Uncommon Curiosity

I admit it, I’m a recovering music snob (RMS.)  When I was a teenager, I wanted desperately to be fierce, dangerous, different and, no matter what it took, as far from female as I could manage.  In the mid-eighties, this meant Hair-Metal bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica and Dio, and my beloved Rush (neither a hair band nor metal, but a band that had an entirely male following and celebrated intelligence, which I had in spades, over appearance, of which I had none.)  What started out as rebellion turned into true love, and I looked down on the bubble gum metal that was popular at the time with a sneer that could’ve taken out whole cities, if anyone had actually bothered to look my direction.  At the top of my list for tragic wastes of vinyl stood Bon Jovi, the pretty-boy band that had a following that was 90% pink lip gloss and 10% hair.  I made it a point to hate every single posturing single from that band of groupie-teasers (with the exception of “Wanted Dead or Alive” because, believe me, when they played the acoustic version on MTV, no one – NO ONE – could stop talking about it for weeks.)

So, it of course follows, thanks to the parental corollary of Murphy’s Law, that my children would grow to adore Bon Jovi.  So much so that they each have a copy of the greatest hits album (which I must have bought in a fit of maternal brain fog) which they play EVERY NIGHT.  So much so that I promised, without considering it could happen, that if they ever toured, yes, of course I would take them to go see the concert.

Which is why I spent last night at a Bon Jovi concert for 4 hours.

In the days leading up to the concert, I grumped and complained, whining on about how terrible it was going to be to have to go see a Bon Jovi concert with those women there, the ones with hairspray and lip gloss and pants so tight you can read the licenses in their wallets.  This, of course, had nothing to do with long-festering wounds from high school when I didn’t get invited to parties or football games or even one lousy pep fucking rally, dammit – it was purely motivated by principal.  My musical tastes were far superior to the pedestrian tastes of these lowly groundlings, you see, and it was an outrage that I should have to share my precious oxygen with them, even for a few hours.

Well, I went.  And I survived.  The songs were ok – really not my taste at all (except for a gorgeous blues-inspired version of Homebound Train by Richie Sambora which reminded us all what an amazing musician he can be, and, of course, Wanted Dead or Alive, cuz I can’t help myself.)  For the most part I sat with my kids and tried to convince them to stop kicking each other and pulling their earplugs out…which left a lot of time for people watching.  On the surface, I saw a lot of women in their 30s and 40s acting like their younger selves, complete with lip gloss and hairspray and very tight jeans.  These were women who had devoted their lives to raising children (I didn’t have to guess – most of them had cell phones with pictures proudly displayed on the front,) and had long-since given up wearing clothing sized in the single digits.  They looked tired and harried and a little ridiculous at first…but then, as the music throbbed out from the stage, the wrinkled brows smoothed out into smiles and hips and heads started swaying, and I found myself feeling terribly ashamed for my prejudice.  When I let go of my foolish snobbery, I started to see beautiful, vibrant women all around me.  Suddenly the flashy tops and tight jeans seemed a lot less like a sad attempt to reclaim lost youth and a lot more like a celebration.  These women weren’t trying to be 15 – they were trying to be 35 and 40 and 45 and 50 exactly the way they wanted to – in flashy tops and tight jeans.  And I realized that, once I let go of what I thought a mom should look like, they looked really gorgeous doing just that.

In our culture, a lot of effort goes into telling women that 17 is perfect and 22 is washed up.  The current bashing of so-called “Twilight Moms” is a prime example of this, as if 40-year-olds are expected to give up their fantasies and passions and go home and knit where they won’t offend anyone with their curves and their wrinkles.  I’m embarrassed to say I bought into it, too – with my snide comments and awful assumptions – I, a woman about to cross over into the invisible 40s in a few short months…I became the enemy.

Of course, I still have my issues.  I believe make-up does much more harm than good in the world, and using hairspray outside of a theater production should be declared a mortal sin.  I question how it is that, if women are just trying to express themselves as individuals, they would coincidentally end up looking so very much alike, even as I battle an internalized size-ism that I inherited from years of watching my mom define her self-worth in pounds and not accomplishments.

But I gave myself a day off last night and just sat there watching the beautiful, passionate women around me, and the men who held their hands and sat through a Bon Jovi concert out of love and devotion (yes, there were a few men there who were singing along, but they were a distinct minority, and, no, I didn’t see any queer couples there.)  I can remember being 15 and trying to imagine how someone in her 30s could be considered beautiful, so perhaps it’s aging itself that’s opened my eyes.  Regardless, the crowd was gorgeous, singing and dancing like no one (or everyone) could see them, and it was beautiful.

Simply beautiful.