Dreamboat Annie

Anne (not "Annie") is my mom. She has been my mom for 24 years, 4 months and 11 days. In that time, I have learned a lot about Anne, so it's rare that I get to see a new side of her.

While pulling into Mazzaro's Italian Market Saturday afternoon, Anne and I noticed the record store next door, Bananas Music, was having a large sale complete with food and live music. We decided to check it out. As we walked into an overly crowded room that smelled like old, dusty books, Anne greeted the seven foot hipster wearing plastic framed glasses and jorts who was standing at the door (a hipster bouncer?) and sauntered on by like she was a veteran customer. I stayed close behind my mommy, somewhat regretting our choice to come in. Girls with short hair and guys with skinny jeans and ironic tattoos parted ways as Anne and I walked through the halls. She listened to no one as people tried to describe how to browse the overly stuffed sections.

Anne B-lined to the "V" section of "Grunge Music," sifting through some CDs until she found it, The Velvet Underground. She looked through the collection and picked what was, in her opinion, the best of the CDs in stock. She illuminated as she told me of her college days at Max's Kansas City and her love for Lou Reed. I basically pissed myself when she told me about going to a Max's knock off to which she wore khaki pants and a red collard shirt, "I was always dressed wrong, everywhere I went." I immediately thought, Oh, that's where I get it from.

We fumbled through every artist over the past 60-some years, vinyls, CDs and cassettes. Anne passed by the Beatles, Zeppelin and Bob Dylan, the classics. Instead, she shared her interest in Heart, Van Morrison, and Marvin Gaye. I realized I had never really heard about my mom's taste in music, or her college days. My dad has never been shy about telling his stories, I suppose all these years I had lumped my mom into whatever he said. But no, Anne has her own unique tastes. An independent, young women who grew up in one of the most inspiring times for music, who saw George Thorogood and Heart open for the Rolling Stones, and lived across the street from Fenway Park in Boston. She and my dad watched the band Boston play at hole in the wall bars when they were no one, yet Anne favored grunge music--in fact, she favors the original grunge band (arguably so), The Velvet Underground.

I'm not saying this was a life changing moment, nor was it profound or particularly inspiring (or maybe it was since I felt obligated to write an entire post about it), but it was raw and unexpected. A moment I rarely see in my mother and I couldn't help but love her more.

♥A