thinking back

As much as junior high was a horror show in many ways, strangely I am feeling many good thoughts about it in retrospect. There were a lot of great bands just springing up and that's what I remember most. But it's something else, so hard to explain. There was something really powerful ïn the air" just don't know how else to describe it. Something sexual. When we left Chicago for NYC when I was thirteen my mother was regretting that she'd made a hasty decision and given up her independence, and my sister wasn't born and knows nothing about this, never knew things any other way, but I remember. That must be why we're so different. But I never once regretted leaving Chicago. I felt absolutely......my shrinks and school counselors would tell me how "traumatized" and messed up I was by being upsurped out of my environment, i.e. Chicago, and my parents' divorce....but I am telling you I felt no remorse whatsoever about leaving there, and that Republican school I was in. I don't miss the kids, black and white, who ganged up on me after school and against whom I was forced to fight, or the ones who made comments about my protest of animal experiments on cosmetics. To be honest, people resented me because I'm smart and so is my family. We read and didn't watch TV for the most part. When I have kids, they won't watch TV. What's the point? I saw through all the layers. That threatens people.



I knew NYC was the city for me when we moved into Sonny's West Village apartment. People may think....I didn't grow up with two parents and a white picket fence atmosphere and I certainly view the world differently from people who did, but I don't consider myself "damaged" because of that. I don't see how growing up with parents who have to stay together, like my sister and mother did, is healthy either. Or in a household where the woman is under a man's rule. This is part of what Bush calls "family values...."



But....there was something really positive about my first year in NYC, full of hope. I made friends I still have to this day. There was a very strong connection. I live in this town for a reason; I must belong here. I need to live on the coast. Some of the people from those days, I still feel close to them even though I don't see them. I do look back on that period all the time though. Certain people I had feelings for, I really believed in. I still do.