Outside the Box

I sometimes wonder if I was born with a form of dementia.

I generally call it a short-circuit in my brain, which sometimes behaves almost like an out-of-body experience.

This sort of thing has been happening all of my life, and is not simply something that started after age 50. In fact, it hasn’t happened much at all since age 50.

I don’t know if it happened before I started school. The first memory I have of it was when I was in third grade. It was the first week of school. I know this because we were still in regular clothes, and hadn’t started wearing our uniforms yet.

In those days, girls’ dresses usually had sashes. As an eight-year-old, I couldn’t manage to tie the sash behind my back, although I could button, zip and tie shoe laces, all in front of me.

It was the end of the day, while we were waiting for our bus. I had asked one of my friends if she would tie my sash. My recollection of what happened was that I stood there quietly while she tied it, and that was the end of it. Well, she had said something funny, and I giggled.

However, the teacher, who had been out in the hall, suddenly dashed into the classroom wanting to know who had screamed. I thought she was crazy. No one had screamed. There was a little quiet talking, but certainly no screaming.

I know I was confused. My friend immediately looked at me and said quietly, “You did.”

I had not! When no-one said anything, she went around the class asking each person if they had done it. Everyone said no, and my friend kept saying over and over – quietly – “You did.”

I was the last one questioned, and when she asked, figuring my friend knew something I didn’t, I said that I did it. Because I hadn’t admitted it immediately – or perhaps because it had happened at all – I was given a punishment of having to write a 100-word apology.

When I got home, I explained to my mother what I knew of the situation, and what my friend had told me. Of course, she would not contradict the teacher or even write a note saying that I had no memory of the incident whatever.

What I should have done, except that, at eight, I didn’t have the words, was write my side of the story, and how I had no idea what she was talking about. At the end, I could have apologized for any inconvenience I might have caused.

But, as I said, I didn’t have the words. Instead, I wrote an apology that basically used the word very – misspelled as verry, I do recall that much –to make up about 90 of the words in the apology. And I’m sure it was tossed in the rubbish as soon as my back was turned.

The second time happened was when I was about 10. I was visiting relatives for a week. Apparently, when my aunt was out getting a few things for dinner, my cousin fell off one of those baby sit-on-and-scoot toys. Apparently, too, I told my aunt this when she returned home a few minutes later.

Nothing was made of the incident, since there was no blood, bruising or tears involved.

Later that night, apparently, my aunt thought something wasn’t quite right with my cousin. She asked me about him falling. I had no idea what she was talking about. I had no recollection of him falling or even of telling her about it. I tried to pull the memory of it, but it was like trying to retrieve a parsley flake from molasses. All I could do was shrug and say I didn’t know.

I don’t think I have had any other episodes quite like that since.

There have been times when I was so involved in the pretend life I lived inside my head that I was out of touch with what was going on in front of me in the real world. 

Who I was in my head was never who I had to remember to be in real life. So there were times when I told people my name was David Michael instead of Cathy. That usually got strange looks. I’d laugh and say I was just kidding to cover my tracks. But anyone who really knew me as a child knew that I always pretended to be a boy named David Michael.

The other form this has taken started when I was in high school, and has also only happened a couple of times that I recall.

The first time was in Chemistry class. I really wanted to like Chemistry. I had visions of being the mad scientist. But my Chemistry teacher happened to be a warm body with a science degree, and that degree was in Biology. She could only explain the work in the exact words that were in the book. I seem to be a "textbook dyslexic," and so couldn’t make sense of what I was reading in the textbook (or any textbook, really).

I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand what she was teaching. Since our class was first track –what would now be called advanced placement – it was unusual for the majority of the class to fail to understand content or, as it turned out, to fail the first major exam.

Our intrepid teacher continued to repeat the same words in the same order to be met with the same lack of understanding from the class.

Finally, I raised my hand and said, “Do you mean…” and proceeded to spend five minutes explaining, in completely different words, the points she had been trying in vain to give us. It was a great explanation. All around me I heard, “Oh, now I get it!” along with the oohs and aahs of understanding. It was perhaps my best performance ever. 

Unfortunately, I have no idea what I said. I couldn’t even hear what I was explaining. It was as if some pixie sitting on top of my head was explaining Chemistry in a foreign language for all I got out of it.

The teacher’s eyes lit up. I never saw her so happy ever again. “Yes, yes, that’s it!” she said.

“I don’t understand that,” I replied, sincerely.

She immediately became extremely angry with me, and told the girl in front of me to explain to me what I had just said. Apparently, her explanation wasn’t as good as mine had been, and I never did understand.

And from that moment, that teacher never gave me credit for any intelligence whatever. I suppose I was lucky she didn’t send me to the principal for insolence.

The only other incident like that that I can recall happened when I was in my 20s. A friend was trying to explain to me how electricity works. I still have no idea.

After he spent about half an hour explaining it to me, I explained it back to him using completely different words, giving him an accurate accounting of the principles of electricity. It sounded very much like I knew what he was talking about.

But again, what was coming out of my mouth had no attachment to my conscious brain. I can’t access the portion of my brain that knows this stuff.

When I finished, he seemed happy that I understood. Until I told him that made no sense to me whatever.

I know he had used an analogy about electrons moving through a wire like water runs through a pipe. And at least he got a good laugh – and has never let me live it down – when I picked up a piece of wire, closed one eye, and looked at the end of it.

“Where’s the hole?” I asked.

No, I had no idea what he was talking about.

I know I’m not stupid. I know these things must be in there somewhere, but there’s no key to the door they’re locked behind.

The only other thing that comes close is when someone asks if I have an idea of how to do something to help one of the students I work with. Without even being aware that I’ve thought of something, I’ll give them a suggestion that usually causes their jaw to drop because they never would have thought of it.

I just shrug and say, “I kind of tend to think a little outside the box.”

Flags

Whenever people from other countries ask me why Americans make such a big deal out of their flag, I roll my eyes and say, “I have no idea!”

Flags. Every country has one. Some religions have them. In this country, every state has one, in addition to the country’s flag.

Flags have been around for centuries. I’m sure T-Rex would have had a flag if he could only have reached it.

But only in this country do people stand with hand to heart pledging their allegiance to a piece of cloth. Yes, they also pledge that allegiance to the country as a sovereign nation. But why, when no other country in the world has a pledge to their flag, do we have one?

Now, before you go ballistic and accuse me of being unpatriotic, I’m not saying anyone shouldn’t do this. I’m simply asking why we do when nowhere else is it done. Incidentally – you can google this – it is actually unconstitutional to require students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.

Other countries have national anthems that are sung at the beginning of sporting events and national events – or when an athlete from their country wins a medal in the Olympics.

We have one of those, too. In fact we have no shortage of patriotic songs about our country and our flag. Yet, with the exception of multi-national events, almost any time the national anthem is sung, the pledge is said as well. But why?

Americans are huge flag-wavers. At every parade on every national holiday, the flag figures in a big way. Nearly every organization marching in a parade carries a large American flag.

Yes, to welcome troops back from war, at royal weddings and many national events, other countries use their flag. But this isn’t always the case. On Armistice Day (Remembrance Day), while Americans wave their flag, the British wear poppies.

America has rules about the flag: which way the flag must face when hanging horizontally or vertically, how to fold it, how to dispose of it when it gets worn out. It’s not supposed to be flown after sunset unless it is lighted. It isn’t supposed to be flown in inclement weather unless it’s weatherproof. Yet nearly every business in this country seems to have a large flag flying.

What I find a bit odd is that the proper way to dispose of a worn out flag is to burn it. Yet, people protesting against the United States burn the flag and it’s considered a sign of disrespect.

American flags are also not supposed to be worn as clothing, so a bandana around someone’s head that is clearly made to look like an American flag is a flagrant violation.  And you see almost all politicians in the US wearing flag pins on their lapels. Yet no one is incensed by these practices.

Other countries don’t seem to raise flags to the level of veneration that Americans do. So why do Americans do it?

Throughout history flags have been used to mark out land ownership, to define which group of knights or soldiers were holding ground, and to indicate that one side or other is still part of the mix. The flag was draped over the body of a slain warrior, and a white flag was flown to indicate surrender.

Even in modern games, capturing the “enemy” flag is a symbol of winning.

Yet Americans enshrine their flag in a way that other nations don’t. Not long ago, some American athletes chose to show their protest of issues that should have gone away centuries ago but haven’t. Their choice of protest was to kneel during the National Anthem (and the Pledge of Allegiance).

Some people, encouraged by the current occupant of the White House, demanded that these athletes be fired immediately. Who did they think they were, showing such disrespect for the flag? These same people who were so offended would no doubt die of apoplexy if someone dared hint at any attempt at regulating guns in this country. That, they say, is infringing on their second amendment right to bear arms.

Yet they ignore the fact that the protesting athletes are merely exercising their first amendment rights to free speech.

And how is kneeling disrespectful? One kneels to be knighted. In many faiths, one kneels to pray. They simply chose not to recite the pledge and quietly and respectfully kneel instead. They did not yell; they did not disrupt others; they did not set the flag on fire. They knelt. And that is their right.

It wasn’t the fact that they were exercising their rights. It was the fact that others didn’t agree with their opinion. And mostly, it was because these athletes were people of color.

Those who thought they should be fired would have beaten a path to the nearest law firm if they were fired for exercising their own first amendment rights. If they found the behavior of the athletes so offensive, the proper response was to exercise their own first amendment rights and boycott the games of the offending teams. Money talks in America.

Besides, all the athletes did was fail to salute a piece of cloth.

The Creepiest Love Songs

Recently, a friend asked me to consider getting together to record an early Carol King song, “One Fine Day.”

To say I loathe Carol King is the understatement of the century. Her album, a “Tapestry,” was considered the end-all and be-all in the early 1970s, when I was in high school.

I hated it.

My religion teacher in 10^th grade plagued me with that album. She would use a song from it at least once a week as our prayer at the beginning of class. Rather than putting me in a prayerful mood, I would spend those agonizing minutes with fingers in ears in a way that she wouldn’t be able to tell.

Of course, when we were asked to suggest something as a prayer, I would volunteer some poetry from a Moody Blues album (at least I was wise enough not to suggest the words from the song, “Timothy Leary.”)

But back to “One Fine Day.” That song was sung by a woman with a similar sort of babyish brassy voice as Carol King’s, which to me is like nails across a blackboard.

And the words!

Shubee do wah!

It tells of a girl pining away for some guy to want her. In the early 1960s you weren’t anything if you didn’t have a man. All you could do was sit and wait (anticipate).

And while I’m not a militant feminist (see my blog for February, 2019), I have never put my life on hold waiting for someone else to fulfill it.  So, the words to the song would have strangled me if I’d tried to sing it.

Having grown up with the love songs of The Beatles, the surfer girl songs of The Beach Boys, and songs that demonstrated the roles of the sexes like “Walk Like a Man” by The Four Seasons, “One Fine Day” wasn’t so out of place – when I was 10.

With the exception of “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini,” that’s what songs were.

Then imagine my shock in 1967, when one of the songs released on the Sgt. Pepper album had the following lyrics:

I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved
Man, I was mean but I'm changing my scene
And I'm doing the best that I can (ooh)

What? MY cute, cuddly Beatles were singing about abusing a woman as if it were the most normal thing in the world? And it’s okay because, “You have to admit it’s getting better?”

What did the Maharishi and all those drugs do to my boys?

The Sgt. Pepper album was what made me walk away from the Beatles in preference to Herman’s Hermits and The Monkees. At least those two bands still sang the fluffy stuff that I loved. “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” was about a guy pining for a girl who dumped him. And “I Wanna Be Free” may have been one of the first I-don’t-want-a-commitment songs, but at least he wanted to be friends. No beatings involved!

With the recent uproar about the Christmas song, “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” I started thinking about words to songs that are far more sinister (and I don’t mean left-handed!) than they at first appear.

While my personal belief about “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is that no one is being coerced; it’s a simple back and forth flirting song – he wants her to stay, she wants to be talked into it, or she would’ve left as she was free to do – there are more modern songs that, if you actually listen closely to the words, they’re creepy.

Take for example “Want You Back for Good,” by Take That. I’ve always called this song, Emotional Abuse. The music is very soulful and pretty. You can really put your heart into singing it. That is, until you take the time to think about the lyrics.

 “A fist of pure emotion” smacks (no pun intended) of some physical abuse that went on before the lady in question left. But even more telling are the words to the chorus:

Whatever I said, whatever I did
I didn't mean it
I just want you back for good
(Want you back, want you back, want you back for good)
Whenever I'm wrong
Just tell me the song and I'll sing it
You'll be right and understood
(Want you back, want you back, want you back for good)
I want you back for good

In other words, I don’t know what I said that you didn’t like, but I don’t really care. Tell me what you want me to say, and I will. And yeah, yeah, you’re right, I’m wrong (eye roll!). Whatever. I just want you back. I just need to win, because I’m in control – and don’t you forget it.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into the song, but it just takes on the same attitude as all of the TV police dramas where a woman is beaten, finally has the guts to leave (I’ve never understood why, after the first slap they didn’t leave) and the guy comes crawling back, promising the moon, fools her again, and the abuse starts over until someone’s dead.

Having been on the receiving end of some emotional abuse in my younger years, I’m sensitive to anything that sounds like one person trying to control another.

You may or may not accept that that song is about abuse, or even that “Getting Better” might be about a man changing his ways, rather than focusing on just how bad he was. 

And there are other creepy songs, like Blondie’s “One Way or Another,” which is the female version of getting even.

But in this age of Internet stalking, Social Media bullying and other high tech menaces, by far the creepiest song ever recorded has to be Sting’s “Every Breath You Take.”

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you

Oh can't you see
You belong to me
My poor heart aches
With every step you take

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I'll be watching you

Oh, and in answer to whether or not I’d record “One Fine Day,” I could, although I don’t like the song. What I suggested instead – that people don’t realize I could also do just as well -- was “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.

 Yeah, I’m my own kind of creepy.