), I heard it constantly, because that's the only thing my bus driver would play on the radio. Even at Christmas time, when I begged her to play something more festive. And bringing my own mp3 player and headphones didn't help, because she played it very loudly. Two hours a day. Five days a week. For seven years. That's a lot of time filled with songs about wide, open spaces, and a backwoods night at the bar. 

To be fair though, country music from the early 2000s was probably the safest bet to play on a bus full of public school kids. While there were songs about rowdy nights out with the farmer's daughter, most of the music I remember from that time was filled with post-9/11 patriotism, and evoked Evangelical messaging. You wouldn't find that kind of morality with Britney Spears or the Pussycat Dolls. Over time, I came to appreciate the storytelling in the songs that played. Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take The Wheel", Randy Travis's "Three Wooden Crosses", and Martina McBride's "Anyway" were some songs that I particularly enjoyed because they spoke of a faith that, on some level, I connected with, and was trying to make sense of. 

My best friend, Nicole, LOVED country music. There's not a summertime memory that I have of the two of us that doesn't include Nashville's greatest. She was the first in our friend group to get her own car, and I remember gleefully riding along with her on many trips in the summer of 2008. Because I'm legally blind, I'll never know the exhilaration and independence of driving a car that I own, but having a best friend with her own car was the next best thing. As we would ride along that summer, the anticipation and freedom of adulthood spread out before us like the winding, rural back roads of our small West Michigan town. 

"You need to hear Taylor Swift's song, 'I'd Lie'," I remember Nicole telling me during one car ride that summer. "It's country music, but it's exactly what you're going through right now." 

We had been in a conversation about my other best friend, Aaron. I was in love with him, and had been for quite a while. Everyone knew it. 

Aaron and I had been friends since the sixth grade, had performed many duets together in the school talent show, and had gone through some really tough times together. We spent hours a day together, and during our sophomore year,  he took me out on my very first date. Our senior class voted us "Couple That Wasn't...But Should've Been", and we walked across the stage in front of everyone to accept that award. Everyone knew that I loved Aaron. Everyone, it seemed, except for Aaron. 

Nicole turned up the music so that I could hear this new singer who apparently read my diary. Immediately, the familiar sweeter-than-sweet-tea harmonies of a country love song filled the car. It was the lyrics, though, that kept me hooked. 

Lines like, 

"He'll never fall in love, he swears

As he runs his fingers through his hair. 

I'm laughing, 'cause I hope he's wrong." 

And...

"Shouldn't a light go on? 

Doesn't he know

That I've had him memorized for so long?" 

were all I needed to convince me that I needed to buy Taylor Swift's music as soon as possible.

Taylor's self-titled debut album (which was released in 2006) didn't contain "I'd Lie", but it was filled songs that accessed pieces of my heartache for Aaron. That whole summer, I was filled with such melancholy - fear of what leaving high school behind would mean, fear that I would lose all of my friends, and the ultimate fear that Aaron would forget me in his quest for fame, and building a foundation to set off to Hollywood. I remember sitting up until the early hours of the morning, playing Taylor's songs, "Cold As You", and "Invisible", and "Teardrops On My Guitar" over and over and over again on my CD player, crying into my diary as I wrote prayers to God, asking why Aaron wouldn't love me.

My ache for Aaron continued throughout my freshman year of college. There were other crushes, certainly, but something so magnetic about the skinny kid from back home. I wrote poems about him for my English homework assignments, and I kept his senior picture tucked away in the back pocket of my diary. He was the boy in my heart's back pocket, the thousands of pictures kept "in my mind, so I can save them for a rainy day", to borrow the Swift lyric from the song "Stay Beautiful".  I was jealous of the dreams that took him away from Michigan, and I was afraid of the other girls he met on his jet-setting back and forth across the country. I found that Taylor's chorus of "Stay Beautiful" became one of my anthems as I dealt with Aaron leaving me again, and not having a clue about the brightness of the torch that I carried for him.

"You're beautiful. 
Every little piece, love. 
And don't you know? 
You're really gonna be someone. 
Ask anyone.
And when you find
Everything you've looked for. 
I hope your life
Leads you back to my front door.
Oh, but if it don't,
Stay beautiful." 

Aaron wanted to be an actor, and got his start as Peter Pan in Disney World. He was perfect for the role  -- eternally youthful, thin, energetic, nimble and ever-chasing his dreams "straight on 'til morning." And I wanted to be his Wendy.  

***

For Christmas 2009, Aaron sent me a beautiful six-page love letter, and lavished me with thoughtful gifts. He wrote to me about having visions of our future - the children we would have together, how we would support each other in our careers, and other really serious stuff. I remember thinking that the depth of the letter was something that should warrant the presentation of a ring. I remember going home for Christmas break, really confused about how to feel. I was both angry and touched. Angry because we had been playing this game of "Will They or Won't They?" for years, and touched because - maybe? - this was a "sign" that Aaron and I were supposed to be together. I let myself think about the idea of marriage with him, and in some ways, it was comfortable. 

And it played with my heart. Because I knew something about Aaron that Aaron hadn't even told me, yet. 

My best friend, Aaron, whom I had fallen in love with, was gay. 

While Taylor Swift may write about traditional teenage love triangles, my love triangle with Aaron was always and forever going to be the two of us, and his attraction to guys. He grew up in a traditional Christian home. Being attracted to men was a struggle of his that we talked about many times, often in the hypothetical, but I knew that Aaron was gay, even if he wasn't ready to admit it to the world. He was bullied by so many people in our high school. My upbringing was much more open to accepting homosexuality, so I always showed Aaron that I would accept him, no matter what happened. Aaron has told me that it was my care for him during those dark times that saved him from taking his own life. May that be a lesson to all of us. Compassion literally saves lives. 

Yet, I also wanted to believe that I could be enough for him. To believe that I could be the one woman who made him decide that "Yeah, I like guys, but Cassaundra is all the woman I need." I'll never forget that, when Aaron eventually did come out to me in a McDonald's parking lot in December of 2011, he told me,"You would be the ideal wife, you know." That was supposed to be comforting, I know, but I distinctly remember looking down at my cold french fries and thinking, "So why not choose me?"

I've had nearly a decade to reflect back on that reaction. I realize now that I didn't have enough self-worth to believe that any man would ever want me as a real wife - the kind of wife with whom he would share sexual desire, intimacy and all-encompassing companionship. I honestly thought that I would be content "playing house" with a closeted gay man for the rest of my life, and that even if I wasn't truly fulfilled, this would be a loving and sacrificial thing to do for Aaron. At the time, keeping up appearances mattered so much to Aaron. And, somehow I thought that that if we married, it would grant me a semblance of my own dreams. Being married to a gay man, I thought, was better than not being married at all. 

Since that time, thankfully, Aaron and I have both found our place in the world. We inhabit different spaces, both literally and metaphorically. He lives out in California, and I'm still here in Michigan. He works as an actor on the sound stages of Hollywood, creating stories for the masses. I make my living as a counselor, working in a tiny office, listening to the stories of one. His faith life is marked by the expressive teachings of Pentecostalism, and I have found truth among the"frozen chosen" of Presbyterianism and Reformed theology. Yet, for all of our differences, we are still so close, and so dear to one another. 

We both still listen to Taylor Swift, and talk about the impact that her music has on our lives. When her album 1989 released a multitude of radio hits in 2015, we cranked it up and belted out the lyrics. That same summer, we recorded our duet of  Taylor's "Love Story" together, with Aaron playing the ukulele and me singing about a Romeo that I had met that summer. (Hint: I was totally using Taylor's lyrics to sing about my now-husband, David.) 

Today, the lyrics of "Stay Beautiful" are still true for my relationship with Aaron, even if the meaning has changed.

"And when you find
Everything you've looked for. 
I hope your life
Leads you back to my front door.
Stay beautiful." 

I am thankful for first loves, and final loves, and friendships that withstand the changes of time. No matter where life leads, I'm thankful for the beauty of these memories, and the music that calls them back to my heart.  

***

SONGS REFERENCED:

"cardigan"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLSUp53y-HQ

"I'd Lie"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVC7YdJEZI4

"Stay Beautiful"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THgjpSEzUoI

Cassaundra and Aaron, 2006. 

The "folklore" of Taylor Swift: Introduction

2020 has been quite the year. That's the understatement of the century, and though we're near the end of July, I know we all feel entirely fatigued about this year. Many people are uncertain about how our world looks today, and what we should expect for tomorrow.

Personally, I have always found comfort in listening to music, and one singer /songwriter in particular has been "with me" through all the ups and downs of the past 12 years. 

Taylor Swift. 

I've written about Taylor Swift's impact on my life in previous blogs on this site -- her lyrics have provided blog titles, Facebook photo album titles, and the words to my heart's deepest breaks and highest elations. I feel a kinship with her. It helps, I think, that Taylor and I the same age, so I really do feel as though we "grew up" together. We have similiar passions (red lipstick and our love of cats, to name two), and it seems that with every album Taylor has released throughout her career, my own life mirrored the diaries found within her songs. On her most recent album, "Lover", for example, Taylor sings a song that she wrote for her mom, who is battling brain cancer, "Soon You'll Get Better". My dad was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, a few months after I got married, and I can't help but think of his struggles when I hear that song. 

But more than that, Taylor Swift and I are both writers. We connect with the world through the cultivation of words, and the weaving of stories, both beautifully universal and poignantly personal. Taylor wears her heart on her sleeve in her lyrics about love, and politics, and dreams and doubts. I try to engage similarly with my limited audience. I speak truth about what it's like to live with my physical disabilities, advocate for inclusion for disabled people within all spheres of life, and share the beauty of the gospel because knowing Christ has transformed my life. Taylor and I both write about the simple joys of love found after years of loss, and hope to point our audiences to the beauty of everyday moments. 

This morning, I logged onto my social media to find that Taylor announced that she will be releasing her 8th studio album at midnight on July 24, 2020. The album is called "Folklore" and is the singer's first release since the news that she had lost the rights to her first six studio albums. It got me thinking of that word, "folklore". A quick Google definition of that word yields the following: "The traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth." 

Taylor's stories are the stories of "my community". Women who have dealt with first loves, and first losses. First jobs, and moves into new apartments and new lives. Women who have dealt with stalkers or sexual harassment, or the doubting of their capabilities because of some characteristic like gender, ability, or age. Women who have been bullied, betrayed, comforted and cared for. Women who are in love, and can't help but sing about it in a thousand ways. 

In the closing remarks of today's announcement, Taylor said, "My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world. That’s the side of uncertainty I can get on board with." So, with that in mind, I'm going to start a series about the impact of each of Taylor Swift's albums in my life. I'm putting it out into the world. 

Fans know that we call each album release a new Taylor Swift "Era" which really helps to connect with Taylor's newest  folklore concept -- that stories are passed down through generations. 

There will be 13 blog posts in this series - this introductory blog post being the first. Why 13? That's Taylor's "lucky " number, and she's always clever in how she makes that connection.  I will speak about each of the albums that have been released since 2006, including one blog post about her Netflix special and conclude with my thoughts about the newest release which debuts tomorrow, July 24th (7/24 converts to 13, if you break it down: 7+2+4 =13).  I've wanted to do something like this for quite some time but never felt that it was worth it, or that anyone would read it or care about how much her music matters to my life. 

But if Taylor Swift has taught me anything, it's to be "fearless" -- to wear my heart on my sleeve, and to write about the things that matter to me. 

A Decade of Words: Books I've Read from 2010-2019

It's s 2:50 P.M on December 31, 2019. I am sitting in my living room in Grand Rapids, Michigan, bundled up in wool socks, cozy slippers and a chunky wool cardigan, watching as the world outside has become a snow globe in a matter of hours.

It's New Year's Eve, and I can't help but think how fast this last decade has passed. So much has happened for me. Ten years ago, I was still a sophomore in college, unsure of what life would bring. So much has changed since then. Not only did I complete college with an English degree, I received my Master's degree in Social Work. I moved four times, I have two cats, and one darling husband. Through all of these changes, though. my love for reading has never faltered.

This morning, I had the inspiration to collect the titles of all the books I have read in the last decade. It wasn't too difficult - I've been keeping a reading list since 2012 when I graduated Calvin. The more difficult task, then, was finding all of the books that I read while at Calvin, at least two and a half years of novels, most of which were very specialized in their genre because of the courses I took. I had forgotten most of them. It was rather enjoyable then, sleuthing through old papers that I wrote for class, finding old syllabuses in order to piece together the complete list.

There are over 100 titles on this list. Some of them are classics. Some are favorites, and some I would never recommend that anyone ever read again. Whether or not I could vouch for the quality of every individual title. I do believe that every single book on this list, in one way or another has shaped the reader and the writer that I am today.

I wonder what the next decade of reading will bring. Happy New Year 2020!

Books of the Decade: Titles I’ve Read from 2010 - 2019 

2010:

1. The World To Come (Horn) 
2. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Stein)
3. Nightwood (Barnes) 
4. Shakespeare and Company (Beach) 
5. House of incest (Nin) 
6. All Other Nights (Horn) 
7. The Sparrow (Russell) 
8. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (Foster) 
9. Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Various) 
10.  The Screwtape Letters (Lewis) 
11.  Loves Me. Loves Me Not: The Ethics of Unrequited Love (Smit) 
12.  The Last Song (Sparks) 
13.   I Kissed Dating Goodbye (Harris) 
14.   Boy Meets Girl: Saying Hello to Courtship (Harris) 
15.  The Grapes Of Wrath  (Steinbeck) 
16.  Home (Robinson) 
17.  Take This Bread (Miles) 
18.  The Bible and The Future (Hoekema) 

2011:

19.  Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (Schmidt) 
20.  The Wednesday Wars (Schmidt) 
21.  Trouble (Schmidt) 
22.  Okay For Now (Schmidt) 
23.  Charlotte Temple (Haswell Rowson) 
24.  The Tale of Despereaux (DiCamillo) 
25.  Sarah, Plain and Tall (MacLachlan)
26.  Strawberry Girl (Lenski) 
27.  Farmer Boy (Ingalls Wilder)
28.  Bridge to Terabithia (Paterson) 
29.  Dogsong (Paulsen)
30.  Jane Eyre (Bronte) 
31.  Captivating (Eldredge) 
32.  England, England (Barnes)
33.  A Fine Balance (Mistry) 
34.  Red Earth and Pouring Rain (Chandra) 
35.  Map of the Invisible World (Aw) 
36.  Straw Into Gold  (Schmidt) 
37.  Midnight’s Children (Rushdie) 
38.  Ghostwritten (Mitchell) 
39. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (Vassanji) 
40.  The Untouchable (Banvile) 
41.  Arcadia (Stoppard) 
42.  White Teeth  (Smith) 
43.  Little Women (Alcott) 
44.  Walden (Thoreau) 
45.  New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (Maher) 
46.  New New Rules (Maher) 
47.  Seriously...I’m Kidding (DeGeneres) 
48.  Good Stuff (Grant) 

2012:

49.  Amazing Grace (Kozol) 
50.  Dear Cary  (Canon) 
51.  Bird by Bird (Lamott) 
52.  Dispatches from the Edge (Cooper) 
53.  Knocking At Your Door (Rademacher) 
54.  Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys (Various) 
55.  It Seemed Important At The Time (VanderBilt) 
56.  Mennonite In A Little Black Dress (Janzen) 
57.  What Came From The Stars (Schmidt) 

2013: 

58.  The Ring (Steele) 
59.  The Help (Stockett) 
60.  The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) 
61.  Once Upon A Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and its Aftermath (Alford) 

2014:

62. Thrive (Huffington) 
63.  Who Stole the American Dream? (Smith) 
64.  Lucky Man (Fox) 
65.  Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M (Wasson) 
66.  The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice (Musser) 
67.  I Must Say: My Life As A Humble Comedy Legend (Short) 

2015: 

68.  Summer at Tiffany (Hart) 
69.  Building the Bridge As You Walk On It (Walker) 
70.  To Kill A Mockingbird (Lee) 
71.  Go Set A Watchman (Lee) 
72.  Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented In Today's Church (Colon; Field) 
73.  Orbiting Jupiter (Schmidt) 
74.  The Four Loves  (Lewis) 
75.  Silent Screams  (Gregory) 
76.  A Christmas Carol (Dickens) 
77.  We Want To Believe: Faith & Gospel in "The X-Files" (Donaldson) 

2016: 

78. From Anna (Little) 
79. Every Good Endeavor (Keller)
80.  Rebecca (du Maurier) 
81. The Prodigal God (Keller) 
82. Notes From Underground (Dostoevsky) 

 2017: 

83.  Bad Feminist  (Gay) 
84.  The Meaning of Marriage (Keller) 
85.  Wives Of War (Lane) 
86.  Disability and The Gospel (Beates) 

2018: 

87.  The Gospel According to Jesus (MacArthur) 
88.  The Disabled God (Eiesland) 
89.  The Nightingale (Hannah) 
90.  The Gospel Comes With A House Key (Butterfield) 
91.  The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and FeebleMinded (McCully Brown) 
92.  Gay Girl, Good God (Hill Perry) 
93.  Eve in Exile: and the Restoration of Femininity (Merkle) 
94.  The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Champagne Butterfield) 
95.  When Helping Hurts (Corbett; Fikkert) 

2019: 

96.  Women of the Word (Wilkin) 
97.  Wife-Dressing: The Fine Art of Being A Well-Dressed Wife (Fogarty) 
98.  The Social Contexts of Disability Ministry (Herzog) 
99.  The Scarlet Virgins: When Sex Replaces Salvation (Lemke) 
100.  The 10 Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them (DeYoung) 
101.  The Unsaved Christian: Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel (Inserra) 
102.  Broken Pieces And The God Who Mends Them: Schizophrenia Through A Mother's Eyes (Carr) 
103.  Liturgy of the Ordinary (Harrison Warren) 
104.  Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy (Vroegop) 
105.  Girl, Stop Apologizing (Hollis) 
106.  Lies Women Believe (DeMoss Wolgemuth) 
107.  Pay Attention, Carter Jones (Schmidt) 
108.  Love Like That (Parrott) 
109.  Why Can't We Be Friends? (Byrd) 
110.  Becoming Mrs. Lewis (Callahan) 
111.  A Grief Observed (Lewis) 
112.  Same Lake Different Boat (Hubach) 
113.  Bold Love (Allender) 
114. The Holiness of God (Sproul) 
115. Joni: An Unforgettable Story (Eareckson-Tada)