Maybe Paradise Wasn't So Much... Part 1 by nRkangel

NRKANGEL'S BLOG

nRkangel

Maybe Paradise Wasn't So Much... Part 1
Wednesday, September 15, 2004

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious....

hmmm...so THAT's what it looks like typed out....sonuvagun... some things you just have to see for yourself...

You know, I've spent so much time dwelling on the aspect of life changes that I need to go someplace else tonight. So I've put on a little mood music, made myself a sandwich, poured a glass of water and one of white wine and decided to visit a fonder place.

The movie that Rod and I are working on is a Romantic Comedy called "Finding Love for Annie". I don't want to go into too much at the moment, but suffice it to say, I'm really happy with our progress so far. But thinking about how to express yourself in a story requires at least a little dredging of the past if only to bring up feelings to work with.

To that end, awhile back, I wrote about someone I haven't thought of in years who brings me back to the first time I fell in love. They say that you never forget it, and I haven't, nor have I quite gotten over her despite the fact that I have not seen her for a quarter of a century. (I love how that sounds...)

Anyway, I beg patience in this indulgence. I'll get back on track with goings on later.

It was the summer of 1981 and I had just turned 14. I had finished freshman year and starting what looked to be a fantastically long summer spent playing sandlot baseball and listening to music.

I had discovered music the year before and I was the proud owner of a slightly used portable radio with headphones along with a brand new turntable that I had gotten that Christmas. It was a cheap, off-brand, but I didn't care. It played music beautifully and it was mine. Besides, at the time I only had two albums to play, otherwise I had to borrow my parents music. I had the Car’s “Cars” album, which I had bought with my own money. (And would have sent my parents into apoplectic fits if they'd heard it despite it's being tame in comparison to most pop-music of today.) And I had the Star Wars soundtrack that my parents could accept (dark and menacing as it looked) mainly because it was symphonic. But I also had my radio.

The first time you become aware of music, it's like you finally learned to see. Oh, I'd always heard it, sang in church and on the holidays, but prior to the year before, I never gave conscious thought to turning on the radio and choosing it! After I learned that little magic spell, I would spend hours at night listening to Blondie, Billy Joel, Sheena Easton, Pablo Cruz, Journey and on and on.

But music wasn't the only great thing about that year. My best friend, Louie, had moved into the neighborhood not long before from LA. Louie's dad was the first divorced guy I knew and Louie was his first son by his ex-wife.

Louie was a strange kid. Having lived in the gang area of LA, he had a reckless streak that came out at the worst times occasionally getting us into trouble. (One night when we were fifteen, we took my father’s car out for a drive even though neither of us really knew how. Fortunately it was an automatic. We even bought gas to replace what we’d used and were scared out of our minds the whole time we were on the road.) I would never have dreamed of trying that myself, but Louie could make an outrageous suggestion, follow it up with his devil-may-care, lop-sided grin and make it seem like the most reasonable idea in the world. Of course, being what everyone considered a "good kid" maybe I was a bit too trusting.

We became pals that summer and, though I’d been friends with the other kids, Louie and I were tight. But as much as I quietly worshipped the guy's “crazy vato” act, the best part of that year began in mid-summer when Jenny moved into the neighborhood.

Jenny had arrived after the start of summer with her parents and sister. Her parents were former counter-culture hippies who'd gone on to bigger things, but would never be able to shake the echoes of their youth. They were firm, but easy-going and always great adults to have around. Barbara was a big woman full of bright laughter like her daughter. Strong willed, Jenny’s mom always made her feelings clearly known, but never with harshness or impatience. Her father, Bill was a gentle man, brilliant and the source of Jenny’s curls though his hair was a sandy orange-brown. His beard and moustache gave him a look years older than he probably was and, like his wife, he was genial, but unlike her, there was an air of the dreamer and poet where Barbara was the practical earth-mother. Jenny also had a sister, who, while two years younger, adopted the parental traits in opposition to Jenny. Jenny had her mother’s dark hair and her dad’s curls as well as his penchant for moments of dreamy contemplation. Her sister, on the other hand had her father’s sandy coloration but her mother’s straight hair and feisty, rock-solid practicality.

Neither of the girls were allowed outside after nine pm and, for the first two months, Barbara could be counted on to come out by nine-fifteen calling for Jenny, explaining politely to us what her ground rules were. Still, slowly but surely, her parents gradually relented to her staying out somewhat later. I like to think they felt safer, or maybe they just thought it was an eventuality that might as well be accepted on their terms as long as it couldn’t be avoided.

Jenny's dark, curly hair fell in soft ringlets round her pale, heart shaped face. Her eyes were wide and deep giving her an almost constant look of avid interest and awareness. Her laugh was bright and clear and genuinely happy. Sometimes she'd laugh so much that she'd run out of air and she'd collapse on her couch making little gaspy screams. I loved to see her laugh and I think I must have spent most of the last weeks of that summer at her house, loving the sound of her laugh. She also blushed easily and often, and carried herself with an unconscious, demure grace. She could be quiet and unassuming, slipping almost unnoticed into polite company, but it always seemed to me that she would eventually become the center of gravity of any room she was in like a natural, physical law. Beauty is a different thing now, defined, measured, and changed at a whim. But it was easy to see that in ancient times past, Paris would have fought the Trojan war for the woman Jenny might become. That summer she was two months shy of 13 and looked like the younger sister of Rebecca Schaeffer.(the actress from "My Sister Sam" who died tragically at the hands of a stalker in the mid-80's)

go to part two for the rest...

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