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April 21, 2024 by Karen Jensen, MLS Leave a Comment
Riley will turn 22 this year. She is the reason we are Taylor Swift fans in our house. Taylor launched right around the time that Riley started listening to music. And I have raised 2 daughters now with Taylor Swift as the soundtrack of our lives.
On Friday, Taylor Swift released her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department. On Friday night, Thing 2, age 15, came home and we ordered pizza and we sat around listening to the album.
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Let me start by saying, I love this album. Love it. As my girls and I mature, so does her music and it seems to capture these moments often perfectly.
But when the song Florida!!! came on, I was blown away. And then we get to the lyric about “the shitstorm in Texas.” I don’t know what that lyric means to Taylor Swift, but let me tell you what it means to me.
I took Thing 2 to The Eras Tour here in Texas. We went on Sunday night, the final night here. And as we waited in line, a storm came in. A literal shit storm if you will. The rain came pouring down. And then . . . the tornado sirens went off.
Suddenly, all of the arena doors flew open and security stood there frantically waving their arms and told everyone to come inside and take cover. The crowd started running every which way. I grabbed my kids hand and we ran. Fervently, feverishly, filled with both terror of the storm and the mad dashing crowd, we ran. We ran for our lives.
And if you are a mother, you know that my biggest fear in this moment was not the tornado. It was not the crowd. It was of the possibility of being separated from my kid in a moment of terror. I held on to her with dear life. All I wanted was to keep her safe, and to keep her with me.
My girls and I struggle with anxiety. We understand Anti-Hero. We immediately connected with I Can Do It with a Broken Heart: “I cry a lot but I am so productive.” And the thought of my child being separated from me in the midst of an actual potentially life threatening crisis and knowing what that would do to her anxiety fills me to despair still to this day.
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Everyone ran into that arena for safety. There was no security that day. No ones bags were checked in that moment. Our tickets were never scanned. We just ran in, sopping wet and terrified, and were told to take our seats.
The moment Taylor took the stage, Thing 2’s face lit up. We had survived and the concert was truly amazing. It was her first concert. An amazing mother/daughter bonding moment that we will never forget. Not just for the concert, but because we had survived the shit storm in Texas.
I don’t know what that line in that song means to Taylor. But I will always know what it means to me.
I recently started buying Thing 2 her own Taylor vinyls. We got her a record player. She recently went with us to a vinyl convention. Yesterday we went to our local indie record store for Record Store Day. Those moments are also thanks to Taylor Swift.
And I am thankful every day to Taylor Swift and her music, which not only helped me raise my girls and helps us all process what it means to be a woman in this world, but brings me a bond and a closeness that I will always cherish. I love these girls with all of my heart, and I am so thankful to Taylor Swift who helped write the soundtrack of their lives.
(Please note: I don’t normally cuss on this blog, but it’s a direct quote from the song and that day really was one.)
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Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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