My Own Kind of Popular
At one point in the evening, I remember thinking, Are we weird? Is this weird?
It was when Aaron was playing a Chopin Prelude (I think it was a Prelude. I'll have to ask him. I'm terrible with musical specifics.) and we were all sitting in the living room, listening with rapt attention. Mom, Meg (my sister), Dad and me. The living room had become a forest of red and white twisted streamers - candy-striped, crepe-paper columns running from the ceiling to the floor, with red and white balloons attached at the top. And on the glass coffee table, the remnants of a Tags Bakery chocolate birthday cake.
I emerged from Aaron's musical spell for a moment and thought, Here we are, just the five of us (You're doing all this just for us?! Aaron had asked incredulously earlier in the evening. All these decorations and everything and no one else is coming??....), hanging out now for going on five hours for Mom's birthday celebration, and there's no other place on earth I'd rather be than right here.
The agenda for the evening (Really. Dad printed out an agenda.) included numerous performances, all entrancing: Dad singing a John Dowland solo; all of us, sans Mom and Annika, singing a selection of Beatles tunes (Mom's been on this Beatles kick for several months now. And now that I think about it, our performance was probably quite a bit less than entrancing ), me reading my blog homage to her, Aaron playing several solo pieces on the piano, and Meg performing a purely improvised dance/monologue number based on reflections from her recent 3-week creative retreat in Virginia.
Audience members becoming performers becoming audience members. My favorite way to spend an evening. Who cares if it's "just" my family.
But I do recognize that it's probably weird.
Makes me think of high school. And cliques. The first time I became aware of them was in Ms. Steinbaum's 5th grade class. I noticed that Jenny Glickman always had a claque of girls around her, giggling, whispering, passing notes back and forth. And then there were the outliers. The little groups of girls who played quietly among themselves at recess, all the while casting sidelong, envious glances at the screaming, giggling clique hovering around Jenny. This, to me, was the oddest thing.
First, Jenny was boring. She wasn't very smart, or kind, or creative. She was bland. She was the white bread of 5th grade girls. Second, all the other girls in the whole class, as far as I could make out, were scrambling to be her best friend. Why? There wasn't a bone in my body that wanted to be Jenny's best friend, or giggling and screaming with any of the other girls. Or pining wistfully like the other other girls. I rather liked my own company.
From that point, I became fascinated with group psychology, especially as it played out in the halls and homerooms of my schools.
In high school, the fascination deepened, probably because I had stronger faculties for distinguishing, characterizing and ruminating. I noticed, again, the Popular Girls in their Awesome Clique, and Everyone Else who in their own way, wished desperately to be in. Some girls formed anti-clique cliques. (They were the cheerleader-haters.) But just like the Popular Girls, they had their own rules, their own restrictions, and deep down (I knew some of them so I can say this with some authority) they really would have been much happier being one of the Popular Girls.
If any of them reads this, she'll deny it vehemently. But it's true. Wherever you find hate, there you find denied love (ahem: Ted Haggart).
I was a clique drifter. I rode the clique trains from one group to the next, hopping off for a quick cup of coffee around the proverbial burning garbage can, and back on again to move to the next group huddled around their own private fire. And I really enjoyed that. At school, I had no enemies. And yet once I walked through the big metal doors at 3:15pm, I left the entire social structure behind. I was 17 and utterly unaware of the normal after-hours social scene.
To me, after hours consisted of pouring over homework (I confess it. I loved homework.), devouring TCBY white chocolate mousse frozen yogurts with Reece's Peanut Butter cups while watching black and white movies with Alka, or grinding our way through Jane Fonda's 90-minute workout and then flopping on the couch to watch MTV videos with Michelle.
Not once did I wish I was really with someone else, doing something else. To me, I was as cool as could be. I just had vastly different tastes and interests than everyone else.
I credit my parents with raising me with a potent disregard for peer pressure. I'm not quite sure how they did it. Part of it was certainly the by-product of rather unhealthy elitist attitudes, but part was genuine strength of character: The ability to truly look at a situation dispassionately, see it clearly and choose proactively based on personal principles, not groupthink. Because of this, I quickly realized that The Popular Girls were only popular for two reasons: (1) they were having the most fun and, more importantly, (2) everyone else's envy made them popular. By gazing wistfully at them all the time, by pining after what they had or were experiencing, instead of creating something of their own.
So I figured out early on that it's not popularity that the other girls wanted. It was a sense of personal power, of personal pride. What they really wanted was to be able to enjoy a vital, vivid, exciting life, to really get inside a moment and stay there. Well, hell, I thought. I can do that.
So can anyone, if she is willing to do the hard work of creating her own circle of popularity. Even if it's just a circle of one, or two, or five.
Which is why it wasn't odd at all for us to be planning an extensive, five-hour party for Mom, even if "just" for the five of us. Because to us, we five were it.
And what a gift. To feel like my family is it. Where the excitement is. Where the deep love and creativity is. Where the charisma is.
Ok so we might go overboard with our agendas and our marathon political and religious discussions. Ok so visitors and new girlfriends and boyfriends often leave scratching their head, wondering what in the world they just walked into. Because it's weird, it is weird, to do what we do. But weird is just another way of saying charismatic. And charismatic is just another way of saying Popular. And Popular is just another way of saying "cool with myself." And "cool with myeslf" is just another way of saying "centered," "present," "here," "vital," "alive."
And that's exactly what all five of us were as we listened with rapt attention to Aaron playing his deeply moving Chopin, to Dad singing a beautiful tenor solor, to me reading my homage to Mom and as we watched Meg move brilliantly through her improv piece.
*****
And last night we did it again for Thanksgiving (sans Mom, because she had to take a last minute trip to help my Grandma heal a bad back).
I just encountered Dad at a local coffee shop this morning and he gave me one of his signature bear hugs and said, jubilantly, "That was the best Thanksgiving ever!"
I heartily agreed. Even though, in Mom's absence, we (shhh) ordered a full turkey dinner from a lcoal restaurant. But that aside (it was a delicious meal, actually, with all the traditionals: mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, etc. etc. etc.), what made the Thanksgiving great is what happened after and around the food.
First, we went around the table during the meal and recounted everything we were thankful for. Second, we spent a good half hour on a rousing conference call with my brother (who lives in Indiana and couldn't come up), talking about the the military-industrial complex, the disappearance of the electric car, why he is actually going to vote for a President this time around and what place ideals have in politics. Third, after the phone calls and the clean-up, we dusted off my old guitar, tuned it up, broke out the song books and spent two full hours singing: four-part harmonies, a capella pieces, canons (our resounding favorite: "Why doesn't my goose sing as well as thy goose when I paid for my goose twice as much as thine?"!!). Everything from hymns and spirituals like "Now the Night is O'er" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" to old standards like "Puff, the Magic Dragon" and "The Sound of Silence." It was fabulous, we sounded great, and by the end of the night our voices were scratchy and our heads stuffed with singing as much as our bellies were stuffed with good food.
So there we were again: a small group of people creating something beautiful, vital, moving. What does it matter that we were only four? That others may have been doing something "cooler," or "better"? In our eyes, there was no better place to be, and no better people to be with.
This is how I learned to be my own brand of popular. We had family gatherings like this constantly, and I simply absorbed the charisma, the ability to fully and thoroughly enjoy a moment, to simply be with the people we were with, doing what we were doing.
If there's one thing my family is good at, it's creating moments in which a kind of magic happens, a soft radiance arcs over everyone, time slows, senses heighten and strong, silent, silvery webs of dynamism, charisma, creativity and deep connection bind us to each other.
May everyone discover this cure, this healing power, this mighty secret.
It was when Aaron was playing a Chopin Prelude (I think it was a Prelude. I'll have to ask him. I'm terrible with musical specifics.) and we were all sitting in the living room, listening with rapt attention. Mom, Meg (my sister), Dad and me. The living room had become a forest of red and white twisted streamers - candy-striped, crepe-paper columns running from the ceiling to the floor, with red and white balloons attached at the top. And on the glass coffee table, the remnants of a Tags Bakery chocolate birthday cake.
I emerged from Aaron's musical spell for a moment and thought, Here we are, just the five of us (You're doing all this just for us?! Aaron had asked incredulously earlier in the evening. All these decorations and everything and no one else is coming??....), hanging out now for going on five hours for Mom's birthday celebration, and there's no other place on earth I'd rather be than right here.
The agenda for the evening (Really. Dad printed out an agenda.) included numerous performances, all entrancing: Dad singing a John Dowland solo; all of us, sans Mom and Annika, singing a selection of Beatles tunes (Mom's been on this Beatles kick for several months now. And now that I think about it, our performance was probably quite a bit less than entrancing ), me reading my blog homage to her, Aaron playing several solo pieces on the piano, and Meg performing a purely improvised dance/monologue number based on reflections from her recent 3-week creative retreat in Virginia.
Audience members becoming performers becoming audience members. My favorite way to spend an evening. Who cares if it's "just" my family.
But I do recognize that it's probably weird.
Makes me think of high school. And cliques. The first time I became aware of them was in Ms. Steinbaum's 5th grade class. I noticed that Jenny Glickman always had a claque of girls around her, giggling, whispering, passing notes back and forth. And then there were the outliers. The little groups of girls who played quietly among themselves at recess, all the while casting sidelong, envious glances at the screaming, giggling clique hovering around Jenny. This, to me, was the oddest thing.
First, Jenny was boring. She wasn't very smart, or kind, or creative. She was bland. She was the white bread of 5th grade girls. Second, all the other girls in the whole class, as far as I could make out, were scrambling to be her best friend. Why? There wasn't a bone in my body that wanted to be Jenny's best friend, or giggling and screaming with any of the other girls. Or pining wistfully like the other other girls. I rather liked my own company.
From that point, I became fascinated with group psychology, especially as it played out in the halls and homerooms of my schools.
In high school, the fascination deepened, probably because I had stronger faculties for distinguishing, characterizing and ruminating. I noticed, again, the Popular Girls in their Awesome Clique, and Everyone Else who in their own way, wished desperately to be in. Some girls formed anti-clique cliques. (They were the cheerleader-haters.) But just like the Popular Girls, they had their own rules, their own restrictions, and deep down (I knew some of them so I can say this with some authority) they really would have been much happier being one of the Popular Girls.
If any of them reads this, she'll deny it vehemently. But it's true. Wherever you find hate, there you find denied love (ahem: Ted Haggart).
I was a clique drifter. I rode the clique trains from one group to the next, hopping off for a quick cup of coffee around the proverbial burning garbage can, and back on again to move to the next group huddled around their own private fire. And I really enjoyed that. At school, I had no enemies. And yet once I walked through the big metal doors at 3:15pm, I left the entire social structure behind. I was 17 and utterly unaware of the normal after-hours social scene.
To me, after hours consisted of pouring over homework (I confess it. I loved homework.), devouring TCBY white chocolate mousse frozen yogurts with Reece's Peanut Butter cups while watching black and white movies with Alka, or grinding our way through Jane Fonda's 90-minute workout and then flopping on the couch to watch MTV videos with Michelle.
Not once did I wish I was really with someone else, doing something else. To me, I was as cool as could be. I just had vastly different tastes and interests than everyone else.
I credit my parents with raising me with a potent disregard for peer pressure. I'm not quite sure how they did it. Part of it was certainly the by-product of rather unhealthy elitist attitudes, but part was genuine strength of character: The ability to truly look at a situation dispassionately, see it clearly and choose proactively based on personal principles, not groupthink. Because of this, I quickly realized that The Popular Girls were only popular for two reasons: (1) they were having the most fun and, more importantly, (2) everyone else's envy made them popular. By gazing wistfully at them all the time, by pining after what they had or were experiencing, instead of creating something of their own.
So I figured out early on that it's not popularity that the other girls wanted. It was a sense of personal power, of personal pride. What they really wanted was to be able to enjoy a vital, vivid, exciting life, to really get inside a moment and stay there. Well, hell, I thought. I can do that.
So can anyone, if she is willing to do the hard work of creating her own circle of popularity. Even if it's just a circle of one, or two, or five.
Which is why it wasn't odd at all for us to be planning an extensive, five-hour party for Mom, even if "just" for the five of us. Because to us, we five were it.
And what a gift. To feel like my family is it. Where the excitement is. Where the deep love and creativity is. Where the charisma is.
Ok so we might go overboard with our agendas and our marathon political and religious discussions. Ok so visitors and new girlfriends and boyfriends often leave scratching their head, wondering what in the world they just walked into. Because it's weird, it is weird, to do what we do. But weird is just another way of saying charismatic. And charismatic is just another way of saying Popular. And Popular is just another way of saying "cool with myself." And "cool with myeslf" is just another way of saying "centered," "present," "here," "vital," "alive."
And that's exactly what all five of us were as we listened with rapt attention to Aaron playing his deeply moving Chopin, to Dad singing a beautiful tenor solor, to me reading my homage to Mom and as we watched Meg move brilliantly through her improv piece.
*****
And last night we did it again for Thanksgiving (sans Mom, because she had to take a last minute trip to help my Grandma heal a bad back).
I just encountered Dad at a local coffee shop this morning and he gave me one of his signature bear hugs and said, jubilantly, "That was the best Thanksgiving ever!"
I heartily agreed. Even though, in Mom's absence, we (shhh) ordered a full turkey dinner from a lcoal restaurant. But that aside (it was a delicious meal, actually, with all the traditionals: mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, etc. etc. etc.), what made the Thanksgiving great is what happened after and around the food.
First, we went around the table during the meal and recounted everything we were thankful for. Second, we spent a good half hour on a rousing conference call with my brother (who lives in Indiana and couldn't come up), talking about the the military-industrial complex, the disappearance of the electric car, why he is actually going to vote for a President this time around and what place ideals have in politics. Third, after the phone calls and the clean-up, we dusted off my old guitar, tuned it up, broke out the song books and spent two full hours singing: four-part harmonies, a capella pieces, canons (our resounding favorite: "Why doesn't my goose sing as well as thy goose when I paid for my goose twice as much as thine?"!!). Everything from hymns and spirituals like "Now the Night is O'er" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" to old standards like "Puff, the Magic Dragon" and "The Sound of Silence." It was fabulous, we sounded great, and by the end of the night our voices were scratchy and our heads stuffed with singing as much as our bellies were stuffed with good food.
So there we were again: a small group of people creating something beautiful, vital, moving. What does it matter that we were only four? That others may have been doing something "cooler," or "better"? In our eyes, there was no better place to be, and no better people to be with.
This is how I learned to be my own brand of popular. We had family gatherings like this constantly, and I simply absorbed the charisma, the ability to fully and thoroughly enjoy a moment, to simply be with the people we were with, doing what we were doing.
If there's one thing my family is good at, it's creating moments in which a kind of magic happens, a soft radiance arcs over everyone, time slows, senses heighten and strong, silent, silvery webs of dynamism, charisma, creativity and deep connection bind us to each other.
May everyone discover this cure, this healing power, this mighty secret.
posted by Lorna Johnson at 12:02 PM
1 Comments:
how gorgeous lorna. gorgeous. keep us posted!
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