Yesterday in the car as we drove through the sunny mountain forests to a nearby town, my daughter insulted the current song on my playlist.
She does this sometimes, unafraid to give unsolicited opinions about my musical tastes (I feel the teenage years coming on fast).
But I was not fazed: I will love Regina Spektor forever.
The song was Loveology, a lovely, meandering, and whimsical piece that often gives me goosebumps and, depending on where I am in my cycle, brings tears to my eyes. I first heard it on her Tiny Desk Concert, which I highly recommend you listen to right after you read this, or even right now before you finish reading this if you feel like it.
These are my favorite lines of it:
Sit down, class!
Open up your textbooks to page 42
Porcupine-ology, antler-ology
Car-ology, bus-ology
Train-ology, plane-ology
Mama-ology, papa-ology
You-ology, me-ology
Loveology, kiss-ology
Stay-ology, please-ology…
Let's study, class
Let's study, class, sit down!
Loveology, loveology
I'm sorry-ology
Forgive me-ology…
My daughter thinks these are the silliest (9 is just kind of a pedantic age, I think), but I find them the most touching. After all, what’s more deserving of study than how to properly love, how to be humble and admit our lack of perfection, and apologize for our disappointing and constant human fallibility?
Here are some lines from another favorite song of hers:
I went walking home alone
Past all the bars and corner delis
When I heard God call out my name
And he said, "Hey
Let's grab a beer
It's awful late
We both right here"
And we didn't even have to pay
'Cause God is God
And he's revered
And I said:
"Why doesn't it get better with time?"
I'm becoming all alone again
Stay, stay, stay
I think part of what Regina Spektor does for me is remind me that there are people in the world who can wear their hearts on their sleeves and be both tender and eccentric (she sounds/looks like she’s high and spacing out in every interview I’ve seen of her) and still find a loving and welcoming space in society rather than be derided for their lack of what’s typically seen as the characteristics that make up a successful person.
Also, fun fact about Regina Spektor: she’s Russian. As in, born in Russia — in Moscow, in 1980, a year before me (she’s Jewish, too!). Her family emigrated to New York in 1989, and almost decided not to because she’d have to leave her piano behind.
But they did in the end, and she found a piano to practice on in a synagogue basement. Before that, she would practice on any hard surface while imagining the music. Listening to her talk and sing, you wouldn’t guess she wasn’t a native speaker of English.
What a story, right? It’s nice to hear Beethoven-like stories about people who are actually still alive and just being geniuses before our very eyes.
I have another Russian woman on my mind, too, after watching the Netflix mini-series called Inventing Anna, about a woman born a decade after me (1991), also from Russia, whose family had emigrated to Germany as a teenager.
It’s based on a true story, and the gist of it is this: Anna Sororkin changes her name to Anna Delvey and takes New York high society by storm, fitting herself into every little nook and cranny of it. She convinces everyone in it that she’s a German heiress, and as a result, is able to swindle quite a lot of money and “gifts” from both banks and individual people (also, a great irony: lots of stuff is free when you’re rich).
It’s an impressive story because social class is one of the hardest things to fake (I’m a sociologist, I know): I’d have better luck convincing people that one of my parents was Black than convincing them I belonged to any kind of high society, even if I were suddenly to come into millions of dollars. It’s just a fundamental part of who we are.
Another young woman genius I guess, this one kind of evil?
The reason I’ve got both of them on my mind at the same time is because they both represent major growth in a totally new place: Regina Spektor still being who she ultimately was but with a combination of raw talent and the opportunity to become a star, and Anna Delvey becoming someone completely new, managing to change the perception of others regarding her social class, something nearly impossible to do for most people (just ask Donald Trump).
And that’s something I can relate to as an immigrant myself: we are who we are on a fundamental level, but oh, how dropping into a new environment changes us!
One’s transformation is a reflection of the new circumstances and a testament to how not-fixed some parts of us are, more parts than one might think. Throw in living in another language, and it’s possible to feel like an entirely new person altogether.
But I love the symbolism of the Russian nesting doll, and thought it a fitting title for today’s writing: you within you within you within you within you. The new yous you discover might not be the same as the previous, and the core, the last one, is the smallest of them all. They can be unstacked and restacked, and painted anew.
You’ve got a bigger hand in making up as you go along than you might think.
HI, Sarah, recently someone sent me a cartoon of a Russian stacked doll walking up to a ticket agent and asking to buy a ticket. The agent looks at the Russian doll and asks (saarcstically), "One ticket...really?" (You have to picture it.) Loretta
She’s a real Spector and how do you describe writing that jumps out of the page into reality each time