I got the idea by accident, the first time I fell off my bike. The bike was new, a birthday present. My dad took me to pick it out. I wanted a bike like Jackie’s: small, pink, with streamers coming out of the handlebars. They didn’t have any like Jackie’s. I kept looking. My dad started sweating. I had to pick one quickly, before he changed his mind or got fed up, before my already ruined eleventh birthday became a total washout. I chose a burnt-orange banana bike without streamers. It was too big and not at all what I was looking for. By eleven I was used to that.When Jackie got her new bike, her dad let her ride it home from the fire station. He drove behind her with flashers on all the way up Marie Crescent. I asked if I could ride my bike home like Jackie had. My dad said no. My mother was dead by then. She would have let me ride home, at least from the sump. I was sure.
There was sand in the street, left over from the melted snow. Spring had just arrived. My mom had been buried. I was cruising the neighborhood on my nowhere near perfect bike. I tried to skid, like the cool kids did, and fell off. I landed on my wrist. It hurt, a lot.
I ran, holding my wounded hand in my healthy one. I left my bike in the middle of the street and I ran. Where to run? That was the question. Not many choices: no Mom, Dad at work, a nana who couldn’t see, hear, or drive a car. I ran to a neighbor, Mrs. Nordin. She took me to get an X-ray, then on to Dr. Reichmann’s office, where I got my first cast. I got all kinds of attention. No gifts, though. I expected gifts.
~ Rosie O'Donnell
Celebrity Detox (2007)
Okay, what do you suspect is Rosie’s worldview?1. Don’t slip on a banana.
2. Settling gets me what I want.
3. Pain is a good thing.
4. I’m never really heard.
After voting for the best worldview, please also consider recommending a good title for this early memory. What would you name this recollection? If you have an idea to share, shoot me an email - or leave a comment after the post. Thank you!
5 comments:
The key sentence, to me, is:
"I got the idea by accident the first time I fell off my bike."
So, what idea did she get? To run to others with her injury? Because . . . she wasn't really attended to by the people in her family. And she is STILL going to other people to be heard. Yes? No?
nienna - Read the sentence you reference here ("I got the idea by accident the first time I fell off my bike") and then read the last four sentences at the end of her memory. Rosie got the idea to use a cast to get "all kinds of attention," (although she expected gifts:-).
Please check back later - and thanks for your comment.
Thanks for the pointer, Candis. Now it seems to me not so much that Rosie wasn't heard, but that she wasn't responded to in the way she wanted. The cast gave her the attention she craved, and so . . . maybe pain is a good thing?
Believe it or not, I've never watched Rosie on TV, though I've seen her in a couple of movies. Is emotional pain a part of her TV persona? I feel that her world view would come through in her career, much as Maureen Dowd's did. We'll see . . .
I kinda went back/forth with pain is a good thing and I'm never really heard finally voting on I'm never really heard. Seems as if this was constant throughout the memory. Never heard about what kind of bike she really wanted, how she wanted to ride home, when she got hurt no one was around to help. It was like no one really heard her emotionally nor physically. And if one thing you can point out about Rosie is that she makes it a point in her today world to be HEARD.
Jenny - What you suggest is interesting, although keep in mind that a person's worldview is out of his or her awareness.
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