Heavens to Betsy

Musings from October 19, 2026

She was Heavens to Betsy. What a dumb name. I was Kelli from The Purple Elephant- that had become a thing. 

She’s dusty, Betsy. She’s haphazardly placed on a velvet rack like a jacket you toss off when you go back in your hotel room after a night of Tito’s in a Grey Goose bottle mixed with sodas that you drank at the downstairs bar.  Tipsy, and red velvety-grand. I bought her in 2018. Years later, she would reappear like a Princess Diana revenge dress at Mohegan Sun Arena after a broken string called her in from the sideline. 

Back around 2003, I sat on my beige living room carpet that needed a good cleaning. Peoria, Arizona. Stained carpet that told a lot of stories, but held me just right as I surrounded myself with guitar strings (what are these) and books with charts and mysterious clues. It knew I needed to be held just a little, and forgave me for its spots. I was going through it, and I would be, for a long while. You prophetic tan queen, thank you for your kindness. 

 I was working, but I wanted to try. It meant I had a chance.  I didn’t have time for lessons. I didn’t have the money. 

It was me, Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska,” and “Guitar for Dummies” against the world. 

My other guitars and goodbyes were thoughtfully given to me, and more than one time, in a “I’’m sorry I’m dumping you, but here is a guitar”  kind of way that I always appreciated. Even though it stung, It meant that they saw glimpses of me at the end. 

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I was trying to be who they wanted. I was scared of not being loved for who I was.  I didn’t give them the right info.

Now, this was New York in 2012, and I had dragged myself across the country with no plan and no money like Lucille Ball with a sure-to-win idea. Gutsy in a way that could be admirable in the right light, but with no clue what she was doing. 

Finding a car after my truck blew its engine, getting a job back in bartending because I told them I would wash dishes and work my way up. I knew I could do it.  I would have, so I didn’t starve. I found an apartment, and slept on an air mattress, but baby, this was New York. 

I was on Long Island.  Even with NYC so close, I hadn’t really seen her yet. Without the ability to explore it, I fell into what Ashlee calls my Candy Crush era, littered with cheap bottled wine, and cigarettes. What a time to be alive, yet again, until the restaurant I was working at caught fire, and closed. 

I needed money. Now. 

I picked up some shifts at a sports bar that threw mercy at the Black & Blue Seafood Chophouse refugees. Someone told me The Purple Elephant was hiring a manager. 

I knew nothing of this alien kind of restaurant world. Organic, vegan, constant reggae, what was happening? It held free-thinkers, creatives, and people wrong in their ways and right in them that you would find anywhere else.  But, they had an energy I hadn’t seen yet on Long Island, and I soon found myself running that place like a conductor at the Philharmonic.  Kelli, the chain-smoking, Candy Crush playing, lonely mother was important.  She picked the songs for the playlists, and watched as the restaurant filled and hummed to a rhythm she set with intention. 

Running The Purple Elephant meant 13-hour days, mostly on my feet.  Teenager at home who was curious and boundary-testing, full of exploration as they come. 

I was tired. But I don’t know, I caught the bug again, like I did off and on for years on a YouTube channel (don’t look for it!) covering songs I thought were different and beautiful. I wouldn’t rehearse more than twice, and read the chords off a cracked Chromebook. It was a time to be alive. I was bursting out of my skin, like a not quite ripe butterfly, stumbling out of chrysalis. 

It wasn’t a secret that I still made YouTube videos (and still didn’t know what a guitar cable was) in 2018, when I stumbled (and was partly dragged) into an open mic on a Monday night, and a tiny community of Long Island square pegs. All kinds of creatures, some sweet souls you’ll always keep in mind and some a little worry of forever, and some broken ones.

I needed a guitar that worked, and plugged in.

Betsy got her name after I begged the universe for a sign that never came, as I sat under a hickory tree, much like I did as a child. Show me something, for the love of God. 

It was important.  She needed a name if she was going to change my life.

Makamah Nature Preserve was a great walk with headphones in. Someone once told me there was a portal there.  I often went there to see if it exists, and if it does, what it feels like. I always looked, but felt nothing.

I sat under what I decided should be my favorite tree, and played the first guitar that I had bought myself. It was my first “I bought this sh*t!” kind of guitar with a gutsy “this will change everything” expectation placed on it, as many guitars tend to have when you first hold them. 

Betsy, you $600 fairy godmother, change my life. She came with a tan case that held her like I didn’t know how, as I kept showing up on Monday nights. I wasn’t really sure how I found the energy after a 13 hour shift, but it somehow showed up, too. Maybe I could start working four and a half days instead of five, and my boss wouldn’t kick back too much?

Rich & Andy. They were the guitar and harmonica Batman & Robin of Nags Head Open Mic Mondays.
They accepted me, and invited me onto my first real gig on the second floor of Brews Brothers. It was up a staircase no one liked, and why it went under. I was bad. No one cared.

The next gig was easier.  I had shifted from Jameson on the rocks at the dive after work, for the classier martini bar up the street. I wanted respectable dirty martinis. Is that what a New Yorker drinks? I wondered. The owner knew me and liked me, he had just taken it over.

“Kelli, you play music right? Are you free on Tuesdays?”