Life Symbols - my Aunt Lynn
My Aunt Lynn was ten years old when I was born. Which means that she was 14 when I first was old enough to pay much attention to her. She was 15 when I was about to start kindergarten. When I was six I would get to ride in the car with her when she drove to the store for milk. By the time I was 7 and she 17 I was mesmerized by her. And when I was 8 my 18 year old aunt was my complete idol. I wanted to be exactly like her. EXACTLY LIKE HER.
It was the 60's and being a little girl in that decade with a very own personal teenager to idolize was wonderful. There are three things that symbolize that time and my groovy Aunt Lynn.
A simple green steno pad (although hers always had a round ring on it from the bottle of coke she always had going). The steno pad stood on her dressing table. Every single day she wrote down everything she'd worn that day so that she never wore the same thing twice in a two-week period. I used to sneak into her room when we visited my grandparents and study that steno pad. I think it was one of the great motivations behind me learning to read.
The draft. American boys sent off to Vietnam with a lottery drawing based on their birthdays. I didn't fully understand the significance of the draft but I clearly remember sitting in the living room of my grandparents' house watching the TV while my teenaged aunt sat with that wonderful steno pad she usually reserved for her clothing diary. In it she had written the birthdays of all the boys she knew who were affected by that draft. Each time a date was called she'd check her list, sometimes naming a boy and sinking deeper into the sofa. I thought about that a lot when I was a teenager myself and knew boys who would have been drafted had such a thing still been the law of the land.
And lastly, this:
Ah, yes. Paul Revere and the Raiders. My aunt Lynn was the coolest of the cool and the grooviest of the groovy. And Paul Revere and the Raiders was the one of the bands she loved. And even if I didn't really know any of their names and couldn't sing any of their songs I told everyone at school that they were my favorite band. Now I might have created this part in my own head, but I believe that she owned one of the cool hats seen on the heads of the Raiders on this album cover after having ridden in an elevator with them. (In clothes she did not wear for two weeks after and had not worn for two weeks prior.)
When I made the decision to move to Sweden, my Aunt Lynn was one of the people in my life who supported me the most. Which is particularly fitting considering the fact that she had such an influence on me in my growing-up years. Lynn's self-confident coolness inspired me towards being a more self-confident teenager when my turn came. And that self-confident teenager eventually became a woman who was sure enough of herself to move to a foreign country for love.
Thanks, Lynn. You didn't know it then but you could have dedicated this one to your little niece.
It was the 60's and being a little girl in that decade with a very own personal teenager to idolize was wonderful. There are three things that symbolize that time and my groovy Aunt Lynn.
A simple green steno pad (although hers always had a round ring on it from the bottle of coke she always had going). The steno pad stood on her dressing table. Every single day she wrote down everything she'd worn that day so that she never wore the same thing twice in a two-week period. I used to sneak into her room when we visited my grandparents and study that steno pad. I think it was one of the great motivations behind me learning to read.
The draft. American boys sent off to Vietnam with a lottery drawing based on their birthdays. I didn't fully understand the significance of the draft but I clearly remember sitting in the living room of my grandparents' house watching the TV while my teenaged aunt sat with that wonderful steno pad she usually reserved for her clothing diary. In it she had written the birthdays of all the boys she knew who were affected by that draft. Each time a date was called she'd check her list, sometimes naming a boy and sinking deeper into the sofa. I thought about that a lot when I was a teenager myself and knew boys who would have been drafted had such a thing still been the law of the land.
And lastly, this:
Ah, yes. Paul Revere and the Raiders. My aunt Lynn was the coolest of the cool and the grooviest of the groovy. And Paul Revere and the Raiders was the one of the bands she loved. And even if I didn't really know any of their names and couldn't sing any of their songs I told everyone at school that they were my favorite band. Now I might have created this part in my own head, but I believe that she owned one of the cool hats seen on the heads of the Raiders on this album cover after having ridden in an elevator with them. (In clothes she did not wear for two weeks after and had not worn for two weeks prior.)
When I made the decision to move to Sweden, my Aunt Lynn was one of the people in my life who supported me the most. Which is particularly fitting considering the fact that she had such an influence on me in my growing-up years. Lynn's self-confident coolness inspired me towards being a more self-confident teenager when my turn came. And that self-confident teenager eventually became a woman who was sure enough of herself to move to a foreign country for love.
Thanks, Lynn. You didn't know it then but you could have dedicated this one to your little niece.