I can only remember from my point of view. If you have been reading my current obsession, know that I have a long life of obsessions. Like I said, I am a researcher by inclination and my inclination is to find out as much as I can, including related information, no matter how far afield. My family tends to be on the slightly Autistic/Asperger side with a little ADHD thrown in and intense concentration on things of interest runs through our lives. You could say fixated, but I'm not going to. We love and are loved, but we can't read what you're feeling very well and don't always realize we've annoyed someone by our actions or what we say. I've put myself in shit so often in the past with what I say, people now comment on how quiet I am because I don't say much unless you know me. And still I can annoy family, friends and coworkers with my remarks. This lack of ability to read people can be good and bad. In school I had a classmate comment on my hairstyle and I answered, "Oh, my mom wore it this way in college. I do it when I don't have time to wash my hair." It was later, much later, that I thought, "Gee, maybe she was trying to insult me?" I still really don't know. So I'm initially gullible and will believe what people tell me at face value. Not so good. But then, it's also really hard to hurt my feelings by sarcastic, insulting remarks because, well, I just don't get that you are trying to insult me. Yeah, and to go with that, I don't know I've said something that hurts or insults you. I never try to do this, but am very surprised when someone takes it that way. "I know you didn't mean to be insubordinate." Yeah, no idea. "People are strange, when you're a stranger." There's more than one way to be a stranger.
My "interests" in chronological order, As best I can remember. Dark Shadows, the tv show. Hurried home from school to watch it and pretended to be sick so I could stay home to watch the very last episode. I have priorities. The aforementioned Masterpiece Theatre. Cut out TV listings from the TV guide and put them in a scrapbook. Collected Mad Magazines, records, books. The first time I moved out of my parent's house and had to move all that shit sort of cured me of the collecting part. Do you remember the tragedy of being in love with your first music star? For my sister it was one of the Beach Boys. I was younger so I loved singing to the music but certainly didn't think these old guys were that special. I went with my mom to visit her mom and my two cousins were there. They seemed really grown up men! I figured out their true ages when I grew up and realized they were in their late teens.
So my first real musical crush was Pete Townsend of the Who. At that point, having permanently borrowed my dad's classical guitar, I began writing songs. One of the first sounded suspiciously like the theme from a tv show, at least the music, but I got better. Carried the guitar to High School and played the intro to Stairway to Heaven in the girls' bathroom for a small audience that rapidly dispersed when another girl came in to pee. Although I loved the idea of being in a rock band, my music turned out to be way more folksy-angsty-protesty because I also listened to Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Melanie, John Denver and Steeleye Span [a folk music group, not the rock group Steely Dan]. But visions of The Who and the Rolling Stones danced in my head. I did learn to play Wild Horses and I Got the Blues, but my string plucking didn't lend itself to Brown Sugar. Or the faster part to Behind Blue Eyes.
In my wander down the garden path, after I watched an episode of Ernie Ball string theory with Shaun Morgan and learning that the reason I couldn't play rock was that I needed steel strings on my guitar [yeah, right] I Googled the question, "Can I put steel strings on my classical guitar?" the answer being, "No, don't ever do that, the tension will snap the neck!" I found out that there are gauges of strings. Who knew? Not me, evidently. And I enjoyed the gross pictures of dead skin cells and dirt in between the wires on the strings. [Answering the question of why Dale Stewart boiled his bass strings as well.]
After The Who went their separate ways I followed Pete Townsend's music for a while and inadvertently lucked out to discover the song Annie by Ronnie Lane. I love that song. After that I listened to Sting. After the Police, pretty much, because, again, I got to the party way late. There's a storyteller in song. Musical and Television crushes of course lead to a barrage of magazine article research. It's even worse now, with links everywhere to articles, videos, videos of reactions to other videos. Hey, are there any reaction videos to Seether songs? Why, yes, yes there are. Why am I not surprised. You Tube is very interesting. My You Tube currently comes up with:
1. Cover Your Bath in Dish Soap Tonight.
2. Kerrang! Podcast: Seether [from 12 years ago]
3. Bus driver, passenger help reunite toddler with family.
4.The best "My House, Not my cat" moments.
5. "When Doves Cry"(Prince) Acoustic Version by Adam Gontier of Saint Astonia & Shaun Morgan of Seether.
6. Mix - Seether - My Disaster.
Now, my husband's You Tube is like a totally different website. His includes the Hydraulic Press Channel featuring a couple from Finland who crush stuff with a 150-ton hydraulic press, guys shooting with different home made projectiles sent to them from around the world, a mechanic rescuing people stuck in off-road locations, reaction videos of old songs [which I like as long as they don't stop the song too often] and Irish people eating potentially disgusting foods. He did find The Dead South which are a band from Saskatchewan who are neither dead or from the South and The Hu which is a heavy metal band from Mongolia. Both are fabulous in their own right. Oh, and I think he got the "Cover Your Bath in Dish Soap Tonight" clip too.
This crush and research obsession was fine with musicians and actors that were fairly abstract. This does not work well with people in your real life, who you really know. It can really hurt. I was a rather focused, determined younger person that did what she thought best. I didn't push back all that much, just went my own way and when there was something I didn't want to do or thought was a stupid thing to do, I just quietly didn't do it. Some trouble with depression. All the women in my family hit puberty and it's a rollercoaster of fun. It tells you something that when I was pregnant was when I was the most stable emotionally and not depressed. I wasn't one to think of suicide, much. I'm more the one to run away or disappear inside myself. Somehow, over the years, I started behaving like people expected. I stuffed down anger, desire, empathy. Left behind writing, playing music, going anywhere that wasn't familiar. Afraid to do anything, start anything. Waiting for the next request for my time, my help, my work. Waiting to get old enough to die a natural death like waiting at the bus stop occupying myself with busywork until the bus comes. No more obsessions. You have to commit to feel to do that.
My guitar, that I played daily and carried with me, gathered dust. I asked for a new set of strings and it took me a year to put them on. I look at the guitar, sitting on it's stand, just waiting for me to pick it up and play and I feel afraid when I look at it. I lost my dad in 2007. My mom in 2019. I got through 2020, a year filled with things that were unfamiliar. People died. People always die. One of the reasons I kept going to church was to try to find a way to deal with the certainty that every time someone I loved left for school or work they were going to die. I hugged them and said I love you every time because I knew they wouldn't be coming back. I played out scenarios in my mind of what life would be without this person in it or that person. Knowing we are here a short time and, to God, our place here is temporary between With Him and With Him again. This helped for a long time. I stayed not angry, not unhappy, not real. I avoided being too attached. I missed going to visit my Dad his last weekend because I was too busy, too tired, I'd see him next weekend instead. I missed going to visit my Mom her last weekend. I could have talked with her and hugged her but instead ended up praying for her to take her last breath two days later because it was so hard for her to breath, it was painful for her. She couldn't talk. She couldn't wake up.
This new year a person who I worked with for decades and had retired due to illness finally died. He was about the kindest and gentlest person I have known. I understood, listening to the songs Seether played that I was angry underneath, I was sad underneath, I felt underneath. I accepted my parents deaths and never really grieved for them. And I understood that I had stopped being me for a long time. This new death of my friend who was just nine years older than me. What had I been doing? How long do I have left now that I've used up so much time waiting for time to pass. Do I even know what I want to do anymore? Now it's hard to stop crying. Cry me a river, it's my own damn fault.
Memory is an interesting thing. When my sister and I share memories, we hear amazing things. Some memories conflict with each other. With some she has some added aspect or scene that I never knew about. Some are the same story but experienced by two different people in two different ways. Hence the start of this essay, I can only remember from my point of view. And the problem is my view became so narrow, I could hardly remember the memories.
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