The Midwestern Bruce Girl Wonders

"I was 21 years when I wrote this song. I’m 22 now but I won’t be for long. People ask me when will I grow up to understand why the girls I knew at school are already pushing prams.”

Today it almost reached 80 degrees in Minnesota. It was beautiful as I drove, stuck in traffic on 94 on my way to downtown St Paul. My windows were down and I was blaring Cloud Cult so loud that it almost tuned out the motorcycle beside me. We did the seated reading at the Loading Dock Theater. It was good. Fun to enunciate the stage directions really clearly like on my cell phone voicemail message. Fun to put on a professional voice. At one point I looked at the audience and saw Anna and Laura, thanking god that I had friends that would support me endlessly, no matter how small my venture seems. These girls, the actress and the choreographer, understand the creative restlessness that comes with being the type of people we are. The busy schedules. The mediocre but still sorta fun day jobs. The insanely fulfilling hours after work. We sat with our beers after the reading and talked for three hours, telling stories of religion and relationships and MySpace and families and our questionable, unclear, wonderfully hopeful future. They are my constant support, my daily saviors, my foundation.

But then there’s my other half. My Morgie and Leslie. The married girls.
Leslie + Alexa = Lesexa…no one can ever quite get you like the girl who makes up the other half of your most infamous nickname
“What are you doing this weekend?” Morgie asks.
“I’m going to the Hootenany and then this show and then I work and then I’m going to this other show and then this party and then brunch and then rehearsal. What are you doing?” I say.
“I’m planting in the garden…” she says.
“And then what?” I ask.
“That’s it,” she says.
And we both laugh.
I love Morgan. She is my soul sister and knows my past better than anyone. Though we live polar opposite lives, she will always be my family. Like Carrie says in SATC, my insides.

I wonder…I realize…

“I don’t want to change the world. I’m not looking for A New England. Are you looking for another girl?”

My mom says I come from a family of big dreamers. My mentor in high school said I live inside my head. My best friends can read the blank expression on my face when I’m lost in thought. Those moments I break out, where my insides are torn into the outside, they are rare but they do happen. And mostly that comes when I start sobbing or screaming with elation or lost in the community at a (mostly Bruce Springsteen) show because that has become MY cathartic outlet. And I thought it never really happens here. Not like that. Not like my Brooklyn or Manhattan or Philly adventures. That it really only happened when I was on the East Coast. And people might say it’s because I allow myself to feel that way when I am over there.

In December of 2005, I had an amazing weekend and the greatest audience, the greatest concert community experience of my life at a Marah show in Philly.

Minneapolis is my home. But New York City has been my dream for years. I watched two of my best friends move to NYC, build lives in NYC, as I continued to stay in the Midwest. I was jealous yet too busy to dwell too much. But then that insanity dies down for a moment, I realize the stagnant pattern my life is making and I know I am ready. I know how much more there is out there. I know the people, the friends and family, the concert community, the artistic opportunity, I have waiting for me. This August, Brian is flying to Minneapolis and, if I want his help moving out there, that is the only time he will give it. I won’t drive out there with my blanket and my albums and my stuffed animal family and my wacky clothes by myself. That is my chance. My date. And it is only five months away.

The problem is…

“I love the words you wrote to me but that was bloody yesterday. I can’t get by what you sing every time you need a friend. “

Friday, I remembered how I felt that December night in Philly. It was beautiful, cool enough to wear only my bright neon Roos zip up jacket. My hot pink tights and my worn down army boots. Those electric pink tights screamed up to me from the whiskey stained floor every time I adjusted my position at the Hootenany to see beyond the scrambling children and booze passing adults. I listened, looking down, laughing with Jen every time the keyboard would start and we both connect it to some 70’s or 80’s tv show. I remember, with Jen’s help, Doogie Howser M.D.

We stand and I hesitate. I don’t know what to do. So I give the mofo sign, whatever it may be, to Stook and I begin to slowly walk out. It’s cool and I haven’t really decided my plans for the evening so I walk extra slowly. As I walk down the alley by Java Jack’s, I run into the HWTS (howwastheshow) group again. I’m much less afraid now than the first experience of the Hoot so I stand and I don’t hesitate. I talk. I begin to ramble. I tell My Ass is Big as a MOTHERFUCKA story and Jim walks out. He goes around the circle and asks us all if we are coming to the bar.

I say no. I have to sleep. I have to wake up at 8am. I have to make copies. I think I don't want to intrude.

That isn’t a good enough reason, he says. I know it’s not so I change my mind. I remember that I shouldn’t hesitate any more.

So I run to my car, follow Jen and Andrea to the CC Club and stuff down half of my pb&j on the way there. It’s the only thing I’ve eaten and I know that if I don’t eat it, I’ll get drunk just by beer contact at the bar. So, though I still feel slightly ill from my week of bed sore sickness, I swallow the peanut butter soaked sourdough.

I’m inside. I sit at the table of local music people: writers and musicians and photographers and I almost shit my pants. It still doesn’t really seem real. Really really real. Sit at a table of people you really respect and try to act normal. I'm never normal anyway. But THEN I hear the question…

“So Alexa is totally obessed, huh? You’re a Bruce Springsteen fan, huh?

And I snap out of my weird, insecure place, looking wide eyed as I suck in my breath.

“Uhhhh…hell yeah.”

After a moment, I unzip my neon Roo jacket to reveal my Born to Run shirt. And I begin to ramble. And I do not shut the fuck up for two hours. I tell the tale that is my Bruce obsession. I open that giant can of loud, passionate, writhing worms. And I slowly realize they understand. They tell their tales of Bruce fandom, catering for him during Tunnel of Love or snapping shots during Vote For Change or being in the audience for the Courtney Cox filming of Dancing in the Dark. THEY UNDERSTAND! I tell of my very first Bruce moment in the hotel room in Mt. Vernon, Missouri. And I tell my tale of Back in Your Arms and seeing Bob Dylan jam out with Bruce at Shea Stadium and Martin agrees that it really is the most underrated Springsteen song. And Stook tells me that his artist brother, another diehard Bruce fan, painted a picture of Bruce literally kicking The Jayhawks ass. Though I love The Jayhawks, I have to have that picture. Some laugh. Some don’t really agree with my adoration with The Boss but then they start rambling about their musical icons and it’s all okay anyway. It doesn’t matter who. It just matters that it’s there.

I talk about music. I talk about writing. I talk about photography. I talk about my fears and my passions. I talk about Bruce some more.

I wonder if I have talked about Bruce too much but then I just can’t seem to shut the fuck up. And I feel wonderful. My voice is sort of hoarse though I have chugged nothing but water for two hours.

Pat looks at me and say “God you talk dramatically” and I dramatically answer with not a shred of hesitation “I KNOW!”

I get up to use the restroom and my electric pink tights are still screaming.

That passion and energy that I am so capable of came out in full force Friday night and I have a massive realization as I buzz into an exhausted, rambling sleep. The way I felt with those people…on some level…that’s how I felt on my amazing night in Philly. It took a half hour there. It took three years here.

It was a little harder for me to find, a lot harder for me to be open to. But it’s here. Right in front of me. In my home. My city.

Maybe I’ll never be anything but that Bruce girl that one night at CC Club to them. But I don’t think so. I’m in control of that. And being that Bruce girl is pretty fucking awesome anyway.

I may never feel like that again but I never thought I could really feel like that absolute giddy gut busting girl in Philly again.

I realize…

I am so happy right now.

“I saw two shooting stars last night. I wished on them but they are only satellites.”

The people who know me the best tell me I should move out to the East. Though he wants me to more than anything, Brian doesn’t think I will. He knows how capable I am of living greatly in Minneapolis. But he knows how greatly I could live in New York City.

I always said I am the best version of myself in NYC. I just don't know what that self is right now.

I feel like two conflicting halves right now. The half that experienced Friday night and the half that experienced the other side of the nation:



Everything you could think to tell me has already been said.

I know it could be a temporary move but I don't want to think of this next step as anything temporary. It's my life and I want to throw myself into it. I've worked hard to get where I am in Minneapolis and I'll work hard to make my life in NYC.

If...But...Ummm....

I am afraid to say goodbye to Minneapolis, to this city of accessible, wonderful music and beauty, to this familiar city of friends and comfortable adventure. I am afraid of the fact that I am so happy right now. I am afraid of the fact that I still get choked up with desire every time I watch that video. I am afraid that I will not be brave enough. I am afraid that I do not need to be brave. I don’t even know what being brave is right now.

Maybe my dreams aren’t as grand as they used to be. Maybe I’m not looking for A New England, a new city. Maybe I’m not that other girl.

I just have to remember…

“My dreams were full of strange ideas. My mind was set despite the fears.”

Thank you to Billy Bragg and Kristy Maccoll for setting the soundtrack for my random, split thoughts with “A New England.”