In the spring of 1990, two major events occurred simultaneously: Twin Peaks premiered on ABC, and my mom started losing her mind.
I was 10 years old.
I don’t remember being particularly upset about my parents’ divorce. It happened when I was seven, and I didn’t have any sisters or brothers to use as a barometer on how I should be feeling. I realize now I acted out. I was daddy’s little tomboy, and I quietly pitied him; he seemed so lost and angry after the split.
I self-righteously blamed my mom, who seemingly came off just fine—she moved out of the house, went back to school to get her master’s degree in psychology, and even started dating. When she would pick me up and take me to her place (I never really thought of it as my own), I’d inevitably throw a screaming temper tantrum, and she’d fail at disciplining me (her spankings felt like nothing and her threats were mostly empty). Eventually, I’d be returned to my dad, who paid her the necessary lip service but never punished me after she left.
As angry as I was, however, she was my mom, and we eventually settled into a routine. She’d sometimes offer me chocolate bars to behave, she didn’t enforce a “bedtime,” and she pretty much left me to my own TV vices—which meant I watched whatever I wanted, as late as I wanted, often staying up well after she’d gone to bed. And I tended to dig some dark shit.
While Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most Wanted were particular favorites, I was really drawn to Twin Peaks, the David Lynch-helmed show that premiered on April 8, 1990 (and which gets an 18-episode reboot starting Sunday, May 21). Compelling, shocking, confusing, and downright strange, the ABC show was about the murder of Laura Palmer, a high-school girl beloved by many in her small Washington town but full of secrets that were unraveled during the investigation of her death. But it was also about the town’s eccentric denizens and all their secrets, and the supernatural quality that seemed to pervade the place, replete with the dreams and visions that beset FBI special agent Cooper and gave him clues about Laura’s death. The setting was beautiful and mysterious, and the music was expressive and haunting, especially the main instrumental themes—the counterparts of hope, doom, and resigned melancholy that pervaded the music, with their dark bass undertones and swells of synths and keyboards.