autobiography

If I knew then – May 3, 1966

 

Diary May 3, 1966_edited-1

When I was fifteen, a year was an eternity – long enough for me to become “a completely different person”.  I’ve always had a morbid inclination to nostalgia. Upon turning ten years old, my diary entry lamented the fact my age would never be a single digit again.  In this entry, I mournfully reflect on where I was less than eleven months ago – “Gone forever, now.” (Or was this a premonition? True Fact: Jefferson Jr. High is literally gone forever, now, razed to build office buildings.)

Time accelerated as I aged. I wish years still crawled like they did when I was fifteen but instead they fly. Preferring Paul McCartney to Mark Lindsay is no longer grounds to dissolve a friendship.

One thing remains the same – my fascination (some might use the word obsession) with the past. Why else would I blog about old diary entries?

It was a thrill to connect with a few other people (Rebecca Dormire LaRussa and Robin Rutan Russell) who lived through the momentous election of 1964 (not Goldwater-Kennedy, the Jefferson Junior High election for student body officers.) This could never happen without Facebook; the fact that it happened so easily, with my very first diary-blog, reassures me this effort is worth it. With luck, I’ll connect with other people whose paths crossed mine. (Hopefully, these diary entries won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. I could be a catty little bitch in the privacy of my diary.)

 

If I Knew Then…. 4/30/64

IF I KNEW THEN… April 30, 1964

On this day in 1964, I was a seventh grade dork, running for Class Secretary.

April 30 1964

 

No vote

 Although I knew that I would lose, I hoped for a miracle. Alas, it was not to be. When the ballots were tallied, Robin was the new Class Secretary and I was the unpopular loser. All of my construction-paper campaign posters, the hours devoted to honing my speech, came to naught. My life would be forever tainted by this humiliating loss.

Another moment in time I didn't think I would survive.
Another moment in time I didn’t think I would survive.

But guess what? If I listed my top hundred terrible, tragic experiences, this crushing defeat wouldn’t make it. It might not make the top two hundred. The ache in my gut and crying jags didn’t last a week. In less than a month, it just didn’t matter that I wasn’t elected 8th grade Class Secretary.  While it’s true I never campaigned for anything again, that’s not much of a loss – for me or mankind. The day it happened it hurt like hell, but it just wasn’t important in the overall scheme of my life.

I have been blessed with so much in my life.
I have been blessed with so much in my life.

I’ll try to remember this next time I lose something I desperately want and can’t live without. The truth is, I will survive. I’m still here. And before I know it, it just won’t matter.

My Top Secret Diary

This will be my format for upcoming blog posts. Once or twice a week, I’ll post a diary entry from between 1964 and the present, a photo if I can find one, and my thoughts on what it all meant given the benefit of hindsight. Diary selections will correspond to the date the blog is posted, but will not be chronological. I have thousands of hand-written diary entries – I might as well use them for something.

 

 

51 YEARS BETWEEN CHAD & JEREMY CONCERTS



Clippings

My diary entry for February 21, 1965 (the two clippings above were pasted into the diary.) In my defense, I was only 13 years old.

Diary 2-21-1965

Not only was I overly fond of exclamation points, in ’65 my life was a long seriously bad hair day. (See 8th grade school picture below, taken on what I then believed to be a good hair day.)  

School Picture

But I digress. Last night – slightly more than 51 years after their performance at the Hyatt Music Theater, I saw Chad and Jeremy at McCabe’s guitar store in Santa Monica – a considerably smaller and calmer venue.  No one fainted during their highly entertaining show which included renditions of two of my favorite Chad and Jeremy songs – “A Summer Song” and “Distant Shores”.  Here they are on stage. Sorry about the bad photo – our cell phones were supposed to be off.

C&J Concert

Even though we saw the second show, which started at 10 PM and didn’t end until midnight, they stuck around afterwards to talk to fans and sign autographs. I got one too.

Concert4

C&JConcert3

Music is the closest I’ll get to time travel. When familiar – usually melancholy – chords cast their spell, 51 years dissolve. Contrary to the title of Chad and Jeremy’s first USA hit, yesterday is never gone. Long buried memories and feelings spring to life. My world-weary adult self morphs into the yearning dork I used to be. How much of a dork? Another diary entry from 1965.

Diary 1965_edited-1

As angst-ridden as I was at 13, I miss the passionate highs and lows. Where did all that intensity go?

I didn’t scream deliriously at last night’s show like I did in 1965, but I remembered how it felt. Exhilarating. 1965 was a very good year.

song

As long as there’s music, I don’t have to say goodbye to anything.  If a band you used to love passes anywhere near your town, it’s definitely worth the trip.

 

Losing You

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Losing You_edited-1
 Randy Newman “Losing You”

Introducing his brilliant song “Losing You”, Randy Newman explains it was inspired by parental grief at losing a son.  While it’s far more typical and expected for children to lose their parents, the lyric speaks to me. My mother was ninety years and four months old when she died on Saturday, March 12th. Assuming I live as long, there still won’t be enough time to get over losing Geneva Alayne Knutsen.

This is not to imply she was a saint or that our relationship was perfect. If anything, as the eldest daughter – and the one who most clearly carries her genetic profile – I was a miniature version of her and her expectations of herself were high. I know because she shared every one of them with me – a lot.

As a rebellious adolescent, I fought to quiet her voice. Smile. Be friendlier. Ugh, look at those fingernails! You’ve gained weight. You’d look so much prettier with a little make-up. Is that what you’re wearing to church? Nobody likes to vacuum, Kathleen, but we all have to do things we don’t like to do. You’d better get rich or marry rich because you’re going to need a maid. Straighten your shoulders. Smile.

It was enough to drive a sensitive soul crazy. It was more than enough to obscure the motivation behind these advisory bulletins. I heard a meddling mother picking on me, I didn’t see it was her love for me overflowing – far too much love to maintain a respectful distance.

She got too close; we bruised each other. We disappointed. I said things I regret; I carelessly broke a few of her dreams because they weren’t mine. We hurt each other. You’d think I couldn’t wait to escape her voice but it was never an option. Her voice is my voice as my face holds her face.

Beneath the admonitions – Smile. Be friendlier. Straighten your shoulders – lives the real message, flowing like a river. I love you, I love you, I love you. I want the world for you. You’re my world. She’s the enduring voice and breath in my world. How could I ever get over losing her?

Sunday at Forest Lawn

 

2016-02-21 14.39.19

 

Today would have been my father’s 90th birthday.  To celebrate and remember him, my sisters and our children freed my mother (also 90) from the assisted nursing facility where she now resides for an afternoon outing to Forest Lawn.

I’d passed this road many times before when my Dad sat behind the wheel. We’d be driving home from a Lakers or Dodgers game and suddenly he’d detour down Forest Lawn Drive to point out an empty plot he called “our retirement home”.  Perched on a hill under a sprawling oak, it featured a view of a little white church not unlike the rural Iowa parish of his youth.  Usually, there was a cool breeze.

He talked about it like other people talk about vacation resorts. He’d heard good things and looked forward to seeing for himself.  No fears, no regrets. An eternal optimist, he expected even this final destination to exceed his expectations. He smiled like a young boy driving toward Disneyland, not a man in the winter of his life contemplating a field of tombstones.

At the time, my sisters and I were a little creeped out by these macabre drives past his future grave. At the time, the concept of a world without him was simply unthinkable.  Intellectually I knew all things come to an end but aren’t there exceptions to every rule? To me, he was so much larger than life that surely he could beat death too.

I was wrong. He did not.

Eleven months after we tossed dirt and flowers into open earth on that knoll, I still can’t accept that he’s gone. I wait for signs and look for portents, tangible proof he hasn’t really left us.

My sister had a dream last week.  Shaky writing appeared on a blank piece of paper. It spelled out:

I LOVE YOU. I  AM IN GOD’S CARE

I choose to believe.

Vance1

SONGS OF SOLACE

 

kkkk18

My Nuclear Family in Innocent Times – Kathleen, Geneva, Joyce, Vance and Janet

On the morning of March 18, my sister Janet called and told me my father passed away earlier that morning. When my daughter and I got into our car to drive to the assisted nursing facility where my mother now resides and my sisters would be gathering, the very first notes of a song called I Believe (from the Broadway hit Spring Awakening) pierced the car. The words are simple. “I believe – All will be forgiven – I believe – There is love in heaven – Peace and joy be with them – Harmony and wisdom – Oh I believe.” A chorus repeats these words for the duration of the song. Before that day, I considered it one of the least memorable songs from the play but on that desolate early March morning, I was a river of tears all the way to the retirement home. Now, it moves me every time I hear it.

As a teenager, I used to think the songs that played on the car radio held personal messages for me from God, fate or the universe. I outgrew this naïve (and incredibly narcissistic) idea eventually, but it resurfaced when I Believe was the first song to penetrate my shell-shocked grief. In fairness, I had been playing the Spring Awakening CD in the car, making the odds of hitting I Believe significantly higher than on the radio. Still – the CD is about an hour long, of which I Believe takes up all of 2:31. Intellectually, I know I’m constructing meaning out of a mere coincidence. Emotionally, I choose to hear it as a message. (My father was a Lutheran pastor, which is why those particular words resonated so strongly)

A couple weeks ago my sister Joyce gave me a CD she called SONGS OF SOLACE – music that expressed the grief that accompanies a great loss and the perfect soundtrack for a good long cry. These are the songs she selected, which I recommend to anyone who has recently suffered a loss and – like me – finds music helps to process painful emotions.

I’ll comment on some of the other songs in another blog since this is running long. If you know a great song about grief, I’d welcome suggestions for a SONGS OF SOLACE 2.

SONGS OF SOLACE PLAYLIST

  1. I Believe…..from the cast of “Spring Awakening”
  2. Sand and Water……Beth Nielsen Chapman
  3. Silent House…..Dixie Chicks
  4. Flock of Birds…..Coldplay
  5. Beam Me Up……Pink
  6. Brothers in Arms……Dire Straits
  7. Company…..Ricki Lee Jones
  8. My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose……Eva Cassedy
  9. Quarter Moon……Cheryl Wheeler
  10. How Long Will I Love You…….Ellie Goulding
  11. He Lives in You…..from the cast of “The Lion King”
  12. Leader of the Band…..Dan Fogelberg
  13. Texas Girl at the Funeral of her Father……Randy Newman
  14. 10,000 Miles…….Mary Chapin Carpenter
  15. Further and Further Away……Cheryl Wheeler
  16. Theme from the film, “About Time”
  17. Just a Closer Walk With Thee…..from Dixieland Hymns CD (for Vance)
  18. Bright Side of Down……John Gorka

 

My Values in Fiction

Baby K

MY VALUES IN FICTION

Since I’m going to offer reviews and recommendations, I thought I’d clarify my personal value in fiction. I don’t claim to be an authority on anything except my own personal taste. Your value system is equally valid, even if it’s diametrically opposed to mine.

• I read for entertainment. Story is more important than beautiful language. . That’s not to say I don’t admire the perfect word choice – but without an entertaining story, I won’t keep turning pages.
• I read to answer questions to learn something – what happens next? Questions create suspense and propel me forward. Answers (information) should be revealed slowly to keep me interested.
• The train must leave the station (story must start) fast (preferably immediately). As in screenwriting, start late and leave early.
• Never use two words when you can use one better word. No wasted words ever.
• The best stories involve hard decisions, true dilemmas.
• Use small, concrete physical details in description but make sure they tell the reader something new about the character or story.
• Ask yourself David Mamet’s three questions.
• Why now?
• Who wants what from whom?
• What happens if they don’t get it?
• Remember – everybody has their reasons. Even villains/antagonists.
• Protagonists want something passionately. They are active, as are your verbs.
• While not always necessary in literary fiction, I prefer stories in which protagonists change / arc in a satisfying way. Even a failed epiphany is an epiphany.
• Don’t let characters say “I love you”. Show it in interesting ways.
• In literary short stories, small turning points occur when very minor decisions change everything. For me, this doesn’t work in long fiction.
• Short stories shouldn’t snap shut “like a cheap lock” – allow for ambiguity. It’s good if the reader wonders about the story after reading it.

Forgetting Who I Am

 

Am I the only person this happens to?

  • I read an article about an intense boot camp for dieters where they are forced to exercise all day long and think to myself, “What a great idea! I’ll sign up!” I’ve forgotten who I am.
  • I’m captivated by a jewelry display and reach for my credit card to buy a necklace. I do not wear jewelry because it irritates my skin. I’ve forgotten who I am.
  • I buy an adorable tennis outfit that looks great on me. I have not played tennis since the seventh grade, when I wore my Jr. High PE uniform. I’ve forgotten who I am.

Does this happen to you? When?