no. 38 — Collection by Soccer Mommy
I saw Soccer Mommy in concert before I appreciated her music the way I do now. I saw her with my partner James at Metro Gallery in Baltimore, and it was lovely to see her in such a small, local venue. At some point in her set, she mentioned her 2017 album Collection, and the crowd was embarrassingly silent. I had only listened to her album Clean at that point, and it seemed like so had everyone else who was there. Only one person whooped, and I knew I owed it to the band to listen to their earlier stuff. I was embarrassed for being at the show and not even trying to listen to those earlier albums beforehand.
Later that week, I had a field trip for an art class I was taking. It was my throw away class, just a credit needed in any area to graduate. It was my last semester of college and I lived off campus. All my friends had already graduated, and though I still had two or three friends living on campus, I felt left behind and very lonely. Goucher was doing some major construction, so even when I was on campus, it didn’t look the same as it did when my friends were still there with me.
One of the friends I had left on campus was in the painting class with me, though we didn’t really talk. Both of us had headphones in while we painted. She was much better than I was. I didn’t really like the professor- I thought he was jumpy and kind of strange. Both me and my friend were dreading this field trip, which was to the professor’s house/art studio. We thought it would be weird, a group of students who didn’t ever talk in class, all piling into cars to drive an hour away into the hills of Maryland to a teacher’s house. And it was weird! But it’s also one of my favorite memories from college.
Because I was the only student living off campus, I drove by myself. The whole time, I listened to Collection and Clean on repeat. It was a gorgeous drive, full of farms and lush hills. The drive there was full of sunlight, golden hour going into dusk. It was spring, chilly but warm enough. I had the windows cracked and the heater on, and amongst the loneliness and sadness I felt, how unmoored it was to be in my last semester of college, desperately wanting freedom but fearing the real world, hearing those albums on that gorgeous drive brought me a few hours of peace.
During that field trip, I stopped thinking of my art professor as jumpy and weird. His house was gorgeous, full of remodels he and his wife put together. His paintings were breathtakingly gorgeous, landscapes of floating islands, the crust of the earth perfectly rendered. He bought us pizza, made us all tea, and served a cheesecake he had made himself. On each plate, he shaved chocolate and cut strawberries for a garnish. He had a fire going and we sat in his dining room with a massive wall of windows looking out onto the rolling hills of middle of nowhere, Maryland. When he called his cat inside, she came running from out beyond the yard. It was idyllic and beautiful and everything I wanted my life to be[1].
Now, when I listen to those albums, that’s the feeling I come back to. With Collection especially, I feel like I’m back in my car, driving to and from a strangely perfect experience, right on the brink of graduating from the life I’d known for so many years. Although this experience didn’t happen until 2018, meaning I’ve skipped ahead about a year and a half in my “chronological” writing, today feels like that day did. I feel eager to start a new chapter while still being stuck in the old one, tying up a few loose ends before I turn the page. All I can do is make myself feel at home, drink some tea, play these albums, and enjoy the final moments of an era.
If you, like me at that concert, haven’t listened to Collections by Soccer Mommy, I highly suggest changing that.
[1] I would still very much like this life.
