Write at the Merge: Snowfall & Secrets

            I’ve spent more time than usual with my boys over the last couple of weeks. We missed three days of school after the blizzard called Nemo and the following week was February school vacation. Most of our time together was great. There were days that I genuinely missed being a stay-at-home mom. We cooked together, did crafts, played games, and snuggled up to watch movies. My babies are growing into smart, interesting, funny kids. I don’t just love them—I really like them.

            But over the course of our time together, I became aware of a very disturbing secret.  My children are growing up and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t want them to be babies forever... but maybe just a little longer.

            A couple of weeks ago, I was standing outside with Owen. The sunlight, reflecting off the snow was bright enough to make me squint. In that brilliant lighting, my aging eyes finally saw something Owen had been telling me about for weeks—peach fuzz. Right there, under his nose. Incontrovertible proof that my little boy is growing up. 

            Last week, we were running errands. I finally agreed to change the car radio from NPR to their favorite cheesy pop station.  The song “Hey Ya” by Outkast came on. When the song came to the part, “Shake it, shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture,” Owen said, “This song sounds inappropriate.”

            “Huh?” I said. “What do you mean? I think he’s just talking about dancing.”

            “It sounds sexual,” said Owen as I nearly lost control of the vehicle and narrowly avoided careening into a snow bank.

            Sexual.

            My ten-year-old said it sounded sexual.

            It probably is.

What else does he know?

            Don’t answer that. I’m not ready.

 

            I’m linking up with the wonderful group over at Write on Edge for this week’s Write at the Merge prompt. We were asked to write a piece inspired by the phrases, “a snow fall” and “a secret revealed”. It could be fiction or memoir.

RemembeRED: Caro Mio Ben

            I’ve been involved in theatre since the sixth grade. So I mark milestones by what show I was doing when they happen. My oldest niece was born just before Alice in Wonderland; I played Mary in Run for Your Wife when we were planning our wedding; I got pregnant when I was playing the Mayor of Munchkinland in The Wizard of Oz (don’t bother—I’ve already heard all the short jokes); and my Grandfather died while I was co-directing a production of Oklahoma!.

            “Mum and Dad are fine,” was the message my sister left. “But give me a call when you get the chance.” If Mum and Dad were fine, who wasn’t fine?

            Papa had been working in the yard, came into the house, sat down, and stopped breathing. And just like that his sweet tenor voice and kind brown eyes were gone. I sat on my piano bench, caught between disbelief and heartbreak.

            I wanted to do something. What could I do to help? My parents were on a plane back from their vacation in Italy. My grandmother was surrounded by her children. I would only be in the way. My husband held me as I cried and he would have held on for as long as I needed. But I didn’t want to stand there and cry.

            I had scheduled a pronunciation workshop to teach life-long Bostonians to sound like midwestern farmers and cowboys that night. I was late and I needed to go.

             The stage manager grabbed me when I walked in. “What’s wrong?” she said.

            Before I had kids, I was never late. “If I’m late,” I used to say, “Something awful has happened.”

            “My grandfather died,” I whispered.

            “Go home!”

            “No. This is where I need to be right now.”

            So I spent the next couple of hours drumming the “R” into the actors words.

“Say Bartlett Farm.”

“Bahtlett Fahm.”

“No, Bartlett Farm.”

“Barltett Fahm.”

“That’s better but the R needs to be in both words, Bartlett Farm.”

“Bahtlett Farm. Shoot! Sorry Vickie. Bartlett Farm.”

And on it went for the next two hours. Turning “Will Pahkah” into “Will Parker” and “cahn’t” into “can’t”. When it was over I thanked my actors. More than sympathy, more than a shoulder to cry on, I needed to immerse myself in something. It wasn’t the first time I learned that theatre is cheaper than therapy. And I’m sure it won’t be the last. 

This week's RemembeRED prompt for Write on Edge was to write a memoir piece in which dialects or colloquialisms feature prominently. I was really excited by this prompt since I'm from the Boston area and we have such a distinctive (and often BADLY imitated) accent. I was surprised how difficult I found coming up with a moment to use. This particular memory came to me just last night.

RemebeRED: The Box

            Finally! I thought I’d be on that shelf forever. Oh sure, she’s taken me down every once in a while—like at Halloween or if someone needs to borrow some stage blood or spirit gum. But it’s been ages since she’s brought me to a theatre. That’s where I belong, you know. I don’t belong on the top shelf of a closet with that dress she’s never going to fit into again and her son’s baptism outfit. I belong in the theatre making people look older, or younger, or tired, or scary. 

            She bought me back in the early nineties. That’s why my colors are so garish—teal and raspberry. They’re eighties colors really. She picked me up on clearance at the Poughkeepsie Jamesway and filled me with makeup from Max Factor and Ben Nye and Mehron. Before she found me she was using an ugly old fishing tackle box. Can you imagine?

            When she took me down on Saturday, I knew this time was different. She didn’t just rifle through me for one or two things. She cleaned my brushes. She threw away makeup that was past its prime. She emptied everything out and cleaned me with Clorox wipes. Those stung a little. But now I feel really sharp.

            She bought new makeup. She’s gotten smarter over the years. She didn’t bother buying a whole kit full of things she’s never going to need. How many skeins of crepe hair has she thrown away over the years? How much nose putty? This time she ordered a couple of containers of base and bought eye shadow and lipstick at Target. She even bought something called eyelid primer. Apparently in the new millennium, one needs to prime one’s eyelids.

I’m on my way! She left me on a chair in the living room next to some shopping bags. I bet they’re filled with costumes. I wonder who I’ll turn her into this time. Usually, I just make sure her pasty Irish skin doesn’t get washed out under the stage lights. But once I got to make her look like an old lady. Another time she was a witch with green skin and purple lips. I’ll be there for whatever she needs. I’m returning to the theatre. That’s where I belong.

Do objects have a memory? Does a rocking chair hold the essence of the snuggles it has witnessed? Does a pottery mug remember the comforting warmth it offered a struggling soul?
The dictionary defines personification as “the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.”
Now it’s your turn to tell a piece of your story from the point of view of an object who bore witness in 400 words or less.

RemebeRED: Curtain Call

For this week’s memoir prompt, we’re going to let narrative take a backseat. Choose a moment from your personal history and mine it for sensory detail. Describe it to us in rich, evocative details. Let us breath the air, hear the heartbeat, the songs, feel the fabric and the touch of that moment.

Curtain Call

           It is so dark I’m afraid I’ll fall into the orchestra pit. Someone shines a flashlight from the wings to help me find center stage. My arms are covered in goose bumps and my skimpy costume is itchy where the netting is stitched to the satin. My heart is pounding like it does when I take a math test or when I go down a hill too fast on my bike.

            The lights come up and warm me. I can see the stage now—I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. The audience is still in darkness so I cannot see their faces, only the shapes of the people in the first row. My family is out there somewhere but I can’t tell where. I remind myself to smile.

            The music begins. It’s much louder than when I dance in my living room. I move to the rhythm as I’ve done a thousand times at home—standing on my toes and stretching out my arms. My racing heart begins to slow as I dance. I don’t have to force myself to smile any more. I have never felt so happy as I do at this moment. I don’t care any more that the costume is itchy. It’s black and shiny and trimmed with red sequins and white feathers.

            Too soon the song is over. The invisible audience claps. I love the sound. I curtsy deeply over the dusty stage and run into the wings. I am seven years old and this is my first curtain call.  

I'm sure any seven-year-old girl these days would consider this a very odd song choice for a dance recital. But it was "Creative Movement" class in the 70's and I loved it.

RemembeRED: Our Morning Goodbye

           This week's RemembeRED prompt from The Red Dress Club was to write about affection. 

Our Morning Goodbye

            It’s a hot September morning. The boys grumble because I’ve forced them to wear “church clothes” to school. They’d much rather be in tee shirts emblazoned with Sponge Bob or Star Wars characters and athletic shorts. It’s the first day of school—only one of two days that I insist the boys wear a shirt with a collar and khaki shorts or pants. The other day is school picture day. I’m sure they’ll grumble when that day comes too.

            I take a snap shot before the boys leave for school and we head up the hill to the bus stop. They race ahead of me, their green and blue L.L. Bean backpacks bouncing along. We arrive with a few other neighborhood families. The moms ask each other about their summers and try to keep the kids from getting grass stains on their new clothes. The kids play and compare their new sneakers.

            The yellow bus comes around the corner. “Here comes the bus,” I call to my boys who have wondered off to investigate the ants on the sidewalk. James jumps up, runs and plants a kiss on my cheek so quickly I can barely feel it and races to the front of the line to board the bus. Owen goes more slowly. He gives me a hug, we kiss each other’s cheeks and he climbs the steps of the bus. He turns towards me and waves. I blow him a kiss. He catches it and puts his hand over his heart then blows one to me. I catch the kiss and place it on my heart.

            We perform this goodbye ritual every day at the bus stop (and again at bedtime). The bus can’t leave until it’s complete. There are days when I am in a hurry or feeling stressed and I can’t help but feel impatient for him to just give me a peck on the cheek and hurry on his way. But I know these days are numbered. Plenty of kids younger than him walk away from their parents without a backward glance. Next Thursday is the last day of third grade for Owen.  How long will my sweet boy take the time to give me a multilayered goodbye? On my better days I remember that our morning farewell is a blessing.

Yesterday morning I had to hurry home to meet an appliance repairman at the house. I was nervous that he would arrive before I returned from the bus stop.

“I’m going to start walking back home as soon as the bus stops.” I tell my boys.

“You aren’t even going to say goodbye?” Owen asks me.

“Of course I’m going to say goodbye. I’ll just have to make it a quick goodbye.”

“We better do it now then,” he insists. He hugs me, kisses me and blows me a kiss. I catch it and place it over my heart.

RemembeRED: Taking a Break

 This week's RemembeRED prompt:

"I think we've been too nice to you.

It's time for another image prompt.

Write about the first (or second) memory that comes to mind when you see this:"

 

Taking a Break

            I was sitting in my little black Honda Prelude fiddling with the sunroof control. It was too cold in the car with it open and too hot with it closed. A lot of other drivers had gotten out of their cars to get some air. I looked at my watch. It was almost 7:00. Curtain was at 8:00. A police officer was walking along the row of stopped cars.

            “Any idea how much longer it will be?” I asked him.

            “No idea,” he said.

“I’m in a play at Marist at 8:00,” I said. Strictly speaking, I wasn’t in the play. But I was the makeup person. I needed to make a 22-year-old college student look like an aged King Lear. For now I was stuck in some side road off of Route 9 waiting for the President Clinton’s motorcade to pass by.

“You knew the president was going to be in town,” he said unsympathetically.

He continued walking down the line of cars until he was out of sight. I held back tears. The actor playing Lear was going to be pissed.

            It was the early 90’s and only doctors and lawyers had cell phones. They were the property of the well to do, not standard equipment for students like they are today. Even if I could walk to a pay phone, no one would have been at my house. They would all be at the theatre.

            I hunted around in the floor of my car for a cassette (remember those?) to listen to. For some reason the only tapes I could find were The Rolling Stones and Beethoven’s 9^th. Neither matched my mood so I sat in silence—angry at myself for not planning better, the police for keeping me here and the president for being delayed.

            We were finally allowed to move our vehicles at 7:45. The curtain was scheduled to go up at 8:00. I drove to the theater, parked my car and ran to the green room. When I arrived, another member of our group had begun Lear’s makeup. He looked profoundly relieved when he turned over his brushes to me. Lear’s base had already been done. I needed to use a darker make up to create contours in the space under his eyes and paint on his age lines. As I moved the brush closer to his face, he grabbed my shaking hand.

            “Go have a cigarette,” he said.

            “But the curtain time was five minutes ago,” I said.

            “We can wait. Go have a cigarette.”

            “And I don’t smoke”

            “I don’t care. Go have a cigarette.”

            I was at the time, one of the few members of the theatre group who didn’t smoke. I had grown up in a house smelling of smoke and it just didn’t interest me. I took the proffered cigarette and went out on the loading dock and lit up. Taking a moment and stepping out of the situation was enough to make my hands stop shaking. There were a number of things that would have had the same effect—going for a walk, eating some French fries, getting a hug from a good friend. I crushed out the cigarette and went back inside. I finished Lear’s makeup and the curtain went up only a few minutes late.

RDC: My Midnight Glutton

 

This week’s Red Dress Club prompt is to write about gluttony—my personal favorite of the seven deadly sins. I love food and drink and had dozens of ideas of how to take this prompt. This is the one that flowed the easiest. I think I've been getting sentimental lately...

My Midnight Glutton

            I awaken at 11:58—just before you begin to cry. It’s become so routine over the past few weeks, I’d probably get up to check your breathing if you didn’t call for me before midnight. I slip into my light blue milk-scented bathrobe and stumble down the hall to the nursery.

            Your cries become louder just as I reach the crib. You feel my arms around you and crane your head forward in search of your next meal. We sit in the old maple rocking chair and nurse. This midnight feeding has become your biggest meal of the day. No longer a newborn, you’re becoming interested in the world around you. The excitement of your big brother during daylight hours fascinates you and you’ll latch on for only a moment or two and then turn away to see what he’s doing.

            I can’t blame you. Owen is two years old and he makes lots of noise and plays with colorful toys. How can a person focus on milk when there is so much excitement going on? Don’t worry Sweet Baby James. It wasn’t that long ago that your big brother was waking me for a midnight snack. Now he can run and climb rocks and kick a soccer ball and finger paint, and blow bubbles. And it won’t be long before you will too.     

As we sit together in the dark room I marvel at how different you are from Owen as a baby. Nothing could distract him until he rolled away in sleepy contentment with milk running down his round chin. I wonder if that is a clue as to how your personalities will be like later on.

            You finish nursing and the look on your face tells me you don’t want to sleep. Sorry pal, Mommy can’t play peek-a-boo at midnight. I put you up to my shoulder and softly sing the Tommy Makem songs I can remember my dad singing to me. Half way through “The Leaving of Liverpool” you surrender to sleep. I lay you down with a silent plea that you’ll let me sleep for a few more hours. 

The boys, circa 2004

RemembeRED: Sand

Here is a little piece of memoir written for The Red Dress Club’s RemembeRED meme. This week’s prompt was to write about sand. That’s it. That’s the whole prompt. This is what I came up with…

Dear Owen,

This morning, when I sat down at my computer, I accidentally open up IPhoto. I ended up spending almost an hour flipping through the thousands of pictures we’ve taken since you were born. I was supposed to be paying bills and renewing my library books. Instead I watched you go from being a huge, healthy perfect baby to a quick and inquisitive toddler to the thoughtful and articulate elementary school student you are today. It’s hard to remember when you were this guy:

            When this picture was taken, I was seven months pregnant with your little brother. Our house was being renovated to make room for him. We expanded the second floor to create two new bedrooms. Part of the bedroom you now use was once my walk-in closet. Your bunk bed sits in the exact location where I kept an array of suits and silk blouses. I gave up that closet and those fancy clothes when you came along—it was one of the best choices I ever made.

            We couldn’t live in our house while the work was being done so we stayed in little red cottage that my grandparents had built many years ago. There wasn’t a lot of room to play inside the cottage, but it was very close to the beach. We were there for most of March and April, which isn’t ideal beach weather in New England. So we had the beach to ourselves most days. You didn’t mind the cold. To you, that beach was a giant sandbox. All you needed was a pail, shovel and a plastic truck or two and you would stay busy for hours. When your lips turned blue I would bribe you with a cup of hot cocoa to entice you to go back to the cottage.

            You didn’t have a lot to say back then (times have really changed) but you asked a lot of questions. Or rather you asked the same question many times. “What zat do?” You would ask at the hardware store. “What zat do?” you would ask at the car repair shop. Once a week, we would visit our house so I could see how the work was going and drop off a check. “What zat do?” you would ask about the reciprocating saw. “What zat do?” you would ask about a nail gun. Keeping you out of harm’s way amid all those fascinating tools was no easy task for your very pregnant mother.

            It’s not only strange to think of you back then because you are so much more grown up. It’s also strange to think of you as an only child. Maybe it’s just a bad case of mommy brain, but I can hardly remember a time when you weren’t a brother. I never really thought about how you and James would get along before he came into our lives. I never weighed the pros and cons of having more than one child. It just seemed natural that after we had one child, we would have another. I never could have imagined how close you would become.

I hope you realize what a blessing you have in each other. Every night I pray that you always have that. I am so proud of how you’re willing share your allowance with each other. I love seeing your huge goodnight hugs. And I’m always touched at your concern when the other one is sick or hurt. You compliment each other so well. One of you is extroverted and one introverted. One of you is emotional and the other logical. One of you jumps into life with both feet and the other considers his path carefully. One of you likes to build sandcastles and the other likes to knock them down.

            Love, Mom

I tried desperately to NOT write about the beach. The beach just seemed so obvious. I even came up with this great memory about the time I narrowly avoided stepping on a rattlesnake while hiking with my family in the desert. But then I realized that it wasn’t desert so much as plains and therefore grassy rather than sandy J. I’ll have to jot that one down for another time.

The Last Day

           This is a piece for the Red Dress Club’s memoir writing prompt. This week we were asked to remember kindergarten.  Mine your memories and write about the earliest grade you can recall. What was special? What was ordinary? What did you feel? Hear? See? Smell?

           

The Last Day

            My brother tries to wake me up, “Hey Sticky, get up! You have to get dressed for school.”

            It isn’t easy for me to get up in the mornings. I snuggle down into my green and white gingham bedspread. Now Dad comes in to get me up, “Come on, my little chickadee,” he says. “You don’t want to be late for your last day of kindergarten.”

Now I get up. My last day of taking the bus to school—it isn’t a regular bus. It’s a big brown station wagon with wooden paneling on the sides and a yellow and black sign that says school bus. Sometimes the man who drives it takes us through the car wash on the ride home. I’m going to miss that. Dad washes his car in the driveway.

I won’t miss being on the bus with Lisa though. She’s mean to me and says I wear boy’s clothes because my sweater is navy blue—not pink like hers. Lisa reminds me of Nellie Olsen from Little House on the Prairie. She is tall and pretty with blond ringlets and she isn’t very nice. Lisa isn’t going to the John F. Kennedy Elementary School next year and I won’t miss her one bit.

I can’t wait to be in first grade. I’m going to walk to school every day with my brothers. I’m already a really good reader. Someday I’m going to be able to read big books like my sister Katie. She doesn’t go to the Kennedy. Katie goes to West Junior High and takes books out of the library that have hundreds of pages and no pictures.

I get out of bed and get dressed. I don’t need to wear my sweater because it’s summer time now. We are leaving for vacation right after school today. I’ve never been  away before. Nana and Papa live near the beach so usually we see go there during the summer. My parents saved up all their money for this thing called a motor home. It’s a cross between a house and a car. We’re going to see the whole country this summer.

My brothers tell me they don’t have snack time or naptime in elementary school—just lunch in a big cafeteria. I don’t mind not having naps. I don’t usually sleep. I just lie on my cot and look around the room. I really like snack time in kindergarten though. Sometimes we get saltines with peanut butter. It’s the best kind of peanut butter. My mom buys the all-natural stuff with the teddy bear on the jar. It’s okay if you have lots of jelly! But if you’re having straight peanut butter on crackers you can’t beat the kind they serve in kindergarten. It’s smoother and sweeter and doesn’t stick to the roof of your mouth as much. Don’t tell Mom, but I like it better.

I eat my English muffin and drink my juice. The fruit my mom made for our last day of school party is in the refrigerator. She carved a basket out of a whole watermelon and filled it with strawberries and pineapple and melon balls. Most of the other moms will probably bring cookies. I love strawberries—but I like cookies even more.

The last day iss really fun. We play games all day and there are lots of cookies. At the end of the day, my teacher gives me a hug and tells me she will miss me. She gave me a big white bear with a green bow. And guess what? He’s going on vacation with me! My parents pick me up from kindergarten in the motor home. I’m going to have two adventures. First, I’m going to see the entire country and then I’m going to go to start first grade. I wonder what will happen next!

RemembeRED: Sleepy Time

            This week's memoir prompt from The Red Dress Club was: Imagine you are meeting someone for the first time. You want to tell them about yourself. Instead of reciting a laundry list of what you do or where you're from, please give us a scene from your life that best illustrates your true self. Word limit is 600. Constructive criticism is most welcome. I must admit I had a hard time choosing one scene from my life for this assignment.

Sleepy Time

            According to the unkind digital face on my bedside table, it’s almost 3am. When I first started working a nightshift it wasn’t unusual for me to have trouble falling asleep when I got home. Now two years have gone by and I can usually get to sleep within an hour or so. But tonight I had a difficult and angry customer. I replay the scene over and over again in my head—things he said, things I said, things I wish I had been clever enough to say. As I lay in bed the need for sleep becomes urgent. A mother can function on very little sleep but she can’t do without it altogether. I try to push the confrontation out of my mind. My skin should be thicker after all these years in customer service, but it isn’t. I’m angry at the customer and frustrated with myself. I take way too much to heart. So I’m still awake when James comes in the room.

            “Mommy?” he says, unable to see me in the dark room.

            “Are you okay Sweetie?” I ask.

            “I had a bad dream.”

            I pick him up. He clings to me. His skinny legs wrap around my waist and hold on tightly.  He’s shaking a little. “Let’s get into your bed,” I tell him. “We’ll cuddle up and you can tell me about your dream.” He rests his head in the curve between my shoulder and neck and I feel him begin to relax as we walk down the hall. He is four years old, but in these hours between night and day he is still my baby.

            The boys’ night-lights make the apple green walls glow softly. I put James into the lower bunk and climb in after him. There is plenty of room for both of us—neither one of us is very big. I pull the Lightning McQueen blanket over us. He still clings to me while as he tells me his dream.

            “There were monsters,” he whispers.

            “What were they doing?” I asked him.

            “They were chasing me.”

            “Maybe they just wanted to play tag with you,” I said.

            I feel James shaking again, but this time he is giggling softly, “Mommy! Monsters don’t play tag.”

            “Are you sure? Did you ask them? Maybe they were bored.”

            “I’ll ask them next time,” he says. “Mommy? Will you stay with me?”

            “Of course Honey,” I tell him. I plan to go back to my own bed after he drifts off to sleep.

            He cuddles closer and plays with my hair as he falls asleep. It is something he used to do when he was nursing. I think about our late nights together. My elderly pediatrician told me I’d miss those moments. As a sleep-deprived new mother, I didn’t believe him. I was wrong.

Sleep finally finds me in that darkened room with my baby in my arms. I comfort him. He comforts me. My frightened child has exorcised the angry customers from my mind.