The thing that I remember about being a kid, is that I don't remember it at all. Or at least never feeling like one. That smallness, youth, innocence, endless questioning and wonder that other people are always writing about in memoirs and autobiographies....
...When was that? Or was it at all? I felt as if somehow, I was born, and instantly I knew everything about the world!...(I was absolved of this delusion by the time I was about 9)...
But I "knew" how things worked, why they did - or if I didn't know exactly...I just made it up, and...there, that was the truth! It took way too much to impress me as a little kid. Nothing phased me, I had seen it all before I'd said goodbye to pooping in my Pampers.
I do remember, that while growing up, I didn't dream of being a nurse or a school teacher, or a secretary, or anything even moderately normal for a young girl in the 1980's. No, no. At the ripe old age of 5, when people asked me "Katie, now what do you want to be when you grow up?" I very confidently and plainly stated, without a blink in my eye, "I'm going to be the first woman president of the United States". Then when adults would laugh, pinch my cheek and reply "Well good for you!" at my apparently obvious cuteness and naivete - I was always confused and frankly, a little annoyed, that they clearly did not understand just how serious I was.
I learned about irony much later on...
You see, I was born as the last child of five, to actor Laurence Luckinbill; the youngest child of three to entertainer Lucie Arnaz and the only granddaughter to Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz - they did some acting too.
When my older brother Joe was born, (now the 4th boy from my father, and 2nd from my mother) my mom contacted Katharine Hepburn to alert her that, had she had a girl instead, she would have named her Katharine, with an A, in her honor. Ms. Hepburn lovingly replied on her personal stationary that perhaps it was best to "let Joseph Henry do his stuff" as "the position of women was still in a perilous state!"
Just 2 years and 11 days later, after hours waiting and watching the Ms. Hepburn in The African Queen, my mother got her wish. To this next announcement Ms. Hepburn replied, "Poor girl, that 'A'. Well, at least it will teach her to fight!"
Perhaps she knew something I didn't...because, truer words were never spoken.
Kate, you are brilliant. You have THE GIFT!
ReplyDeleteKeep it up!
AH, I remember it well. ALL TRUE. Except you didn't say "the first WOMAN president of the United States". That would sound like, at 5, someone had schooled you in the knowledge that there had never been a woman president, which no one had. We had never even DISCUSSED the subject and still, when asked that question, you would indeed say, (very confidently), "President of the United States!" You said it for years until, I think, you saw what they put Mr. Clinton through and then changed you mind.
ReplyDeleteLove you.