STAND by REM. Story by Nicole Langtip.

Suburban Melbourne Victoria, February 1992

November 1988 , the internet tells me it was released. Although it wasn’t til March ‘91 that I actually bought it. One of the 5 CDs I purchased with the Brashs voucher my friends chipped in to get me for my 21^st.  My family had lashed out and bought me a portable CD player, ghetto blaster style, cassette and radio still on the face of it, but now the pop-up CD compartment was included on top.

No need to discard the plethora of cassettes that vomited outta the glove box of my HK Holden (to the point the hinge had busted and it was no longer closable); cassettes definitely still had their place. But this new CD world, with apparently no scratches possible and no winding back needed, was unbelievably exciting. All the rage!

It’d be almost another year of blasting it out on repeat though til the song actually got into my bones, got in there so deeply, that it took me by the hand and transported me into my new life. Made me stand in the place where I live, think about direction and wonder why I hadn’t before.

It had been another magnificent summer at Tathra by the sea. We’d been going every summer for a few years by now. Well, every summer and every Easter, and every other long weekend in between since that first time. That first time we’d taken the Greyhound bus, before we had our licences. That first time, when my best friend was allowed to invite a couple of friends on the annual family holiday she’d taken since birth.

The combination of our age, sun, surf, and being over the border, actually in another state where everyone and everything was new and unknown, pumped the precise amount of carefree spirit into our souls. The life-savers were friendly, the hot chips from the kiosk the perfect crisp, the pink Fanta cans colder than the orange ones we were used to. Every night was spent at the pub. The summer gig guide full of great Aussie bands on their layover gig between Melbourne and Sydney, dancing with schooners rather than pots, when the underage thing was not such a big deal.

All of this provided perfect summer majestical storms for many of our firsts to unfold and cascade, just like Puberty Blues and Monkey Grip had promised. And I wanted those summer storms to continue.

Returning home each time, the darkness of Melbourne’s concrete suburbia would seep in. The heaviness and despair of the holiday blues would settle upon me and not lift for what seemed an eternity.

It was in the midst of one of those despairs, in the February of 1992, that I lay on my bed in my parents’ home. I was confused, I did need to check with the sun, I was looking for that compass to help me along.

Friends were setting up share houses in North Carlton and Fitzroy and others were moving to France and London to nanny. Was it so ridiculous that I wanted to move to this small beach side town? Shouldn’t I be wanting to explore the world or do more of the funky inner-city share house living thing – even though when I had tried it before I had felt lost, out of my body, unable to put my feet on the ground.

And as I lay on that bed, contemplating direction, REM’s Michael Stipe becomes my compass.

He starts yelling at me through my ghetto blaster. That last line, he goes up yet another octave. He’s yelling. Waving his index finger through those speakers.  His rhythmic gentleness has changed. He’s no longer suggesting you stand in the place where you live, he’s now demanding you stand in the place where you are! Twice he demands this of me. Right this second, right now, stand in the place where you are! So I heed to his demand. I rise from my bed as directed and I stand in this place where I am.

Then he wipes away my fears as he promises me that my feet are going to be on the ground. He goes further, his wisdom speaking directly to me, telling me to trust myself for your heads is there to move you around.

He pushes me forward, away from the final remnants of the brooding lost teenager that’s been hanging on tight. He pushes me forward to the young adult who’s waiting, calling me from my future. He lets me know I can simply just decide.

My wishes were trees and the trees had fallen, my HK was packed and Highway One was calling, and so I did – STAND.

Stereo Story #791