I was digging through my box of memories a couple of weeks ago, sifting through letters from friends, track and field ribbons from elementary school, a Christmas mug whose paint is all but worn off of Santa’s face which begs the question as to why I keep it, an autograph book filled with promises on the last day of school, a harmonica, my dad’s camera which recorded his experiences in World War II while based in India with the RCAF, a collection of 45 rpm records with the likes of the The Jackson 5, Edwin Starr’s War, and Spice, an eclectic collection. At the bottom of the box was a cassette tape with no label on it. I had no means to play the tape until I could borrow what has become an antique – a Walkman – and give it a spin.
The hour-long tape consisted mostly of songs I recorded off my transistor radio while I snuggled dreamily on my bed, the result being a muffled version of The Fifth Dimension’s Aquarius and Let The Sunshine In, Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, Chicago, BJ Thomas, Simon and Garfunkel, songs I deemed worthy of capturing for history’s sake. Then my voice popped up on the recording, talking to no one that I could discern. I knew it was my voice, yet I didn’t remember the person who was speaking and singing, pretending she might be some sort of recording star, which is laughable at best. What was shocking, or maybe surprising to me as I listened, was the sound of my voice, the tone of it. The voice was filled with innocence and was the voice of the child I used to be. I have a hard time remembering her. When I look back in time to remember family or friends, I am doing it in my current form, but those individuals are their past tense version. When I see those who qualify as old friends, they are immediately transformed before my eyes into who they were when we were busy becoming who we became. As soon as they speak or laugh, the magic happens, and I see them in their youthful perfection no matter what vision stands before me. I’ve never been able to do that for myself. I don’t remember her, or she is someone I used to know, someone who was still becoming who she was going to be. And … it got me thinking.
Interestingly, when I began writing about “becoming”, I stumbled upon two events that were significant for me on this day February 7th, and of course, significant for many others. In 1964, February 7th was the first time the Beatles arrived in New York City to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show two days later. I was too young to realize the significance of their performance as I was busy listening to the records of Oklahoma and My Fair Lady and South Pacific and Camelot, memorizing every song which my sister and I belted out, a hairbrush for a microphone. On this occasion, the Beatles were at the start of becoming one of the most significant musical groups certainly of my generation. I remember the mayhem, so much screaming. Had these girls lost their minds?
In 1812, February 7th was the birth of Charles Dickens who would become one of the most memorable authors spanning many generations, reaching me long after his death. Dickens is labelled by some as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. We like to do that, like to categorize people and circumstances, especially in terms of disasters, hyperbole always at the ready. Charles Dickens honed his craft during a time when life was precarious, and his characters rose out of the challenges Dickens faced, experiences that shaped his period of “becoming”.
The truth is I’m not sure we ever stop becoming, our whole life spent dodging and darting around danger, adapting to our changing bodies and the changing world around us. I wasn’t always kind to child me, thinking her too small and often only half of what I thought she should be. And when I heard her voice, that unkindness flooded to the surface until I could sit back and soften my perspective of her. She may not have been fierce enough or strong enough or bold enough, but she was still becoming. We all are.
wendistewart@live.ca
