Ode to Dolores

The first time I heard you was on a mixtape a friend had given me. I was in 7th grade. I was lonely and awkward. I was a novel-reading, grunge-listening, ballet-dancing smarty pants, laying on the floor of my bedroom, headphones on, listening to the third song in a row from “Dookie.”

Then you came on.

“Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?” I kept asking, as you wailed and purred and wailed and purred.

•

Not long after, I saw you. MTV’s Unplugged. I watched you with your angel face and your jaggedly-cut bangs—such a f*ck you to the girliness I’d always felt such a failure at. Still, you were so beautiful. A small woman wielding a huge guitar.

I sat up, close to the tv, to watch you. I was captivated. I was hopeful.

“There are more ways to be a woman than I’ve been taught.”

That’s what I was thinking as I put my headphones back on and pressed rewind for the millionth time to hear the only song on that mixtape that wasn’t sung by a man.

•

In college, driving around on a sunny afternoon with Christine. We didn’t really know each other yet, but when I started my car and the CD started spinning, she clapped her hands and said “I haven’t listened to The Cranberries for so long!” She sang along at the top of her lungs, “Oh, oh if this is the way you wanted it. Oh, oh, I didn’t understand.”

She knew every word, inside and out, and I knew then I’d found a true friend.

I rolled down the windows and started singing with her.

Christine and I were still nearly strangers, but that afternoon it felt like we’d been through it all together.

That’s what a good song can do.

That’s why it’s important for creators to keep creating.

•

For the last several days, I’ve been listening to you.

I’m remembering myself as a little girl, feeling so small and doubtful and doubted in a world where Kurt and Eddie and Billy and Billie Joe were kings.

I can feel it, even now: that butterfly in my belly, little wings fluttering around as I watched you take over the stage and transcend the “girl-in-a-band” cliché with rage and grace.

“There is a place for you in this world.”

That’s the promise you gave to me.

There are more ways to be a woman than what we’ve been taught.