The movie of my childhood--and there will be one, of course, since I can not have suffered so much WASP-y angst in vain and my need for attention has yet to recede--will start with the sound of a needle being lowered onto a record and finding its groove, a few strains of music starting and then the swell of something dramatic, though I'm not sure what.

it will then cut to my father, drink in one hand the other conducting, wavering through the house explaining the beauty and depth of whatever the music is...

There will be a scene in a car, my brother sitting shotgun, my sister and I maintaining an uncomfortable distance in the back, my father continually boosting the volume on the woefully pathetic stereo of the VW Rabbit or the Nissan Maxima, depending how old we are at the time. Dad will be quizzing us: composer? symphony? movement? conductor? We must know the answer or the manic high may switch to manic low, or worse his driving will become erratic and scary. My siblings claim I was spared most of these quizzes, which may well be true, but I remember enough.

There will be a Christmas scene. Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium blaring through the house, blasting us out of bed. My father espousing that is couldn't be christmas without the Weihnachts! We all refrain from mentioning that it isn't Christmas, since we fairly early on decided that Christmas was with mom. Christmas with dad was the 23rd or 30th most years. But still, Weihnachtsoratorium throughout the house.

There will be scenes contrasting the silent elegance of my mother's home with the loud, busy chaos of my father's. The immaculately clean Boston house I grew up in, where dust could not be found and music is rarely heard (my mother, being deaf in one ear, finds it hard to hear with music in the background. This does not prevent her from loving going to the BSO or opera, or from playing the piano) versus the dirty, cluttered, music-filled house of my father's.

There will be a scene of my father's various boyfriends/housemates/friends/other random connections wandering in and out, occaisionally trying to get him to listen to Madonna or Chris Isacc, but Mozart will triumph.

At points the music will switch from records to CDs, with no stop at casettes (except for in the car) as my father embraced digital recordings long before CDs were popular or cheap. He always found the cheapest gas, only bought food that was on sale, scammed meals off friends, and never met a discount he didn't like, but music, somehow, was an exception.

I think it is not surprising that my sister married a lawyer who is at heart a singer and that my brother lives with a dancer. My friends remind me that I have always said my perfect man will take my to the symphony and apreciate Sondheim. Of course, my perfect man needs to be straight, which has made this quest a little harder.

This may explain why I was so enamoured of the boy who took me to see Itzhak Perlman play at Ravinia for our first date. any sort of relationship was doomed for other reasons, but he brought red wine and took me to listen to music under the stars.

My father is, I think, very proud to have raised three music snobs and two fag hags.

There will be another car scene. My brother introducing us to ani difranco because he so admired her finger-picking guitar playing. My 14-year old female identity will cling to the lyrics, my father will tolerate it briefly, but she too will ultimately lose out.

My brother's status as golden child was confirmed not when he chose to attend my father's alma mater (though that helped) but when he increased my father's knowledge of Dmitri Shostakovich

The movie of my childhood will clearly be very loud. And only watchable in surround sound.
- posted by Heidi @ 11:13 AM