U2: From the Sky Down

In November of 1991 I was halfway through my first semester as a college freshman.  I was still a pink-cheeked lass of moderate intelligence and talent, barely stepping beyond my comfort zone as I timidly tested the waters in my university's theatre department.  In November of 1991, U2 released Achtung Baby.

My life was never the same. 

I had arrived at the school in some sort of paralyzed non-choice; I wasn't sure what I really wanted from my education and knew that my high school drama director was an alum an that I learned much from him, my parents were both alumni and I was operating under the belief that my education couldn't cost too much or my siblings wouldn't get the chance to go to college.  So I shrugged when it came time to pick a school, deciding that UNI would be just fine.  I planned to become a high school drama teacher, but really wanted to just be an actress.

But college theatre was a completely different scene than high school theatre.  If I had been a standout in high school, so had half of my freshman class.  And half of the sophomore class.  And half of the junior class.  And half of the senior class.  I knew it was a bigger pond.  I knew that I was going to be a smaller fish.  Much smaller.

I was completely unprepared when I walked into auditions for the first semester's shows.  I wore a bright orange silk blouse because I'd heard the advice to wear something memorable to stand out at an audition.  I think I was the only person in the room that could have looked good in an orange silk blouse, so I'm pretty sure I was memorable.  The auditions were cold readings, and I felt that I had done all right.  I got a callback for one show, but was not cast.  I thought that was pretty good for a freshman.

I don't remember when I stepped through the looking glass -- when the other students in their flannel shirts and Doc Martens suddenly became less intimidating, when I didn't startle at the sheer force of their boisterous and animated interplay.  But one day, it just seemed less odd.  One day, I started feeling like I belonged there instead of hanging out on my dorm floor, playing Hearts with the guys that lived upstairs.

I was never a trend setter.  I wasn't a trend follower, either.  When everyone started coloring their hair black and smoking, I passed.  I wasn't blessed with brilliance, but had a good work ethic and the ability to get along with most of my peers, bridging the gap between performers and the backstage set fairly easily. 

In the second semester of my freshman year, I was cast in an unconventional show set in an art gallery.  And it was performed in an art gallery.  The cast was huge, nearly forty people.  I was the one who had the long monologue, the climax of the show.  Rehearsing that show was at once terrifying and fabulous.  I found myself in the middle of things, creating new friendships, exploring new relationships, and discovering the album that I completely equate with my coming-of-age: U2's Actung Baby.

Sense memory is a wonderful thing, triggering emotion in primal way.  The smell of a school on the first day of classes always gets my heart racing.  Tasting Little Smokies takes me back to the last time my family was together before my parents split, yes, they nearly make me vomit now.  And hearing U2's "One" picks me up and drops me, heart and soul wide open, back in my dorm room on the last day of classes of my freshman year, to the moment when I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, "This is it!  You're not a kid anymore and life is there, waiting for you!  Go out and create, go out and blaze your path, go out and live!"

That moment of youth crept up on me again tonight as I was rocking Juliet.  Scott had flipped on the documentary From the Sky Down about the genesis of Achtung Baby.  I listened as the band members and their producers talked about the difficulties and conflict surrounding the stifling writer's block under which the band was suffering, when they started playing a rehearsal tape of a song called "Sick Puppy," later retitled "Mysterious Ways."  They were carefully describing how the song had one bridge, then another while the taped rehearsal played underneath the narration.  As the band approached the second bridge of the song, the chords came to life.  Next thing I know, I sitting there, open-mouthed, tears welling because those chords were the seed that became the song, "One." 

Who gets the chance to hear the birth of their coming-of-age anthem?  In an instant I was at a party in a park, dancing under a full-moon, baying, "One love..." with thirty college friends, most of whom I see fairly regularly on Facebook. Twenty years had fallen away, just like that.  Wow...

Now, before you roll your eyes and sigh over my band-worshipping, I can completely admit that "One" isn't even my favorite U2 song.  I prefer "With or Without You," "Love is Blindness," "Elevation," and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of."  I don't even own Zooropa.  And I couldn't tell you much about No Line on the Horizon other than I have it.  I'm not a super fan. 

But Actung Baby?  That will forever be the soundtrack of my early adulthood and the place I go when I am stuck in a moment that I can't get out of.  There's just something special about it, a little piece of mystery wrapped inside myself, kept close and rarely shared.  When all things align and I'm in the zone creatively, that album is whispering in my ear.  When I take a risk and step outside of myself artistically, that album is y backdrop.  When I need to recharge, to build my reserve, that album is my reservoir.  When I want to bring it, to lay it all out on the table and walk away completely spent, that album is the one blaring in my car, on my Shuffle, in my bones. 

Thank you.