Ignorance: Let me say in my defence that I was raised by wolves, as one friend puts it. By that, I mean I wasn't really exposed to much art and high culture before, say, the age of 18. When I was really little I went with my mom to the drive-in, but the only times I even stepped into a movie theatre before my teens was a birthday party where another parent took us (to see a Bad News Bears double feature) and the movie 1776 through a school trip. I even missed out on Disney movies, seeing only Dumbo on the 'Magical World of Disney' or B-movies on TV.
School saved me to some degree, with two short months at Rusheon Junior High's Gifted & Talented programme, which was unfortunately cut short when we moved to California. For the first time I was getting to go to museums, and I even got to go to an operetta, El Capitan, by Sousa. My only exposure to Carmen or Shakespeare for that matter was an episode of 'Gilligan's Island'. The only Classical music we had in the house was an album of The Nutcracker and the theme to The Empire Strikes Back, both of which my father tended to play to headphones. What I'm saying is that my parents didn't have time or inclination to 'expose' me to high culture. I wasn't allowed to take piano lessons, I wasn't encouraged artistically, etc.
When I hit adulthood and was in a fairly large city for the first time in my life, I started exploring that world. But it was a mentor who came into my life in my 20s who really began to expose me to everything from Disney to musicals to art to fine food. And although I've come pretty far from such unsophistication, some things fell through the cracks.
So yesterday I'm driving to my second job, listening to public radio, and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata comes on, and they're talking about how it tends to make people happy, and I realise I have just the opposite response, mainly because I had a flashback to the first time I'd ever heard its haunting tones. I was watching the film Koyaanisqatsi, a movie by Francis Ford Coppola without dialogue, where music and images show the dichotomy between the natural world revered by the indigenous tribes and the 'life out of balance' that our modern world has become. The sonata was played within the city, with crowded streets and faces worn down with gravitas, and it touched me deeper than any other part of the film, partly because I have strong emotional responses to music.
Today on my way to work they announced a piece by Mozart and I realised it was the same tune as 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' or 'The Alphabet Song'. It was not necessarily composed by Mozart (the tune is that of a French children's song, 'Ah! Vous dirais-je, Maman' and was incorporated as a starting pointing into Mozart's Variations of that song. But it certainly popularised it to the rest of the world...and so every time we teach a child her ABCs, we're giving her a bit of Mozart.
I have always loved learning, and I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't know these two things. I'm still learning the actual titles of quite a few Classical pieces that I recognise but don't necessarily know. I love how each day brings something new, even something that for others is probably terribly obvious.
Now for the stupidity...I dropped a friend off last night after midnight and a woman came up to him in clear distress. Her grandfather had called her; he'd just been diagnosed with diabetes and his sugar was bottoming out. She asked my friend for a ride and he referred her to me. I know it was probably stupid--she was a stranger, could have had a gun, etc., etc., but my instinct told me she needed help. She just needed a ride up the street several blocks. I let her in and we proceeded. She'd just gotten off work and had had a couple of drinks and gone to bed when he'd called. She'd left her boyfriend and 6-month-old baby at home and gone out in a state, not driving because of the alcohol. She wasn't drunk, made sense, etc., but she was worried about her grandfather. I asked her if she knew what to do for him (since I have diabetes, I know how scary this can all be, and wanted to make sure she could handle it). She had a cigarette and asked if I minded if she smoked; I said yes, actually, I couldn't handle it due to asthma, and she tossed it away. She was actually quite nice. But of course, I'd just watched two hours of forensics shows...it could just have easily not worked out. But sometimes you just have to trust your gut and hope all will be well. After all, she was walking into a rough area of town. I didn't want her getting raped or murdered, either.
When I got home, I called to let them know I was home safe and sound and got a very deserved chewing out by another friend, who thought I was crazy. But at least things did work out.
In terms of good fortune, I got my flu shot yesterday, which is reassuring since the asthma puts me at risk and the last time I had the flu I was very sick for over a week. One good thing about working at a small hospital in the interest of infection control, they give you free vaccines, and there aren't that many doses needed, so it wouldn't do any good for public health authorities to yank the supply for some other group. The nurse must have a sprained thumb by now, though...she'd given dozens of shots before I came in. I suspect our entire supply will go quickly, but at least we'll be protected. I never intended to work in healthcare, but I certainly appreciate the added benefit of free vaccines. (When I started working in a hospital, I was able to get a Hepatitis B vaccine, too, and they checked my childhood immunity and found I was highly immune to measles, which was reassuring, since I'd been in an age group that had a questionable vaccine and there were a series of epidemics on college campuses when I was younger and we had a devil of a time verifying what type I'd received). Anyway, since I was miserable and missed work the last time I had the flu, I'm hoping it keeps that from happening again.
Well, I guess that's all for now. I'll try not to waste that dose by running any other people around the red light district at night. ;)
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