Here
is a sneak peak at the very incomplete story of my childhood that I hope to one
day publish before E-readers take over and it is too late to see it on a
bookshelf.
Prologue
The
first thing I ever learned was not to touch a hot stove. I was four and my mom
had specifically told me NOT to touch the burning hot spiral of iron from which
she had just removed a pot of classic Kraft Mac n’ Cheese. We can take three
things away from this short fable. One, it took me a very long time to
finally learn something. Two, mom is always right. And three, if someone tells
you NOT to do something you’re definitely going to do it.
Let’s
start with my delayed “first lesson." I have to conclude that since it took me
four years of life before I finally learned something, that until I defiantly touched that
stove, I had been leading a perfect existence. You generally only learn
something because you’ve done something else wrong. So for 48 months I did
everything right, I was killin’ it. I guess you could count learning how to
walk and talk but I don’t remember “learning” those lessons. Walking and talking
are something babies inevitably adapt into doing because their parents aren’t
bringing them food fast enough. Think about it, toddlers are always climbing
around trying to get into the fridge or the cookie jar (if those are still a
thing) and I’m pretty sure a baby chooses to say either “mama” or “dada” first
based on which parent provides them with the most treats. My first word was
“bagpipe” which clearly means every time I was eating as an infant bagpipes
were either a heavy topic of conversation and/or being played.
At
the wise old age of 22 I can now confidently and humbly recognize that mom is
always right. I can’t speak for every mother I suppose but MY mom, supermom of
five children of varying levels of delinquency, was and is always right. She
was right when she told me at the age of 9 that I would not like the movie Titanic. Mom hit that one dead on the head. In my youth I
was a Titanic fanatic. I’m talking saw the IMAX movie, Titanic: Ghost
of the Abyss 5 times (which is two more
times than I saw Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring). As a little girl I was obsessed with the American
Girl dolls and when I visited Chicago for the first time my mom took me to The
American Girl Place but then surprised me after with a visit to the Titanic
Exhibit at The Chicago Museum of Natural History…I left my doll at the coat
check. To paint a not so subtle picture for you, I was essentially the youngest
foremost authority on the tragic history of that ill-fated ship. So being the
dedicated historian that I was, I insisted to my mother that I, unlike my silly
compatriots, wanted to see the movie for purely educational purposes. Needless
to say I was disgusted with how little attention was given to the architectural
miracle that the grand staircase was and appalled at the flagrant sex between
unmarried teens. At a very young age I developed skyscraper levels of morality.
It wasn’t until I watched the movie again when I was 14, when turbulent
hormones and the never ending roller coaster of teenage emotions had firmly
taken hold of my psyche, that I truly appreciated the sweeping cinematic
masterpiece of James Cameron’s Titanic. Mother was also correct when she told me that I was not going to die,
pass out, or acquire a pH imbalance when I sliced my finger cutting a lemon. To
this day the only time my mom has been wrong is when it concerns traffic, and to be fair to her she can't really control that...yet.
Finally,
to plagiarize me some Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that
any parent (or person) telling a child (literal or metaphorical) not to do something must be prepared to have
aforementioned advice thrown back into their faces, verily. We, the human race,
are naturally curious. Curiosity may have killed the cat and it may have killed
a fair share of our brethren but its also led peoplekind (all inclusive) to
many an amazing discovery. I bet you a lifetime supply of chocolate that Lewis and Clark set
out on their adventurous journey Westward because Lewis’ boring cousin Bernard
(50/50 chance that was his name) said “Don’t do that! You’ll get lost!” Um no
they won’t Bernard they’ll be brave and a little bit stupid but they’ll
Sacagawea and forge a trail all the way to the Pacific Ocean. If Lewis and
Clark hadn’t braved that uncharted territory all those years ago, the Wild West
may never have been tamed. And then where would we have put Las Vegas? Would
technology as we know it even exist if those nerds at Mircosoft, Apple and
Facebook didn’t have Silicon Valley to fiddle away in? And I think we can all agree
that surfing on the East Coast just ain’t like surfing on the West Coast (Is
that right? I don’t know. I don’t surf.) What I’m trying to say here is, by
touching that stove in my youth I was really expressing my innate sense of
curiosity and independence. It was there, in that kitchen on the outskirts of
Atlanta, that my own great journey undoubtedly started. I imagine the story of my
life could only commence in this way,
“A flash of white hot pain and misery rushed up the tiny,
yet powerful hand of the four year old, who thought she was closer to twenty-seven then
to five, as she defiantly touched the burning metal of the kitchen stove.
“OUCH!” the dark haired miscreant screamed, indignant that a mechanism which
created such joy in the form of Mom’s Mac n’ Cheese could also bring such
anguish. Heroically whimpering, the little girl, who did not like to be called
“little,” slumped to the floor, waiting to be found by a sympathetic parent. And
so the adventure began.”
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