Tag: family

::Birth Day::

Birthday Cake

Another year has come … and gone. I’m on the fifth day of “next year;” it feels good to have a full tank of gas.

That’s what I call it when a Birthday arrives. The month sliding into my natal day typically finds me “running on fumes.” Through the years I’ve observed that I’m usually a little scatterbrained during that time, forget where I put things or what I’m talking about. Yeah, that can happen any time of year, but it becomes a several-times-daily occurrence during February and most of March. My wheels get loose and jangly, and I careen a bit from side to side. Until March twenty-one.

Somehow I picture myself on that auspicious day, jumping out of bed, backlit. Looking good in spandex. Doesn’t happen quite that way.

This year I spent the entire day in my robe and slippers. It’s a fairly new robe, quite cozy, and the weather was spitting snow in the morning, freezing cold, so … it seemed a good choice. And I thought a lot that day about life, and Birthdays, and what they are. What they mean.

I know some people don’t think Birthdays are a big deal. But I love celebrating other people’s Birthdays. I’m responding to the day they arrived on the planet. I’m saying, “I am cheering that you were born, and that you’re in my life. And every year, on this day, I get to say ‘YAY’ to you!” In this world of automated distance between us all, to me that’s more important than ever.

I saw a story the other day about a man who was celebrating his 105th Birthday. There were people crowded around him as he sat in his chair, wearing his military cap. He was staring at the inferno of a Birthday cake on the table in front of him, and grinning from ear to ear. That man has experienced things I can’t even imagine. He has a lifetime of stories to tell, and I hope there are people he can tell them to. They will be richer for it.

We bear a growing wealth of knowledge, the longer we’re here. None of us know everything. But those of us who pay attention, we know a lot. And much of what we know won’t launch a rocket … but it will settle a fussy child, comfort an old dog, feed a family of eight on one potato and one onion. Plant and tend a garden; use a remedy from that garden to heal a sick one.

It feels good to become “one of those” to whom some turn, seeking comfort, or knowledge, or aid. I have more to give than ever, because I’ve never been here longer than I have today. And with each day that comes, I pray I am open to know more, that I learn new things, and that I have opportunities to share what I know and who I am with any and all who seek it out.

For through wisdom your days will be many, and years will be added to your life. [Proverbs 9:11]

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::MY ROOM::

still-life-with-lace-painting-mediumIt sat in the back corner of the house. There were two doors, one off the kitchen, and one into the boys’ bedroom.  The windows were on two sides, big and drafty. In the winter, Jack Frost made icy paintings on them. I loved it. Sometimes I would lick the ice, and watch it melt.

The wallpaper in my room was from Swinney’s hardware, my uncle John’s hardware store.

I loved that store. It had hardwood floors, front to back. There were wooden stairs to a catwalk that ran all the way around the at the second floor level. The walls up there were a checkerboard of colorful wallpaper samples. Lift the flap of paper, and the rolls of paper were stored in the cubbies behind.

My grandmother chose the wallpaper in my room. It was white, with loose bouquets of wildflowers tied with trailing blue ribbons. During the paper selection process, I was asked if didn’t I like this, or didn’t I think that was pretty. I loved looking at the samples, and leafing through the big wallpaper books. But I didn’t know what I liked. I was eight. I just wanted to make the adults in charge happy; I wanted whatever it was they wanted, because that makes everyone happy, right? Then I don’t get it wrong. That’s what you think when you’re eight.

Later, I would decide that my room looked old ladyish, I was silently disgruntled that my grandmother had picked it out … though even at ten or twelve, I didn’t know what I’d have chosen. Thinking back, I can see it was a sweet, cheery space in that stark little house. I wish I could see that paper now. I’d probably love it.

One of the things in my room was a wicker desk that had belonged to the mother of my other grandmother. My great grandmother. White wicker, with a wicker chair. That little desk has followed me all over the country, throughout my adult life. And it currently sits int eh bedroom at my house that is used by my granddaughters.

I wonder if it will some day be taken, and treasured, by my granddaughter, Gabby. There’s no way to know … but I hope so.

Meanwhile, thinking back, I love picturing that little white desk in my childhood bedroom; the wallpaper of flowers and the white dotted Swiss Priscillas. It’s where I laughed, cried, prayed, slept, and dreamed.

It was my room.

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::Two Way Mirror::

cece-and-tim-hog-posterized

These days we’re like a two way mirror.

Or through a glass, darkly.

At the grade school on Grandparents’ Day, if he shows up he is brittle and distant. He wears a starched smile, the kind that never reaches the eyes. When he looks at me, he doesn’t. Perhaps he can’t bear the reflection of himself that he sees there. Or perhaps I’m making too much of it, and he’s forgotten who I am. Like that time at the Film Festival when I saw him and called out to him. He looked at me, quizzically, then moved toward me, head shaking slowly, hand extended, with the words,

“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to help me.”

I did not take his hand. I looked at him in disbelief, and said,

“Cece.” He was embarrassed that he didn’t know who I was that day. But I realize now that he never really did.

Looking back at the years we were together, I recognize the holes he crawled through to go from our life together into his other life. I couldn’t see it at the time. The camouflage of home and family clouded my vision. But distance brings clarity. And friends who were there then have come to me from time to time since; as an act of confession? To clear their conscience as accomplices? I can’t honestly say.

While I don’t know every detail about what was going on then, I know more than I ever wanted to. Sometimes information serves no good purpose. Except, you know … it helps me realize that I was in a completely different relationship than he was. And it’s confirmed for me that he had no clue of the goodness that was present and waiting for him there. Loving him there. Knowing this is a different kind of heartbreak all by itself.

When someone becomes addicted to dancing with the dark, the light is just an irritation.

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::MYSTERIES OF MAMA::

Mama, Close Up

This picture was taken when we lived on South Madison. In it Mama is her beautiful, comical, musical self. Back then she would strike a pose, then collapse in laughter. She had flair, a free spirit,  she was my personal movie star, even before I knew what movie stars were.

I’ve gone back and looked through as many events as I can remember, trying to piece things together.

I’m searching for the turning point. To find when things changed. When the sun stopped shining, and the world went from bright colors to shades of grey.

I remember we had moved to the little house on North Marion. The one with the crayon blue linoleum floor. I remember a pivotal darkness, but nothing will speak to me from there. I try to go inside that space, but it’s always …. like the memories in it are right on the tip of my brain. I can almost see them. But not enough to grab hold, and to understand.

The things I know are that they had friends back then. At night they would get dressed up and go out together, and leave me with Ma Welp. But what else was happening?
I remember kitchen cabinets, with the doors open. Mama’s friend was rearranging. I remember Mama crying, and putting things back in the right places after the friend left. It was during that time that she stopped laughing.

I remember the priest coming. I remember feeling confused, and then it fades to black.
After whatever happened, that friend who was changing Mama’s kitchen never came over anymore.

Years later, when she was into her cups and in the mood to offer sage advice, she would say that you should never let anyone into your life because they’ll just walk in like they own the place and take over everything. Never get too close to anyone, she said. That’s the only way you can be safe, she said.

I’ve always wondered if that was the philosophy she used through the years to stay so far away from me. We’re closer now than ever before because, at 92, she has no clue who I am. It is a brokenhearted comfort that she always says she’d “love to get to know you.” I’d like to get to know you too, Mama. Or at least to understand what happened that kept us separate. But whatever it was, I loved you so; I choose to know that you loved me.I’m reminded of Birdie’s mother saying,

“All mothers love their daughters, even if they show it poorly.”

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::THE GANG’S ALL HERE::

Celia and her buddies

If three year olds can be gang members, I was one. We had a pack of kids in our neighborhood on North Marion Street. Each morning, as early as any parent would allow, a youngster  drifted out the front door of his little clapboard house, and stood in the yard wearing nothing but a pair of rumpled camp shorts. Maybe he’d wander the length of  the driveway, bend down, pick up a rock, survey the street for signs of life, and head back to sit on his porch stoop. And wait.

Almost immediately, sets of young eyes threw quick glances out picture windows. Front doors opened, and small, tan feet ran or skipped or sauntered to assemble where the child was planted.

Thinking back, it gives new meaning to “the gang’s all here.” But we were.  The men in our gang wore shorts; the women, bloomers. We were brown as biscuits, the soles of our feet  well seasoned from weeks of running around bare.

We played all day, moving in a raggedy clump from one yard to another. Bill’s dad had left the hosepipe hooked up on the front spigot, so we all ran over because Shorty and Margo were thirsty. Mitchell and Bobby turned the handle, and the water spurted out. It went quickly from hot as fire to so clear and cold that suddenly we were all thirsty. Everybody got a chance. About eight or ten three year olds bending over spouting water, slurping it down their throats and bellies, all of us clamoring for more.

I don’t remember every name from back then, but I remember that water.  It started in Lake Spavinaw, and came pouring out of that front yard hose icy and sweet, flavored with a touch of rubber hose and a dash of brass metal. We all loved it, and kept drinking until Bill’s mother came out on the porch to shake the dustmop and caught us.

“You kids turn that water off and go play!” she hollered. She gave us the hard eye till Bill went over and cranked the handle.  By that time we were soaked, but we didn’t care. In fact, we liked it. It was 90 degrees in the Oklahoma shade, which there wasn’t much of.

Our gang lasted till we all started school, then life its own self took over and we drifted into our separate worlds. But if anyone ever asks me about gang membership, I can tell them, quite honestly, that I was a gang member very early on. And I’m proud of it.

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::MOMENTS DREAMED OF::

Snow Kissing

I don’t wax nostalgic often. But when I do, it seems my nostalgia — my longing — is for moments of connection. Moments confirming that the thread I bring to the tapestry of life is sufficiently interwoven with those of others. Moments that say “yes” to the presence of me. I know; self-centered is all I can call it, and yet … it seems to me that same sweet ache lives at the heart of us all.

We  need reassurance that our time here matters, or mattered. In that sense, I think we’re all well advised to do the very best we can, always, with everyone.  Then we must leave the rest to those who write about it afterward. Even so, if I could, I’d write of moments experienced or, at the very least, dreamed of:

  • Standing at the kitchen sink in summer, barefoot, washing dishes and singing to the radio; breeze through the kitchen window makes the curtains flutter and plays with my hair. He slips up behind me,  wraps around me and we become one, soapy hands in the water, swaying to the music.
  • The children, rosy cheeked and sleepy eyed, pile into the bed where we snuggle under the covers and read The Velveteen Rabbit
  • He wakes me in the wee hours whispering, “Hey, sleepyhead, come with me.” He takes my hand, urges me into my slippers and coat, then leads me outside where it’s snowing. We dance under the night sky with snowflakes falling all around us.
  • The children come into us in the dark of morning squealing, “Mama, Daddy, it’s Christmas! Come see!” We roll out of bed, into our robes, and settle on the couch where we lean into each other over cups of hot coffee while watching the children open their gifts.
  • He and I, walking hand in hand, talking, laughing, and scuffling through drifts of Autumn leaves.
  • Peaking in on my sweet, sleeping children, touching them softly, blessing them, wondering if they know how much they are loved.
  • He takes my bare face in his hands, kisses my forehead, looks into my eyes and whispers, “You. It’s you and me. It’s always been you and me. Forever. You and me.”
  • A card arrives in the mail. Old fashioned roses painted on the front. Inside, a simple message: “We believe in you. We’re proud of you. We love you. Mother and Daddy.”
  • A family dinner of all the siblings, children, and grandchildren. The main course served amongst us all is love, with laughter a plentiful condiment.
  • That final moment when, having fought the good fight and for all the right reasons, I know without question that I’ve done my best. It no longer matters if anyone else knows. I know. And that’s enough.
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::MAYBE::

Pontiac Hood Ornament

Things in my life are the way they are, based on every choice I’ve made. They laid a road, end to end, that brought me here to this table today. Good or bad, for better or worse, here I sit; my greasy hair under a ball cap, my thoughts scattered and the censor in my brain telling me that what I’m writing now is not worth a damn.

I get sick of hearing my own voice tell my own stories. Are other people as sick of it as I am?  I don’t want to write cute, or clever. As Hemingway says, write real, about what hurts. I’ve kerfed around the edges of the pain for years, never hitting it dead center. I guess that’s real if you’re digging a trench, but I’m sort of stuck down here, looking for truth. And trying to dig my way out.

I could write about birds. But then my brain goes to the parakeet we had at 1135 South Quaker. My mother named it Perry Como. He was blue, with black wing tips, and a spot of lime green between his eyes. Thinking of him now I can smell his birdseed and that cage with the newspapers in the bottom.

When they let Perry out of that cage, he flew up and sat on the curtain rods. Every time he flew his wings made a loud flapping sound that scared my little brother.

Sometimes my mother would open Perry’s cage door, and wait. When my brother came walking through the livingroom, suddenly Perry would swoop down. My brother would scream and dive under the table, clutching the legs and sobbing. My mother raised her eyebrows, took a drag off her cigarette, and laughed. That taught me some pretty twisted things about how people treat those they claim to love. So yeah … count that little nugget as a lob to the center of the pain from the trenches.

Or maybe I could write about being a teenager. And dating.

Maybe I could write about the night a boy came to pick me up, and he had a long fringe of bangs. My little sisters peaked around the door giggling, “It’s a Beatle!” My Dad growled, “Is that your hair, boy, or is that a wig?”

Or I could write about another time my date arrived to take me to the school dance. He drove his car, parked, and my Dad drove us to school in our ’51 two door Pontiac. The two door thing is relevant because my date and my Dad sat in the front, I climbed into the back. In my formal. The thing I’ll never forget is the hood ornament. It was a glowing orange Indian Chief. I locked my eyes on that thing all the way to school, trying to ignore the awkward silence.

Maybe I could write about the faith, and the sense of humor, that have carried me on angel wings through the darkest of days, the brokenest of hearts. How, even in those moments … my date with the Beatles hair, me sitting in the back seat of that car … even then, in the recesses of my mind, I knew: “this is the rich stuff of which stories are made. I will write about this one day.”

Maybe today, sitting here at this table, wearing my ballcap, is that time.

 

 

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::Right or Wrong::

right-or-wrong imageThe messages we’re given in childhood are powerful. Until we get out into the world on our own, they define our reality. They define our normal. They tell us what’s expected of us, and what value we have. And behind those front doors, each family has its own brand of ‘normal’.

I was raised in a house where there was one right way to do everything. Often I discovered there was a right way after I’d done something the wrong way. Mattered not if I accomplished my goal. If I didn’t do it the right way, I got it wrong. And that “right” way could change without warning; I learned that early on. So, go ahead, knock yourself out. But don’t count on anything except maybe being blindsided by a new rule, a new way of you failing again.

This is a piece of the legacy inherited by a child of alcoholics. Eventually, once we’ve reached adulthood and if we’re aware enough and brave enough to launch the quest for self discovery, we catch a glimpse of how life is defined outside the hazed cocoon in which we grew up; the only “normal” we’ve ever known. So there’s an overriding sense of betrayal, or having been lied to about ‘what’s going on out there’, ‘how I fit in the world,’ or even ‘who I am’. And, at its center, ‘what love feels like’.

That’s not to say that drinkers are evil. They’re not. I truly believe that very person, in one way or another, is ‘trying to find their way’. But some people get so off track; are so myopic as to what they’re doing and the damage caused by it, that they’re pretty much a walking (or stumbling) wrecking ball.

I’ll admit there are certainly things ingrained in me from my childhood that I treasure. I have a very well calibrated moral compass. I’m not an angel by any stretch, but when I’ve veered off course, I know it.

This comes from a Spiritually driven center that was awakened in me very early on. I clung to it, and was convinced that ‘if I’m good enough’ good things will, ultimately, happen. There’s probably a piece of me that still believes it.

In Seminary we studied addiction. It was pointed out to us that addicts are “headed the wrong way down the right road.” They crave a different feeling, a different perspective. But they’ve employed chemical shortcuts to get there, which always end in failure. Because in order to keep the feelings gained from drugs or alcohol, you have to stay drugged or drunk. The process is deeply and heartbreakingly flawed. Those same good feelings are authentically available. But like all things of true value, we gotta do the deliberate, serious (and personal) work to ‘get there from here’.

And something else I learned  in Seminary, is that there are quite possibly as many ways to do something as there are people to do it. Not right or wrong, based on approach. When I heard that it was not like a light went on in my head; it was more like a bomb went off.

For decades I held back on doing so many things, big and small, for fear I would do them wrong. It was earth changing when, after finally trying something, and doing it my way, there was no one there to tell me how wrong I was.

Maybe I was never really wrong, after all.

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::All I Am::

All I AmThere are certain things I’d never call myself. Beautiful, for example, is one. Extensively educated, at least in the formal sense of the word, is another. Lord knows I’ve learned a gracious plenty, but the really important lessons rarely happened in the classroom.

Life starts telling us who we are early on. As little ones, we’re blank slates, eager for the information. And we don’t know better than to swallow whole what adults tell us about ourselves.

When I was three years old, one of my dad’s friends, who I only knew as Cuz, called me “muscles.”

Even at that young age, it felt like a bad thing. I didn’t want muscles. I wanted blonde curls and blue eyes like my cousin Joanie.  But there I was, a sturdy little girl with black ringlets and hazel eyes. A kid who in summer turned brown as a biscuit in ten minutes flat.

On the playground at school, the nuns would cluck disapprovingly as we lined up to go back inside. “Cecelia’s voice carries. You can hear her above all the other children.”

I remember, at around ten, being at my Nanny’s house in the summer. Old lady North, who lived the next street over, would come across the alley and in the back door for coffee. I dreaded that woman.

“Myers,” she’d say to my grandmother while studying me, “I think this child is an Indian.” Then she’d reach out and take hold of  my upper arm. “She’s brown as an Indian,” she’d say. Nanny didn’t argue. She just passed the half and half, lit another Chesterfield, and changed the subject.

As innocuous as they may have been at the time, those descriptions from the grownups in my childhood delivered the bad news to my sense of self. They informed me about who I was.

And the fact that after so many years I can still go back to those moments, see those people, observe them observing me, tells me just how impactful the comments were.

It’s taken decades. But eventually and deliberately I let go of my tendency to be defined by what was said long ago. In fact, those statements serve me well now. They’ve made me pay attention.

When I talk to children, I’m purposeful with what I say to them about who they are. Because the words adults use have staying power; they will frame – for a while, or forever – how those kids feel about themselves.

And when they think back, I want to have contributed tender words about their own beautiful truths.

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::BLESSINGS::

Heart in Water

There was a period, not sure how long, during my growing up when I remember being blessed. I’m not talking about blessings abounding, though looking back I’m able to see that some did. I’m talking about the ritual of Good Night.

After pajamas on, teeth brushed, I was summoned to stand before my mother. She rested her hands, softened  and smelling of Jergens lotion and tobacco, on my head.

“I bless you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” she droned. Her breath carried the DNA of Brown Derby beer.

There were no kisses. No hugs. Just a blessing.

Then one night, after the blessing, I posed a timid question.

“Aren’t we supposed to kiss and hug, or something?”

“You got a blessing. Go to bed.”

So I guess, when thinking about “being blessed,”  this memory peaks up to remind me that those blessings did happen.

Regardless of what she’d been smoking, or drinking, the blessing was its own thing. A spiritual lifeline thrown to a little girl by a mother who knew no other way to tell her she was loved.

Every night, for as long as it lasted, I grabbed that line and held on for dear life.

That lifeline became a lifeboat, one that has carried me from stark childhood to rocky marriage to the open sea of tender possibilities. I know now that sometimes a brokenhearted love lies hidden in the coldest blessing, aching to be thrown a line of its own.

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