When I was a kid…

… my sisters and I would climb up our A.S.E. Club tree (pronounced the same as ace, it stands for April, Stephanie and Emily, mine and my sisters names) and we would just belt out this song by Four Non-Blondes:

25 years of my life and still

I’m trying to get up that great big hill of hope

For a destination

I realized quickly when I knew I should

That the world was made up of this

Brotherhood of man

For whatever that means

So I cry somethimes when I’m lying in bed

To get it all out what’s in my head

Then I start feeling a little peculiar

So I wake in the morning and I step

Outside I take deep breath

I get real high

Then I scream from the top of my lungs

What’s goin’ on

And I say hey what’s goin’ on

And I say hey…I said hey what’s goin’ on

And I try, oh my God do I try

I try all the time

In this institution

And I pray, oh my God do I pray

I pray every single day

For a revolution

So I cry sometimes when I’m lying in my bed

To get it all out what’s in my head

Then I start feeling a little peculiar

So I wake in the morning and I step outside

I take a deep breath then I get real high

Then I scream from the top of my lungs

What’s goin’ on

And I say hey…And I say hey what’s goin’ on

And I say hey…I said hey what’s goin’ on

25 years of my life and still

I’m trying to get up that great big hill of hope

For a destination

 

I’m not sure if back then we had any idea what this song what really about, except some sort of angst about the way the world is, but if you know any one of us and the way we turned out as adults these lyrics should make you smile. They make me smile, and it’s one of my favorite memories. And now that I understand a little better what it’s all about (disappointed idealism, brokeness still attatched to hope, being a woman, being disenfranchised) I identify with this song even more. It’s humiliating, a little bit, to wait for change or to ask for it, and to be told by all the voiced and heard that everything is fine without me having a voice and being heard. The disenfranchised are forced to scream like emotional children,”What’s going on?” instead of being legitimate and valued voices, contributing to a more complete and full human story. If we would choose to give voice to those who don’t benefit from the status quo we could possibly avoid some of the dangerous and damaging revolutions (that only end up excluding other voices, our own voices).