I was six years old when the Beatles' "White Album" was released. My parents and their friends got together to listen to it, and my sister and I danced around the living room to "Bungalow Bill," and "Rocky Raccoon." One of my favorite movies was "Yellow Submarine," the title song of which I could sing at the top of my lungs (along with my other favorite song, "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary).
I was seven when "Let It Be" played constantly on the radio in my mother's little Corvair. My parents' divorce obscured the actual break-up of the Beatles shortly thereafter, so it wasn't the shock for me that it was for the rest of the world. Beatles music and the individual work of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison continued as part of the musical backdrop of my childhood without any active acquisition on my part. I was too young to care about the loss of innocence, the end of an era, the unrequited passions of millions of heartbroken teenagers. My childhood was defined by the influence and drama of the Beatles but I didn't know or care about it while it was happening.
In 1976, however, I woke up a 14 year old and the scales fell from my eyes. Paul McCartney formed the band Wings and came to my town. I began to play the dusty and scratchy collection of Beatles records that my parents had long outgrown, and to save my babysitting money to fill the gaps in the collection. I learned every song, and even the harmonies, by heart. I could identify the voices and the songwriters, and I could even do a fair Liverpudlian accent. I memorized every single line from every Beatles movie and could quote from them for hours (except for "Magical Mystery Tour," which was never made available in screen form to the American television audience, and I had no access to bootleg videos as we do today). I fell asleep to the sound of Beatles music on my cassette recorder, which I used to record my own mix of songs by the expedient of placing the recorder next to the speakers and pushing the pause button between songs as I dropped the needle onto the next cut.
I bought books and clipped newspaper articles, and had a scrapbook of all things Beatle and ex-Beatle. The minutest detail was not too small for me to acquire and file away in my trivia-filled memory, though the details of Algebra and Earth Science had trouble sticking with me, no doubt due to lack of space. I had a friend, Laura, who shared my obsession, and we spent hours wandering the mall, quoting "Yellow Submarine" lines and speaking in our faux Liverpudlian accents, fondly thinking we were being mistaken for British girls. I even wrote fantasy Beatle stories, which led to the falling-off of my friendship with Laura, who quite rightly pointed out the egotistical nature of including myself in the stories, for which I could not forgive her. I forgive her now, because she was quite right.
This burn of Beatle-fuelled teenage passion never really wore itself out. The details have fallen away thanks to disuse and attrition, but the harmonies have never left me, and not only can I belt out the lyrics word-perfect, I can still name that tune in one note.
Friday, January 1, 2010
That twin thing
I had a cyst removed from my left ovary when I was 20. The doctor told me it was probably my absorbed twin, around whose body I had formed. Apparently it's pretty common. I always wanted a twin. My younger sister was unsatisfactory as a sibling...she wanted her own way, when I wanted her to want mine. A twin who liked what I liked, watched what I watched, ate what I ate, read what I read, would have been nice, I thought. The attention would be awesome, too. Who doesn't want to be special in the eyes of their peers?
Many years later, I had identical twins. And oh, the irony! I hated the attention. I also found out that twins aren't the same person twice over. I became my daughters' champion, fighting for their right to be addressed individually rather than collectively. At Christmas and birthdays I reminded family that identical gifts and shared toys should not be the norm. We never dressed the girls alike (though one sneaky babysitting grandma was found out when she sent us duplicate photos that featured two small babies in identical yellow sunsuits). I had strong opinions on the right and wrong ways to raise children, and twin children specifically, gained through intensive research.
I found out I was expecting twins back in the days before internet. I did what researchers did back then; I went to the library and hung out in bookstores. I subscribed to magazines, and I joined a Mother of Twins Club. I learned everything a layperson could know about twins, from conception to childrearing. And it was a good thing I did, because as soon as I looked bigger than a beached whale, I had the opportunity to share my knowledge with every other person who crossed my path.
It is truly amazing what tactless things people will say, and what misinformation exists about twins. I would answer most questions politely, but a few of them were too personal, and a few people even refused to accept the busting of their cherished myth, whatever it may have been. And they touched me! I was never a touchy feely person to begin with, but my belly seemed to protrude so far out of my personal space that it became public property. I even grabbed my mother-in-law's hand when it came fluttering out to pat the incubator of her future first grandchildren and said, "please don't!"; let's just say it wasn't one of those relationship-building moments. But I had reached saturation point for tactile sensation on an area that was already sensitive due to the number of hours it spent balanced on the rim of a toilet (or a sink, or garbage can, or even the back of a bench by a gutter) as my body violently rejected all forms of nutrition except chocolate chip cookies.
Later, when the girls were born, I was only the mouthpiece for the two stars of the show, and my hand-grabbing habits continued as I practically had to beat germy people away from my babies. There were many more opportunities to share my knowledge, too, not to mention an infinite number of people in the world who thought I had never heard the phrase "double trouble" before. At first, I was polite, but as time went on and the public responses never varied, I got ruder and failed to respond as desired. I would (usually) smile and just keep walking. In yet more time, the repetition wore me down and taught me patience with the public, and I became kinder, but by that time the girls were old enough to answer for themselves. I also learned that I can be equally as infuriating and tactless when meeting other people's twins or disabled or red-headed children. That was humbling.
Now my twin knowledge is older than dirt and out of date. My girls are in college (different schools), and I am almost never asked "are they twins?" What I knew about monozygotic twinning has fallen before tons of recent research, and I can't even hold my own in a conversation with a brand new mother of twins. She has the internet at her fingertips (even though she has a baby balanced on each arm), and her knowledge far outstrips mine. I was an expert once, but now I'm only the expert on my own twins...and they prove every day that they know far more about themselves than I do. This rocket burn died off a long time ago.
But I bet I can still shower, eat and catnap faster than a mother of singletons any day of the week.
Many years later, I had identical twins. And oh, the irony! I hated the attention. I also found out that twins aren't the same person twice over. I became my daughters' champion, fighting for their right to be addressed individually rather than collectively. At Christmas and birthdays I reminded family that identical gifts and shared toys should not be the norm. We never dressed the girls alike (though one sneaky babysitting grandma was found out when she sent us duplicate photos that featured two small babies in identical yellow sunsuits). I had strong opinions on the right and wrong ways to raise children, and twin children specifically, gained through intensive research.
I found out I was expecting twins back in the days before internet. I did what researchers did back then; I went to the library and hung out in bookstores. I subscribed to magazines, and I joined a Mother of Twins Club. I learned everything a layperson could know about twins, from conception to childrearing. And it was a good thing I did, because as soon as I looked bigger than a beached whale, I had the opportunity to share my knowledge with every other person who crossed my path.
It is truly amazing what tactless things people will say, and what misinformation exists about twins. I would answer most questions politely, but a few of them were too personal, and a few people even refused to accept the busting of their cherished myth, whatever it may have been. And they touched me! I was never a touchy feely person to begin with, but my belly seemed to protrude so far out of my personal space that it became public property. I even grabbed my mother-in-law's hand when it came fluttering out to pat the incubator of her future first grandchildren and said, "please don't!"; let's just say it wasn't one of those relationship-building moments. But I had reached saturation point for tactile sensation on an area that was already sensitive due to the number of hours it spent balanced on the rim of a toilet (or a sink, or garbage can, or even the back of a bench by a gutter) as my body violently rejected all forms of nutrition except chocolate chip cookies.
Later, when the girls were born, I was only the mouthpiece for the two stars of the show, and my hand-grabbing habits continued as I practically had to beat germy people away from my babies. There were many more opportunities to share my knowledge, too, not to mention an infinite number of people in the world who thought I had never heard the phrase "double trouble" before. At first, I was polite, but as time went on and the public responses never varied, I got ruder and failed to respond as desired. I would (usually) smile and just keep walking. In yet more time, the repetition wore me down and taught me patience with the public, and I became kinder, but by that time the girls were old enough to answer for themselves. I also learned that I can be equally as infuriating and tactless when meeting other people's twins or disabled or red-headed children. That was humbling.
Now my twin knowledge is older than dirt and out of date. My girls are in college (different schools), and I am almost never asked "are they twins?" What I knew about monozygotic twinning has fallen before tons of recent research, and I can't even hold my own in a conversation with a brand new mother of twins. She has the internet at her fingertips (even though she has a baby balanced on each arm), and her knowledge far outstrips mine. I was an expert once, but now I'm only the expert on my own twins...and they prove every day that they know far more about themselves than I do. This rocket burn died off a long time ago.
But I bet I can still shower, eat and catnap faster than a mother of singletons any day of the week.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Paper Mothers
During the two decades of my childhood, the glass ceiling was cracking and being shattered, and mothers suffering economic distress found it easier to become working parents. It took a while for the daycare and educational industry to fill the void, and many of us missed out on learning not only the domestic arts, but on what it takes to be a family. Our model was a latchkey, an empty house, a frozen dinner, and arguing with siblings over who got to pick the next TV show.
My folks tried to make good choices, but their childhoods had been so different from ours, they didn't understand the challenges and couldn't foresee the results. Some of their parental decrees were slingstones at the Goliath of the junk food and television marketing industries; for years at a time, we wouldn't own a TV after the old one broke down, and one infamous weekend we switched over completely to a "health food" diet. In those days this meant granola for breakfast, carob chips in our cookies, and no soda pop in the house. I was forced to spend my allowance on bags of candy at the drug store, half of which would be consumed on the walk home. Our parents meant well, but they had no idea what they were up against.
I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom; on some charts I'm even a member of the Baby Bust. Schools closed behind me, and Home Economics classes were phased out of the curriculum as I passed through. One year in middle school I struggled (and failed) to sew a shirt and had to be shown how to dry dishes by hand. It was with great surprise I discovered (four years later when I had to make my own choir performance dress) that my mother knew how to sew.
Many sacrifices were made so that young women my age would have the opportunities our mothers and grandmothers did not. A generation of us did gain the whole business world but we lost our domestic souls, and when I started to seek what had been lost to me, there was no one to teach me about family life except the paper mothers.
I became an avid reader the Christmas my mother gave me Little House on the Prairie, when I was eight years old. This series about a pioneer family who worked hard and always stayed together was my first family training manual. Later, my mother passed on three books from her own childhood: Little Women, Pollyanna, and The Secret Garden. It was a good thing we didn't have TV that year, as it turns out, or I might never have opened the covers of these derelict and almost forgotten treasures. These falling-apart books by long-dead female authors (Louisa May Alcott, Eleanor H. Porter, and Frances H. Burnett, respectively) opened further this world of family love, even when the heroines are orphans. From the faded ink on their age-stained pages I learned that loss and loneliness aren't triumphant over the desire to love and be loved; that a good attitude and sheer determination to forge ahead regardless of the emotion du jour is the rocket fuel I need to get off the ground and keep moving forward.
The exercise of will over emotion: this was my first burn.
My folks tried to make good choices, but their childhoods had been so different from ours, they didn't understand the challenges and couldn't foresee the results. Some of their parental decrees were slingstones at the Goliath of the junk food and television marketing industries; for years at a time, we wouldn't own a TV after the old one broke down, and one infamous weekend we switched over completely to a "health food" diet. In those days this meant granola for breakfast, carob chips in our cookies, and no soda pop in the house. I was forced to spend my allowance on bags of candy at the drug store, half of which would be consumed on the walk home. Our parents meant well, but they had no idea what they were up against.
I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom; on some charts I'm even a member of the Baby Bust. Schools closed behind me, and Home Economics classes were phased out of the curriculum as I passed through. One year in middle school I struggled (and failed) to sew a shirt and had to be shown how to dry dishes by hand. It was with great surprise I discovered (four years later when I had to make my own choir performance dress) that my mother knew how to sew.
Many sacrifices were made so that young women my age would have the opportunities our mothers and grandmothers did not. A generation of us did gain the whole business world but we lost our domestic souls, and when I started to seek what had been lost to me, there was no one to teach me about family life except the paper mothers.
I became an avid reader the Christmas my mother gave me Little House on the Prairie, when I was eight years old. This series about a pioneer family who worked hard and always stayed together was my first family training manual. Later, my mother passed on three books from her own childhood: Little Women, Pollyanna, and The Secret Garden. It was a good thing we didn't have TV that year, as it turns out, or I might never have opened the covers of these derelict and almost forgotten treasures. These falling-apart books by long-dead female authors (Louisa May Alcott, Eleanor H. Porter, and Frances H. Burnett, respectively) opened further this world of family love, even when the heroines are orphans. From the faded ink on their age-stained pages I learned that loss and loneliness aren't triumphant over the desire to love and be loved; that a good attitude and sheer determination to forge ahead regardless of the emotion du jour is the rocket fuel I need to get off the ground and keep moving forward.
The exercise of will over emotion: this was my first burn.
Rocket dream
When I was 12 or 13 (in the early 70's), I dreamed that I was sitting on the back of a launching rocket, and I rode it until I neared the point of no return. I had to decide if I would continue riding that rocket into the unknown, or return to earth. I chose to return to earth.
I suppose I felt unready to venture into the unknown. I don't know if that was the right or wrong choice to make in my dream, but rockets have been a metaphor and marker of change in my life since then. We who grew up in the 60's and 70's knew that rockets were risky conveyances that traveled (if successful) to terra incognita, but could also end up marking the end of human lives in fire or ice or a fountain of smoke trails.
On November 12, 1981, I met my future husband at 4 a.m. in the dormitory lounge, waiting with a few other rocket junkies to watch the second flight of the space shuttle Columbia. I was really there only because my roommate's father was in aerospace tech and had worked on this mission, and she wanted company as she watched. My future husband was there because he, like so many other young men of his age, had wanted to be an astronaut, and was a fan of all things NASA. She had Columbia posters on her wall...he had NASA posters of the planets on his. Every evening we geeky types gathered around the lounge TV to watch original Star Trek episodes before dinner, and play "name that episode by the first three seconds of the opening scene." Though not a true geek myself, I was surrounded on all sides by "space, the final frontier," and what's in it, and how to get there.
A few years after we were married, the shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, encouraging even more the fear of the unknown that was in me. With other newspaper employees gathered in horror around the TV, I watched the cascading plumes of smoke arc and fall, and that white fountain is etched forever into my memory. My fondness for the earth and the gravity that keeps me bound to it increased. It would (and did) take an awful lot of thrust to get me to leave the familiar behind.
My husband, however, found an outlet for his inner astronaut: High power rocketry. I was in my childbearing years and had less interest in trekking to the desert for rocket launches than I did in maintaining my sanity by keeping to a regular schedule, but we took a few trips and I wish now that we had taken more. They are among our family's treasured memories. Rockets went up, they came down, they cato'd (catostrophic failure), but no one was hurt, no one left the earth, and a good time was usually had by all.
Rockets are less of a presence and more of a metaphor in my life these days. There are unbuilt rocket kits in the basement, and the shuttle launches come and go with little fanfare now. But the metaphor still stands; as a dedicated subscriber to entropy, I find my life degrades into chaos without a good "burn" now and then to put me back on course. My family dreads these burns, sudden interests and passions that interfere with their comfort or deprive them of my presence (both physical and emotional) and seem generally wacky and without reason or purpose to them. They rarely last more than a year or two and burn themselves out when the fuel of interest is exhausted, leaving me humbled, shaky, and inclined again to inertia, until the gravity of some planetary (or human) body bends my trajectory off course, and it's time for another burn.
This blog is a place to record some of those "burns" and what they've taught me, how they've changed me, and where (I think) they're taking me.
I suppose I felt unready to venture into the unknown. I don't know if that was the right or wrong choice to make in my dream, but rockets have been a metaphor and marker of change in my life since then. We who grew up in the 60's and 70's knew that rockets were risky conveyances that traveled (if successful) to terra incognita, but could also end up marking the end of human lives in fire or ice or a fountain of smoke trails.
On November 12, 1981, I met my future husband at 4 a.m. in the dormitory lounge, waiting with a few other rocket junkies to watch the second flight of the space shuttle Columbia. I was really there only because my roommate's father was in aerospace tech and had worked on this mission, and she wanted company as she watched. My future husband was there because he, like so many other young men of his age, had wanted to be an astronaut, and was a fan of all things NASA. She had Columbia posters on her wall...he had NASA posters of the planets on his. Every evening we geeky types gathered around the lounge TV to watch original Star Trek episodes before dinner, and play "name that episode by the first three seconds of the opening scene." Though not a true geek myself, I was surrounded on all sides by "space, the final frontier," and what's in it, and how to get there.
A few years after we were married, the shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, encouraging even more the fear of the unknown that was in me. With other newspaper employees gathered in horror around the TV, I watched the cascading plumes of smoke arc and fall, and that white fountain is etched forever into my memory. My fondness for the earth and the gravity that keeps me bound to it increased. It would (and did) take an awful lot of thrust to get me to leave the familiar behind.
My husband, however, found an outlet for his inner astronaut: High power rocketry. I was in my childbearing years and had less interest in trekking to the desert for rocket launches than I did in maintaining my sanity by keeping to a regular schedule, but we took a few trips and I wish now that we had taken more. They are among our family's treasured memories. Rockets went up, they came down, they cato'd (catostrophic failure), but no one was hurt, no one left the earth, and a good time was usually had by all.
Rockets are less of a presence and more of a metaphor in my life these days. There are unbuilt rocket kits in the basement, and the shuttle launches come and go with little fanfare now. But the metaphor still stands; as a dedicated subscriber to entropy, I find my life degrades into chaos without a good "burn" now and then to put me back on course. My family dreads these burns, sudden interests and passions that interfere with their comfort or deprive them of my presence (both physical and emotional) and seem generally wacky and without reason or purpose to them. They rarely last more than a year or two and burn themselves out when the fuel of interest is exhausted, leaving me humbled, shaky, and inclined again to inertia, until the gravity of some planetary (or human) body bends my trajectory off course, and it's time for another burn.
This blog is a place to record some of those "burns" and what they've taught me, how they've changed me, and where (I think) they're taking me.
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