Mom Interview: Deirdre Edition

Shana: Is there anything that happened a while ago that seemed horrible at the time that now seems really funny?

Deirdre: My dad used to always walk me to school through Central Park. I really wanted to take the bus, but I had to walk, because he insisted. I guess I’m a good walker now because of that. One day, I don’t even remember getting stung, but my foot started swelling up as we was on our way to school. It was in first grade, and I’m probably remembering this wrong, but this is how I remember it: I was on my way to school, and my foot started hurting and swelling up, and by the time I was in school my father was having to practically carry me. He didn’t like dealing with these kinds of things. If somebody got hurt he always left it to my mother, but he was alone with me. When we got to the school,  he kept shouting “She got a stee bing! She got a stee bing!” And he could just not say bee sting! He was frantic. They dealt with it at the school, and actually I had to wear a slipper for a few days because my whole leg swelled up, but I’ve never had much of an allergy since then. My father and I still laugh about that.

Shana: Okay. If there was an object, like something you used to own, but you don’t own it anymore, ‘cause you threw it out or had to give it away or something, and you could get it back again, what do you think that would be?

Deirdre: Stacy, my pet stuffed rabbit. She was brown and fluffy and had a white tail once upon a time. By the time I was done with her, she was this sort of brown, bedraggled thing with just a hint of white on her tail. She was just my favorite stuffed animal in the world. My cousin Edward had a stuffed bunny too. His stuffed bunny was also called Stacy -- because he used to copy me. Anyway, we used to have these wild crazy times with our stuffed bunnies named Stacy. I miss Stacy a lot.

Shana: Okay. I don’t know if you’d be able to remember this, but do you remember what the first album you bought is?

Deirdre: Oh gosh. Can I say the one that I’m proud of? I bought two at the same time.

Shana: Okay. Yeah, it can be a few.

Deirdre: It was Ghost in the Machine by The Police.

Shana: Okay. What’s the other one?

Deirdre I’m not telling.

Shana: Are you embarrassed?

Deirdre: [laughs]

Shana: Please tell me! You can tell me you didn’t know what it was like--

Deirdre: I didn’t know what it was like, and I didn’t even like it once I got it home much, but... Air Supply. I don’t remember the name of the album. They weren’t records, they were cassette tapes.

Shana: Okay.

Deirdre: [laughs]

Shana: And why is it so embarrassing? ‘Cause I don’t know them.

Deirdre: Because they’re horrible in my opinion. You can try listening.

Shana: [laughs] Okay. What is the place, that you’ve been that’s the farthest from home.

Deirdre: Probably... Israel? Jerusalem?

Shana: Why did you go to Israel?

Deirdre: At the time we were religious... orthodox Jewish. We had been given a little money, and we had just had a new baby (you!), and we were feeling like, “oh goodness, we’re going to be parents for the rest of our lives, let’s do something crazy while we have some money and this little baby who we can take anywhere. Let’s go to Israel.” So we went and had a good time. I’ve been all over Europe, but Jerusalem was the farthest place.

Shana: Are there any risks or chances that you took that you were worried about at the time but then it ended up really good and you’re really happy about?

Deirdre: Here’s one that I’m not sure that it was a better thing, but it was a good thing at the time.

Shana: What?

Deirdre: I left college because I wasn’t doing very well and I was having a hard time concentrating and focusing. I took all the money that had been set aside for college and travelled around Europe for a year. I have amazing memories, and I learned a lot. I got a lot out of that trip, but I still don’t have a college degree. I came home with no money and ended up working as a secretary. I do regret that I didn’t finish college, but I do not regret going to Europe and spending that time there. I could have found another way to finish college.

Shana: Okay. What was college like?

Deirdre: I don’t know if I could have done well in college right after high school. I believe now that I needed some time to figure out what I wanted in life. At the time I picked a college that looked like it was very liberal and fun. I didn’t look that much at the academics and how much help I’d get with them.  College turned out to be a big social experience. I lived in a dorm that was known as the hippie dorm on campus. It was pretty wild and I didn’t do a whole lot of work. I did a lot more partying. I met your father there.

Shana: What books have you read over and over and over?

Deirdre: When I was a kid I read Pride and Prejudice at least thirteen times. I read it over and over and I read everything else by Jane Austen over and over and over and over. I read Pride and Prejudice the first time in, I think, third grade? The last time I tried reading it was when you were younger. I still like it but it doesn’t speak to me in the same way.

Shana: Okay. Do you want to talk about playing the flute?

Deirdre: The reason I started to play the flute is I went to a Waldorf school. It’s like the Hawthorne Valley school up here but in New York City, and everybody there had to learn to play an instrument, and I wanted to play the flute because one of my teachers was a flute player, and I remember that her flute case had this gorgeous silk scarf in it, and I guess that was what she cleaned her flute with. I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world to be able to clean your flute with this gorgeous silk scarf, and that’s what I wanted. It had much more to do with the silk scarf than the flute. So, I waited and waited and finally got started and I think it was third grade. I remember being a little bit surprised and disappointed that the silk scarf didn’t somehow function more into my playing and I actually never got a silk scarf for cleaning my flute (I probably should now). But I took to it anyway. I was pretty good at it and it allowed me to go to a different high school-- to Music and Art, which is kind of an exciting place to go and memories of it are pretty fun ‘cause I realize had a little bit of a different sort of high school experience than a lot of people.

Shana: Why was your high school experience different?

Deirdre: Well, living in New York City, people were more open, and there were  more artsy people. There was a lot more acceptance of people being different. Actually in my school, the more normal you were, the more people looked down on you. It was actually encouraged to attract attention in kind of crazy ways. When you look through my high school yearbook, there were a lot of people with crazy clothes and hair, but there were a lot of people also with normal clothes who did other things. They were incredible artists and musicians and dancers and a lot of them have gone on to do great things.

Shana: Why do you want to be a photographer?

Deirdre: The funny thing is that when I was younger I didn’t actually like to take photos much, partly because my father, who was the photographer in the house, made a lot of rules about photography and I didn’t like rules so much. And when I would go on vacation I often felt like the camera would get between me and the vacation. When I travelled around Europe, I felt like a camera got between me and the experiences and buying film and developing film was too much of a pain. So when you girls were young, I didn’t even have a camera, until at some point digital cameras were a little more affordable and my parents gave me a digital point and shoot. I was glad to have something to take photos of you girls, just capture life. I enjoyed taking photos, and I started getting compliments, and that made me feel good. I started paying more attention to composition and lighting, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed trying new things and then I started a 365 project where I tried to take a photo and post it everyday, and that challenged me to look at things in new ways. Digital photography made a lot of sense to me, because I’m much more comfortable with storing things on a computer and being able to see my photos right away than I ever was with film. It was just too much time between taking my photo and getting my photo back with film, and I felt too restricted by the 36 or 24 exposures, and it was expensive too. I just always felt worried about using shots and making mistakes. Digital meant I didn’t have to worry about any of that. Eventually I started craving a better camera. I saved up for it and I got some help from my parents and bought my first digital SLR. I taught myself. I did a lot of learning on the internet,  and slowly I got better. What I really love about photography is how even when maybe I’m not having a great day, or I’m in a difficult situation, like maybe at a party or something where I don’t know anyone very well and I don’t know what to say, I try to find something beautiful with the camera or something interesting or enjoyable with the camera .It helps me to find the interesting and beautiful things in life.