Tenderheart
Originally performed at Story Club Cleveland in May, 2024
One of my dearest friends calls me tenderheart, a default response to all my gooey, soft-baked emotions. She drops this gentle nickname like a loving judgment when I let my heart explode over tiny things. “Why am I crying at this little girl playing hockey?” “Tenderheart.” “Do you ever think about how lucky we are to be alive at the same time?” Tenderheart. “I was sad so I made this playlist that matches the BPM of the rain against my window.” Tenderheart.
There are definitive tenderheart traits. One of them is leaning into your feelings, hungrily, regardless of what emotional state you emerge in after. Another I think has to do with this Cheryl Strayed quote, “put yourself in the way of beauty.”
Sometimes putting yourself in the way of beauty is easy. My short drive home from work takes me past Edgewater Beach, where I often time my commutes to catch the sun setting past the pier. I’m a slut for a pretty sunset. And sometimes putting yourself in the way of beauty means lying about being a morning person to join your friend for coffee on the shore to watch the other thing the sun does (which, honestly, doesn’t do it for me as much–bastardheart).
I think the point of the quote is to seek and appreciate beauty wherever you are, but we all know this is way easier to do with vacation brain and a change of scenery. And so in Santa Fe putting myself in the way of beauty meant offroading in a rented Corolla or similar before hiking down a precarious mountain trail and getting naked with strangers on the Rio Grande.
Tenderhearts value occasions. Weddings, birthdays (mine was last week, thank you). My partner James and I always take a trip around our anniversary, and last year we felt compelled to explore the Southwest, an area of the U.S. map that we were due to put some pins in.
Our first couple nights in Santa Fe were romantic. We stayed in a boutique Route 66 hotel room with an adobe fireplace overlooking a courtyard shaded by giant chile bundles. We drank mezcal in the lobby to the sounds of a charming folk duo, and in the daylight we hiked a quiet mountain trail before a candlelit dinner of pizza and wine. It’s cliche, but tenderhearts love candles and fireplaces, sorry. On the third morning I found myself searching for hot springs. I’ve always been a fan of throwing my body into bodies of water, and soaking in a desert hot spring in the crisp late fall air sounded liberating. Plus there were teens making out in the hotel hot tub pretty much every time we peeked in. In my lazy morning Googling, I discovered a spring on the way to Taos where we were already planning to take a day trip. It looked breathtaking and secluded. But there was one catch. Most of the comments we read said clothing was discouraged. “The locals feel disrespected when tourists insist on wearing bathing suits and clothes,” one comment said. Another, “to preserve the trust and community we’ve built in this spring, we encourage you to shed your clothes and allow yourself to be truly free.”
As a tenderheart, I like to think of myself as adventurous in travel, in love, in openness. But as a real human with real human parts encasing that tender heart, and a very tender brain that struggles almost constantly with insecurity about my body and my gender presentation, I almost talked myself out of it in that moment. James was even more reserved, also feeling some insecurity around the idea of being naked in a tiny spring with total strangers. But vacation brain is a magical thing, and mere minutes later we found ourselves packing for nudity. We rolled up beach towels and fresh socks and underwear. We both packed swimsuits, just in case those “you must be naked” comments were just local bullshit meant to scare tourists like us away. And we loaded up our rental car.
I wasn’t expecting so many coniferous trees in the desert. Visiting in October meant we had a vibrant mix of yellow leaves and towering pines framing the wide mountainous desert highway. It looked like golden hour all day long. I put on a playlist I made for the drive. Waxahatchee came on and I sobbed into my hands, overcome by the sprawling beauty around me. Tenderhearts make road trip playlists that work like crybaby russian roulette when set to shuffle.
As we got closer and closer to our landing point at the top of the mountain, the road funneled to a single lane, then made a hard right elbow before turning to nothing but a gravel and dirt trail so narrow, anything bigger than a Corolla or similar coming in the opposite direction would put cactus punctures into our tires. And we’re not suckers, so we certainly did not buy rental car insurance. Sometimes tenderhearts are frugal. James actually stopped about a mile in with a few more to go, questioning whether this was a safe thing to do. Neither of us felt particularly good about offroading so far from civilization without any real guarantee that what was on the other side was actually there. But we were so close. Allegedly. So I convinced him to press on.
We bumped our way over the non-road, my eyes darting towards our gas tank which was right around a quarter, hopefully enough to get back from wherever we were ending up. And then suddenly, miraculously, we were on top of a cliff, one of the highest I’d ever looked over. We stepped out to take pictures of the view, the trail we’d soon fumble our way down. All of my phone photos are slashed by sunflare. But Tenderhearts never delete memories.
The route down had just a few cutbacks, not bad until you remind yourself cutbacks go up too. We got to the bottom, or so we thought, before realizing we had one more to go. And so we paused, put ourselves in the way of the beautiful park latrines, and set out for the other more secluded side of the canyon.
On what felt like our final descent, my heel slipped on a stone and I bit it hard. I tried to do a baseball slide to soften the blow, but both of my knees somehow took impact and my ankle rolled. As someone who’s broken their foot on a vacation hike before, my brain went to a bad place. I was shaken up for a moment, thinking of how far I’d have to journey back for care. But thankfully I walked it off. Bruised, not busted. Tenderknees.
The trail disappeared and turned to a jagged rocky path along the river’s edge. We heard some faint voices. And then, out of nowhere, a giant black mutt appeared and threw his wiggling body into me so hard I almost fell again. Tenderhearts love dog wiggles.
The dog’s owner, a scrawny stoner in striped boxer briefs, crawled from the other side of the rocks to grab him, and then, seeing me throw my arms around this rowdy wet baby dog, he backed off and smiled. The dog gave me an incredible gift–it told me I was safe here. The stoner greeted us and introduced his friend. The two of them were just drying off, waiting to hike back up. The mountain side of the spring, about eight feet around, was completely empty, and poured into a smaller pool right on the river where two cool-looking tattooed nude women joked and cackled about the guys at the bars they work at. It felt so normal. I could do this.
James and I stripped down modestly behind some rocks, and I placed my towel and backpack as close to the spring’s edge as I could in case it turned into a bad time. Plus I had a disposable film camera in there. Tenderhearts love analog media.
The spring felt like bathwater, and the stones lining it were slick with moss. I slid my body under the water and looked down to see myself bobbing gently below the surface. My shoulders and face caught cool breezes from across the Rio Grande, where the bartenders took photos of each other with their asses in the air, within view of a lone flyfisherman. My dog friend nestled near his owner, who declared to his friend that the shrooms were hitting. Bless them.
James and I soaked blissfully, just two vulnerable, free bodies at the bottom of a canyon, miles from any gas station or hotel. We took pictures of each other, from the neck up, on my disposable camera. We were there for maybe half an hour, I don’t know. Tenderhearts aren’t good at keeping time in beautiful places. I closed my eyes and thanked my body, which had carried me to this place, which fell but did not break, which had pieces that sometimes didn’t feel right but which stopped mattering for a few precious minutes of pure relief. Then a topless woman emerged and announced to us in dire fashion, “just to warn you, there’s a group of about 20 women coming down. on a yoga retreat. from LA, Nashville, and Dallas.” Her delivery made each word sound increasingly more like a threat to our peace. And sure enough, she was right. I don’t know if Lululemon makes swimwear but that was the vibe. They either didn’t get, or didn’t respect the no clothing memo. While I was annoyed that this gorgeous moment of reflection had come to an end, I felt proud. None of those women stripped down. I did. And as I toweled off in front of them, resisting the urge to compare my body to theirs, I felt fearless in my skin.
The hike back was as challenging as I thought it would be, but the warm water had soothed my muscles and prepared me for the journey. We passed our stoned friend, curled up between two rocks, watching over his stinky resting dog. We wished them safe travels home.
Our car was still there. That’s always a thing, worrying about your car still being there after you dip out to another planet for a few hours. We changed into fresh clothes and retraced our jagged offroad trail back to civilization, back to Taos, which as it turns out was also beautiful.
Sometimes when I think about those moments in the spring, I cry. Tenderhearts do that. I surprised myself that day. James surprised me. The shock of the chilly wind on my body on the other side of the spring was a bracing reminder that there’s beauty in the world, and I have the potential to be part of that landscape. I got the film developed. James’ picture came out. Mine didn’t. I think because I must have left part of myself there. What a tenderheart thing to say.
Don’t Start Now… Or Do: A Belated Coming of Age Story
Performed at Story Club Cleveland and This Improvised Life, 2023
My introduction to pop star Dua Lipa came through indie rocker St. Vincent, which is where this love story begins. Like most undergrad English majors defined by pretension and an asymmetrical haircut, St. Vincent was my girl. I saw her live for the first time on a 90 degree summer night under a tent at Bonnaroo Music Festival, which was transformative in many ways. She captivated me from the rip, shredding solos and conjuring otherworldly sounds from her guitar. She crowdsurfed in platform boots and fishnets, at one point plucking a baseball cap from the head of a sweaty bro, sliding it on backwards over her curls, then pulling herself back onstage to finish her solo with one leg up on an amp, which is easily one of the hottest things I’ve ever witnessed in real life.
I discovered St. Vincent simply by catching her wide eyes peering out from the cover of “Actor” in the CD trays at the library. This was 2007, and I was a baby queer. In fact, um, hello, hi, I’m still a baby queer, first time caller, longtime represser. But after two solid decades of laboring over the achingly persistent question of “do I want to be her, or do I want to be with her?” discovering St. Vincent gave me my first true resounding double yes.
A few years ago my Pitchfork-approved crush jumped onstage at the Grammys with an upstart British pop star named Dua Lipa for a mash-up performance of their songs, “Masseduction” and “One Kiss”, which some in the LGBTQ community described as queer-baiting and which I describe as absolute must-see TV, five-stars, no notes. The two had matching haircuts and bodysuits and curled around each other flirtatiously, serving little smirks and prolonged, smoldering eye contact. It was the negroni spagliato of the time. With Annie’s sexy stamp of approval, Dua lured me in.
In Spring of 2020 Dua Lipa dropped a perfect pop album. “Future Nostalgia” was a gift for me. My Dad was losing his battle with cancer, hitting wall after wall with his treatments, and I was devouring every possible morsel of escapism. And then the pandemic hit, and escape seemed impossibly far from my grasp. I felt a complete lack of control. I began running obsessively, obviously a cry for help, because running is terrible. I dyed my hair from a box, another universal sign of distress. In the weeks before I said goodbye to my Dad I played Taylor Swift’s “Folklore” on repeat, weaving through the streets of my hometown night after night to sit by his bed, then scream-singing “Betty” and sobbing on the way home.
I mourned so many things that summer. My Dad. The lives of so many, the injustices committed by people in power, and a darkness I’d never witnessed in such sharp relief in my lifetime. I mourned my sense of identity. I had come out as queer to my Mom, but not my Dad. In his last days I struggled with how to tell him, then convinced myself that he knew. He had to. I mean, listen, I know better than to paint with a broad brush when it comes to gender identity and presentation and sexuality, but I was a walking set of context clues. I spent my childhood playing softball and climbing in dirt piles. There are photos of me as a tween wearing boxer shorts and basketball jerseys, accessorized with dog tags from the men’s section at Old Navy. At recess in elementary school when the other girlies wanted to play “Full House”, they made me play Uncle Joey. Hurtful, but valid. I had a lot of patterned button up shirts. And I had a favorite Paula Poundstone special before I started wearing a bra.
During the deepest days of the pandemic, I struggled with my body, my identity, my distance from the people and spaces that made me feel a whole. My best queer friends moved away. My hair was growing into something foreign to me. I consumed queer media like it was life sustaining, and at times it really felt like it was. While everyone else delighted in wearing “soft pants” to work remotely, I dressed up every day, shuffling around the house in my signature sneakers and button-downs, trying to find an affirming presentation of myself. I was my only mirror.
Then Summer arrived with porch beers and open windows, and Dua Lipa’s “Cool” poured from my Subaru’s sunroof, bar patios, my speaker in the backyard while I shot hoops on the last Christmas gift my Mom and Dad gave me together. Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” felt like a curtain sweeping open to reveal a pulsating, glossy promise of some undiscovered joy. The double claps knocked at my brain. I heard “Don’t Start Now” and envisioned a throbbing dancefloor of sweaty bodies pantomiming the cowbell parts, and yearned so deeply for the feeling of collective writhing and boundless energy and expression.
It felt deeply unfair that we’d gotten the best dancepop album in recent memory just months before the world would stop, bars and clubs would shut down, and the shared experience of humanity would be reduced to half-assed jokes about toilet paper. All I wanted was to pogo up and down, screaming along to “Physical” with a roomful of strangers.
In my tweens and teens, I’d felt an arms length connection to the pop music that sent my friends into hormonal tizzies. My best friend Nicki plastered her walls with pictures of J.C. from NSYNC, and screamed her lungs out at their stadium tour. Don’t get me wrong, I was into the music and I crushed on them (well, minus that one guy from 98 Degrees who looked like he delivered pizzas and didn’t take his shirt off in the pool) but it didn’t feel quite the same. The teeny bopper magazines of the time were packed with corny group shots of the boy bands in matching white tees, or even better, dressed to a theme like “firemen” or “tough in the alley” or “sexy in space.” Every fifth picture would be a Britney, Jessica, or Mandy batting her eyelashes, but it was so clear that these photos served completely different purposes. The girls were aspirational. “I want her hair, I want her makeup, I want her navel piercing and low waisted Tommy jeans.” The guys were for horniness. “I want to run my fingers through his frosted tips and act out the very bad lyrics to “digital getdown” with him.” This was all unspoken, I think, but I sensed it. Saying anything beyond, “she’s so pretty,” about Aaliyah would raise too many eyebrows which is insane, we all had eyes, but it was okay to gush over Nick Carter’s little smirk and baggy pants. So I claimed the attainable boys–NSYNC’s Lance (lol) and Backstreet Boys Kevin. The shy, non-threatening bass singers. And Usher, because, what a babe.
I often wonder what it would be like to live as a teen today, with all the language and self-awareness around identity that we now enjoy, or who my friends and I would crush on with a little more societal acceptance, and I got a delayed taste of that where all great second wave coming of age stories take place: Buffalo. Almost two years after the album originally dropped, Dua Lipa finally launched her “Future Nostalgia” tour. I’d hovered over the ticket link for Columbus many times, but never committed. I don’t know if it felt silly and out of character for me to go to an arena pop show, or the weeknight date, or the stupid ticket fees, but I slept on it for so long that I missed out. And then the night of the Columbus show I saw a friend posting Instagram stories from the pit, of Dua gyrating in a custom sparkling Mugler bodysuit, and I felt the deepest pang of envy and angsty yearning. She sounded like a sultry, angelic English rose and she looked like if bottle service was a person. In that moment I knew I had to ride for Dua.
Buffalo, the closest city, was just a few days away so I had to act quickly, jumping on every known ticketing site and DMing strangers on Twitter. This is crazy. Am I really doing this? To my delight, my sweet partner James agreed to join me. The promise of a spontaneous road trip was enough to snare him, even if the premise involved me lusting over a pop star. And so within 24 hours of seeing one particularly alluring cell phone video, we had tickets, a hotel room, and a full gas tank. I felt high. In that moment if Dua had asked me to bodyslam a flaming folding table from the top of Highmark Stadium, in the style of the Bills Mafia, I’d do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked. I was that amped.
I’ve never seen a live show like Dua Lipa’s in my life. I’m used to sticky floored small stages, festival tents like St. Vincent’s, and dark bars where the most production value is a loaded pedal board, or if you’re lucky a disco ball that kind of works when the craggy sound guy remembers to turn it on. Dua Lipa had over two years to plan and execute a spectacle, and man, did she do it. I’m not sure if she had more costume changes or set changes, but at one point a giant lobster puppet appeared on stage, and during “Levitating” she literally levitated above the crowd on a massive diamond shaped platform. During one costume change, her dancers zipped onstage in quad roller skates dressed like soda jerks, tossing cans of Truly hard seltzer into the crowd in front of branded “Truly” neon lights. It was a feast for the sexed up, capitalist senses. And all the while my heart jumped into my throat. I felt my hands rubbing my thighs, my lips mouthing every word beneath my N95. I projected myself into the pit where hoards of young people, queer people, beautiful and joy-filled people folded into each other and sent their energy shooting to the ceiling. There were pride flags everywhere, wigs and spandex. I don’t think I realized until this moment that Dua had become a haven for queer folks. Was that why I liked her? Maybe, but also she’s hot and the songs are absolute bangers.
Towards the end of the show, a section of the stage illuminated in a grid like a disco floor, and a rig packed with colored lights lowered down above it, creating the illusion of an intimate dance club on a massive stage in a massive arena. Dua’s dancers collapsed on her, exuding pure joy and freedom in their movement. It was the scene I imagined for myself every time I listened to “Don’t Start Now” during the darkest, most isolated days of the pandemic. And around me, one of the most warm, genuine, and genuinely cool audiences I’ve ever been a part of, playing their air cowbells and flicking beads of sweat and glitter into the hot air. This was the show, and the space I didn’t know I wanted or needed when I was a teen. I thought I would feel old but I felt at home. I swooned. After the show we filled the escalators and sang along to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” on the way out, where I bought bootleg merch from a guy I’d passed on the way in. Pro tip, it’s always cheaper on the way out–they can’t move inventory that doesn’t sell that night! Now I had a neon-colored memento to commemorate my continued adolescence.
I wear that parking lot t-shirt with no shame. In my adolescence I might have been embarrassed to walk around with a pop star’s face on my chest. I’d want people to know I liked St. Vincent, that I liked her before she was cool. I’d have bragged about that Bonnaroo set. You weren’t there, I was. Name three albums, poser! But shared experience is worth so much more to me these days. And keeping my passions, interests, and my full self locked down just doesn’t feel right anymore. If I’m being honest, it never did. Cracking open this part of myself during the darkest timeline was exhausting, and sometimes I still mourn the years I lost to fear and confusion. But the reward is knowing that if I ever feel tempted to go backwards, I’ve got a full chorus of “Don’t Start Now” cued up in my brain. So here’s to being our true selves. And to Truly Hard Seltzer, official sparkling beverage of Dua Lipa and hot backup dancers on roller skates.
Marissa DeSantis 