The Dark Side

For most of my life I had this memory of my mother being angry most of the time when I was a kid. I can't recall lots of incidents, except one when she was sitting next to me on the piano bench while I practiced. I took piano lessons for eight years, and amazingly never learned how to read straight through nor how to improvise, though I tried to do both at some point. Consider how long I took lessons, and the minimal outcome created, I'm sure I didn't try too hard when I sat at the piano for my requisite 30 minutes every day. So as my mother sat on the bench next to me, seeing me watch the clock and me loathing every measure of music, I'm sure her blood boiled. All I recall is a shriek, and thinking that my mom was possessed.

This was just one incident, and I can't recall any others with this detail, but for most of my life I remembered my mom as being easy to anger. So much so that in college I would speculate with friends that I was probably the way I was—shy, checking how others feel before doing anything—because I spent my childhood trying to tow the line so mom wouldn't explode.

I say that I remember her this way for most of my life because I don't remember he like this anymore. Or, to be more accurate, I still remember it like this, but I'm starting to think my memory is just plain wrong.

I told my mother how I remember her and she simply laughed. She does recall being an angry mom, but it wasn't when I was in childhood. It was when Michelle and I were teen-agers.

Why am I doubting my memory? Because I am now a parent myself. And even though I'm not sitting next to anyone on a piano bench, I'm feeling my blood boil on occasion. Many occasions actually. I've never thought of myself as an angry person, but lately I certainly seem like one.

Which is why it was very nice to do what Mary and I did this weekend.

Mary and I are having our first today. It is our first night away from both kids. All night. Thanks to the grandparents, we have an entire weekend to ourselves.

We headed out to Myre-Big Island State Park, near Albert Lea, MN, in search of fall color. The fall color report at Explore MN said it was peaking there. This may be true, but like most everywhere else the heavy rains and winds that Minnesota and Wisconsin have experienced have stripped most of the leaves from the trees, and the peak is just not that spectacular at Myre-Big, nor is it anywhere really. This photo is about as close to leafs of color that we got (and yes, it was raining this weekend, but we have the gear for that, and it was actually quite nice... after all a weekend without the kids in the rain is better than...)

What is interesting to note is our feelings as we pulled out of the drive way. Mary was sort of teary with the thought of leaving the kids all night. As for me, I was thinking about the best route towards Myre-Bigs.

On our way there we enjoyed listening to podcasts, and one of our favorites is This American Life. The particular podcast from This America Life that we listened to happened to be titled How to Talk to Kids. As usual, most of the acts were intriguing, and a couple got us talking. One in particular was the last act. It was by Dan Savage, titled Use Your Words. In a nut shell, he talks about how sometimes adults just blow up at kids. And he concluded that, in his opinion, kids need to see and hear this at times.

As you can surmise, this struck a chord with me. It was so refreshing to hear that other parents loose it too (including Alex Baldwin, as Dan Savage points out).

"They" say that parenting will change you. And it's true. But what I never thought is that it would changed even the memories of my past. It took becoming a parent for me to realize that a fundamental memory that I had of my childhood is not accurate. Sure my mom was angry. But it wasn't her I'm starting to realize. It was me. Who wouldn't get mad when a kid doesn't listen... for the umteenth time.

It's just odd to think that I'd probably still be perpetuating this memory and how it formed my character if I hadn't gone down the road of having children of my own.

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PS: Regarding Myre-Big Island State Park, we'd recommend the non-electric site 23. Very nice, in the woods, near the lake. (The photo at the top is actually a picture of it at night... kind'a. Our tent is glowing orange on the left. The mess of light is me playing around with my LED flash light while Mary took an extremely long exposure). And the park's backpack sites are accessible by canoe, which we'd like to go back and do some day... with the kids.