Backstage [discontinued version]

Chapter 14

Outside the studio, Phiona was coaxing her nephew into using the tablet to finish his homework. Her house had telltale signs of a kid disrupting order with his energetic chaos—toys in unexpected places, cut-outs of dinosaurs, and plates and cups lying about. Most of her wooden carvings and other potentially dangerous things had been stashed away.

Shutting the studio door, I tapped my feet to maintain my gravitational affinity to the earth. Unraveling into strings of confetti might be a real possibility and I wanted to regulate the flood of euphoria that mixed with post-stage anxiety.

Earlier today Phiona had introduced me to her friend who owned a bar in Etobicoke. It was one of the small businesses and places that her other musician clients had sworn by to be great. Everyone was so friendly. I felt completely accepted there, and my gig went smoothly.

It wasn't until I stepped outside that something slid back into place. The trees and snow looked at me for who I was, and that was frustrating because why hadn't I felt the same ease as inside the bar? It had all the accommodations I could ask for. Driving time meant nothing if I got a better gig experience. It should have been the height of my search for good venues, but instead I was trapped between the middle space of enjoying myself but unsure of my own actions. I was consciously aware of how invisible I was after stepping off stage, as if I shouldn't be, and that I was on the cusp of doing the right thing, but missing that opportunity. Letting it slip by.

I had cautiously expressed this to Phiona as delicately as ripping tape off of paper. Like always, she was one step ahead of me.

She came in, called over her shoulder to make sure Zayn knew what to do, and collapsed into her chair. Her rose gold windbreaker was crinkled, but her face held a motherly smile. Pushing aside a stack of what looked like research papers, she switched to a professional-looking website on her laptop. "Apologies for making you stay. Zayn's having trouble switching back to school after the break. But I did want to check up on you, to see if everything was okay?"

This was her fourth time asking. It chafed my nerves until I remembered my contradictory answers that had confused her and her friend.

"So what brought you into music?" her friend asked.

"I like it a lot. It's a medium that accepts honesty, and it resonates with the audience because it's like I'm speaking their truth, not just my own."

"Reveals the truth, huh? Like getting drunk. Yeah, I can respect that," she laughed.

I agonized over that conversation like a stubborn stain, inspecting if there was any truth to what I said. It was like every sentence that came out of my mouth was instinctively a dressed-up response, and not my own. I'd held my tongue from blurting out what I really thought. I'd committed to making music my career, so it was imperative to get serious about grasping my dream.

But I really didn't know what I wanted with my music. Other musicians like Phiona seemed self reassured, fighting for a cause or just knowing....knowing who they were.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was nice," I said, mindlessly strumming my guitar. She didn't mind that, and it calmed me. "But I—I don't know. I'm in this middle ground of comfortable but uneasy. How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Be at ease, like you know your place in the room. You blend in and talk to people really well," I rambled, "and you do things with a purpose. It's—"

"Whoa, let me stop you there," Phiona said. "I'm not perfect. I don't like being put on a pedestal. So while I am flattered you think I am someone you can look up to—because that is my goal, really—I'll caution against comparing you to me. It's unfair for both sides."

Heat rose up to my cheeks in embarrassment. "Okay." But if I was still unhappy, what did others have that I didn't?

I wanted to stand on my own. I wanted to use the support that my family and friends had given me to funnel it in a new direction I could call my own path. But emerging from the winter break was like struggling to peel away a thick costume I hadn't known I was wearing.

Phiona said thoughtfully, "You are neurodivergent, right? Why not reach out to others? A safe place? There's this organization called R4E—'Radio for Equality'. Raahi and I met through this organization. Now they've branched way beyond the radio field, and they're hosting a music venue in two and a half weeks.

She explained how R4E originally started as a LGBTQ+ friendly network, giving news that concerned equality rights and playing music by queer artists. But then it morphed into something more—including people not just with different sexualities and gender orientations, but of different ethnicities, cultures, and very recently, people along the neurodivergent spectrum.

"I'll be performing too," she said with a grin. "They like fresh songs, preferably ones the public haven't heard..."

She started reminiscing but I cut her off. "I'm not comfortable with it just yet." To mitigate my crappy tone, I said, "I think I need some time to back off and just really think? Instead of barrelling full speed ahead."

"Sure. It's good you're honest with your limits. That way time won't be wasted."

"Am I wasting your time?"

Her expression softened. "Reflecting on your past and future is time well spent."

If there were musicians and neurodivergent people...my heart kicked into overdrive without permission. Calm down. R4E probably had guidelines about being respectful and not expecting people to state their identities if they didn't want to, right? And being Autistic shouldn't have to do anything with my music, I just wanted to be a human being. Sharing my Autistic identity with people in my personal life was one thing, because there it was just a fact, but mixing it in with the music industry....

I wasn't blind to the culture and mass media that was embedded with nasty jokes about us. I had dealt with that enough. Music needed to be my space where I could just breathe. Thinking about how I was going to accomplishing that made my head hurt.

As Zayn eagerly led Phiona upstairs for their afternoon prayer, I stepped around the messy living room to pull on my boots. My hand paused on the cold doorknob.

The controlled chaos of Phiona's life made her house swell with raw fulfillment. It fit her like complimentary colours, a mold that she constructed with the knowledge it would help her as much as she contributed to its design.

As for me? Success veered towards me like a train with no brakes, and I wasn't sure if what I wanted was right for me anymore. 

R4E can be pronounced as "Rae" like "ray" of sunshine. The logo I imagine as a rising sun. Thank you to NefertitiFenison for workshopping the name with me. (The previous name, as she said, screamed innocence and it was not what I was going for, though I suppose that isn't a bad thing. :D)

Also, since it's been some time, does Tai's conflict make sense/does it follow through from his previous thought logic or does it seem confusing and out of the blue? Because I haven't worked on Backstage for a month I feel like I'm missing something.