the beginning of the end of innocence
There is a point in time where we all change. We learn the world isn't what we thought it was... that people lie, talk the talk, deceive, use, manipulate, that life isn't fair. My friend's, mr and mrs. boss (they called each other boss) told me when I reached the age of 30 they would tell me the big secret of life. Never mind the fact that P. was just a few years older than me... but that Mr. Boss was 15 years older than her... so maybe there was something he knew that I didn't know yet. I really thought I was an adult in my 20's - after all my mother had three babies by the time she was 25.When I hit 30 they told me: "There is no difference between right and wrong in this world."
Of course I knew this... really....after all I was a child during the watergate years!
This truth is really something people learn early in life... its survival after all. One fall several years ago I asked a number of artist friends to write or tell their stories about this truth... to tell me when their world changed, when it was different than it was the day before. Some told stories of the realization of racism, sex, justice and hipocracy. Some learned they were adopted. Others learned that friends of their parents thought of them as sexual objects - whatever.
The apples above represent these stories... all fruit from the tree of knowledge. Please tell us your story, the time you lost your innocence... for art, for truth, for redemption. You can post it anonymously if you want. Truth is truth, regardless of the writer.
Labels: c'est la vie, time, vice
posted by "" at 10/06/2006 05:39:00 PM
4 Comments:
great thought provoking post, dd. something i really need to think on..
I guess, I think of loosing innocence as a gradual process. Perhaps there are levels of innocence. The innocence of a child, the innocence of a teen, young adult and, err, the more mature person. Perhaps loosing innocence is not only looking at life and realizing what is right or wrong with it, but a gradual realization of ones imperfections and strengths.
-I could talk about my dad dieing when I was 7.
-the realization of the effects of thalidomite
-watching the news as a child of the 60s of students protests
-waking up at night listening to my German aunt die when I was 9
-starting to question christianity by 11
-seeing the movie Sacco and Vancetti
-my first boyfriend
-DECIDING NOT TO BE so awfully SHY ANYMORE at 19.
something I still work at. but that decision made a real difference in my life.
-the death of a several cousins and a sibling
-marriage
-having babies
-teaching
opps, maybe i should turn this into a post....
and of course the realization that i keep running out of time.....
gotta go pick up a kid.....:)
you know who
DD:
When I was in my twenties, Mom prepared a family tree for me as a marriage gift. She included information that our ancestors were purportedly the Earl and Countess of Harrowsby. At that time, the Internet was not available to search genealogy like it is today. Out of curiosity, I recently googled the Earl and uncovered that I am undoubedly not related in any manner whatsoever to the Earl and Countess of Harrowsby.
Family mythology is endlessly confusing for me since I come from a long line of rightous BSers. Was my gggrandfather Greenwood LeFlore? Maybe but I wouldn't bet on it.
The first time I lost my innocence was during a band trip during junior high or highschool. It was late. The bus was dark and I fell asleep. I awoke to the sound of laughter and the jeering face of a jokester classmate who had dropped already chewed gum into my open mouth in the bus. Ok. He was a prankster and not good for much else. The sad thing for me was that my two best friends were the ring leaders in this prank and laughing all the way home. I walked away from those friendships that night and things were never the same between us. I think it was more than a year before I spoke to either one of them and that was after one of them called me to apologize. A year is a long time on a junior high calendar! I decided that week that I had rather be respected than popular and that was that.
The last time I lost my innocence I put forth a proposal to show my most recent creative work at the gallery where I've been devoting my time for the past 15 years. My previous exhibition there was a personal disaster since my heart was broken when my daughter was stillborn. I learned tonite that my proposal to show my newest creative work wasn't accepted... and I knew most of the people there. Would I consider them all friends? No. Some. Colleagues? Yes. I don't know how I feel about this. It is definitly humiliating, disappointing and wounding. Yes, I am reminded. People laughed at Matisse's work. It doesn't make it much easier.
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