California Fever

wicked

I fell off the Sunday Scribblings wagon for a couple of months, but I climbed back on this morning for the prompt "wicked."  I wrote a little something over on Moojo Cafe.  Be sure to check out all of the lovely Scribblers here.

in the kitchen

"in the kitchen" i read
and i groaned right out loud
it's my least favorite room
where i've never felt proud

i hate to cook i hate to
prep i guess baking's okay
but it's not high on my list
of what makes my own day

then i read that beautiful post
at lori-lyn's dream life
and felt a surge of emotions
feelings of trauma and strife

because i don't carry warm
memories of kitchens inside
i carry the scars of fighting and
lies and a deep need to hide

my childhood kitchen bore the
scar of a knife given flight
by the fury of a spouse who felt
someone had taken her light

when i think of that kitchen i
think of fighting and screaming
of a small girl turning inward
of it haunting her dreaming

the same shade of yellow is
on my kitchen counters now
the room called to me loudly
if you live here i'll show you how

how to heal that part of you that's
still damaged by what you saw
the screams that made you clench
the words that made you raw

i'll show you how to see
that experience in a new light
how to reframe the memories
how to let the hurt take flight

you'll make your own memories
and this kitchen will be a gift
you'll put that pain in a yellow bubble
give it a kiss and let it drift

5 things redux

The lovely Jennifer Warwick at The New Charm School has tagged me for the "5 Things You Should Know About Me" meme.  I'm sure I've done this meme before (more than once?)  As I told Jennifer, with all the crap I've posted here, I'm not sure I even have five things left to tell. 

1.  I have a bit of OCD.  I will sometimes go back and check that doors are locked or an iron is turned off several times.  Even while yelling at myself in my head that I'VE ALREADY CHECKED IT and know that it's (locked, off, whatever).

2.  When I was a kid, our family didn't take vacations, so imagine the thrill I felt when my Dad would say on a Sunday afternoon, "Let's go for a drive."  We lived in a small town (it was even smaller then), so it's not like we were going to see anything we hadn't already seen a thousand times.  We'd almost always end up driving along the beach, and one of my favorite parts of that drive was driving out to Pt. St. George. It's the northernmost point on the California coast, and it can get incredibly windy out there.  When we were kids, my Dad never let us get out of the car on those drives.  So I'd sometimes get drowsy sitting in the backseat of our 1964 Ford Fairlane Sports Coup (ours was white) with the sun beating in--forgetting that if we'd stepped outside, the wind would have nearly blown us over.  J and I have some photos of us looking windblown on a sunny day there.  It really is a spectacular spot.  There's a parking lot at the end of the road and a wide trail down to the beach.  You can stand on the California coast and look across at the Oregon one.  Kind of like here, except my stepsister's house is in Smith River, north of Pt. St. George:  

Remember that night in '97 when Comet Hale-Bopp appeared in the sky on the same night as a lunar eclipse?  We lived in Portland then and happened to be visiting my folks.  My parents didn't want to go, but we drove out to Pt. St. George and joined a lot of other folks in the parking lot there.  We didn't have a telescope, but a nearby family offered to share theirs.  It was a great place to experience the sky that night.  There's a building at the point out there.  I don't know what it is now (for awhile a doctor had his office there), but when I was young, it housed apartments.  The English teacher my (teacher) Dad dated when I was a sophomore lived out there.  I adored the English teacher.  She was very nice to me, and she had a little red MG convertible that she'd let me drive (with my permit...and with her).  I thought she was the bomb, and the fact that she lived at Pt. St. George solidified that in my mind.  (I was crushed when my father refused to marry her and she moved back to the East Coast.)  See this photo?  When I was a kid, wooden telephone poles lined that section of road, and as we'd pass each one in the Ford Fairlane, I'd clench my thigh really hard as we got right next to each pole.  It was some sort of freaky isometrics game I'd play.  I think there was counting involved, too.  See, told ya...OCD.  The lighthouse off the coast of Pt. St. George is a pretty incredible place.  Just look at it and think about what it took to build it several miles offshore.  When I was young, the thought of even being out there would make me quake with fear, which wasn't helped by the fact that you could never see it except on the absolutely clearest days.  It became this sort of spooky, imaginary place lost in the fog.  As you'll see on that site, several years ago some people started giving helicopter tours out there.  And if you're ever in the area, and feel so inspired, check it out.  Although it's the kind of thing that when we're home for a visit, we sit at dinner and laugh about the crazy stuff tourists will do, "Can you IMAGINE?!  Going out to the lighthouse in a HELICOPTER?!"  (See windblown above.)  But, you know, I'm sure it's cool.  ;)  The most exciting news is that when I went to that site today, I saw that the lighthouse is going to be immortalized on a 2007 postage stamp!  Now that's cool.  But, people, this is not the Pt. St. George lighthouse--it's Battery Point Lighthouse.  I oughta know--I grew up not far from it.  Battery Point Lighthouse was once immortalized in a Tim McGraw video.  (Hey, we take our fame where we can get it.)  (And can I just say that #2 came to mind only because of the weird thigh isometrics a la OCD...see what happens?)

3. Speaking of Flickr (having linked to it in the last item), this is embarrassing (and sad news for any of you who have me as a Flickr contact) but I can go months without even remembering that I have a Flickr account.  And then when I remember, I feel like an idiot...like, jeez, I could have been posting photos all along.

4. I hate French toast that's not cooked in the middle.

5. When I was a kid visiting my cousins, they'd often get ice cream after dinner.  It was usually Neapolitan.  They'd take their spoons and stir it up their ice cream until it looked like a weirdly-colored soup.  It almost makes me gag just thinking about it.  I, of course (being Miss OCD), would eat mine all neat and nice, keeping each flavor within its stripe boundaries.  But I don't think I've ever had Neapolitan since--I can't eat it without thinking about that gagging ice cream soup.

monster

"Monster," read the prompt.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read it.  I've been haunted most of my life by many imagined and real ones.  There was my profound belief that Lee Harvey Oswald's ghost lived in my Dad's bedroom closet, a belief that haunted me until I left home at 18.  Or the fact that the girl who sat next to me in my 5th grade classroom was murdered, and that the young man who stabbed her more than 20 times had once chased me with an axe.  There was the guy who'd peeped into my Aunt's bedroom window before she was married, and how I couldn't go into that empty back bedroom at Nanny's house without feeling utterly creeped out.  There were all of the dead strangers lying in (thankfully closed) caskets whose funerals we were dragged out of class to sing for during my 7th and 8th grade years, and how I'd stand up there on the riser in the balcony trying to think about anything but that dead body in that box.  There was the vicious German Shepard my cousins owned who was always tied up when I was there, but who'd more than once bitten neighborhood kids when he was loose.  There was my grandmother's garage and attached shed that at night seemed like the darkest place in the world.  There were my Dad's fishing rods stolen from our garage and how much it scared me to think that strangers had been in our garage during the night while we slept.  (I began locking the doors after that--we'd never locked them before, no one did then.)  There was the sick fear I'd get in the pit of my stomach when my parents would scream and fight, a feeling that felt like a monster had taken up residence in my insides.  There were my classmates who lost their fishermen fathers to the sea, a trauma that gave birth to my life-long fear of deep water.  There were the thousands of scary people and demons and monsters who chased and hunted me nightly in my dreams.  I had nightmares every night of my life until I was in my mid-30's (and stopped drinking) and never told a soul until I was an adult.  (No wonder I was an insomniac.) 

I brought Ciara home with me Friday night for a sleepover.  My folks were down here for the night, and we gathered for Italian food at a restaurant here in Davis--my parents, brother, sister-in-law, C and me. (The teenagers were off with their friends.)  It occurred to me when I got to the restaurant that maybe C would like to spend the night, especially since J's gone and she could sleep in the sleigh bed with me.  My folks had asked if I'd drive them to the airport at 5 am yesterday, and then I could use their car for the week.  I told Ciara that we'd have to get up very early to take Pop-Pop and Grandma to the airport.  She asked, "Where would I sleep?"  And I told her she could sleep in the bed with me, and that since her last sleepover, we've acquired a big TV in the bedroom (courtesy of her other grandmother) and that we could find a movie on the bedroom TV and curl up in bed and watch it.  (All I could find with the rabbit ears was "Men in Black II," but it hardly mattered since she was asleep within minutes.)  Ciara loves to stay at our place, but she fights her own demons here.  Once when she was over, the heater had gone out.  The repair guy was scheduled to arrive the next day, but our very nice property manager said she had a space heater that she'd drop off for us to use until then.  She hadn't shown up, and we were all tired, so we turned in early.  She did eventually arrive after we'd all gone to sleep.  I don't know what scared Ciara more as she was lying on the couch--having someone knock on the door late at night, or not being able to wake us right away when she ran into the bedroom to tell us about it.  Ever since then, when it's time to go to sleep, she doesn't want to be left alone in the living room.  And I completely understand (see list above).  (Last time I pulled the camp cot out of the closet and slept next to the couch.)

After we'd done our airport run yesterday morning and hung out at home for awhile, I took C to IHOP for breakfast.  I'd asked her the night before at the restaurant, "How's 4th grade so far?"  (She's been in school a couple of weeks already.)  She gave me a look that said, not so great.  And Ciara loves school, so that was very disheartening.  I asked, "Do you not like your teacher?"  She said she didn't like her at all--that she has no patience.  My sister-in-law said she'd spoken to the teacher and to the principal, and had asked to have C. moved to another classroom.  The request was turned down because of class size (which I understand because we're fighting the same battle right now, trying to keep class sizes from being too huge).  At which point my retired (secondary) schoolteacher father piped in, "Can you imagine having 33 kids in an elementary classroom?"  Out of the blue at breakfast yesterday, C asked, "Know what the highlight of 4th grade is going to be?  When we have a substitute for a week-and-a-half."  (Her teacher's getting married and the absence will be during her honeymoon.)  It made me so angry that her teacher is treating those kids in such a way that at the beginning of the year they're already thinking the entire year is going to suck.  I asked her to tell me more about what her new teacher is doing that she doesn't like.  She said she just doesn't have any patience at all, and that she freaks out if there's any noise at all.  "So everyone has to sit perfectly quiet and still all day long?"  "YES."  I'll have to defer to Kathleen on this one, since she teaches elementary, but I simply can't imagine having a classroom of 33 eight-year-olds and expecting them to not make a peep the entire day.  C's new teacher is shaping up to be a monster in her life, and it's very upsetting to me.

Monsters lurk everywhere--they're inside all of us. But it's not okay to be a spirit-killer, even for a moment.  It's not okay to crush little spirits by making them act like robots in a classroom.  Most monsters are all too easy to identify, so it's all too easy to forget the power of one (seemingly insignificant) action.  But one sentence scribbled in the margin of a paper by one of my English teachers killed my writing dream for 15 years. 

So tonight, when you check under the bed for monsters, don't forget to check inside your heart, too.

I Know What I Did This Summer

My mother said to me the other day that now I can give myself the kind of childhood I never had.  I thought that was pretty damn generous of her, considering she's one-half of the reason I had the childhood I did.  But in the last several years, she's reached a place where she can be objective about my childhood issues.  She doesn't take them personally--just acknowledges and accepts that her intentions veered wildly from the reality of her actions. 

About three years ago, an old friend and I began corresponding--regular old snail mail letters.  Lots of them, and they were long.  We used each other as sounding boards for things that we were looking at within ourselves and trying once and for all to lay to rest, so we could move on.  Some people believe that when you get to be a certain age, you should just leave that shit alone--forget about it.  But I've found it's hard to build a house of self-esteem before a proper foundation has been laid.  Believe me, I've tried.  The good news is, remodeling can be done at any age. 

Not one adult in my childhood life ever encouraged me in any way--either about what I was or about what I could be or do.  I was expected to get excellent grades and to excel at anything I attempted.  But it's not like there was any reward or even any acknowledgement when I did that.  And I honestly had no idea why that expectation placed on me, because the message I got loud and clear from my parents and the nuns who taught me for eight years and my high school counselor and teachers was that I was a very smart girl who would have to settle for very little in life.  I can see now that my parents had both settled--neither of them had come close to fulfilling their dreams.  I suppose when one has that sort of deep-seated sadness about what might have been, it might be hard to step out of it to encourage your child to pursue her dreams...or even to ask what they are.  The nuns?  Well, they thought I was a good candidate for the convent...until I got to 7th grade.  My high school counselor?  That one I'll just have to write off to the era and think she was doing the best with the cultural beliefs she had at the time.  I never understood it, and still don't.  But once that message has been deeply ingrained, it's hard to let go of it...even if you feel it's wrong and doesn't fit and was undeserved.  The bottom line was that I had no foundation to build on.  Even so, over the years I did my best to cobble together a make-shift one.  What I ended up with was sort of like one of those houses on stilts you might see in a swampy area.  And that's what I had oozing under me for decades:  a big ol' nasty fetid swamp.  Not the nicest setting, as you can imagine.  But I made the decision a few years ago to just start from scratch.  Time for the stilt house to go--time to build a proper foundation.  And to do that, I began doing a lot of remembering in order to do some reprogramming. 

Some of you may remember this picture, because I've posted it before.  I began looking at what my life was like when I was four, because that's the last time I remember feeling any happiness--or at least what would equate to happiness for a four-year-old.  And I began populating my life with some happy touchstones from that era of my life.  Sand was a big one.  I'd had a sandbox in my backyard until I was three, and since my cousins moved to our old house after we moved (it was owned by my Italian grandmother), I still got to play in it frequently even after we moved.  So I began spending a lot of time at the beach.  I went on a lot of walks at my neighborhood beach which, lucky for me, was the best one on the island.  I'd kick off my flip-flops in the car and spend my entire time at the beach barefoot.  It was all about feeling the sand between my toes.  I also spent a lot of weekend time at the beach just sitting and watching little kids play in the sand and surf.  And let me tell you, that's some good entertainment there.  Forget job titles and careers and credit card debt gained trying to keep up the Joneses...want some happiness?  Plop your naked ass down in the sand and let the surf wash over you and giggle as hard you can when it knocks you over while you're trying to fill up your bucket with sand.  It doesn't get a helluva lot better than that, even though we spend a lifetime thinking it does.

Here's another huge childhood touchstone for me--the Smith River in the northwest corner of California.  The Smith River canyon is just probably my very favorite spot on this earth.  I've always known that, but wasn't sure why exactly--because I really didn't spend that much time there as a kid.  But then it dawned on me:  but I'd wanted to.  My cousins again:  I loved them to pieces...and completely envied their lives.  They 'got to' go camping and picnicking and swimming here their entire childhood.  The last time I remembered my parents (or even one of them) taking me (since my brother wasn't born yet) to the Smith in the summertime was when I was three.  We even had home movies of it.  I looked like I was having a really good time.  I remember one other time when my mother (my Dad was probably playing golf) took my brother and me, but that was it.  And my Dad was a schoolteacher--he had summers off.  No, what I remember was my Dad playing golf when he wasn't tending bar at the golf course (he'd tend bar in the summers so he could play golf at a reduced fee the rest of the year), my Mom working retail and when they were home, all they wanted to do was sit in the house with the drapes closed.  So it's sort of ironic that one of the first things my Dad does when he rises these days is open his drapes.  My Mom still has those  indoor tendencies.  She moved to Kaui once and spent almost the entire time sitting inside her rented condo, rarely venturing outside to enjoy a beach or the surroundings.  She'd say she enjoyed the surroundings, but she experienced it mostly by looking out a window at it.  So when the boyfriend and I began camping together when we lived in Portland, first and foremost I was doing it because I hadn't gotten to as a kid.

My mother phoned the other day and asked if I wanted her sewing machine, since she didn't think she'd be using it anytime soon.  I jumped at the opportunity.  I'd first thought about getting back to sewing when we were in the islands.  But it seemed silly to buy a machine and just have to ship it back, since I'd have to have it shipped there to begin with.  I'd even noticed a few weeks ago that one can buy a sewing machine at Wal-Mart these days for $99.  My mother's always been an excellent seamstress, but I can't remember the last time she even mentioned sewing.  She's had her Bernina since 1978.  I've barely sewn a thing since I was in 8th grade.  Mom began teaching me to sew when I was four.  (There's that age again...)  Ironically, I first fell in love with Davis when my cousin and I and some of our fellow 4-H'ers came here for a regional 4-H 'demonstration' competition.  My cousin and I did a joint demonstration that year for our sewing class (and yes, living in the age of Betty Crocker-dom, we were taught sewing and cooking...the country kids raised animals).  It was a scintillating presentation, let me tell you.  The title?  "What's in Your Basket?" (as in sewing basket).  Tore the roof off the place with that one.  So imagine my joy when I was browsing through the thrift store a couple of days ago and spotted this vintage sewing book in excellent condition for $2.  It looks like it was published about the time I was falling in love with Davis.  Funny how things come full circle, isn't it?

So that, my friends, is what I'm up to these days.  Those of you who sent essays to Andrea about what you'd like to have happen over the course of this summer may have filled them with lofty goals and dreams and aspirations.  Me, I kept it simple.  I filled mine with simple pleasures because my ultimate goal this summer is, as the last line in my 'essay' said, "To give myself the kind of summer I never had as a kid."  And that's exactly what I intend to do.

organ donor

Communicatrix's post about her piano lessons brought to mind some vivid childhood memories.

My mother signed me up for piano lessons when I was in 2nd grade.  I remember that before we were even allowed to touch the piano in the music room at my tiny Catholic school, we were given cardboard, fold-out (partial) keyboards.  We'd have to sit in the metal folding chairs in the music room, cardboard keyboard draped (and drooping) across our laps.  Our first lesson?  Middle C.  We had to take our right thumb and press it to that stupid cardboard keyboard three times while singing, "This is Middle C, C, C."  Then we were to switch hands and sing, "Left hand plays it, C, C, C."  We did that, oh, about 80 gathousand times.  And being the dim-witted slow learner I am, I was extremely patient through the entire process.

Thankfully, we eventually moved on to the real piano.  I hated practicing, and frankly, I don't remember if I ever did--even though my parents rented a piano during the two years I took lessons.  I didn't mind the lessons--I sort of enjoyed playing.  But I was terrified of the recitals, even though I performed perfectly well at them.  (I have this quirky thing:  I'm painfully shy, but actually like performing...IF it's something I feel completely competent at doing.)  So it was piano for me in 2nd and 3rd grades...but then 4th grade rolled around...

...and my mother said she'd have to make a decision about whether we'd continue renting the piano or buy it...or buy an organ instead.  Aside from a tuba, I can't imagine any instrument I would have had less desire to play at age 9 than a frigging organ.  So I'm sure you know what her decision was.  Obviously there wasn't an organ in the music room, so my lessons took place early Monday mornings in the balcony of the church.  It didn't help that I had a skinny, mean nun looming over my shoulder like a hawk.  Each week, Sister would give me a slip of paper where I was supposed to track my daily practice time.  Yeah, like THAT was gonna happen.  I'd occasionally sit down at the Baldwin organ in our living room of my own volition, but it was usually to play something in my mother's sheet music, like "Love for Sale."  Although at the time I didn't understand my father's strange expression when he'd walk into the room to find his 9-year-old daughter playing a tune about prostitution.

So I did what any self-respecting world-class procastinator would:  I wouldn't practice the entire week, instead I'd set my alarm for 3 am on Monday morning.  I'd sneak out to the living room, closing all the bedroom and hall doors along the way, sit down at the organ and turn the volume all the way down.  Then I'd try to in an hour or two to teach myself what I should have learned over the course of the week.  My parents never once confronted me during those pre-dawn practice times.  I learned in adulthood that they'd never been aware of them.

When I'd finish practicing, I'd fill in the practice slip with fictional practice sessions.  Then I'd show up for my Monday morning lesson, butcher my way through some piece and invariably be confronted by Sister with questions like, "Are you sure you practiced...let's see...6 hours this week??"  Then I'd give her my most serious, white-cat-eye-glasses teacher's pet look and nod, "Oh yes, Sister," leaving the "I wouldn't lie" insinuation to sit uncomfortably between us.  (Being a teacher's pet is one thing--being one against your will is even creepier.)

Amazingly, I somehow managed to keep up this facade to such a sufficient degree that she announced me competent enough play for Sunday Mass.  Yeah, THAT'S every little girl's dream...especially a girl who's sure she was born to the wrong parents...who's convinced she's really meant to be living in New York where she can grow up to be a runway model and Broadway dancer (because, really, how could she possibly choose between the two?)

So there I'd be on Sunday mornings, up in the balcony of the church, seated at that big-ass organ where I could barely reach the foot pedals or volume pump thing.  Sister standing behind me, looming over me with her scary vibes.  I'd pray (I had no relationship with God during eight years of Catholic study, except for moments like this) that I wouldn't make a mistake, because I knew if I did, every head in the pews below would turn and look up toward the balcony. 

The lesson here?  Never force your children to do something they detest.  I hated it so much that I completely wiped out anything I learned from those days from my memory.  When I sat down at my boyfriend's keyboard in our condo in St. Thomas (when he wasn't home, of course!) and opened a small music book he had on the stand, I realized I had almost completely forgotten how to read music.  And that made me sad, because now I wish I could play (the piano, not the organ).

We don't have a keyboard here (we sold ours in the islands), but I imagine at some point we'll have another one (it's sort of a necessity for songwriting and home recording).  And when we do get one, maybe I'll take Communicatrix's piano teacher's advice and just let myself tinker at it for 5 minutes here and there.  I don't want to relearn because I have any goal in mind...but just because it would be pleasurable to make music again.