I’m not sure if the thunderstorm started before or after the big program on the last night of cheerleader camp.
When the storm started ended up not really mattering much.
Hold that thought.
Lester Bangs was a real rock ‘n roll journalist, immortalized in one of my all-time favorite movies — “Almost Famous.”
In the movie, Bangs’ character, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, says something the real Lester Bangs wrote — something that I, apparently, missed the first time I saw the movie more than 20 years ago.
And yet, since I re-watched “Almost Famous” this week, I have spent more time than I should admit trying to remember when I figured out the truth that Bangs so eloquently states: “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.”
I’ve come up with one moment from the summer before I was a senior in high school when I believe that realization began to take hold on me and, likely, changed the course of my life.
I was at the aforementioned cheerleader camp — a place I had always wanted to be but had never been eligible until that summer. I had wanted to be a cheerleader for years, but all of my efforts to do so came up empty.
My family had moved from one town to another and, after my junior year in my new town and school, I was selected to be a cheerleader for my senior year. I am grateful I had the experience and look back on elements of my brief time as a cheerleader fondly. Perhaps in my mind, I had finally attained the very cool to which Bangs refers.
The trouble began before the new school year started. Different aspects of cheerleaderness had begun to raise various red flags for me even before we went to camp. However, that week’s demanded conformity, insincerity, fake smiles and required yelling pushed me over the edge.
I’m sure I was wrong, but from where I stood, no one else seemed to mind or acknowledge that we were living in a whackadoo world with rules that made no sense — a scenario that consistently brings out a strong reaction in me.
By the last night of the camp, I was at my wits’ end. I realized I did not fit in with this crew of people, the very people I had wanted to be for six years. I knew the camp would end the next day, but I was spent. I didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to go-with-the-flow for another minute.
That’s where the thunderstorm started — either during or just after the last-night-of-cheerleader-camp program ended. All the cheerleaders were walking back to our on-campus dorm rooms in a thunderstorm that had to be seen to be believed. It was one of those Southern summer storms that unleashes enough water in a matter of minutes to create a mini flash flood.
Most of the girls were running or looking for umbrellas, but I realized early on in the walk that I simply couldn’t get any wetter.
I also noticed, through the blur of rain, that water was running through parking lots like a river. I’m not sure why, but the thought came to me, “Could we build a human damn and block the water and create a little pond?”
Immediately, I began to convince cheerleaders from my squad (who by then certainly knew I wasn’t cool) to try and help me. My powers of persuasion pulled through.
The rain continued and seven of us did our best to create a wall with our bodies to form a small pond in the parking lot. Ultimately, we arrived to our dorm rooms no wetter than we would have been had it been just another boring walk. It was a night that, in the bigger picture, taught me something about true currency.
I cannot explain how much fun that experience was or why its memory remains — simply pure joy. In the years since, I’ve seized moments like it all over the globe.
As a mom, I’ve tried to convey the lesson of “true currency” to my daughters. As of yet, I’m fairly certain I have not succeeded. Perhaps, from their perspectives, the abundant examples of their mother’s uncoolness on display at every opportunity, have not offered the evidence necessary to convince them that I know what I’m talking about regarding any advice related to cool.
One day, though, in their own time, I have faith they will grasp the value of the beauty of finding the right people to share and bask in opportunities to be uncool.
And then, life just gets better.
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The magic of 'true currency' occurs in life's moments of uncoolness - The Advocate
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