This story was written for Guster’s 2024 On the Ocean ‘Moth’ storytelling event. It references lyrics from the song ‘Center of Attention‘ from their 1999 album Lost and Gone Forever. References are highlighted.

This is the story of when I was 11 years old and so mad at my big sister that I crashed her slumber party wearing a trash bag as a dress.

I had just returned from Environmental Camp, and it was a total drag. It’s that week in the fifth grade when they ship everyone off to nature to balance on ropes, do trust falls, and eat ‘family style’ next to the girl who bullied you in the second grade. Also, I got the flu. It was not my week.

On the last morning I was finally feeling better and found a spot of luck on the beach walk. I’d hoped to find some sea glass or maybe just some seaweed, but ended up stumbling into an unimaginable treasure: a clamshell, at least 7 inches across, in perfect condition. Even the hinge ligament was intact, with enough give to still open and close. A real prize, this corpse of a bivalve. By the time we were boarding the busses, it was widely known among the best finds of the trip.

My mom was relieved to see me disembark in good spirits. She knew I’d been sick, and she always worried a little extra over me, the quieter and more uneasy of her two girls. Meanwhile, the unflappably composed one, my big sister Laura, was waiting at home with her two best friends, about to start a sleepover.

At 14, Laura mostly saw me as a nuisance. She tended to surge through life with this otherworldly ease, while I tended to tiptoe in her wake. My cautiousness always frustrated her. There’s an old home video from my fourth birthday when I was opening my presents too slowly, so she snatched them to finish the job. See Julie this is how you do it, you can hear her say, while tiny little me watches and nods.

But my clamshell was cool enough to catch her interest. I showed it off, describing its many features, until Mom told me to go unpack. I warned Laura away from the shell, making extra sure to highlight its fragility and specialness. I’d be back in 5 minutes to show her how it could open, I told her.

Regrettably, 5 minutes was too long, and when I returned to my treasure, it fell apart in my hands. Two distinct pieces, the hinge ligament shredded. She broke it, it was lost and gone forever. Laura rolled her eyes and took her friends upstairs. I don’t think I even cried, just slumped to the computer room to find my favorite CD.

I’d known Guster for a few months by then. Before that, I’d been on a strict diet of top 40 bubblegum. But one day Laura announced she’d become a ‘rep’ for her new favorite band – showing off a membership card with her Guster-appointed nickname (‘Skippy,’ because she rushed her application so much that she skipped a bunch of questions), and she offered to use her status to sell me their CD.

With that purchase something fundamental developed in my young understanding of music. It was like everything I’d heard before had been borrowed, passing over me on its way to somewhere else. And while Guster arrived to me directly via my sister, somehow it felt, for the first time, like this music could be mine. Like by finding the right songs, they would stick around, even intercept something within me and shake up the way the world looked.

Listening that night with a broken clamshell cradled in my arms, that feeling of a new intercept hit again at track 6. Suddenly I understood: This song was written about Laura. The center of attention in her own little world, indeed, convinced she’s the only child there is. Obviously this band must know my clam-shattering villain of a sister. It was an impeccable likeness.

As the song settled into me, my rage flourished, along with my certainty that, between her and me, one of us wouldn’t last the night. A lifetime of her disrespect boiled over: ignoring me, breaking my things, making me feel bad. I promise she’s always been like this. After years of keeping my mouth shut tight, tonight everything would change.

And that’s when it hit me.

I’ll never remember why exactly it was a trash bag I chose as my revenge, or what exactly I thought it would achieve. I also cannot recall why my mom let all this happen. But I did indeed poke three holes in a giant black trash bag, slip it over my head and arms, apply black lipstick, and walk into the slumber party. And while it certainly had an overwhelming effect on the evening, this was not the profound moment where I claimed my power back or my sister suddenly learned to respect my things. It was just super weird.

To be a tiny bit fair to her, in some way, my sister was only playing her part. Forever the firstborn, Laura was our trailblazer, always ready to rip apart any barrier and crack open every possibility. How could I still blame her when, with the same logic that broke the shell, she showed me how the world works. She pushed me so that I could know the richness I would find in life if I wasn’t so afraid to open my ‘clam-self’ up. She found Guster, and she let them be mine, too. However vast the chasm between us was at times, Guster has always been our bridge.

Laura, for her part, learned not to flay open everything in her path, and we eventually began to understand each other, even appreciate our differences. But 22 years later, the clamshell still sits broken in my old childhood bedroom, and, I admit, I still sing Center of Attention with a bit more gusto than perhaps I should.