Lunacy

(Self) Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, 1976.

When I was little my family called me Crazy Girl. Which is not so different than now except back then there was no underlying uh oh of the actual, a prescription for anxiety meds in my name. Back then Crazy Girl was just one striped sock short of an all calico ensemble--this was the days of prime time Little House on the Prairie, mind you, and I've always been partial to bonnets. And so I wore polka dotted scarves over a red velour top (my favorite), rainbow sneakers with alligator shoelaces, dolphin shorts, tube tops without any actual boobs to squash beneath said toob, skirts over skirts to make them twirl, boots, sandals, plaids, floral, ditsy, shawls with pom poms, my very small and short life trimmed in rick rack, and all on a Tuesday just because. THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS LIKE NO BUSINESS I KNOW! This was before The Great School Plays of '81 through '85 when I was quite unceremoniously cast as Extra #Nothing, back when I was still certain of my stardom and out-Ethel Merman'ed Ethel Merman, throwing my arms in the air as if I just didn't care because I didn't, pitch perfect mezzo-soprano something or other on a seven year old girl who knew all the words and made up the rest. I cut my own bangs. Pattern check! My mom would call each morning to see just what she was sending to school. I loved to bake from scratch but believed in the fiber of eggshells.

At some point--I don't know when--I grew up. Or out of it. Perhaps it was standing in the way back row of the chorus in Annie Get Your Gun when I realized that no matter how high up I threw my arms the audience still wouldn't see me, that stripes and plaids simply don't match in a world loud with so many people. And so I stopped wearing velour, bonnets, and when I finally did get boobs I pulled a too-large shirt out with my fingers at the hem so that no one would see and hunched my shoulders but not too much because I had read Deenie. I mean, god! Can you imagine? A tube top? Gross! I baked cakes from Duncan Hines.

(And then came the years when I tried to reclaim the pattern, my early 20's with the pleather pants and platform shoes and the pleather pants. Oh god, did I mention the pleather pants? Life's too short to wear white socks! I once not-so-famously was never quoted as saying, only I still matched striped sock to striped sock, and a few years later came the anxiety meds.)

As I write this I am wearing jeans and a grey turtleneck sweater. Black bra, undies, inexplicable green socks but only because I am wearing boots and you cannot see them and I slept in them--the socks--and I am lazy. Cute sweater, a girl at the grocery store told me this morning, and it is cute, if you like grey. And I do because why not? Why wouldn't I? Who doesn't like grey after all?

She doesn't, that's who. Zoey. She doesn't like grey, or matching. She doesn't like her pale pink shirt, only the fuschia one; she likes headbands and wings, the color yellow, fairy dust, Chapstick, masks, tails, clickety clack shoes and her Shrinky Dink necklace. She doesn't get why she can't wear her heart pajamas over her pants to school. She really doesn't like being shushed.

It is very hard not to think that is me sitting there wearing leopard ears, not to think everything about her is just me some very odd years later. She has my cheeks, I know, my lips, my movements; I watch her as if staring at a mirror sometimes which is stupid, dangerous, a luxury of ego, a missed blink and everything, can't stop--but she is so pretty! And fast (so fast). Because while she is my daughter, my girl, she is her own crazy, strawberry glasses, cowgirl boots and a pink balloon. And it is my job now to simply watch her without the glare of my own glass reflection that is not there as she either sings and holds on, or lets go.