Recently, I’ve seen a lot of children wearing Nirvana shirts.
By children, I mean people younger than, say 26 and a half, and by Nirvana, I mean the essential 1990’s American grunge rock band.
The band, if you’re not familiar, is an icon of raw emotion, unfiltered and in most ways we use the word, genius. Words that are poetry mixed with tunes that are musical. You don’t get either of those all the time anymore, but this particular combination was…well, it was an anthem to those who felt lost in a world of More More More, and just wanted to be Enough.
I like the band. A great deal. I was in a band when they came along; no costumes, second hand instruments, clothes from the thrift shop – old jeans and flannel shirts. After they hit it big, Macy’s began selling “distressed” flannel shirts for $45 dollars that matched the 25 cent ones in our local Goodwill store… y’know, for the folks who wanted to cosplay as “authentic”.
But these kids today (ok, fine: “young adults”) were not actually on the planet yet when the band was popular, or even existed, as their lead singer (quite sadly) left the planet in 1994. What does the band mean to them?
And it’s tons of different kids, all races and backgrounds, wearing Nirvana shirts, not The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. Maybe they’ve heard the music, or maybe there was a huge sale at Hot Topic, but those shirts represent a stand for simple individuality which echoes even louder in their infinite forest of social media.
And so many black kids in these shirts. I love that. (There was this great punk rock band, seminal to the genre, born in Detroit, where all the members were black, but they did not crack the hit parade, and nobody’s wearing their t-shirts because their name was Death, which I’m sure is against a school dress code somewhere.)
Nirvana’s music was fused to the events of my young life so completely that when I entered corporate America, I couldn’t bear to listen to them anymore. Every lyric strained my very soul, every power chord tore at my being.
How how how can I go in this building again?
Why why why am I part of a broken capitalistic model?
You know: your late twenties.
I had to swallow so much of who I was everyday (like seawater) that I listened to a lot of Judy Garland on the way to work instead, although her life ended up being pretty punk too. (I would have loved a duet between her and Iggy Pop. Oh, c’mon, think about it, that would be amazing.)
Not for nothin’, but it’s hard to be a human cog. We’re not really built for that, no matter how ergonomic the chairs or the keyboards, it doesn’t feel right. For 12 to 16 to 20 years we go to a place everyday where we learn things and then prove that we either understand or at least remember what was taught. And in between that, we chat with our neighbors, have a little bite to eat, and go to recess.
Now it’s backward. People go to a place everyday where they don't learn anything but they get free coffee, and for a break they go outside to get more coffee or (if they’re kicking it old school) top it off with a little nicotine. Then it’s back inside to let all that jitter juice and tarry resin work medical black magic on their insides. No recess.
That’s actually a lyric by Nirvana, but, digression.
The logic of recess was always that kids need a bit of time during their routine to romp about and reduce their stress, to let out all the bad air and take in some good air, to calm down. So here we are now, filled with caffeine, and (not for nothin’ but) most of us are more stressed than when we were seven.
Honestly, recess as a kid was its own kind of stressful. In the classroom, no one was allowed to hit you in the face with a red latex ball, but on the playground they were instructed to do so, and praised upon impact.
Yet, I am convinced that, as adults, we still need recess. I’m also convinced the reasons we don’t have it anymore are purely legal, as the red ball thing would most certainly lead directly to a courtroom situation at this point.
I’ve tried to add healthy movement to my day, fill the rings on my watch by walking briskly to Whole Foods to get more corn flakes, but it doesn’t compare to a good game of kickball. At least we could go outside once a day and play on a swing, or a slide, or a jungle gym. When’s the last time you said “whee!” during a work day? That’s all recess is, y’know, a bit of joy within routine, a scheduled rebellion.
Hmn.
Maybe I’ll walk the other direction today, down to the comic book store, my grey tie and black button-down hiding the Queens of the Stone Age t-shirt underneath.
No Recess.