The Lion and the Cobra by Sinéad O’Conner is being played on my turntable right now. It seems fitting. My second copy, I wore one out the very year it came out. The year that my life imploded, well one of the times.
I was young and painfully naive. It was at the beginning of a frightful all consuming relationship that should never have happened. It wouldn’t had I been just a bit older and had more actual facts about everything that was going on. He told me one thing, everyone else said other things and I, being young, stupid, in love and escaping a violent home life, believed him.
It was a horrid mess, so we packed all my records my cat, some clothes and beer in my Honda Civic and took off for San Francisco.
Something else that wouldn’t have happened if I’d been older.
That is the good thing that came out of it for me. San Francisco. I became myself there. The person I never could have become in Fayetteville. I met the most wonderful, amazing and different people–just like I dreamed of years before when I visited and saw drag queens glittering down the street and pale boys in velvet coats.
Sinéad O’Conner died this week, presumably from suicide. I nearly did as well, many many years ago. I am no longer ashamed of that, it was a reasonable response to the violence and cruelty I lived with. I can’t imagine losing a child as she did. I literally can’t, my brain will not go there., It is pain I would never recover from either.
Her death hit hard. The Lion and the Cobra was played on repeat that crazy escape year. I’ve been forced to remember what I wanted to be then, who I wanted to be then. I think I have the who covered. I never did become much of a writer or poet after …. I gave up I guess. After a while I didn’t have anything to say and the stories I used to entertain myself with were eaten by depression. I turned to other things and I don’t regret most of those. Especially the being a mother part. I mostly enjoyed my career too. After being told by a few misogynists in my life that I just didn’t have the ability to ‘do computers’. I do them better than the ones who told me I couldn’t. I was better, quicker years ago, but I still have some in me yet.
I’ve been trying to find, because I’d love to have them again –and I would freaking well wear them–my favorite pair of shoes from the 90s. I swear to god there are two pictures of them on the internet and I found both. I’ve got excellent search skills and this happened by accident finally. After months (not constant but when I thought of it) I followed a digitized version of a black and white ad linked from a Commander Salamander page or Dal Jeets, maybe NaNA -from way back then. Linked off that page was a pinterest pic of the shoes. For sale, but sold long ago.
I felt nimble in these shoes. Dressed up without having to wear platforms or heels–both of which I sucked at wearing. A bit mysterious, very feminine and quite spooky– a time when my insides and outsides matched pretty well.
Now my outsides are older somewhat than inside my mind. Somewhat. I was old before I turned 20. I was the parent to a parent. Now my daughter is the spooky one and has been wearing a lot of my gear from way back then. My youth is fully vintage. My daughter is the age I was when I ran away.
Most of all this is very good, so why do I find myself crying at that song or wishing I could have just five minutes twirling in black lace in the dark on the way to the IBeam in 199something? Or could I go shopping for a backpack for my wonderful girl and her new school year?
Starting this next chapter is …oh who the hell knows? I’m just going to feel things for awhile and maybe I’ll know more later.
Or I won’t and I suppose that works too.