I love Trash-Rock.
When I was nine years old, my aunt (whom I'll call Aunt Helen, because I was named for her, despite the fact that her name is not Helen and mine is not Helena) gave my mother a wrapped package to give me. In the package, which my mother was not allowed to open, were three tapes labelled "various rock/metal." The tapes were mixes of Led Zeppelin, the Black Crowes, George Thoroughgood, Billy Idol, etc., and they were absolutely fantastic. My parents did not exactly approve of me listening to music that wasn't wussy "lite-rock," at that point, and my peers made fun of me for not particularly liking M.C. Hammer and New Kids on the Block, but I was in my GLORY with these three mix tapes. They were 100% Trash-Rock, and they were fucken great.
My Aunt Helen is one of the freaking coolest people on the planet. She's tall and curvy, like my maternal grandfather's side of the family, yet she curses like a sailor and knows more dirty jokes than absolutely anybody. When I was little and Aunt Helen called to leave a message on the asnwering machine, my parents made me leave the room before they'd play it. She's got short hair and smokes like a chimney. She's got an IQ of 800 or so, yet spends her mind and her talents on accounting, raising Alaskan malamutes, and sewing. She drinks shitty beer and taught me all the words to Denis Leary's song "Asshole." My mom told me that her first boyfriend was gay. Aunt Helen is really, really, really cool.
I spent about a year of my childhood thinking I was adopted. I had brown eyes, while my parents were blue and hazel. I didn't look like anybody. I didn't act like anybody. I didn't even really WANT to be a part of my family; I kind of wanted to be adopted, because my parents and brothers were such freaking jerks sometimes. My dad's sister, who lived in town, was a little bit trashy, a little bit of a drunk, and obviously going pretty much nowhere in her life. My grandparents were kind, but strange. My mom's brother was quiet, reserved, and maybe psychotic for all I knew; I don't think I spoke to him ever. I wasn't anything like any of them. But I WAS like Helen. I decided that I wasn't adopted after all, once I got to know Helen a little bit. I wanted to be part of HER family.
So here I am, with my short hair and my femme-y body, my habit of cursing like a sailor, and my tendency to speak with a southern accent when I'm drunk. Here's me, with my secret love of Trash-Rock, smoking like a chimney, and doing foo-foo "girly" things like sewing and crocheting when nobody's looking. (Once, trying to be like Aunt Helen, I combed about twenty pounds of fur out of my dog and tried to braid it into yarn so I could crochet a dog-hair sweater like Aunt Helen did once... It didn't work.) Aunt Helen and I were both born in "zero" years: 1950, and 1980, respectively. I think she was born in May, too. I want to be just like Aunt Helen when I grow up.
My mom told me once, "when you were born, your Aunt Helen thought you were just the cat's pajamas." I didn't know what that meant exactly, but I think it's a good thing. Aunt Helen never had kids of her own. I kind of wish she'd stuck around; she would have been a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with. She still would be.
The rest of my biological family, excluding my mother, is basically unrelated to me. We have NOTHING in common. We don't look alike, we don't have any of the same interests, we're practically strangers. Helen and I, I think, are the black sheep. Maybe that's why she moved to North Carolina so long ago and never really looked back. So many times I thought of doing just that...
I haven't talked to my Aunt Helen in probably seven years or so... Not that we don't like each other... It's just that we don't KNOW each other. Still, everything I remember about her, everything my mom's told me about her, seems to have surfaced in me in some ways. Here I am, listening to some horrendous '80's metal (the kind Aaron would call "flaming-head-of-death" music), and trying to figure out where the hell I came from, as my mom's probably home listening to Yanni and my dad's probably at his house screaming at my brothers... I'm the black sheep. I hope I'm like her.
I want to write her one of these days and tell her about my silly little dream of learning to hitch-hike and spending a few months seeing the rest of the country. I want to write her and tell her I'm in love with weird films and I curse like a sailor and am listening to trash-metal. I want to tell her everything and see what she has to say about THAT. Unfortunately, I don't have her address. I don't even know her last name anymore; my mom said she got married recently. I only know that she's in Raleigh and she's probably listening to Trash-Rock and making some kind of deviant trouble.
Proud to bear her name...
~Helena*