Annette
on neurodivergent family and finding sparks records
It was probably my last visit to the north for a while. My mother and I had made the trip up to the Macclesfield area a few times a year for my whole life. Always to visit my relatively disinterested grandmother. This time was, however, for her funeral.
That morning, before making our way to the crematorium, we took a detour to Macclesfield Indoor Market. I’d just popped to the TK Maxx to grab a funeral-appropriate black shirt, and we had a little bit of spare time, so I insisted on perusing the small collection of records on one of the market stalls.
Later, at the funeral, when my uncle said a few words, he started by saying that he and my mother had had a bit of a hard time understanding their mum, and it wasn’t until recent years that each of us, him, my mum, my only cousin, and me have all been diagnosed with some form of neurodivergence. Through this new framework, neurodivergence - and in particular autism - we all finally had some way of understanding her.
By all accounts she’d been a rather emotionally distant mother. She had been a maths teacher her whole working life, and in retirement developed an obsession with the card game Bridge. She attended Bridge clubs multiple times a week and would read books and watch videos about the game. If that isn’t a special interest I don’t know what is!
She never really showed any interest in me. I don’t have a single memory of her that I would consider a fond one. Before she got dementia, we never had any quality time, she never called me or even asked after me. The one thing I’m pretty sure she did give me however, was autism.
My mum, unlike her mother, has been nothing but supportive of all my endeavours. Even the silly ones like this, trying to find as many Sparks records as possible.
My usual Sparks-finding method is an organic one. I like to sift through all the records in the hopes of coming across my favourite Californian brothers. Asking after them only leads to either disappointment or spoilers for what’s ahead. It takes away that magical moment of finding the exact thing you want entirely by chance.
When we arrived at the right stall in Macclesfield Indoor Market though, my mother had other ideas.
“Have you got anything by the band Sparks?” She asked almost straight away, her inpatient ADHD getting the better of her.
“I think I’ve got Annette in there somewhere” came the stall-keeper’s reply.
Jackpot!
note from colin: apologies for taking so long to write a post in response to newt’s last post (nearly a year ago!) here’s a snippet of something I wrote a little while ago from a since mostly abandoned project about hunting sparks records :)