Written November 15, 2023
A class assignment that experimented with the unstructured narrative, as displayed in Maggie Nelson's novel Blue
I love the seventies; I think they’re really neat. Unlike my favorite song, favorite food, or sister, the seventies remain my favorite decade. It’s an era of ambition, passion, and mess. Political stances and warfare influence music and home life. An era with so many sides to itself. Gone was the glossy haze people had of the golden age fifties and the spectacular sixties.
Everyone has a favorite decade, most likely one they never lived through. Genuine FOMO (fear of missing out) peaks through. The grass is always greener on the other side of time. But only a few go further than the early twentieth century because even time travelers hate to be without modern medicine and regular access to bathing.
There’s an air of unity in the seventies, unity against the man, the upper class, that I wish I could have been a part of. Maybe I just wanted to live out my Across the Universe fantasy.
Seventies New York? Yes. Seventies London? Yes. Seventies Northern Ireland? Eh, maybe not. Funny thing: The Troubles, Catholics versus Protestants, and a modern war that wasn’t important enough for me to learn about till I was twenty-one.
"......Our revenge will be the laughter of our children"
~ Bobby Sands
Weird things make me nostalgic: Christmas plaid, wool tights, the Cranberries. I know that band is not Seventies, but they fill me with the same mix of nostalgia and dread.
There are things I think of in the same thought as my favorite decade, but they’re only similar to me; they wrap me in the same sense of comfort.
My uniform at work is all black. Earlier this month, I wore a scoop neck t-shirt that hugged my curves and a long black sweater that reached my knees and swept out like a cape behind me. As usual, nine of my ten fingers were adorned with rings of various colors and sizes and a layered rose quart choker across my neck. In the spirit of the season, I had on dark lipstick and spooky ghost earrings. My curly hair is most voluminous, half up with a claw clip. My coworker Jonathan asked if I was about to hex him, and manager Steve said I looked like Stevie Nicks; a customer called me whore on my merchant copy; two out of three wasn’t bad.
Everything is color-coded: files, photos, people even color-coded their kids (I was the pink kid). The Seventies is yellow-bright but not aggressively so, warm and unique, and to some, an ugly color; that’s why it's my favorite. I’ve got two sweaters, two shirts, a tank top, and five scrunchies in this color.
I love Phoebe Buffay of Friends. I aspire to be her, even if she is, as Rachel would say, “a bit of a question mark.”
I read something once that said, “People who don’t get a lot of social interaction put all the energy they should put into friendship into their special interests. And it changed the way I saw myself. One of the first times I had to admit I was a lonely kid. “I can’t like things a normal amount,” I tell my therapist. “I either have no interest in it, or I love it so much that it consumes me, and I’d be lost without it.”
This is why prematurely canceled television shows caused my most significant commitment issues. I can’t take the heartbreak of now knowing how something ends.
A quote from one of my favorite books, Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo
“Until this moment, Wylan hadn't quite understood how much they meant to him. His father would have sneered at these thugs and thieves, a disgraced soldier, a gambler who couldn't keep out of the red. But they were his first and only friends, and Wylan knew that even if he'd had his pick of a thousand companions, these would have been the people he chose.”
How special is that? To end up with people who change you in miraculous ways and make themselves irreplaceable in your life is rare and beautiful. How do I get this? How do you get people to choose you out of millions? I don’t even think someone will pick me as a bridesmaid.
I had two friends in high school I felt close with. They both ghosted after graduation; I guess we weren’t that close.
That 70s Show used to be my ideal life; everything a ten-year-old Jamie hoped her teenage years would be. I wanted the freedom Eric Foreman and his friends had, the zaniness of each week that would end with the gang hanging out in the basement. They’d live their lives but always have a place to return to. Looking back, I’m still jealous of those kids played by adults; they’d lived for life at sixteen than I have at twenty-three.
I wanted the adventures as they were in The Sandlot movies, The Goonies, The Mighty Ducks, and even The Babysitter’s Club and Cool Runnings. I desire a crazy experience with a group of unlikely allies, people I’d never picked on my own but ended up with and better for it.
Oh please Donna Sheridan, Phoebe Buffay, Stevie Nicks, Daisy Jones, Anne Shirley, please teach me your ways.
Fascinating things our mothers are; how often do you think about the fact that they had a life before yours began? They’re their own people, with or without you. After all, isn’t that the plot of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again?
Daisy Jones and the Six by Talor Jenkins Reid is simultaneously everything I want to emulate - aside from the overdosing and infidelity - the epitome of a “beautiful mess.” We’ll never fully know what went down between Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, but if they ever were to tell us the whole story, I’d imagine it to be a lot like that book. As much as the perfectionist in me wishes things were clear-cut and picture-perfect, I'm okay with any grey area accompanied by rock and roll.
If you’ve ever wanted a sing that sums up how messy love can get, that feels like living a whole life in two minutes, might I recommend you listen to 'Look At Us Now' by Daisy Jones and the Six.
Even the concept of soulmates is not as black and white as people wish it were. The idea that there is one person meant for us in the whole world does not mean eternal bliss once you've found them. Nor does it mean that they will make your life better. But they will change you in a way that no one else can. Whether they stay or leave after you change is entirely up to you.
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