In the Backwater Swirling

Same Black Line Drawn on Local Author Drawn on You

Remember the 90s? Skateboarding home from school, getting stoned and making it with your girlfriend to the latest Pavement CD, then playing SimCity until dinnertime?

Well, I don’t, but I did do my version of that in the early 80s. It’s the rock music of the 90s I hear on satellite radio these days, however, that gives me the nostalgic goosebumps more than that of my own adolescence.

Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade Into You’, ‘Semi-charmed Kind of Life’ by Third-Eye Blind, any Sublime, Rage Against the Machine or Pearl Jam cut, ‘Californication’, that guitar hook in Dinosaur Jr.’s ‘Feel the Pain’, the both Dylan- and George Harrison-esque bubblegum pop of The Wallflowers’ ‘Sixth Avenue Heartache’, the Meat Puppets ‘Backwater’, the deep voices of Vedder, Weiland, Rossdale and the rest, any Alanis Morrisette cut, the above-mentioned Pavement, Ween, Phish, The Pixies, Radiohead. I could go on.

Most grunge, on the other hand, makes me puke. I danced a jig the day Kurt Cobain died. I didn’t hate Nirvana that much, only because he had said that’s what he would do when Jerry Garcia croaked, which seemed unnecessarily mean. While Cobain lay on a slab having entered the Forever 27 club smelling of cordite and clotted blood, I would dance another jig later that evening in 1994 as Jerry played to a blissed-out arena full of happy Deadheads.

Of course, beleaguered, beloved, hardworking Jerry’s heart, heavier than any of us could have imagined, would give out only a year-plus later. That’s for another sort of 90s nostalgia post.

But otherwise, all these 90s tunes—I hang on every note. I guess I see myself back then. In other words, still young. The bottom of the twenties, top of the thirties. My whole future life would be defined by these times, almost more than the 80s and all my schooling and personal travails.

That must be it—I associate the 90s with my young adulthood, a time when I had gained the independence from my mom and from Lugoff I had craved as an adolescent. Going to Dead shows, working at USC in the film archive, being a young married to the beautiful Jenn, buying our house in which I still live and write.

I’m in that same kitchen now, living out the dreams I held back then. If only I had known I already had all my acres of diamonds at hand, I would have been more relaxed about going to work every day at a job in which I could not find fulfillment no matter how much, or little, effort I put into the endeavor.

I suspect the pop music tracks that give me a certain vibe remind me of driving  in my VW van the five miles to work on campus, listening to the local modern rock station since I’d have the rest of the day in my office to spin Dead tapes.

Like it was yesterday—early in the morning, shirtsleeves and a tie, misty light while driving east across the river with the Carolina sunlight in my eyes. Parking across Assembly Street from the annex building that housed the archive, in those final days before I transitioned to life as a shopkeep—and for all the closest held dreams I ever truly believed in to come true. Turning off the radio. Wondering how I had gotten stuck in this career that had nothing to do with what I wanted out of life. 

Who knew veering into another career as a shopkeep, a life choice for which I had had no training nor any inclination or plans, at which I was far less prepared to succeed than in my motion picture film-based academic career, would become so fulfilling, would check off many of the boxes I sought out of life? Not I, said he. But it did happen.

In that sense, my 90s nostalgia isn’t a wistful or melancholy feeling. My young adulthood was anything but misspent. But I do miss the days when Jerry was alive, adulthood was still fresh, and my dreams were out of reach. The latter part of the decade was a go-go period of becoming a retailer having taken the reins of a wild stallion of a small business. I don’t remember much pop music from the late 90s. I was too busy embarking on the rear career that would be my density. I mean, destiny.

For anyone reading this still in a dewy time of life as above described, your twenties or thirties: make the most of that youth and energy I hope you feel, and if you have a dream, never stop thinking about it. You will get there. I did. It might have taken a few decades since I was listening to those above-mentioned tunes, but no worries; the time flies by fast. Trust me. If I’d stayed in that academic job, I’d be retired from it by now, earning a modest pension and still young enough to finally, after thirty years, get to that novel I dreamed of writing. I chose the riskier path, but it paid off. Either way, the clock is ticking. Gather ye rosebuds and maketh hay!