2 posts tagged “childhood”
Had dinner with some friends last night, and by some astounding miracle, they had not heard that Michael Jackson was dead. They are neither Americans, but of course, Jackson had been iconic in their youth as well.
As we talked about it, I lamented that his childhood was so messed up and wondered, "What might he have done if he hadn't had such a controlling father?"
My friends disagreed, saying maybe he wouldn't have done anything great without his father to browbeat him and his brothers. Mozart, they proffered, was another example of this.
Except...what might Mozart have done if his father hadn't been an emotionally abusive asshole?
After all, plenty of artists do just fine with loving parents. In the two biographies published of him in his lifetime, there's no suggestion that Michelangelo had a miserable childhood and he turned out some amazing art.
I dunno? Is it true that misery makes better art? Or is it that talent attracts misery?
What's your favorite scent?
July 3, 1977, 3 am
Dried on the clothesline and stored in an old cedar chest, the bedsheets smell like bleach and sunshine and the inside of a squirrel's nest after spring cleaning.
It's going to rain. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. Maybe not until September, but the promise of it hangs in the air.
The wind kicks up, blows over the open fields to the north of the house, across the back yard and patio, then into my bedroom window. It carries the smell of ripening wheat, diesel from the train that went by the grain elevator an hour ago, fresh cut grass, lilacs, and the raw and pungent mixture of tomato plants and my sleepless grandfather's pipe.
