We Just Stand Real Close

By Guest Writer Rachel Nevergall

On a Friday night in August, Taylor Swift is in Mexico City on her 56th performance of her Era’s Tour while I watch a live feed through TikTok on my tiny phone screen. This is just what I do now. I watch a show I have seen ten gazillion times,  marveling as if it’s the first. The best art is worth watching again and again. 

She’s in her Fearless Era, singing her iconic song “Love Story.” When she sings this song, she walks forward and everyone follows—the backup singers, the dancers, even the guitar players. Remember, I know this because this is my thirteen bazillionth viewing. Which is why this time I notice something is wrong—Taylor looks lost.

Towards the end of the chorus, she brings her hand to her ear, and it appears her ear piece is broken. Without pause, she whips around, weaving her way backward on stage through the dancers and backup singers hurrying towards her musicians. She locks eyes with her bass player and without words, he knows what she needs. He nods to the beat, she nods back, turns around, and is right back into the Love Story with ease. 

Is there anything this woman can’t do? She even handles technology malfunctions with impeccable talent. It’s graceful. It’s effortless. It’s art. I am moved to tears in awe. Wait, no. Not awe, exactly. 

Jealousy.

It’s a Monday in August after the Mexico City Era’s Tour (this is how I measure my days) and bedtime isn’t going well. 

“I hate you and I never want to see you for the rest of my life!” 

(Yeah, that kind of “not going well.”) 

I pause my task of rinsing enchilada sauce off dinner plates mid scrub and cringe at the sound of my five-year-old’s voice tumbling down the stairs. It is followed by a slammed door and my husband Mike’s footsteps across our creaking wood hallway floors above me. I turn off the water in the sink, dry my hands on the nearest dish towel and lay the white flag on the counter. We meet at the stairs, and I look up to catch his weary eyes. I know he doesn’t want to ask for help. He wants to do bedtime on his own, knowing I need the break from a long afternoon of emotions as much as he needs the chance to connect during these few hours he has at the end of his work day. 

But five-year-olds are gonna five-year-old. 

Silent and defeated, I join him in the battle.

I’d like to tell you this was just an off day, a brief technology malfunction in an otherwise well-orchestrated performance of parenting. But honestly the day could have been a Tuesday in June or a Thursday in July, and I’d probably say the same thing. Ever since we moved our family of five across state lines a few months ago—away from their friends and school and everything they knew as home—emotions have run high, to say the least. 

I join Mike upstairs, and we fall into a bedtime routine never described as graceful, effortless art. There’s pajama wrangling and countdowns and threats and pulling brothers off each other and you go in that room and I’ll go in this one and she needs help with math and wait, this isn’t working switch rooms and did you go pee and why is it all over the walls and only two books fine three and stop interrupting the story and I don’t know what we’re having for breakfast and I’ll go look for your stuffy and no you can’t fall asleep in my room and ok fine sleep wherever but just please for the love of Taylor Swift, go to sleep. 

I love you. 

An hour later Mike and I collapse onto our bed in a scene that reminds me a lot of Marv and Harry when they meet inside the Home Alone house. “Why the hell did you take your shoes off? Why the hell are you dressed like a chicken?” We both want to ask each other these questions, among others like why is this still so hard and what are we doing wrong? But questions imply the need for answers, and we are simply too tired for that. 

A memory crosses my mind: the same two people, eleven years younger, just as tired and lost in parenting as we are tonight. I stood on the corner of Montrose and Damen near our first home in Chicago, a cranky mom bouncing a cranky baby, waiting for his bus because I could not wait the extra ten minutes for him to walk to our apartment door. I couldn’t be alone any longer. He stepped off the bus and the sigh of the brakes matched mine when he took my hand. On a different day, I would pummel him with parenting questions for which he would have no answers. That night, we stayed quiet, letting the sounds of a city in rush hour step in as a lullaby for a tired baby and her parents.

Years later, here we are again, still too tired to ask the questions. Mike slides his hand over and finds mine. I squeeze back, which feels like an answer. 

On a Tuesday night in August, the day after the bedtime battle, Mike and I have escaped for our anniversary. We sit on bag chairs, a picnic at our feet, champagne in our hand listening to Brandi Carlile play at Ravinia Fest. Brandi and her band mates, The Twins, lull the crowd with their powerful three part harmony, and again, I am moved to tears by mesmerizing talent. 

“This is us in our natural habit,” Brandi tells the crowd as she warms up for the next song. 

They had been touring all summer with an eight-member band but tonight, they tell their story with just three mics, three guitars, and three dynamite voices carrying all the way across the lawn. 

“We don’t use any of that tech to follow along,” Brandi continues. “We just stand real close to each other, like we love each other.” She grins at the band mates on either side of her before heading into the familiar strums of the song “The Story.” 

The nostalgia of an anniversary and the lyrics of the song lead me to think again of us as new parents, that corner bus stop, and how it felt to be close. And then another memory, one year before that, me standing on the same corner stop, a positive test in my pocket, buzzing with joy and trepidation, waiting for his bus because I couldn’t wait the extra ten minutes for him to walk to our apartment door for me to tell him our lives were about to change forever. 

Brandi keeps singing about “The Story” and memories of my own story keep flowing. 

Eighteen years ago. We sit side by side, too afraid to make eye contact while he tells me he has a job offer in Toledo. I live in Chicago. We’d spent the better part, or maybe worst part, of a year connected through phone calls and occasional visits. I tell him I can’t do it anymore. I’m ready to cut the cord between these tin cans. A week later, I take one more call. He is moving to Chicago with no job but a lot of hope. 

Seventeen years ago. Me holding up the big skirt of my white dress walking towards him standing fidgety in a tux, nerves and anticipation of this momentous day floating behind me. 

Fifteen years ago. He is at work dealing with an emergency but I call him anyway. When he picks up the phone, I can only find three words. “Granny is dying.” He is home in ten minutes. 

Ten years ago. He tells me about a new job in a new-to-us city. I say yes, of course, Romeo. I’ll follow you. 

One year ago. He tells me about a new job in an old city. And again I say yes, of course, Romeo. I’ll follow you back.

One day ago. A battle and a bed and hand of solidarity. 

On and on the eras tumble, one after the other, the love story of where we’ve been. Every stumble, every mishap, every shift in the routine, we learned to weave our way back to each other, to draw in close. There is no choreography for this dance we do, no fancy technology or perfect harmony. None of it looks graceful or effortless. But still, we knew, and we know, all we have to do is stand real close, nod our head, and we’ll find the beat to keep going. 

I don’t say any of this to Mike, but somehow it’s as if he knows. I find his eyes, and he nods, and it’s enough. I know this is one performance worth watching a gazillion more times.

---

This essay won second place in our annual Love After Babies writing contest—exclusively open to Exhale members. Learn more here.

Rachel Nevergall

is a mother, partner, writer, and maker living in Chicago with her college sweetheart and their three kids. Rachel wants to be defined by the things she loves, like an impossible to carry stack of library books, the many layers to a well mixed cocktail, growing vegetables from tiny seeds, and obsessing over the complexity of a Taylor Swift lyric. You can connect with Rachel in her monthly Raise & Shine Letter, on her blog, and Instagram.

Photo by

Jennifer Floyd

.

---

If you loved this essay, would you consider forwarding it to a friend? We’ll be delivering stories like this one through the end of the month. ❤️