throwback to 1998, the year i finished high school and entered university. tori amos was a rude awakening for me about music snobbery - in high school i was at my best friend`s house with my other besties when someone mentioned tori amos. `ew!` i said. `she`s weird!` one by one my friends chimed in, `what? i love tori amos`, `me too, she`s awesome`, `i have all her cds`... my ultra-conservative/religious folks had blocked the music channel so in truth, i`d never heard a damned thing by tori amos. after that day, curiosity got the better of me. i secretly bought a cd. then another. then another. then one by one i spent all my hard earned piano-teaching money on each of her piano albums, which i would carefully hide for shame whenever my aforementioned besties would come over to visit. one day i came home from school and my father was in my room, sitting on my bed listening to my tori amos cd`s and reading the lyric books with a frown on his face - `i don`t think this is appropriate for you to be listening to` he said. by then i was already head over heels in the world of tori amos. daughter of a preacher like myself, pianist, rebel. i was on my way into my own rebellion. her music inspired me to go to university to study piano performance, and i think the fact i spent most of my time in the practice rooms there secretly playing her songs instead of the classical pieces i was meant to work on may have contributed to my changing degrees, lol.
as i woke up this morning my spouse took our puppy out for a walk and i lay in the dark thinking about my favourite professor in the philosophy department when i was a student, and all the amazing female thinkers she had introduced me to - andrea dworkin, simone de beauvoir, bell hooks, betty friedan... etc. etc. etc. i felt very inspired. just yesterday i had asked my lovely university students , all 18-19 years of age, what they wanted to do after university. i was shocked that most of the girls replied that they wanted to get married. `why!?` i asked, incredulous. `i want to be happy` they replied. i myself never wanted to get married, it was just something that happened as a result of being from different countries as my partner. i certainly never equated marriage with happiness. i still think of all the things that i want to and have yet to accomplish in my life - marriage is not something i ever crossed off a list. i think tori amos was one of many great role models for me. she is so fearless, expressive and artistic.
in other things, i have started writing poems again and it`s so cathartic to let words move from your mind to rest on paper. also very relaxing is the fact that we have to take the puppy for walks, we go by a river and the sound of the water is so soothing it actually melts away the day`s cares. yesterday i treated myself to knitting, reading, and red wine and camembert after work. it`s the first time i felt so relaxed in years. i think having a job where i`m not working for myself has allowed me to relax on a level i never could working for myself. as for letting go of cares, i saw this speech on social media yesterday and it really inspired me. you can find the whole thing on youtube but i just chose this short clip. he rocks.
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