Turn the radio up.....

After finding a couple cassette tapes in the old jelly cupboard, knowing exactly what was on at least one of them, I pulled this out of the closet and shed tears when I heard my little voice. I remember making that tape. I remember where I was when I was making it (the front porch of the house I currently live in), what I had on (a pink shirt/short outfit from Dutchmaid), the sound the little tape recorder made when I pushed record. I remember making up those songs. I was probably three years old at the time.
Little me, singing, I pictured my hair in a ponytail on top of my head, which created a waterfall effect, and urged my cousin to give me the same nickname.

My cousin mostly called me PITA. I'm pretty sure I was a PITA much of the time.

She loved me though. And used to stick up for me when I would get in trouble. Long past the time anyone should have been.
My mom, my cousin, and I, made a tape one New Years Eve of the Top 100 Countdown on one of our favorite local radio stations. I spent many Sundays listening to the countdown, waiting for the songs I missed the week before, or the ones that just came out since then. I remember how annoying it would be when the tape would run out before the song was over, and I'd only have half of it, and would have to try to catch it again on the other side. Picking my favorite pen to write them all pretty and neat in the little bit of space on the insert. Trying to think of a creative and fun name for the whole tape.
I also remember how my mothers fingernails felt on my head when she washed it. I washed one of my kids hair the other day, as he was stuck with a splint on his arm. He doesn't remember what grandmas fingers felt like.
I haven't had my hair cut in nearly a year. I don't want anyone else to cut it.
I think this is what Joan Didion means by the "vortex effect" in The Year of Magical Thinking.
It's going to be a really long year.