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.
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