Tag: childhood

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Note from a Trusty Gryffindor’s Shelf

When I was a kid, my mom and I took turns reading bedtime stories together. Most have burned themselves into my memory: Max and Ruby: Bunny Cakes, Robert Munsch’s Purple, Green and Yellow, Ghost and Pete… The list goes on.

I still dream of the pink, sparkly cake Ruby made in the book; I think of Purple, Green and Yellow every time I use markers of those colours, and find Ghost and Pete’s rhymes stuck in my head obnoxiously often for someone who hasn’t read the book in more than a decade and a half. How many toes does a skeleton have? Ten! Sing it again!

But one book stands out among the rest. One shapes the person I am today, impacts where I choose to travel to, and found me repeatedly jabbing a needle dipped in ink into my left ankle two weekends ago––a line inside of a circle inside of a triangle.

(soft whimsical music playing)

Harry Potter. If you know me, you absolutely knew that was coming. Read on or don’t, I don’t care.

Unfortunately, I often seem to find myself surrounded by people who either are indifferent towards or actively hate Harry Potter. Please hold while I call their mothers to ask if they dropped them on their heads as infants. What kid doesn’t dream of an alternate universe in which the fantastic creatures of our imaginations actually… exist? Also, I don’t think I’ve ever actively hated anything as strongly as these people seem to hate Harry Potter, except maybe beets. What’s up with all the rage, muggles?

I don’t know about you, but I spent most of my childhood playing in an imaginary land my cousins and I created out of thin air. Don’t call a psychologist just yet, pals, because I had a pet dragon and you didn’t. No, I couldn’t see it. But to me, that didn’t mean it wasn’t there (shoutout to Albus Dumbledore). Sydney Buckbeak Bashyball the Third was very much alive to me––he was red, had yellow spikes down his spine, and could spit fire.

I distinctly remember spending hours reading the Harry Potter books from cover to cover as they were released. I went to the events Indigo would host on release dates, during which they kept the stores open until midnight. These books and films shaped my childhood, and, much like “Friends” and “Gilmore Girls,” they feel like home. Heck, I have a Marauder’s Map on my living room wall. Oh, and a poorly-drawn Deathly Hallows symbol on my ankle for the rest of my life.

So, be indifferent towards Harry Potter, if you will, but to actively hate it seems a little unnecessary, and it feels like dismissing magic as a whole. I can’t wrap my head around why anyone would want to do that.

And if you’re one of those people who has never read the books, meaning you’re basing your opinion entirely on the movies––do yourself a favour and read them. I am not ashamed to say that I have yet to find any book as enthralling as this series.

Mischief managed.

 

Photo by Matthew Coyte.

Categories
Music

“Youth and optimism”: The first time I heard the Beatles

The Beatles - Abbey Road tribute

The Fab Four’s pride and joy, Abbey Road, celebrates 50 years and remains iconic in the music industry.

I can’t remember consciously falling in love with music until my first year of high school.

Sure, music has always been around in my life. I remember my kindergarten gym teacher handing me a plastic guitar to sing in front of the class when he saw me mouthing the words to “Highway to Hell” at the age of five. I remember my older brother showing me the cover art to Sam’s Town the day it was released in 2006, and enjoying it just as much as The Killer’s first album, Hot Fuss. I remember my dad buying the Guns N’ Roses Greatest Hits and my sister’s love of Bon Jovi in highschool. My mom’s teen crush on Donny Osmond and my grandfather’s man crush on Dean Martin. Music has certainly always been around me, but I didn’t necessarily always care for it.

If I could look back and pinpoint one moment in time when this all changed, it would have to be the first time I listened to The Beatles. Sometime in late 2007, my brother’s friend brought all 12 studio album CDs of the greatest band of all time, along with a few B-sides, to our house to burn onto our computer. After a few long hours of transferring, nearly every song The Beatles had ever released was available on our iTunes library.

Having always had faith in my brother’s taste in music, I took my third generation iPod Nano and plugged it into the computer. “Sync music.” I vividly remember running upstairs to my bedroom, plugging in my earphones, lying on my bed, and pressing play.

Paul McCartney’s “One, two, three, four!” countdown at the beginning of “I Saw Her Standing There” was a metaphorical countdown to my fall into a rabbit hole of rock n’ roll that I would never find my way out of. This song is the first song on the Beatles’ debut studio album, Please Please Me, listed at No. 39 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list.

Front to back, the Fab Four’s back-and-forth transition of John Lennon to McCartney on lead vocals, and from upbeat rock to soothing love ballads was like nothing my 12-year-old self had ever heard before.

“Twist and Shout,” the outro song of the album, made it an absolute no-brainer that I would be spending the rest of my night enthralled in the evolution of The Beatles.

With The Beatles and A Hard Day’s Night delivered just as much as their predecessor. “All My Loving” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” went on to become fan favourites. Through the lyrics and their tone of voice, you could hear the youth and optimism that resided in the band members in their early days. Youth and optimism that had not yet been crushed by the pitfalls of the music industry; riddled with drugs, money, fame and empty promises. Youth and optimism that had not yet felt heartache, heartbreak, divorce, and regret. Youth and optimism that made all their love songs to date ones of glee and hope, as if they truly believed being in love was always a pleasurable experience.

Oh, how quickly things would change.

The Beatles’ fourth and fifth album, Beatles for Sale and Help!, toned down the cheery love songs and added more depth and transparency to their work. Songs like “I’m a Loser” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” address fallen love and hardships that the Beatles had experienced with a few more years of musical fame under their belt, as well as being the stars of two movies. Lennon claimed that these songs were written during his “Dylan period,” a time when the band found major influence from American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, who changed the focus of their songs to a more mature subject matter.

Not enough can be said about Rubber Soul and Revolver, argued by some as two of the strongest albums in the Beatles’ repertoire. Then came Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, proclaimed by Rolling Stone to be the best rock album of all time, calling it “an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time.”

By this time, the Beatles had had their fair share of fun; dabbling into hallucinogens. Their mind-altering state was beginning to rub off on their music – evidently for the better. Masterpiece singles like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “With a Little Help From My Friends” remain timeless classics that will be sung along to just as loud another half-century from now. Magical Mystery Tour feels like a continuation of the same acid trip.

The Beatles ninth studio album, a self-titled double album often referred to as The White Album, did not halt their momentum. After writing the songs while on a religious retreat away from stardom, the Fab Four returned and released a 30-song album just over a year later. Their transitions between soft melodies and hard rock, all while offering each of the band members a turn at lead vocals, puts every listener on a musical roller coaster.

Abbey Road and Let It Be often get confused as the last albums that the Beatles recorded, although the real timeline doesn’t matter. The two albums were said to be recorded during the band’s “low of all-time” by lead guitarist George Harrison; and were the band’s final hurrah to the world. Both albums are riddled with tear-jerkers and songs of beauty, perhaps some of their most beautiful work ever; “Let It Be,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “The Long and Winding Road.” The lyrics to their songs preach that there is hope for a better world, regardless of the band’s fate.

Despite the cause of Lennon’s death 10 years later, one could still assume that he would continue to stand by his mantra: give peace a chance.

Thank you to The Beatles: for their countless classics, their diverse catalogue, and their lifelong words of wisdom that we could all use every once in a while.

Happy Anniversary, Abbey Road.

 

Collage by Alex Hutchins

Categories
Student Life

I can’t wait for tomorrow

My mother and me on April 28, 1998.

Growing up as a first-generation Canadian and the milestone of turning 24

In February 1990, my mother left communist Czechoslovakia for a new life. It was her first time on a plane and her first time in North America. She had dreamt about moving to North America since she was a teenager to escape communism, learn English and to be free.

She took one suitcase with her, leaving family and friends behind for the unknown that awaited her. She was 24 years old. As my mother waved goodbye to her mother at the airport, little did she know that would be the last time she ever saw her.

My mother arrived in Montreal speaking little English and no French, making it difficult to find a job. During her search, she came across a clothing store. My father was the owner and, as an immigrant from Georgia, he knew the struggle of finding your first job here. He hired her, and they started dating. A few years later, on Jan. 24, 1994, I was born. In December 1996, my father closed his stores, left us and left the country. My mother became a single mother in a foreign country without the support of a family.

I heard this story many times as a kid. Every time I heard it, I thought to myself that, one day, when I turned 24, I would want to do something just as courageous as my mother had. On the other hand, I also think about how afraid she must have been to be alone with a child, not knowing how she was going to provide for her.

Growing up as a first-generation Canadian came with its challenges. I had to go to French school and, since my mother barely spoke French and could not afford a tutor, learning French was confusing. She would use a French-to-English dictionary and then an English-to-Slovak dictionary to explain my homework to me. It seemed to take forever and, often times, we would quarrel.

I also watched my mom hustle every day and learned early on how immigrants have to work twice as hard to be recognized. She had several different jobs to ensure we had a clean place to live, food and clothes. We never had a car, but we always found a way to get around. Every day, she would get up at 6 a.m. and walk me to school. After a full day at work, she would pick me up from school at 6 p.m. and we would walk home. On the weekends, we would travel by bus for an hour and a half to get to my dance school. She would wait for me during my two-hour lesson, and then we would travel back home together. My mother showed me at a young age that anything is possible “if you’re not a lazy bum,” which is what she still says to this day.

My childhood was full of challenges that my mother and I surmounted together. She made me fall in love with life, and her work ethic inspired me to no end. According to my mother, as a child, every night before being tucked in for bed, I would tell her: “I can’t wait for tomorrow.” Tomorrow happens to be my 24th birthday, and I cannot wait to become the courageous woman my mother taught me to be.

 

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