Half of What I Say Is Meaningless

My mom and I have a strange relationship.

I mean, some of it is normal, but there are some things that make it, well, unique.

For example, sometimes I feel as though my mom is in competition with me.

I guess it makes sense, though. I mean, we both are into English and writing, and sometimes people with the same interests do try to outwit, or test, each other.

But my mom sometimes seems a bit offended if I know something she doesn't.

Still, one thing she has always given me credit for is my creativity. For some reason, she doesn’t think she is creative. I really don’t know why; she is in some ways. But she just thinks I’m the one with the creative spark.

One thing I like about this dynamic is that often when my mom and I are talking about things related to creativity, she just defers to me and just wants to hear what I think.

One such time was when I was around 16 years old. I had brought the Beatles song “Julia” to her attention, and after having listened to it several times, she really liked it.

But she mostly liked the melody. I had told her that John Lennon wrote the song for his mother, who died prematurely. My mom said, indeed, she understood that the tune was meant to be somber.

But then we started talking about the lyrics. The lyrics to "Julia" are a little dreamy. Understandably, my mom said that she didn’t really understand all the lyrics. But the thing was, for me, the lyrics to "Julia" were always clear. Even though they aren’t that clear literally, they always had a very specific meaning to me.

And so I remember, I had begun telling my mom what I thought the lyrics meant: “Yeah, so when John Lennon says, ‘Half of what I say is meaningless,’ I think it means that no matter what he sings  he can’t bring his mom back...and then that one other part, where he says, ‘Julia,  seashell eyes, windy smile,’ well, I think that means that he sees his mother now in nature, that he feels her essence and sees her in ethereal things. But, I mean, I don’t know...”

And then right there, at that moment, when I was about to let the whole thing drop, my mom said, “No, no -- keep going. Tell me more about what you think.”

And her saying that made all the difference.