Rebel, rebel
The morning run to school, stuck behind a tractor on the A272, blood pressure rising rapidly as Stephen Fry recites 'Winnie the Pooh' for the millionth time. 'I hate pink' growls the six year old from the back seat.
'Punk? You hate punk?' I cry indignantly. (Maybe getting on a bit but we are still in hip rather than hip-replacement territory I hope, we pogoed with the best of them).
'Pink!' she shouted above Mr Fry and the toddler's singing, equally indignant, pointing at her puffa jacket.
'But pink is the navy blue of India, darling.'
'What??'
'It's true - Diana Vreeland said so.' Well, I read it in a book, so it must be true - yes?
How long did it take you to figure out that the written word wasn't gospel (unless of course it was among the world's all time best sellers - Bible, Koran, Chairman Mao etc - and touchingly 'The Little Prince')? Right up until university, it was more a question of 'appreciating' literature and art rather than pulling it to pieces. By the time I studied philosophy, then art history, Post-Modernism was in, and deconstruction was the rage. Perhaps it still is? I always found it rather disappointing at some level. There is something comforting about just being able to say 'I like that painting' without having to deconstruct why you are right or wrong to do so. I love instinct, go with outmoded ideas like 'genius'. To me, you have a gut feeling that some things, some people just are exceptional - like night and day, black and white. Who would you put in this category? Do you still think it is valid?
'Punk? You hate punk?' I cry indignantly. (Maybe getting on a bit but we are still in hip rather than hip-replacement territory I hope, we pogoed with the best of them).
'Pink!' she shouted above Mr Fry and the toddler's singing, equally indignant, pointing at her puffa jacket.
'But pink is the navy blue of India, darling.'
'What??'
'It's true - Diana Vreeland said so.' Well, I read it in a book, so it must be true - yes?
How long did it take you to figure out that the written word wasn't gospel (unless of course it was among the world's all time best sellers - Bible, Koran, Chairman Mao etc - and touchingly 'The Little Prince')? Right up until university, it was more a question of 'appreciating' literature and art rather than pulling it to pieces. By the time I studied philosophy, then art history, Post-Modernism was in, and deconstruction was the rage. Perhaps it still is? I always found it rather disappointing at some level. There is something comforting about just being able to say 'I like that painting' without having to deconstruct why you are right or wrong to do so. I love instinct, go with outmoded ideas like 'genius'. To me, you have a gut feeling that some things, some people just are exceptional - like night and day, black and white. Who would you put in this category? Do you still think it is valid?
I loved the idea of Philosophy. There's something essential and pure about it. Where I grew up every moorland pub in the 80's had at least one Joan Jett look alike, (perhaps she looked more like Joan after a few pints), well past the age to be chatting up young farmers at the bar before fleecing them playing pool. I could not wait to get away and study, ideally in Paris or Oxford/Cambridge at a push. I think it was Miss Scarlet who blogged beautifully about Hard Rock hairspray the other day - one look at this video and it just takes you back to those days, to every provincial disco in Everytown - the smell of cheap perfume, dry ice and raging hormones. Now it makes you feel strangely nostalgic (how do we have any hair left after what we did to it?) - then I wanted to live in every capital city in the world. Best laid plans and all that.
This is French Philosopher Bernard Henri Levy - my tutors did not, sadly as it turns out, come from the same school. To me, philosophy is sexy, like rock and roll - the root of all things, it can take you anywhere. I wanted answers so badly as a teenager, practically inhaled any book I could get my hands on - stormed through the British philosophers, and found a soul mate with Gaston Bachelard. Sadly provincial English philosophers are less rock and roll (unlike M Levy). Now in Britain we have the charming Mr Alain de Botton (but he is Swiss) - I love his free-roaming meditations on everything from status anxiety to architecture, Proust and love. But at university the lack of answers, the arrogance of teenage undergraduate philosophers who thought they knew it all drove me up the wall. When I recall my tutors it was like they had been ensnared by some tweed spinning spider, entombed in their grey studies, bound to their armchairs by their hacking jackets and bow ties, all passion spent. But I fell in love, moved to London, switched courses - and never looked back. Maybe I'll finally do a PhD in Aesthetics once we retire.Were you rebellious? Hands up who stayed out too late, drove too fast, bleached their hair (or dyed it black), smoked Gitanes, fell in and out of love ... and now we have it all coming back to us in spades. I worked hard at school, had fun yet was Head Girl, but my mother still says of the six year old 'Mmm .. you were challenging too.' Perhaps it's karma - what goes around comes around. It's our turn now to be the worried parents at home sitting up in our PJ's. We have a few years to go yet, but already the tables are subtly turning. We are the embarrassing ones - the hugs that are shrugged off, the ones whose pleasant requests are ignored, and then told to stop singing to our music. We all know how children make your heart explode with love on a daily basis, but nobody tells you how much they knock your confidence. Where are the books to tell you how to do this? Where are the books to tell you how to hold on to your free spirit and the best of you while letting someone you love like life itself blossom, grow, and go? How do you manage that juggling act where you fade into the sidelines enough to not overshadow a small human being finding their way while retaining enough strength and happiness to be able to help them, be your best, and emerge resilient once they go off to their own lives?
When I was pregnant, I must have kept Amazon going with deliveries to our P O Box in Spain - there was no family, no ante-natal classes, no NCT. Everything I learnt about preparing for a baby, giving birth and childcare I owe to Miriam Stoppard and a really scary video that showed everything. Everything. We hid behind cushions on the sofa going 'Noooo! That's not possible!' By that point it was a bit late in the day to rebel and say 'Nope. Not me. I am Not Doing That'. Just today, our daughter said to me: 'Mama, doesn't it hurt when a baby comes out of you?' and I found myself saying 'Oh a bit, but at the end you have this beautiful baby so you forget all about it.' Did you? Have you? The pilot famously said he'd never go through labour again. Every single woman I know lied through her teeth before the first, then said 'Ohmigawd, I know ...' Afterwards. What are the little white lies we tell to get through each day?
TODAY'S PROMPT: So, were you Rizzo or Sandy? Good boy or bad boy? If they invented the teenager in the 50's and 60's where did that leave the generations who came after? Are we the ones who refuse to grow up, the Peter Pans? Or are you quite happy growing older? Is age in the mind? Why not take your journal and have a think about people you have been drawn to - perhaps young people with 'old souls' or older friends who have retained an incredible lust for life (like dear Iggy), or rebellious teenagers (as Prince said - 'act your age not your shoe size'?) Who are the great teenage rebels who influenced you - at school I had James Dean pinned up over my desk, peeping out of his 'sweater'. Others had 'the boulevard of broken dreams'. What do you remember about being a teenager - why do you think we are all so extreme and melancholy? Or did you cruise through? Do you think as the population demographic shifts and there will be many more 'golden oldies' than teenagers, our attitudes will shift too? Is the rebellion, the gilded beauty of youth It - or is the best yet to come?
