I am my mother

Yesterday morning, I woke up with this haunting, slow, sensual piece of symphony stuck in my head It was all French horns, flutes, and violins. Maybe some cymbals. It sounded like a sunset, like sand being blown over dunes, like clouds turning in and out of themselves.

I had one bar of it stuck in my head. I couldn't remember the rest. I couldn't remember what it was called. I couldn't remember where I'd heard it.

All afternoon, it plagued me. I couldn't concentrate on anything. I was almost getting frantic, trying to remember how the rest of the song went. It was one of those irrational I CAN'T DO ANYTHING UNTIL I FIGURE THIS OUT problems that I seem to have on a bi-hourly basis.

I ran through all the movies I knew where there was a desert scene with some slinky music.
Spaceballs? No.
Aladdin? Close.

I pulled up you tube and ran through all the musicals I know, but none of them had desert scenes.

I ran through the operas that I know, and realized pretty quickly that I don't know any operas.

I ran through the 2 ballets that I know. It wasn't Swan Lake. The Nutcracker, perhaps?

Hey! The Nutcracker!

A quick search yielded the results:

As soon as the music started, I was instantly soothed, in a way that only screaming babies who are instantly contented with a  bottle or a pacifier know. Yes, that was it. It's the coffee dance from The Nutcracker.

I grew up listening to The Nutcracker because my mom is a bit of a Nutcracker fanatic. But, I rarely, rarely give it a second thought. Sure, whenever I watch a movie with Macaulay Culkin in it, I remember when my friend Valerie and I watched a trailer she said "He's gay. Boys don't wear tights." because Valerie was a hick whose parents were obese swingers and I'm pretty sure she grew up to be a stripper.

so wee

I think of the fun trip my friends and I had going to see it our senior year of high school. And there were these songs we used to sing in elementary school, and they were all facts about Tchaikovsky set to the songs from The Nutcracker. But, I heard the "greatest hits" version of it so much during the course of my childhood that it typically just gives me a shuddering response. The way hearing someone say your full, first-middle-last name makes you think you're in trouble. And I typically find my way out of seeing it every year at Christmas.   

So I was surprised, when, after I listened to the Arabian dance about 7 times, I proceeded to listen to the whole suite. Twice. And I was like, heeeey I actually like this.

And just like that, I realized I'm slowly becoming my mother. From my collection of tea pots, to my closet half full of linens, to my 3 sets of china that I kept from Mary's wedding, to buying a little vase just because it looked neat, to instagraming my cat, to knowing that chores get done faster if you have A Few Good Men or Jesus Christ Superstar playing in the background, and blowing off said chores half way in lieu of reading, I am slowly morphing into my mother.

But... at least my mom's pretty awesome.  

brb, gonna go listen to it again.



*Side note, I've gotta bone up on my culture. No operas? 2 ballets? And 1 of them I only know from watching Black Swan? Go, America.