{R}hizobia are microscopic bugs that live underground in little knots on the roots. They suck nitrogen gas right out of the soil and turn it into fertilizer for the plants. [They] are not actually part of the plant, they are separate creatures, but they always live with legumes; a kind of underground railroad moving secretly up and down the roots.
— Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.
— Almost Famous

I was having one of those thin skinned, "I feel like an open wound" days recently and I began to think about what it meant to be thin skinned. I realized that normally we think of it as letting other people's unintentional words puncture us when, if we were at the top of our game, we would allow those same barbs to bounce right off. But then I began to consider the possibility that being thin skinned also allowed those clunky, really ugly things inside us to appear more visible to the surface. Maybe on our thin skinned days we're also more transparent.

For me, these types of days always seem to coincide with sunny, on the brink of spring days when the weather seems harshly unpredictable. You can't decide if it will shine jagged, madly cheerful rays on you or shout gusts of freezing air through your khakis. Sometimes you wish it were only the cold so you would know how to prepare. At the same time your winter-battered down coat begins to feel the urge to hibernate, so you feel abandoned by the elements and your protection against them.

On these kinds of days I often turn to Middle of Nowhere because it's like a promise. Middle of Nowhere is a covenant between winter and spring. It establishes that it's okay to feel unsure. Somewhere out there is orange and yellow and even warmth in the midst of uncertainty. There's a part of me that senses ruefully that this is not exactly the tone or message that Hanson intended. But it is something that gets me through the beginning of spring. Even the part that it is spring makes me feel that I'm displaced because everyone is supposed to love this season of rebirth, right? So, I listen to Middle of Nowhere. And, I realize . . . that it is sunny, but the dark and stormy parts are there too. Whew.

Yet as time goes on, I feel more and more distant from the 11, 13 and 15 year old musicians who created Middle of Nowhere. It also seems as though Hanson themselves yearn for that distance too . . . among their favorite albums are those in which the artists "redefine" themselves, drawing a definite line in the sand between yesterday and tomorrow—Pet Sounds, Rubber Soul, Graceland, etc.  My chunky, ugly thoughts begin to surface: Isn't appreciation for Hanson one of those deceptively comforting things that turn out to be just a tragic symbol of how unsubstantial your life has been? Doesn't continuing loyalty only promote more stagnation while the world, including Hanson have moved on?

But then, I think of the rhizobia. They quietly keep wisteria vines in glorious business. They're unseen, but vital.Year after year, they keep doing what they're doing. And yet, their activity helps maintain the beautiful blooming flowers that have weathered the change in seasons and return to brighten someone's day. Is the rhizobia Hanson's magical, unseen influence in our lives? Or could the rhizobia be the fans? Collectively the ones who still care? Our days are spent, in part, attached to the roots of a larger legacy—completely dismissed, except among ourselves—but somehow in a symbiotic relationship. There is a level of true "uncool" that we must accept with this fact. In that case, I hope these thoughts arrive as the gift, the only true currency, I intended them to be.

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