when everybody loves you/you can never be lonely

surprise of the mr. jones toddler peace treaty.

Naomi decided not to nap yesterday, which made it a long afternoon for all of us. The defiance was that of a (tinier) Napoleon. Upheaval and debate proceeding the most mundane of actions. Communication that, at times, bordered on Abbott & Costello level absurdity.¹ Chris and I switched tactics often and tried to maintain a shred of sanity between us—our eyes meeting often over her head or passing in the hall with a shared look of WTF.

A napless child can be deceiving. Sometimes a small kid who missed some sleep might appear substantially joyful. This is an illusion, but it is an illusion that is hard not to love. When Naomi misses sleep, there is a sudden magnified silliness, a burst of energy that will lure with minor hilarities. She is playful, nearly slapstick. She stands on one foot, arms behind back declaring “look at this!” This little back and forth will go on until she doesn’t want me to “look at this” anymore and deadpans out of nowhere in return: “Don’t look at me.” “Okay,” I say, putting my eyes somewhere else.

“Don’t say okay,” she answers. Don’t say okay?

Shortly before lunch, the non-napping lil’ rebellion was holding a protest down the hall, outside of our bedroom. Who knows why.² I was in the kitchen getting lunch ready and Chris was in the living room. Her response to any/every sound from us was a “NO” delivered in a very specific dinosaur-y type way that signified to us there would be no other answer until we pretended to ignore her. This might sound ridiculous but I promise you—there is the “no” and then there is the dinosaur-y no which require two(or more) different tactics. What are they? Who knows! What a fun little mystery. Some days require throwing an ungodly amount of spaghetti at the wall and hoping some strands stick.

By that point, I was out of strategy. I paused prep and grabbed my phone to find music—something to divert my attention (and maybe blur out the no’s?). I hit play on “Mr. Jones.”

Any human my age will more than likely know this song by the first notes of guitar alone. The familiarity will render us nostalgic or annoyed, or somewhere in the delicate middle—this Counting Crows song stayed heavy in the 1994 rotation—be it on MTV or the radio or from the open windows of a Ford Mustang turning the nearby corner. One of those songs where you know the lyrics whether you want to or not. And the lyrics are not so much lyrics as they are a wrinkle of the cerebellum, a reflex built into our texture. Everyone has their own little collection of songs they know, and then within that there is the songs-we-know-and-don’t-know-why, though one can venture a guess. Songs that have seemingly always been and always will be—our mouths outlining the syllables without permission. These particular songs are not to be confused with the ones you know because you aimed to know them—the ones with lyrics you sought out and poured over. The ones that wore the double left arrows off a stereo’s button—the bridges and choruses we flooded our hearts with on purpose. Those songs involve intent and compulsion.

I have a strangely extensive knowledge of Richard Marx lyrics and this I’m sure is due to my dentist’s preferred radio station as well as many daydreamy car rides as a kid. I never owned a single song of his and yet I should’ve known better/not to fall in love with you/now love is just a faded memory has not paid a single month of rent to live in my head.

Mr. Jones is known because of where it falls in my timeline—I was 13/14 years old in the year of its debut, a bonafide sweet spot in one’s coming of age. Even then I recognized the yearning built within the tune, the certainty of being restless and insistence of someday. I never sought it out you could say, but whenever I heard it I felt something, and with time I’m sure the something became oh dear lord this song again? as the heard-or-touched-too-much tend to do.

Then you leave it alone and time passes, and one day you find yourself burnt out on parenting and reaching for it unexpectedly. Somehow the music of our youth becomes the music of our young.

The song starts with its guitar and Duritz hollers out his “Shalalala la la yeah…” I turn my attention back to lunch. I swear I could hear Chris’s eyebrows raise in response to the song choice. I heard him give an amused & surprised “oh?” and could tell he was pleased. Within ten seconds, there was the tiny shuffling of Naomi hurrying back down the hall to us. Her mess of curls bobbed into view as she turned the corner and stopped at the counter, directly in front of my phone. We both watched and waited. Her head looked in sound’s direction, tilted. She smiled and looked at me as the chorus kicked in. Whatever storm cloud that had previously settled upon her disposition was starting to dissolve. This was her first time hearing it, as far as I knew. I had no idea it held the power to summon her in the midst of a stand-off. Without a thought I took her hand and spun her in a little circle until she started laughing. Parenting continues to catch me unready, and I consider all the moments I might have dreamt of before—the milestones read about and watched for, (selfishly)imagining her playing soccer or taking my hand as we venture somewhere. What book will mean the most to her? What ways will she rebel? Who might break her heart one day and how badly will I maim them? I didn’t consider what might happen the first time she heard “Mr. Jones.” I never thought this well-worn tune from my youth would serve as the someday-sunbeam cracking through a storm. But there ya go.

1. Naomi likes to do fun things more than once(of course), so she will say “again!” and we will do said fun thing again. And again. However, she doesn’t understand what “one more time” means, and reacts to it as if I’ve told her “we will never do that fun thing again ever.” So if I offer “okay, one more time,” she will say “No! Do it again.” To which I say “yeah, we are—I said one more time.” This time she answers “NO! Again!” and then I say “one more time means we are doing it again” which is greeted with another no and maybe some whining. This falls right in line with our infamous “stickers are sticky but why aren’t they sticky anymore/why are they sticking to me” debate.

2. I probably said okay or her name or “the.”