Confession: I Like Shitty Country Music

There are many who may scoff at the idea of driving down the road, blaring twangy, formulaic, nonsensical country songs and totally rocking the fuck out.  If you're my husband, your head probably just exploded after even reading about it.

I've learned to embrace it: I like shitty country music.

Rob likes to say I was "musically abused" as a child, but the fact is my parents just listened to country music a lot because that's all there was.  I grew up in a town of 140 people that at the time had approximately one radio station that came in well, and even that one was based in a town two hours away. That radio station played one thing and one thing only, and that was country.  I won't waste your time with hipster qualifiers like "it was only real country like Johnny Cash*," this was the country that everyone refers to when they say, "I like all music...except for country."

I know every single word to most of Alabama's songs (especially this one, which I'm totally listening to right now).  Tim McGraw's song "Can't be Really Gone" still makes me cry just as it did when I was 9 years old and my best friend had just passed away.  The first non-Raffi song I can actually remember enjoying was a Hank Williams Jr. song and when I rediscovered it a few months ago I listened to it approximately 10 times in a single day. The first cassette tape I ever owned was Lorrie Morgan. I went ballistic when last fall GMC had a week-long series devoted to the best country songs of the 1990s--and I could sing every last one. When my iPod is dead and won't play in my car, I find a country station; I may roll my eyes at lines like "go together like a pair of bookends," but secretly my blood is pumping, both to the older songs from the 1990s and more recent ones.

Country music is the music I grew up to. It's the music I bonded with my sisters over as we were dancing to "Romeo"in our living room.  It's the music that defined various life events for me.  It's the music that reminds me of my dad and my mom, and the music I'm sure will make me think of them long after they are gone.

Though I wouldn't admit it at the time, it's the music that I turned to when I fell in love with Rob.

Rob's trying to shake the love of country music out of me.

It's also the music I forsook in fourth grade when I changed schools and most of my new friends hated it.  I pretended to like rap and also went through an embarrassingly obsessive period with the Beatles, which was more about trying to be unique and interesting among my fifth grade peers than an actual love for the music.  It wasn't until high school when I met my unrepentant music snob husband that I opened the door to music that had some of the same qualities as country, but admittedly with a lot more talent and soul (like this and this). This music now makes up the bulk of what I listen to.

Modern country is saccharine and terribly written and cliched, I know you guys. I know it's basically pop music with a southern accent and a steel guitar.  The model upon which country music is built is by far a model that I think should be replicated; attractive men and women are essentially plucked from various sources, trained to hold a guitar and fed songs about Amurrica and small towns and lovin' one another and the flag and the flag troops.  Some of it could even be considered downright offensive (if you can't stand it that long, fast forward to 2:24 for the "reggae" breakdown). Though I think these conventions aren't unique to country music, they somehow seem more obvious and to many, less forgivable.

Putting all of this aside, I still rock out to it and it still makes me happy. Though for a long time I felt shame for my affinity toward country music--helped in no small part by my husband's incessant mockery--as I've gotten older I've begun to slowly pad my iTunes collection with songs from my childhood and new country songs I have found in my covert car missions.  Rob may always skip past them on my iPod when we're driving, but I know they're there if I ever want a trip down nostalgia avenue.

So here we are, friends. My name is Caitlin, and I like country music. And if I don't express much enthusiasm your Bon Iver-packed playlists, it's because I'm probably too busy listening to "Honky Tonk Ba-Donka-Donk" and "Hillbilly Bone."**

*For the record, I also really really like Johnny Cash and so-called "real" country. Also, bluegrass is the shit.
**Also for the record, I know these songs are objectively terrible, but you can't deny that they're catchy as hell.

Our Life (and Love) in Letters

I was reading this post the other day about high school love letters and it got me thinking a lot about my and Rob's letter-writing past.  I have a feeling this post will be far more interesting for me to write than it will be for you to read, but I hope you find some enjoyment out of it regardless.

For as long as I can remember I've always written tons of letters.  As a child my uncle Kevin and I exchanged letters that I wrote meticulously on graph paper (one letter per square...I was dedicated).  When I got older and went to summer camp, my friends and I wrote letters constantly, and I kept them all in a blue binder covered with stickers.  Even with email so ubiquitous I still preferred to sit down and compose an actual letter over typing.

Part of my fascination with letter-writing was (and is) that I have always had really nice handwriting, and I loved watching it morph as I grew older and changed certain aspects of it.  I loved to see just how neat and straight or flowy and beautiful I could make it. While other people doodled pictures, I doodled words (I still do this, actually).

Side note: Does anyone else like seeing other bloggers' handwriting? I think it kind of makes this whole thing more intimate, but I also am the type of person who loves handwriting.  Regardless, this is a thought that is getting me through today, handwritten by me:

If you haven't read our story, Rob and I began dating in high school at ages 16 and 17 respectively.  Long story short, I dated a friend of his until I realized that the guy standing next to him was pretty damn special and fell in love...hard.  The letter-writing started here and quite frankly never stopped.

The first letter I ever wrote to Rob was a translation of a song we were singing in Spanish class.  My teacher, Mrs. Swain, passed out the lyrics and helped us translate each of the words.  I wrote down every single word she said on the paper and gave it to Rob over locker break.  This is the song, if you're interested.  And yes, it's on my iPod. And yes, I still sing along to it. And yes, we still have that piece of paper with the song and translation.

From December, when we got together, until June, when Rob graduated, we wrote each other at least 2 letters a day.  We would bemoan the fact that we were in high school and couldn't see each other as frequently as we wanted ("HA," I say out loud to my past self), we would write about all of our friends that made fun of us for how insane we were for each other, we'd have frank conversations about Rob's upcoming Army enlistment and what that meant for us as a couple, and we'd dream about the future when we wouldn't have to pay attention to anyone's rules but our own.

Recently Rob and I were visiting his parents and I found the box in which he kept all of my letters from high school.  Here they are:

I almost can't bear to read them now only because I don't recognize the whiny, doubting girl who wrote them anymore, but regardless they make me smile and remind me of how far we've come as a couple.

The letters weren't always sunny, of course.  The first summer we were apart (2003) we went through the only "rough patch" of our relationship.  We both were changing and growing and went through periods where we weren't sure how we'd grow together rather than grow apart.  Luckily for me we came together stronger in the end, as we always have.  

We continued to write letters throughout my senior year, as Rob was waiting to leave for the Army.  The letters got a little more serious, as we began to have more frank discussions of what we could expect from the next four years.  There were goofy letters too, about the turtle that I compulsively bought for Rob and other things that made us laugh together.

Rob left for the Army in April of 2004 and let me say that it was a huge wake-up call for old Liz Lemon Caitlin.  I remember writing in my diary that we would probably speak on the phone "at least once a week" but it turned out that phone calls were more like "every 2.5 months, for around 2 minutes," which is significant when you consider the fact that Basic only lasted 16 weeks.  Because of this we once again turned to the power of the written word.  I am not joking when I tell you that I wrote 2-3 letters every single day.  I wrote them during class (got called out by a teacher once but he quickly shut up when he realized who it was to), wrote them at home, wrote them at friends' houses.  I wrote about his parents and what they were up to, how much I missed him, how eager I was to be through with this period in our lives, and how much he meant to me. 

Our mailbox was around 2.5 miles from our house (small town) and on days I had off from school I would park my car next to the mailbox and wait for the mail ladies, or drive the 10 miles to the post office to pick up Rob's letters myself.  For his part, Rob would sneak away forbidden time at night to write me letters about what was going on, how much it sucked, and often how proud he was of the work he was going to do in the Army.  I began to learn the schedule of letters (don't expect letters on Wednesday because no mail goes out on Sunday, etc.) and planned my free days around it.  I was devastated when a letter didn't come.

Fast forward to when he arrived at his duty station.  We still wrote letters despite the fact that Rob had a phone and could call relatively regularly.  What is strange is that after Basic, the letters had become somewhat of a release for me.  If I was feeling anxious, I could write a letter and instantly feel better, even if I ended up not sending it.

When Rob was in Iraq the letters slowed significantly.  It was never discussed at the time, but we figured later that it was the first time in our relationship that letters weren't really necessary.  On some deep level we were both highly aware of what had changed--namely, Rob's safety--and sort of adjusted our communication accordingly.  Of course, I still wrote letters.  When I was in Russia I bought a graph-paper notebook (reminiscent of my first letter-writing experience) and wrote letters, song lyrics, anything to keep my mind off of missing my husband.  I got mocked a few times by my fellow study abroad students, who would see me writing in class or writing a letter while we were watching a movie.  It just felt natural.

To this day, though we are together, there are few things that can calm me as easily as writing a letter to Robbie.  Often I don't even give it to him or if I do, he reads it once and it gets left on his desk for a few months until I move it somewhere safe.  When I was traveling full-time a few years ago, if it happened that Rob went to class before I left I would leave him little notes (either of the love or nonsensical persuasion) all over the house, most of which are now accrued on the side of our refrigerator.

Somehow along the way the mere act of letter-writing became a thread that tied us together even when we were thousands of miles apart, and when I write to him I feel like he's right there talking back to me.  

As for all the letters we've accrued, they are split amongst various boxes and there are several in picture frames.  I struggle with what to do with them because they so special to me, and a 6-year-old cardboard Victoria's Secret box just doesn't seem appropriate.

Do you write letters?