Taylor Swift, Hipsters, and Feeling Understood

Last Monday, while shopping at Zandbroz, (the best little bookstore/place for funky eclectic gifts and décor in Fargo), someone in the store switched up the music and suddenly I heard Ryan Adams strumming and singing Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood ” above my head.

It was early afternoon and the store was pretty dead. I placed my merchandise on the counter and decided to make small talk with the cashier. As the cashier swiped my credit card, I asked, “So do you sell the Ryan Adams 1989 album too?”

“No,” he said turning bright red under his grizzly hipster beard. “We don’t sell the music we play in the store.”

“Oh,” I said, and slipped my card back into my wallet.

“I just put it on in case she came into the store,” he said sheepishly.

Because she was in Fargo, just hours away from going on stage in the Fargodome. And she, Taylor Swift, has power to make even hipsters blush.

I have to admit, 35 year-old me would probably blush too if she walked into the store just then. I was sort of embarrassed of how excited I was to see her in concert that night. We had two tickets to see Taylor Swift, one with W’s name on it. (Steve and I were lamenting the fact that we should have gotten a third—that we could have both taken W). The world doesn’t revolve around W very often—or at all, really.

Steve had this ongoing negotiation with W weeks up to the concert. “If you take me instead of mom, I’ll take you out for ice cream after.” Then he’d up the ante, “If you take me instead of mom, I’ll give you $50.”

“No way!” she’d say, eating up the teasing and attention. (Let’s be honest, it’s kind of fun to be fought over). “I’m going with mom. It’s a girl’s night.”

I was secretly relieved that she wanted me to go with her. She tells me all the time that she wishes we’d do more things together. Once every couple of months we’ll go to downtown Fargo and peruse her favorite shops—Unglued and Ode Cache. A few weeks ago I promised her 10 minutes of us time a day—No J involved. But even that’s hard to make happen sometimes. I’m afraid one of these days, she’s going to just want to give up on trying to have a “girl’s night.”

We’ve been reading the book Wonder by R. J. Palacio (a book about a family and friends and a boy with special needs named August) and all of my guilt of “not being there all the time for W” came out again once we reached the first chapter from the character Via’s point of view:

“August is the Sun. Me and Mom and Dad are the planets orbiting the Sun. The rest of our family and friends are asteroids and comets floating around the planets orbiting the Sun.”

J is the sun in our family.

“I’m used to the way the universe works. I’ve never minded it because it’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve always understood that August has special needs. If I was playing too loudly and he was trying to take a nap, I knew I would have to play something else because he needed his rest after some procedure or other had left him weak and in pain.”

W has to change her every aspect of her life to consider J’s needs.

“Mom and Dad would always say I was the most understanding little girl in the world. I don’t know about that, just that I understood there was no point in complaining…After you’ve seen someone else going through that, it feels kind of crazy to complain over not getting the toy you had asked for, or your mom missing a school play.”

“So I’ve gotten used to not complaining, and I’ve gotten used to not bothering Mom and Dad with little stuff. I’ve gotten used to figuring things out on my own…If I was having trouble with a subject in school, I’d go home and study it until I figured it out on my own. I taught myself how to convert fractions into decimal points by going online.”

W nodded her head beside me in silent Amen confirmations.  As J sat on the left of me and W on my right I could just feel from her that for once someone in her life actually knew what her life was like. That her mom spends way more time with her brother than she does with her.

And that’s why I was so relieved that she still picked me to go see Taylor Swift with her.

We walked into the Fargo very much unprepared. I was not a hip teenager and I am definitely not a hip mom. There were little girls and teenage girls who were wearing twinkle light tutus and girls with homemade lit-up posters. We came with nothing.

I didn’t know what to expect. I know about Taylor Swift but I don’t know anything about Taylor Swift, but after the two hour concert W and I had this amazing experience with her and each other. Every seat had wristbands taped to the seats (except mine and a few other seats around me. The girls behind me had hoarded wrist bands and had them stacked to their elbows. I’m just glad W still had one taped to her seat). And when Taylor came out with her first song, all the wristbands lit up at the same time. W thought that was the coolest thing on the planet. Score for Taylor Swift. She knows her audience, and it sounds silly but that little rubber wristband made W feel part of something huge.

And at the same time, Taylor can make you feel like it’s just you and her in the room. Like when she started talking to the audience about how we need to encourage each other and be nice to each other. That girls have to stick together because the world is already hard enough for girls. That everyone in the room is “good enough,” no matter what someone says about the things you like or how you dress. Or how to resist the urge to compare the hard parts in your life to the best parts in someone else’s. I even got teary when she said, “You’re not going nowhere just because you haven’t gotten to where you want to be yet.” I know she gives this speech to everyone on her tour, but still. She made it seem like she meant it.

(This is from a concert in Manchester park. Just to give you an idea of her speech)

W was eating it up. I watched her watch Taylor (nodding her silent Amens again) and I realized there is a whole little world inside of that girl that I won’t be able to understand sometimes and may not be able to reach. Of course, when Taylor sung “Fifteen” I realized there are things that I will know what she’s going through, but W’s little world growing up with a brother with autism is something I will never understand. I’m glad she can feel heard or understood sometimes, even if I can’t do that for her in the way she needs it.

I tip my hat to you Taylor. You are an amazing entertainer. You know your audience. You know how to make everyone there feel important. Thanks for letting me and W have that much needed girl time together.

And I hope you made it to Zandbroz and made that hipster’s day!