The door has just slapped shut behind me and already I am shouting the news of my latest find, toeing off my shoes and undoing the paper parcel I’ve been carrying under my arm. My final sentence, delivered in breathless excitement is the price - only forty-five pence! My father however, looks up from his paper with the critical eye of a perfectionist and wants to know more before he will commit to an enthusiastic response: “Let’s have a look at that seam.”
It’s true. There is a thick, ugly smear of amber coloured resin which bisects the young girl and her cloak. It’s also tricky to guess what the original colour of the statue would be, since the overall effect is an oily grime and my hands still feel mealy just from handling her in the shop. The antique store owner, a Mr. Corrin, is a friend of mine if that is what you call the relationship between a fourteen year old girl and a 76 year old respectively. Mr.Corrin is tall, stately and wears a never ending series of silky cravats. His thick, wavy white hair is always combed straight back and he has recently confided to my mother (over a cup of tea in the shop, served in vintage china cups) that it was refreshing to see such a girl as myself, always polite, well spoken and genuinely interested in antiques. “Not like some of them around here,” he intoned darkly, patting his hair in place with an exaggerated shudder.
My memories of David Bowie and my years as a teen in 1970s Britain cannot be separated from one another; they are stitched tightly together like a tapestry and as I discovered this week have not lost any of their potency.
I actually watched my hands shake when I read the news of his passing and have not been able to write about it till today.
My much older brother (whom I very fondly call ‘Spock’ ) took great enjoyment in regularly skewering my admiration of Bowie at the time although interestingly, this “phase” would continue into my adulthood since this was Not. A. Puppy Luu-uuv). Spock would frequently suggest that if Bowie was really the talent I claimed he was, he would not have to resort to the ‘gimmickry’ of different personas etc.
(Let’s just say that my brother was not entirely comfortable with Bowie’s sparkling, off-the-shoulder body stocking …)
Years later I stopped arguing with him or anyone else because if you are asking this kind of question you have either never listened to the music or, you just didn’t get it.
In which case, I feel badly for you - but cannot explain it.
To me Bowie was a poet, a brilliant, self-taught intellectual (that crisp, almost Royal annunciation wasn’t acquired on the streets of Brixton) and despite the glittery beginning I absolutely lusted after him. His voice could bring me to my knees (the earnest phrasing, the lingering over a syllable) and I listened over and over, often deep into the night, creating my own anthems, hearing something different each time.
I was really rattled this Christmas when I suddenly realized that I could scale back the baking considerably. I was also more suspicious than relieved. The need for a pyramid of mincemeat tarts, hamper-sized bags of potato chips and a massive raft of San Pellegrino usually associated with the weeks leading up to the holidays would just not be required this year; worse still, even though I have had neither of my boys living at home for more than a year now, I have somehow been unconsciously assuming that the situation was temporary and that soon everything would revert to its Normal State.
Whatever that is.
Christmas is a bit tricky too because there’s no one at home and then everyone returns home for a day or two, here and there, maybe dropping in for a dinner just long enough to reignite all the same maternal brain-patterns as before: sock donuts may be left tucked into the couch, fancy Christmas hand towels are hung up with the pattern on the inside or not hung up at all and why doesn’t someone text if they won’t be back till 3:30am when they are staying over …
I’ve recently taken to listening to internet radio in my kitchen, often late at night with a glass of wine and I am freshly astonished how music that I have literally not heard for years can immediately evoke a feeling I have left alone (or in some cases been strenuously avoiding) almost at once. Yes I know this is not profound but it’s still rattling to be transported to that exact place in time when I first experienced the hornet’s sting of unrequited love, abject, soul twisting misery and of course a ‘70s haircut. (Those last two may have been connected come to think of it …)
