70's Joni Mitchell reminds me of mom.
Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, Blue, For the Roses, Court and Spark- if pressed I could draw a passable reproduction of those LP covers and any liner art from memory. After she died I found all those same albums, stored in the same orange crate, among numberless other talismans of my childhood and youth. She wasn't a hoarder exactly, but somehow every memorable object from our life in the other house trailed her to the new place. In much the same way, I discovered while excavating the garage, as every memorable object from my grandmother's and great grandmother's houses trailed her to the new place.
Family historian or family dump, there's not much leeway between them.
I'm sure she identified with the early Joni's freewheeling life and doomed, endless quest for the right guy. But the rootless bohemian gig is easier to pull off when you turn your baby over to the orphanage like Joni. Hitchiking and communes and free love didn't really jibe with parenting a toddler and mom eventually gave it up and crash-landed us at the the Los Osos house my grandfather bought cheap, uninsurable because it had no foundation.
I like to think she always wanted to take care of me, it was just the execution that tripped her up.
Joni eventually found another direction, teaming up with Jaco Pastorius and Charles Mingus in his final days, liberating herself from old expectations and pressures in the freedom of jazz. Hopefully mom did to, at the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment