Rock of Ages

Not too long ago, I was riding in the car with my young adult daughter and mentioned the Rush concert that was coming to town. She giggled and said she thought it was funny that I knew about bands like Rush. She said it without the least bit of irony.

Anyway. A few weeks ago I watched part of a televised Deep Purple concert on TV. Oh, the memories!

My first favorite album ever was Deep Purple’s Mark I & II. It wasn’t even mine. I used to beg, borrow, and steal it from my older sister and then play it over and over and over again.

My mother used to tell me to “turn that banshee music” down. I remember thinking to myself that if I was ever the mother of teenagers, I would let my children play their records nice and loud. Ear buds weren’t the only things I didn’t foresee. There was a time in the pre-ear bud era—a very brief time—when some of their music sounded suspiciously like disco. The horror!

But one day, a miracle happened. As I sat at my computer, I heard, deep within the bowels of my son’s basement lair, the distant rumbling chords of “Smoke on the Water.” Turns out there was a game called Guitar Hero, and guess whose era those heroes were from?

I opened the basement door. “Is that too loud?” my son called up. Silly boy. He was born in an age when ear buds were the norm, after all. He couldn’t help it.

“No! Turn that music up!” I hollered. I was so proud.

Oh, the memories.

What was your first favorite song/album?

I fit into me now. I have an organic life, finally, not necessarily the one people imagined for me, or tried to get me to have. I have the life I longed for. I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts I don’t love—until a few year ago, I had no idea that you could have cellulite on your stomach—but not only do I get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side. ~Anne Lamott, Plan B Further Thoughts on Faith