Miss Cherry believes that the more you get out into the
world and have those difficult conversations, the more the world makes sense. It’s
like watching rose colored glasses come into style early in your youth, and then
learning that it was a manufacturing problem which resulted in a class action
suit. You know, the one time someone was cleaning up near the machine that put
drops of tint into the assembly – and you got that one batch with too much pink
in the lens. And that pink interacts with some weird part of your eyes that you
never knew about – and your world, as you know it, mysteriously is skewed.
Makes Cherry think about the movie…”The Jerk.” And that maybe
she was little like Steve Martin who grew up thinking he was a lucky black kid
of a sharecropper family who held different “jobs” and then, magically became a
millionaire who invented a handle for glasses named it the Optigrab which made people cross-eyed. Yada
Yada Yada. Bernadette Peters. One day he grows up. He keeps the lamp and the
ashtray, and resets his view of the world.
It’s those conversations when you realize that the reality you
used to frame up the world was just a little bit off from the actual.
You didn’t understand why someone just dropped off the radar
as you entered high school. And then you find out, they were living in a 500
s.f. abandoned shack on a piece of property, illegally, with 10 people – and were
trying to go to school and be a normal kid. But, reality and survival stepped
in and they dropped out to support their family and help put a roof over the
head of their brothers and sisters, food in the belly, and all of this without
electricity or running water. I’m sorry – I can’t play football anymore – or go
to the dance – or have a girlfriend – or let anyone know about my life. That’s
all good and fine for you, but I need to help my family survive. Literally. Now
I’m an investment banker with the girl who loved me from childhood on, and we
have a wonderful life and family.
Or you find out that someone’s Dad went to prison – and your
friend had to drop out to lie about his age to drive a semi, to support his
family.
Or you find out that someone’s parents died, one and then
the other…horribly…and they were on their own from the 9th grade on.
Survived, did it all alone. Graduated early. And made it. Intelligent, wicked
humor, amazing…it’s her truth.
Or you find out that the family skeletons are kinda freaky
in your family, your friend’s families, and so on and so forth. But at this
age, who cares. It is what it is. Blood. You could write about it and make a
million off of the reality of the freakiness. And, it would be a great read.
Conversations.
Of course, they happen when you are all grown up, and have
framed the world through the years. And then, the rose colored glasses come off…and
reality hits you smack in the face. Miss Cherry likens it to a mixture of
amazing Technicolor, with weird, obvious realities mixed back into the shadows.
It’s a pretty, amazing picture in your head – with the essence of Tarantino
splattered everywhere.
You realize that inside every person is the dark and the
light. The good and the bad. You realize that life was an early struggle for
some, and a later struggle for others. You have the difficult conversations
that you don’t walk away from feeling all relevant and peachy. They change
you, make you honest about the realities of your life. Your strengths and
challenges. The colors deepen. Memories are reframed with truth. It's done.
You take off the glasses, and realize…I have actually earned
my space in this world. The Technicolor is beautiful, the colors are amazing,
and there’s an alligator chasing me somewhere in Florida because I went into a
lake with a cardboard box singing “Yellow Submarine”
Made sense at the time.
Life.
No comments:
Post a Comment