The soundtrack of my life? Springsteen please

I first “met” Bruce Springsteen in college. I should mention right off the bat that up until college I was a musical neophyte. I didn’t own many albums. When I listened to the radio, it was top forties stuff. Most of what I liked back then has faded from my brain. Then along came college and the images sharpen. 

I remember my Tretorn tennis shoes, the soles sticky with beer, singing until I was hoarse, and jumping as high as I could to Rosalita and just wanting that song to go on forever.  Of course there was Born to Run and Thunder Road and Jungleland and so many other greats. But when I think of college, I think of Bruce and Rosalita and so many other things that still make me smile: smoking cigars in The Pub (probably did that once?), Red, White and Blue beer (more than once), jogging up College Hill into Auburn and back, and talking the whole way about the wide open future (too many times to count).  

Cut ahead a few years to February 1988 and I’m waiting for my husband to come home. It will be my first ever Bruce concert. I have a toddler and a three week old. My mother is at the house babysitting. I’m itching to get out, but nervous about leaving the baby for the first time. On top of that,  I’d been sick with bronchitis since mid-January, and am recovering from a C-section, I wasn't feeling like myself at all.  

The show is a few miles away. He’s supposed to be home at 6:30. It’s now seven. There’s no office to call. He’s in sales. His car is his office. This is before cell phones. He doesn’t have a car phone. There’s no way to get in touch with him.  I haven’t had an adult night out since before Christmas, at least.

He finally shows up and says he has to change his clothes then we’ll leave. Something feels off but I can’t put my finger on it. Things have been off for awhile though he keeps telling me it’s all in my head and I take things too seriously. 

We finally get out to the car, which is freezing. The front windows had been rolled down the whole time he was in the house. Here’s roughly how the conversation went. 

Me: It’s February. Why are the windows down? It’s cold.

Him: Oh stop it. I just wanted some fresh air.

We roll up the windows. He blasts the heat.

Me:  What’s that smell? 

I see the roach clip in the ashtray.

Me: Seriously? Are you kidding?

Him: Oh will you lighten up. Geez.

This is what I remember about the show. We arrived on time and had great floor seats. The guy next to me was sweaty and fat and kept brushing up against me. Bruce played a slow acoustic version of Born to Run. I thought about all the times I’d run to the livelier version of that song over the last few years. I felt old and used up. Here’s what I thought: This is as good as my life is going to get.

Now fast forward through many years and a divorce. The kids are old enough to stay home alone. I only work one job now. I’d spent much of the nineties teaching during the day and waitressing at night. Now I’m just teaching. I have down time. I join a gym, where I ride the stationary bike, listen to music, and read. One day, instead of the bike, I choose the treadmill.  I walk and read. Then Rosalita comes on. Something gets stirred up inside me. I drop the book onto the floor. I move from a walk to a jog to a run. The song ends. I walk a bit to catch my breath. I hit replay. Rosalita comes on again. I run. 

Now it’s August 2002. I’ve run two marathons and am training for New York City in November. I’m in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, running the Beach to Beacon, a ten kilometer road race that draws thousands of top runners from all over the world, and regular folks like me.  My right hamstring aches. I’d pulled it a few days earlier, pounding down a steep hill, seven miles into a ten-mile run. I end up walking the last two miles of the B2B, and bite my tongue when little old ladies along the side of the road tell me earnestly to not give up, “You can do it!” I try to tell one of them that yes, I know I can do it but not today because if I run I’ll damage my leg even more. But she’s already started cheering on someone else who’s  limping and so she doesn’t hear me. 

During the two-hour drive home, I play the entire Rising disc over and over until I know all the words. And when they finally sink in, I think how lucky I am to be alive. I remember to dream of life. I run New York City that November with “Rise Up!” magic markered on my thighs.   

The next few years fly by. There are marathons, Bruce concerts, high school graduations, college graduations and always Springsteen songs on my runs: favorites come and favorites go, though some are always part of the background music.  Thunder Road, Badlands, Darkness on the Edge of Town get played every time I run because they remind me that I want more. I don’t want to “lie ‘neath the covers and study my pain.” I’m done with “wasting my time waiting.” I’m ready and willing to “pay the cost for wanting things that can only be found in the darkness on the edge of town.” My darkness is a good thing: my hopes, my dreams. 

Sometimes I goof a bit. For a few months I obsessively play Girls in their Summer Clothes. I sing it while I run, changing some of the words: “The boys in their running clothes pass me by.” That makes me smile. I love the ending: “I ain’t got no sense but I’ve still got my feet.” That was me then. That's still me today. 

Now there’s Wrecking Ball and cancer and I acknowledge that it is true: “hard times come and hard times go, just to come again.” The words by themselves?  A little depressing, I guess. But there’s that driving melody, the surging repetition, crescendos and crashes, and for me, it’s a fight song. See, that’s the thing about Bruce. There’s always something I can latch on to. There’s always a lesson to chew on. There’s always something that fits.

The first song to come up on my shuffle this morning was Thunder Road. I listened to it while I walked for a few minutes and warmed up for a six-mile run. I'm smiling and thinking: I’m no beauty, but I’m all right. I’ve got my ghosts, like anyone of my advanced age. But I’m not ready to give up on living just yet. I don't need to wait for a savior to rescue me. I'll rescue myself.  

“These two lanes will take us anywhere. . .”  The timing was perfect, because I was staring at double yellow lines on a smooth swath of pavement that rose and curved and disappeared into the future. I took a couple of swigs of water as the song wound down. Hid the half full plastic bottle under a bush so I could grab it on my way back when I was at the mile four mark.

 
The song finished. I hit the repeat button, and you know what I did next? Of course you do. I ran.