Haley Martin

Come As You Are

By Haley Martin

“Come on, you know this one, we’ve heard it before,” my dad reassures me again. I look into his eyes—the ones people have always told me I have too, though it never made sense to me given the fact that my father’s eyes are brown and mine are blue. Maybe it was never about the color. 

He nods encouragingly and I break eye contact to steal a glance at the BMW radio again, though I can’t see the artist’s name with his hand blocking it, muffling the familiar rock filling the car. I start to shake my head before the memories come rushing back of all of the long car rides to my tournaments alongside my dad with “Come as You Are” playing in the background. Accepting that he will only move his hand away once I guess correctly, I shift my gaze towards the highway ahead, signs informing me that there is still at least another thirty-five minutes until we reach the practice facility.

“Nirvana?” I question, though I don’t know why I am unsure as this song has been engraved in my mind since I was at least five. After my first softball practice with a new team full of returning players two years older, which might have ended with me in tears for the forty-five minute car ride home, I received a text from my dad telling me to listen to this song. I still haven’t admitted that I added it to my playlist afterwards and he never called me out when it played from my phone on another one of our drives to practice.

“You got it,” he replied, eyes on the road. “But you already knew that.”

My dad was the first person to show me how much life there is in sound. He taught me that music wasn’t just something to fill the silence, it was something that could fill the spaces between people too. Although we still clash on some things, like whether or not I should have swung at that one pitch or if Phoebe Bridgers counts as pre-game music, there was never a question of if we saw the same thing–with our matching eyes–in other worlds. 

It didn’t take me long to realize that the team I had joined was basically a big friend group of varsity classmates two grades ahead and even less time for me to come to the conclusion that I was the weakest link on the team. I didn’t tell anyone that I was hesitant to face the new group and it wasn’t until we had begun the early Sunday morning drive, which I had spent with my eyes glued to the window instead of the radio, that my dad saw through my feigned confidence. He reassured me that my opportunity to prove I deserved to be there equally as much as everyone else was not lost and that I could only control how I reacted to my coach. He also reminded me that we would have three more hours a week to listen to music uninterrupted.

“Hey,” my dad started again five minutes later into the car ride when we were still another fifteen away from the sun rising. The sky was still a pink-orange but instead of admiring the world outside the dashboard I was stuck dreading every time the ETA to the practice space decreased.  “I saw this band live.” 

“You’ve seen every band live,” I countered, calling out his unfair hint. But regardless I didn’t need it. “R.E.M.”

He nodded proudly, though I still know he wouldn’t mind if I didn’t get it, the same way that he never really minds when we lose a game, maybe because he already knows I’ve beaten myself up about it enough since he just knows me as player, coaching me for the first eight years of my career.

He reached over and turned the music up, filling in the silence as I leaned my head on the window. “I didn’t see every band live,” he said after a pause. “Just the important ones and the ones I don’t know… everyone deserves a fair shot.”

I opened my eyes to catch him looking at me, a smile faintly present on his face. It didn’t take matching eyes for me to understand that he wasn’t talking about the music pumping through the radio anymore, it was about me. 

He pulled into a spot, one that was further away from the door but still made me able to see my teammates enter the facility, the way he always knew to. I made eye contact with him again before getting out, but I didn’t see his brown eyes or how different they are from mine, I saw the way he’s always seen me, a firm reminder to come as I am. Something I now carry with me every time I enter my practices, thinking back to it every time I begin to question my place.

Author’s Note: This piece was inspired by the memories I have with my dad growing up. He has always been passionate about music and encouraged me to be the same way. I believe that I write my best work when I am motivated by the things that I love, especially those who have shaped me and formed who I am.