Post by Glencairn on May 31, 2015 3:47:50 GMT -6
So, this isn't a story, or even an article, really. I just kind of started thinking earlier, and decided that I needed to write, because it's kinda been a while. To be fair, I've had a touch of Absinthe tonight, though I really don't usually drink anything at all...ever. It was an odd day.
My 15 year old daughter, Quin, knows that I love the game Trivial Pursuit, but that everyone else on Earth hates to play against me. Trivial knowledge, and this game, employing that trivial knowledge, is enormous fun for me because it seems to only be the trivial type things that I can easily remember as I get older. This isn't always an easy game to find at stores, but Quin saw an older one at an auction just last night. My favorite - and only, as it happens - child decided to get it for me!
Tonight my hubby, the kid, and I were playing Trivial Pursuit: Young Players Edition (copyright 1981) that the kid had just acquired for me, and the question that I was reading was: "What lizard hides by matching its color to its surroundings?" Kid started singing "Karma Chameleon". Russ, trying to answer with "Boy George" said "Boy Joy Toy". So, Quin got the answer right, since it was her question, and got to go again. At this point, I was cracking up at Russ' answer still. Then she rolled the die and needed to figure out which color she was playing, picked one up and I saw that the picture it was sitting on was a fish...wait, what? Boy Joy Toy AND a fish? And a "traffic light" in my cup? Really? Of course I'm laughing like a demented hyena. At this point, every question that these horrific people put in this box back in the 80's seems to have innuendo attached to it now. Intentionally. Because right now, I am laughing so hard that I am in more pain than not. Then the kid wants to know what is so funny. . .Ummm..."Not Quin appropriate."
We manage to finish up the game and send the kid off to bed for the night. The whole time since the "Karma Chameleon" answer, we have been listening to some 80's and 90's music. I have no idea what it was, Youtube, Pandora, or whatever, but whomever created the lineup (possibly hubby just hand choosing the music) was good. They had chosen what were, easily, some of my very favorite songs from the time period. My hubby, russellframe, and I started talking about memories associated with the songs. Well, okay, to be fair, I talked and hubby (very very patiently) listened. I have always been a music junky - from joining the first school chorus I could join, to church choir, to listening to whatever I could. I grew up in a very strictly religious household, and popular, worldly, music wasn't always allowed.
In fact, that late 80's and 90's music that was Top 40 type stuff, was my first real introduction to anything other than what was allowed for church or what are now considered "oldies" - 50's and 60's music that my parents liked. Thank goodness for being an exchange student's host family. That was what caused me to be allowed to listen to "secular music", our two exchange students when I was in my final two years of Jr. High school.
I heard that music and it was glorious! It might have been horrible, frankly - in a technical reviewer's sense - but it was all incredible to me.
Unfortunately, that sense of wonder and enjoyment didn't last. Not completely. Just a short bit after that, I started to be abused, sexually, by the youth pastor at my church. The man controlled my life. What I wore, what I did with my out of school time, who my friends were, any boyfriends whom I might have been allowed to have for more than a few days were hand picked and approved, and right down to what music I should be listening to. So, there went that freedom of discovering what music I liked that had just been acquired a year or so before. Being a mostly average teen, that certainly didn't stop me from begging school friends to record songs that I had heard onto cassettes from the radio - if they could dodge the DJ who wouldn't stop talking, of course. With the help of those friends, I amassed a pretty good sized "forbidden collection".
Tonight I listened to that music that hubby was playing and it was just like listening to my "forbidden collection" all over again. And I remembered each and every memory that is associated with each and every song. Karma Chameleon and singing at the top of my lungs with my girl friends and thinking how cute Boy George was at the time (which really was what set this whole thing off tonight, when I think about it) to Pet Shop Boys and West End Girls and Always on My Mind which were introduced to me and began my introduction to "secular music" by our first exchange student, Toby. Then there was Billy Idol and Mony Mony (with requisite chant "Hey, Hey What? Get laid, get fu...wait, what?") at the high school homecoming bonfires - back when those were still allowed to be a thing - and the live DJ playing this song for the street dance. At my very first job working at McDonald's listening to Africa by Toto and Heat of the Moment by Asia (which still, to this day, is one of my very favorite songs) back in "Dives" getting all of the dishes done.
There were certainly songs that were more sentimental, to me even if not to anyone else, because of the people attached to the memories. A guy I dated named John, but whose nick name - for reasons still unknown - was Joey, there was Concrete Blonde with their song Joey and Heart's song All I Want To Do is Make Love To You, in which the lyrics meant nothing at the time except that this was one of the most frequent slow songs played at the roller skating rink for "couple's skate" that Joey and I skated to. He wasn't someone of whom my parents approved, being "too old" for me, but he knew a bit of the abuse I was going through, but didn't push me or question me and if I did talk about it, he shut up and backed off if I said I was done talking about it. Or, as a vocalist, the song More Than Words by Extreme, which was one of the most beautiful songs in the world, to me, and that I used and learned in order to teach myself how to harmonize so I could sing like them. To the gratitude that I will always have for our first exchange student, Toby, for getting my mom to listen to A Little Respect by Erasure that loosened the hold and allowed me to have more choice in what music I could listen to. Other songs from Toby were by Jakob Hellman called Vara Vänner as well as Vintern Dör. Really, I have never learned enough Swedish to be able to get more than a handful of words and phrases from these songs, but they are catchy and are associated with more good memories.
There are so many more songs that I could list with explanations of the memories that they hold, all of which were tucked away and hidden and not brought out to examine and be reminisced about until tonight. I hadn't shared these memories with anyone until they came tumbling out tonight. There was that first song that was mentioned while playing Trivial Pursuit and then others that hubby had playing. All of those memories were too tied in to the abuse that was happening because they all happened around the same handful of years and when the abuse got tucked away in an effort to put it behind me and forget, away went those other good memories with it. I hadn't realized just how much I missed those memories and hearing the songs associated with them.
When it comes down to it, it might not be a conscious effort to overcome evil with good, but sometimes it is the smallest things, and what is remembered - which isn't always what you might think - that come out with the notes of a song in the midst of a joke and end up being stronger than the evil that they were hidden away with and which bring the freshest moments of good and healing when they are least expected.
The End.
Take care,
Cindi
My 15 year old daughter, Quin, knows that I love the game Trivial Pursuit, but that everyone else on Earth hates to play against me. Trivial knowledge, and this game, employing that trivial knowledge, is enormous fun for me because it seems to only be the trivial type things that I can easily remember as I get older. This isn't always an easy game to find at stores, but Quin saw an older one at an auction just last night. My favorite - and only, as it happens - child decided to get it for me!
Tonight my hubby, the kid, and I were playing Trivial Pursuit: Young Players Edition (copyright 1981) that the kid had just acquired for me, and the question that I was reading was: "What lizard hides by matching its color to its surroundings?" Kid started singing "Karma Chameleon". Russ, trying to answer with "Boy George" said "Boy Joy Toy". So, Quin got the answer right, since it was her question, and got to go again. At this point, I was cracking up at Russ' answer still. Then she rolled the die and needed to figure out which color she was playing, picked one up and I saw that the picture it was sitting on was a fish...wait, what? Boy Joy Toy AND a fish? And a "traffic light" in my cup? Really? Of course I'm laughing like a demented hyena. At this point, every question that these horrific people put in this box back in the 80's seems to have innuendo attached to it now. Intentionally. Because right now, I am laughing so hard that I am in more pain than not. Then the kid wants to know what is so funny. . .Ummm..."Not Quin appropriate."
We manage to finish up the game and send the kid off to bed for the night. The whole time since the "Karma Chameleon" answer, we have been listening to some 80's and 90's music. I have no idea what it was, Youtube, Pandora, or whatever, but whomever created the lineup (possibly hubby just hand choosing the music) was good. They had chosen what were, easily, some of my very favorite songs from the time period. My hubby, russellframe, and I started talking about memories associated with the songs. Well, okay, to be fair, I talked and hubby (very very patiently) listened. I have always been a music junky - from joining the first school chorus I could join, to church choir, to listening to whatever I could. I grew up in a very strictly religious household, and popular, worldly, music wasn't always allowed.
In fact, that late 80's and 90's music that was Top 40 type stuff, was my first real introduction to anything other than what was allowed for church or what are now considered "oldies" - 50's and 60's music that my parents liked. Thank goodness for being an exchange student's host family. That was what caused me to be allowed to listen to "secular music", our two exchange students when I was in my final two years of Jr. High school.
I heard that music and it was glorious! It might have been horrible, frankly - in a technical reviewer's sense - but it was all incredible to me.
Unfortunately, that sense of wonder and enjoyment didn't last. Not completely. Just a short bit after that, I started to be abused, sexually, by the youth pastor at my church. The man controlled my life. What I wore, what I did with my out of school time, who my friends were, any boyfriends whom I might have been allowed to have for more than a few days were hand picked and approved, and right down to what music I should be listening to. So, there went that freedom of discovering what music I liked that had just been acquired a year or so before. Being a mostly average teen, that certainly didn't stop me from begging school friends to record songs that I had heard onto cassettes from the radio - if they could dodge the DJ who wouldn't stop talking, of course. With the help of those friends, I amassed a pretty good sized "forbidden collection".
Tonight I listened to that music that hubby was playing and it was just like listening to my "forbidden collection" all over again. And I remembered each and every memory that is associated with each and every song. Karma Chameleon and singing at the top of my lungs with my girl friends and thinking how cute Boy George was at the time (which really was what set this whole thing off tonight, when I think about it) to Pet Shop Boys and West End Girls and Always on My Mind which were introduced to me and began my introduction to "secular music" by our first exchange student, Toby. Then there was Billy Idol and Mony Mony (with requisite chant "Hey, Hey What? Get laid, get fu...wait, what?") at the high school homecoming bonfires - back when those were still allowed to be a thing - and the live DJ playing this song for the street dance. At my very first job working at McDonald's listening to Africa by Toto and Heat of the Moment by Asia (which still, to this day, is one of my very favorite songs) back in "Dives" getting all of the dishes done.
There were certainly songs that were more sentimental, to me even if not to anyone else, because of the people attached to the memories. A guy I dated named John, but whose nick name - for reasons still unknown - was Joey, there was Concrete Blonde with their song Joey and Heart's song All I Want To Do is Make Love To You, in which the lyrics meant nothing at the time except that this was one of the most frequent slow songs played at the roller skating rink for "couple's skate" that Joey and I skated to. He wasn't someone of whom my parents approved, being "too old" for me, but he knew a bit of the abuse I was going through, but didn't push me or question me and if I did talk about it, he shut up and backed off if I said I was done talking about it. Or, as a vocalist, the song More Than Words by Extreme, which was one of the most beautiful songs in the world, to me, and that I used and learned in order to teach myself how to harmonize so I could sing like them. To the gratitude that I will always have for our first exchange student, Toby, for getting my mom to listen to A Little Respect by Erasure that loosened the hold and allowed me to have more choice in what music I could listen to. Other songs from Toby were by Jakob Hellman called Vara Vänner as well as Vintern Dör. Really, I have never learned enough Swedish to be able to get more than a handful of words and phrases from these songs, but they are catchy and are associated with more good memories.
There are so many more songs that I could list with explanations of the memories that they hold, all of which were tucked away and hidden and not brought out to examine and be reminisced about until tonight. I hadn't shared these memories with anyone until they came tumbling out tonight. There was that first song that was mentioned while playing Trivial Pursuit and then others that hubby had playing. All of those memories were too tied in to the abuse that was happening because they all happened around the same handful of years and when the abuse got tucked away in an effort to put it behind me and forget, away went those other good memories with it. I hadn't realized just how much I missed those memories and hearing the songs associated with them.
When it comes down to it, it might not be a conscious effort to overcome evil with good, but sometimes it is the smallest things, and what is remembered - which isn't always what you might think - that come out with the notes of a song in the midst of a joke and end up being stronger than the evil that they were hidden away with and which bring the freshest moments of good and healing when they are least expected.
The End.
Take care,
Cindi
Couldn't resist...