(The rambling and the photos have nothing to do with one another. This little frog (crochetted from the same pattern as THIS one, is on his way across the great wide pacifc to the cutest little Hawaiian Boy you've ever seen)
"My So Called Life" is the DVD-go-to whenever I'm searching to watch something while doing something else. (And by "watching" I actually mean "listen to" and "visualize" the screen because I've seen it so many times that I don't really have to stop what I'm doing and look up to see what's going on - I see it all in my head while I'm listening... does ANYONE else do this???) So I threw it into the DVD player today as I was getting ready to settle down and sew a skirt.
But something strange happened when I watched it today.
But something strange happened when I watched it today.
[For anyone who doesn't know about "My So Called Life"... it aired in 1994. It's about a teen (Claire Danes) who is starting to experience the shift from the good, Daddy's girl she's always been, to the experimental, open-minded, woman she's trying to become. And when it came out, I suppose I was going through similar shifts. I was in college, I was still living at home but spending a majority of my time on campus, at work and with my then-boyfriend (now loving husband). It really spoke to me. All the things Angela Chase (Danes) was going through, I felt like I was going through too. New friends, old friends who I no longer have as much in common with, rifts in the family dynamic (complications with the parental unit) and a new way of looking at the world - all big and wide and full of potential. So, until today, I always identified with Angela...]
And then, suddenly, I started identifying with the mom, Patty Chase (played by Bess Armstrong). Suddenly, I knew EXACTLY what she meant when she said, "Do you think I LIKE sounding like this? Do you think I ENJOY sounding like my mother???" And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. At the end of the first episode when Angela goes to her mom (after having just been picked up and takend home by cops at an over-age club with her drunk, new-best-friend) and tells her she's sorry for dying her hair "crimson rose" and for leaving the house when her mom didn't want her to go - for the first time, all I could feel was the overwhelming flood of emotion, as a mom, who is so absolutely relieved that her child really does appreciate her and respect her, who wants nothing more than the very best for her child, and only wants to wrap her child up in the biggest, warmest hug and fall asleep in bed ,together, until pancakes and bacon the next morning.
Shoot, I really wasn't expecting this when I popped in this DVD. Just goes to show you how powerful this short-lived series was. And here I am, about to hop on a plane, with quite a few things left on my to-do list, writing about a TV show from the past. Aw, whatever. It was an awesome show. It was an awesome diversion, but now back to sewing my beach skirt and packing up the last remaining odds and ends. Aloha, everyone. A L O H A !
