I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged this. I love children (now) but I'm not sure what I would have done posed with the requests I made as a kid. Despite household decor decisions which I began to take over more and more as I grew older ( I bought my parents stained glass ceiling fan pulls when I was twelve... what twelve year old does that!?) my madness was generally contained to my own little world, my bedroom. My Mom says that ever since I was born I have been a "whirling dervish," when I was up I was spinning around at high speeds and then all of a sudden she would notice that the house had been silent and she would know that I had passed out somewhere mid-step for a cat nap.
In one of my favorite photos of myself as a child, I am in this shiny gold party dress with a big bow in my hair, all dolled up and passed out cold in a big (big enough to hold my tiny 6 year old self anyways) box with tons of my stuffed animals and dress-up clothes surrounding me stuffed in the box. Wherever I may have been going in my imagination I was certainly prepared for the voyage, clearly very practical from an early age.
Though my major life interests have changed over time I have always been concerned about aesthetics, in my home, in my closet, in my imaginary dream boat or what have you. I wanted to be a "cocktail waitress astronaut." Seriously, that is what I told my teacher in kindergarten on my 'When I Grow Up' poster. It's still in my basement, I have proof. My Mom asked me why I wanted to be a cocktail waitress in space (come on... as if it wasn't obvious) and I explained that OBVIOUSLY I wanted to go to space but I wanted to wear pretty little dresses. Where I developed the association that cocktail waitresses wear tiny dresses at the age of 5, I don't even want to know. However, if someone offered to send me to space in a couture LBD I think I'd jump at the opportunity so I really think I was quite in touch with myself. It wasn't until later that I started developing my current passions (in addition to space and fashion of course).
I used to hate people. Really, everyone, all of humanity, I was an 8 year old raging against all of mankind. Why so much hatred from a generally happy pint-sized blonde child? Ferngully. I was obsessed with that movie and if anyone has ever seen it they will recall that it is about how humans are destroying the rainforest and running the faeries out of their homes. Well as an 8 year old girl, faeries clearly trumped humanity, and I became ashamed to be a part of the enemy team. I started talking to trees in our backyard and I would listen to the birds in the woods and pretend that I could understand them. I used to think I could read my cat's mind. Delusional behavior or normal child behavior? Well I was fine with it, and I'm sure my parents were just grateful to have some peace in the house while I was outside for hours and hours cursing my species and trying to commune with nature.
I was on a big eco kick for most of my childhood and I am still obsessive about recycling and turning off lights and saving energy. I tried being vegan once. That lasted a week. But I am one of those weird non-vegetarian vegetarians who eats poultry and fish, so half the world considers you a veg, but then the rrreeeaaall veggies get all righteous and cast you out of the club.
Anyways, it really was not until much later that I started accepting my fate as a human and even more impossibly, caring about other people.
Not exactly the college essay one would expect from a Psych Major.
It will all make sense later, I promise. I've always been attracted to the extremes. I wasn't going to just fall into complacent love of my brethren as a whole. No, my compassion fell only to those I felt were truly interesting. It's all part of my life aesthetic, things in extremes, things that are entirely unique (re: stained glass ceiling fan pulls) and what is more unique and more extreme than a human being? Well.... at least all the really interesting ones, who I have generally found to be kids.
Whirling dervishes with secret boxes of gold dresses and hidden treasures and grand adventures planned. Living breathing turquoise walls.
This quote from Kerouac sums it up for me,
"'They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"'
"'They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"'
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