Kilby Girl
My friend Ginger spends summers sailing in Inverness, teaching local middle schoolers how to boat. The camp she supervises is advertised as a way for teens to learn to boat, but it truly is just an excuse to hang out with her local Inverness friends. During the week, they fill their time driving windows down around the Tomales Bay area, filming Crumbl reviews, and laughing at niche references. They spend their weekends participating in doubleheaders exclusive to counselors and some CITs lucky to be their close friends. Saturday nights are filled with throwing balls into red cups, capturing every moment in blurry photos from Ginger’s water-damaged digital camera. When the night ends, they stumble to their cars parked in a line along the street. Their backseats are folded over, and blankets are spread over the hard backing for most of them. Ginger’s car has a small front seat and multiple rows in the back, so she places a thin mattress over the folded seats from June to the beginning of August. At the beginning of August, when her schedule clears enough to hang out, we get lunch and begin our summer recap. Last year, my summer had consisted of soccer training and talking to my friends about how badly we wanted to hang out but never really following through. Her summer was something taken directly out of a coming-of-age movie. In the boredom of my summer, I had turned to expanding my music taste, which meant copying what my sister listened to and claiming it as my original opinion. The first song that started this pattern of stealing my sister’s music taste was Pool House by The Backseat Lovers. This song sparked a deep dive into their album When We Were Friends. After listening to the album multiple times, I came to the realization that it reminded me of something. “You are so Backseat Lovers,” I told Ginger. She didn’t know who they were, but I was glad I could finally pinpoint what it was reminiscent of.
Going into a Rock band this year, I had my mind set on one song and one song only. Pool House. I was also set on taking the second verse and forcing Andrew (the better guitarist) to take most of the solo between the bridge and the final chorus. When it came to selecting our new batch of songs, we went around a half circle naming our song suggestions. Titles like Sweet Child O Mine, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Time were also written on the board. So when compared to popular titles, Pool House didn’t even have a chance. I was upset that the more popular songs had overshadowed my song suggestion but I just knew I wanted to be on any song by The Backseat Lovers.
I spend much time wishing I lived other people’s lives and imagining how much I am missing out on. I can normally convince myself that I am not missing too much and that my present moment is what I should focus on; however, I am often wrong about this. Sometime around the end of November this past year, I had a soccer showcase in Phoenix with my team; going to this showcase meant missing the mini-class concert we held to showcase our progress. While I was off in Phoenix playing ninety-minute games in ninety-degree heat, my classmates crowded around in a circle, shaking tambourines and clapping to each other's performances. This is what I expected to miss, which I did, but I did not expect to miss the impromptu picking of the next group of songs. Imagine my shock as I check our ever-changing setlist while brushing my teeth and see “Kilby Girl” by Backseat Lovers in the next batch. For a group I wasn't in. Jaw dropped, holding in my scream so I wouldn’t wake the entire floor of athletes trying to fall asleep for their 8 am games the following day. What are the odds that the one time I’m not there the one group I am not in picked the one band I desperately wanted to play a song from? They aren't very high, yet I was two states away, groupless, songless, hopeless. I was devastated, heartbroken even. I’m being dramatic, but it felt like betrayal from my bandmates, who had known that I would’ve sacrificed my sister to do that song and from the universe for even letting it happen. I was bitter the next day, the flight back, the night before, and the morning of my first rock class back. I was honestly hoping to hear the song and have it sound bad. If I can’t sing it nobody can. Yes it sounds selfish but it was out of desperation. I imagined Tom, our male lead having a voice crack and Karis’s mic chord falling out mid-performance. I always thought delusion is the highest form of manifestation, but I guess only to a certain extent. I forgot that my band members were actually talented, so I went into class and was disappointed when I was met with complex harmonies that I had to admit were good.
One of my main faults is wasting time watching the life I want to live from the sidelines. Instead of seeing what I have for what it truly is, I always think the grass is greener in someone else's pasture. I imagine how happy I would be if I were Sofia Coppola’s daughter who gets to hang out with Jacob Elordi between shooting scenes for Priscilla, walking the Cannes red carpet with Aubrey Plaza, releasing an overly autotuned two-song-long EP, then subsequently having a Vogue article about how she is a “rising star.” But recently I have been trying to reflect on this and realize that probably everyone feels this way. I am bitter about people getting what I want, but I accept that sometimes its more fitting for others than me. Relating to the Kilby Girl situation in my Rock Band, I watched Karis and Tom perform it over and over again as I sat shaking a tambourine and cheering them on, pretending to be happy for them. But during our final performance, as they stepped on stage and introduced the song to an eager audience, the screaming and clapping I was doing to support them became genuine. Although I was initially upset about not getting the song, I realized that I enjoyed listening to the song and shaking a tambourine to it almost as much as I would have imagined enjoying singing it myself.
While I imagine that Ginger’s summer is fun, and I wish I could tag along, I know that is her thing. I also know that she probably spends time wishing she lived someone else’s life, someone who is flying to Mykonos and exploring historical alleyways in Italy instead of staying home and working at a camp. I don’t know that anyone is envying the summer I am having of soccer training every other day and calling my friends when I am bored, which is the majority of the time. I didn’t get to sing Kilby Girl, and I don’t get to live the life that I feel the song reminds me of, but I am working on being more present rather than wishing I lived someone else’s life.
