Being a parent means losing all the poise and dignity you spent a young lifetime building up, in small, jagged fragments, one teachable moment at a time.
Kelly is taking a music appreciation class that has ignited her appreciation of the wide world of music for the first time. The course has covered everything from Bach to the Beastie Boys. I love that she has begun to learn the cultural language with which I am so familiar: Beatles, Mozart, jazz and rock.
It's all great until my sweet daughter says as she examines the lyrics to a song in her materials, "Dad, I know I've heard this song, but I can't think of how it goes. Can you sing it?"
I've sung many times, with many people, in front of many more people, in many countries. I long ago lost any trepidation about singing. I did not, however, think I had any more shame to lose.
Until Saturday morning, when Kelly asked me to sing "Stayin' Alive."
I had actually never known the lyrics until I started belting them out in my best BeeGee's falsetto at the breakfast table. Michael's cereal spoon slowly returned to his bowl as he watched, mouth agape, as I ripped through the ridiculous 1970s ultra-white wanna-be-tough-guy disco lyrics. Kelly thanked me, but I think it was just so that I would stop.
The worst part was not the weirdness of belting out a BeeGees tune to my daughter, who reacted with the expected amount of "oh geez, Dad" facial expression that I expect to see much more of over the next few years. No, the worst part is how quickly and tenaciously the song fastened itself to the forefront of my consciousness, following me around like a light fog for the rest of the day and most of the next.
"Whether your a brother or whether you're a mother you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Ah ah ah ah stayin' aliiiiiii iiiiii iiiii iiiive..."
See?
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1 comment:
It may be a little known fact, but that song is the very best to play loudly while mopping the floor!!!
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