I’m going back. Way back to 1990 when the hit song, “Iesha” was on the radio. It was sang (rapped? Not exactly, but sort of) by a band called Another Bad Creation. Perhaps you remember them. Today I was thinking of my first gymnastics recital I had when I was seven years old. I had originally picked Marky Mark’s, “Good Vibrations” to be my recital song. I planned all these sweet cartwheels and not-so-sweet splits that went directly with the beat of Mark Wahlberg’s amazing vocals (Wow, he REALLY has come far in his career). But when it came time for the committee to approve my recital song, it was REJECTED.
“How could this be?” I asked in a whiny kid voice. All my moves timed up perfectly to this genius pop-track. My mom said it was because there was a tiny curse word in the song. I still love that description of the curse word. Tiny. When I asked what the word was, she wouldn’t tell me.
Because of this little hiccup, she abruptly changed my recital song to “Iesha” and this resulted in a nightmarish performance of everything I learned the previous year in gymnastics class.
If you watch the mortifying home video, you will hear the song start (it has a really rad Pungi instrument that kicks it off). You see me doing a dumb dance move and then the beat kicks in and…HOLY COW! I’VE MISSED IT! MISSED THE VERY FIRST BEAT. MY VERY FIRST BACKBEND! After this unfortunate mishap, I just stand there confused because, at seven years old, I don’t know how to just pick it up from where the music is in the present moment.
What was the tiny curse word that caused this deep-seeded stage fright at a young age? “Hell.” Which is totally ironic because that was what I was experiencing during my gymnastics recital when I mucked up my routine in front of a full audience of parents. As a matter of fact, I would love to challenge you to listen to “Good Vibrations” and pick out where the word “hell” is actually said. It goes so fast, you could almost miss it. Almost. Just the way I missed my recital intro.
Tell me bloggers on the web: Where do your deep-seeded fears come from? I’d love to know! Hit me!
birdyjones 