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Silent Legacy
Mar. 5th, 2006 03:06 pmToday, when Dae went down for his nap, my mother and I retired to the dining room and her bloody huge table to work on our various projects. As I'm kneading my clay to soften it, she's sneaking up to the CD player and putting in an album. "What've you got?" I ask, looking up from my templates.
"You'll see," she says, grinning smugly and settling into her embroidery floss.
Then the opening notes of Melissa Ethridge's "I'm The Only One" pluck out.
"My God, Ma, you rock!"
"Yeah, but what I've had to suffer on Amazon's recommeded list because of it almost makes me regret."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. You buy one album by an artist...and they think you..." She shudders and something inside of me freezes.
"Generalisations do usually suck, yes..." I reply quietly...
Somewhere in the past three years and four moves, I've managed to lose my copy of Yes I Am, and it gnaws on me sometimes. This is the album that taught me how to stand up and be, whether my peers really understood or not. How to brass out an attitude untouchable enough to keep me whole. How to miss someone and get through it. How to phrase an invitation. I got it for my thirteenth birthday, a party attended by my first set of misfit friends, all of whom were on their very best behavior in front of my mother.
When we roadtripped, she and I would play that album for hours, belting out every line to every song. At that age, I understood a tip of not quite belonging to the crowd, a tip of the injustice. That and the music itself wound around me and never quite let go. Strength, in my mental jukebox, sounds like Melissa Ethridge.
It's good working music, too. So we proceeded to fidget away, humming snippets of lines and harmonies periodically... I realise that I'm doing more singing than working during "Silent Legacy." Ten years ago, I caught edges of that song; today it makes perfect sense.
Mom looks up from her pattern book and considers her words. "... I remember you asking me once what this song was about. You're singing it like you understand now. Do you?"
"A little better, yeah," I answer, distracted and smiling at the strength resonating in the sounds, at how good they felt to sing.
"Jess?!"
For all the strength, I am a coward when it comes to my mother. She's asking where my alignments lie and whether I'm an abomination. Anyone else would get brass because it's none of their affair. My mother gets a quiet smile. "Just because you can see through someone's eyes doesn't mean you agree with them." And she can take that how she will.
It's amazing the difference a year will make. Two. Four. Ten. I wonder sometimes whether I bear any resemblance to the thirteen year old girl hanging out with the class Bad Influence because the Bad Influence didn't try to change me, she just took me in. It's amazing, too, the lessons that stay.
Lyrics, if you're curious
"You'll see," she says, grinning smugly and settling into her embroidery floss.
Then the opening notes of Melissa Ethridge's "I'm The Only One" pluck out.
"My God, Ma, you rock!"
"Yeah, but what I've had to suffer on Amazon's recommeded list because of it almost makes me regret."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. You buy one album by an artist...and they think you..." She shudders and something inside of me freezes.
"Generalisations do usually suck, yes..." I reply quietly...
Somewhere in the past three years and four moves, I've managed to lose my copy of Yes I Am, and it gnaws on me sometimes. This is the album that taught me how to stand up and be, whether my peers really understood or not. How to brass out an attitude untouchable enough to keep me whole. How to miss someone and get through it. How to phrase an invitation. I got it for my thirteenth birthday, a party attended by my first set of misfit friends, all of whom were on their very best behavior in front of my mother.
When we roadtripped, she and I would play that album for hours, belting out every line to every song. At that age, I understood a tip of not quite belonging to the crowd, a tip of the injustice. That and the music itself wound around me and never quite let go. Strength, in my mental jukebox, sounds like Melissa Ethridge.
It's good working music, too. So we proceeded to fidget away, humming snippets of lines and harmonies periodically... I realise that I'm doing more singing than working during "Silent Legacy." Ten years ago, I caught edges of that song; today it makes perfect sense.
Mom looks up from her pattern book and considers her words. "... I remember you asking me once what this song was about. You're singing it like you understand now. Do you?"
"A little better, yeah," I answer, distracted and smiling at the strength resonating in the sounds, at how good they felt to sing.
"Jess?!"
For all the strength, I am a coward when it comes to my mother. She's asking where my alignments lie and whether I'm an abomination. Anyone else would get brass because it's none of their affair. My mother gets a quiet smile. "Just because you can see through someone's eyes doesn't mean you agree with them." And she can take that how she will.
It's amazing the difference a year will make. Two. Four. Ten. I wonder sometimes whether I bear any resemblance to the thirteen year old girl hanging out with the class Bad Influence because the Bad Influence didn't try to change me, she just took me in. It's amazing, too, the lessons that stay.
Lyrics, if you're curious
