{"id":6145,"date":"2024-04-12T11:54:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T17:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/?p=6145"},"modified":"2024-04-12T11:54:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T17:54:21","slug":"tubular-bells-and-becoming-my-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/2024\/04\/12\/tubular-bells-and-becoming-my-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"Tubular Bells and Becoming My Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Image courtesy of Spotify<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At first, I thought it strange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last spring I stumbled through the Denver Botanical Gardens alone during block break. I tuned out the hoards of families with the hum Cat Stevens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod,\u201d I thought, \u201cI am becoming my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A typical Saturday for her, one I was often unwillingly dragged through in my youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once attached by cord, then by hip, and now by word, her and I have never been further apart. Physically I mean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She gave me an album recommendation over the phone a few months ago: Tubular Bells<\/em> by Mike Oldfield. An old favorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When my mom was my age, she liked most of the music she does now. What I heard in the backseat of the car: the Who, Queen, and the like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Tubular Bells<\/em> is quite detached from that familiar sound. It got me thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would sell my soul to meet my mom when she was my age. We might absolutely despise each other. But Tubular Bells<\/em> gives me a taste of her younger mind, and maybe, we would get along just fine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an amorphous album composed of two songs long enough to fill an entire side of a record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, there are bells. But with so many random instruments, moving parts, and repetition, I couldn\u2019t try to explain its intricacies. Skip through either song and you\u2019ll understand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its mystery is what compels me about the junction of my identity and my mother\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If my mom found something tangible, something human in Tubular Bells<\/em>, we are a whole lot alike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grapple with fulfilling a familial prophecy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I am evidently a product of my parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A big fan of Low<\/em> by David Bowie, the album that rests on my Dad\u2019s 1985 yearbook page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lover of Ram<\/em>, arguably the birth of Paul McCartney\u2019s \u201cindie\u201d sound, my mother\u2019s favorite artist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am I genetically predisposed to have these preferences? Probably not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But sometimes, I find it troubling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would like to think if I had different parents, a different childhood, a different life, I would be the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s just wishful thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God knows, maybe I would be a better person. Maybe I would give my life to Jesus Christ. But instead, I can\u2019t help to think of how evil I could be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe a conspiracy theorist. Maybe a big old bully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I think of her, my mom, the good, and that maybe I shouldn’t avoid the shifting sands that morph our identities together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bells don\u2019t remind me of my mom. Quite the opposite. They remind me of my favorite spot on campus: the chapel. A place distant from my religion-loathing mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chaplain once told me that if the building flipped upside down, its ribbed roofing would help it float. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like to think this would happen on Judgment Day. If you aren\u2019t at mass, tough luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I certainly wouldn\u2019t be included. I don\u2019t go to mass. I just like the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at moments of reckoning, I think again of my mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, when I am no longer a child and not yet an adult, I will listen to Tubular Bells<\/em> and think of my mother at age 20. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn\u2019t even plan to have kids then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here I am. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019ll embrace the unknown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the bells are something I can hold onto, whether they\u2019re sourced every 15 minutes from the bell tower or the sounds of Oldfield through my headphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if everything takes a turn and flips upside down, the bells will resonate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At first, I thought it strange.  Last spring I stumbled through the Denver Botanical Gardens alone during block break. I tuned out the hoards of families with the hum Cat Stevens.  \u201cGod,\u201d I thought, \u201cI am becoming my mother.\u201d A typical Saturday for her, one I was often unwillingly dragged through in my youth. \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1748,"featured_media":6147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[155,12],"tags":[278,279,277],"class_list":["post-6145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music","tag-mike-oldfield","tag-parents","tag-tubular-bells"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/files\/2024\/04\/image.jpeg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa7fJU-1B7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1748"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6145"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6148,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6145\/revisions\/6148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/socc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}