life according to me
I’ve lost track of how long ago I asked my sister whether she remembered a particular photo of me and a childhood friend. I could figure it out if I wanted to increase the guilt I feel for procrastinating on my promise to do something with our rag tag collection of family photos, but I don’t feel like it. She overnighted her portion of the collection to me at no small expense and I promised I’d do something with them.
Tomorrow my oldest will be 34 years old. My first boy. The one I remember thinking wasn’t real when I found out I was pregnant. I was unmarried, and not quite 22.
At some point during my second grade year, my stepfather, a sonar technician in the Navy, received orders that he’d been transferred to the USS Holland, a new submarine tender headed for Rota, Spain. We were living in Charleston, SC at the time and although my memory is a bit fuzzy, it stands out as the first place I was able to complete an entire school year in one school. The years before had been full of moves from one city to another or one home to another in and around San Diego, then Key West, FL, so that meant school changes were necessary once I’d actually begun attending. A kindergarten or two, perhaps two different schools for first grade — it sounds like a lot for a child to deal with, but I remember being happy, often finding time to wander around whatever neighborhood we lived in to explore vacant lots or think about how I might climb the old pepper trees near one apartment house we lived in.
I don’t remember how my mother explained we’d move to a country somewhere across the Atlantic, but I’m sure she did and in much the same way I adjusted to the other moves we made over the years, I must have thought it was just another adventure. It helped to know our neighbors were being transferred to the same base and that we’d have one familiar contact there. With my stepfather gone well before us, my mother, brother, sister, and I flew first to an airbase in New Jersey, staying for a night — maybe two — then flew to NYC where we caught a TWA red eye to Spain.
I think it was this weekend five years ago my husband orchestrated my 50th birthday party with the help of my best friend who graciously held the party at her home. It seems longer ago than five years, and considering all that has happened in that time, it qualifies as yet another of my lifetimes.
I’ve been awake for hours trying quietly to relax the pace of my heart, breathing slowing, drawing huge breaths in and then letting them go. It works most of the time and I can close my eyes and find a cool spot on my pillow to lull myself back to sleep, but it didn’t work today.
No, today is important. Today is the day that I can, after a bit more than a year, actually see the light at the end of the tunnel, and although I’m not quite there, know it will come. All the students are finished and have gone home, but the finishing touches of yet another school year are left to be completed, so I’ll busy myself with those in much the same way one fits the remnants of a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle together, glad to be done with it.
I’ve missed quite a few things in the last year if you consider that the several before it I was able to write down my reactions to events in the world, to note the often quiet passing of time, or not so quiet family milestones. My writing stopped here, and although I tried to jot a few things down on a calendar kept next to my bed, with the exception of a few desperate bursts of anxiety, that stopped as well. I funneled what little energy I had into my food writing, but even that has slowed to a trickle. Not so surprisingly, the 365 project has saved me, allowing me to “say” something — anything — each day since the first of the year with a photograph.
Salvation.
When I scan through the shots in my iPhoto library taken in the past year, much of what I’ve taken has been of food, and if you know me, that isn’t a surprise. What you may not realize is that each of those photographs tells me so much more than what I was learning about a particular recipe I’d tried, or a meal we might have enjoyed. They help me remember where our lives were at a particular moment that no one else would understand when looking at them, like the bagels I made last June when our old doggo Jones could barely move. That was when we took her to the vet for some pain-killers and bought the non-skid treads for the stairs so she could follow me around like she always has. Or the Bittman salads I made through the summer and into the fall thinking, surely I can keep this going and stay healthy, keep my food writing going, and divert my attention from what I was doing all day to something sustaining in the evenings. There was the bakewell tart around the time of my son’s first shave, and the amazing peanut butter banana mallow mars I made about the time we got Lizzie to brighten up our lives, making us laugh when we most needed it.
In a year’s time we’ve had a family wedding, succumbed to a brief, but nasty run in with H1N1, watched another niece enter college, wished my mother and her Romeo bon voyage as they set out to travel around the country, and sadly, mourned the loss of our dear, sweet Jones who passed on to doggy heaven the day after Thanksgiving.
This year has also been my son’s last year of high school, and one marked with the added surprise of his having to ride a bike to and from school each day — a ride that is downhill all the way, and of course uphill all the way back. If you know the hill we live on, then you might understand his feeling of accomplishment the first time he made it all the way to the top without having to get off and push his bike the remainder of the trip. You’ve missed what could have been my raging at the injustice of having that bike stolen the very first day of school, and then my response of simple acceptance and the purchase of yet another bike.
I traveled to participate in my first food conference in San Francisco, we made our annual trek to Las Vegas, and then pathetically, I dragged myself into the holidays and right up to January 1st when I decided to join so many others in taking a photo a day. I can look at each one now and say that pictures do paint a thousand words — words that I’ll most likely never write. My husband has heard them all and it has been far less than easy. Poor man.
Going back to work for a year has added 25 pounds to my already padded body, has challenged me to keep up with any kind of routine diet or exercise, and has caused me to think critically about my health and life in general more differently than I ever have. However, I can be thankful for construction bills now paid off, and tuition for my son’s first year of college. I am happy for new friends and interesting people I’ve met and worked with. But I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to know that when I left my profession the first time, it was the best decision I ever made.
This time, it’s for good, and for all the right reasons.
One way I can tell the economy is rotten is by the increase in spam emails I’ve been getting. A portion of each morning is spent deleting yet another “You, too, can make money at home” message or invitation to “join me in getting out of debt.” Most are automatically caught as junk and deleted, but a few make it through.
Occasionally someone I know will actually send me an email, and if it’s my mother or her sister, it’s one of those feel good messages with the giant multi-colored text. You know, in case someone doesn’t know where her reading glasses are, she’ll be able to read it from a 15-foot distance. Ironically, both of those factors cause me not to want to read the emails, but I did this morning, shaking my head the entire time I was reading. I know it’s meant to be — well, I’m not sure. Boastful? Condescending? Perhaps sarcastic? Maybe funny. Hmmm…
Maybe you’ve seen it:
The idea of a parent bailing us…
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1920’s, 30’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks some of us took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a Ute on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster.
Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open on the weekends, somehow we didn’t starve to death!
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Fruit Tingles and some fire crackers to blow up frogs and lizards with.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, nosurround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.
Only girls had pierced ears!
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time…….no really!
We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,
We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Mum didn’t have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
Footy had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bullies always ruled the playground at school.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
Our parents got married before they had children and didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like ‘Kiora’ and ‘Blade’…..
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!
Outside of this giving me a few interesting memories about my own childhood and that of my sons, being the born party pooper I am, I couldn’t help but think of a few other things as well.
- Yes, many of us did grow up in houses with asbestos — right up until it was scraped off the ceiling about 10 years ago — well past my childhood. No men in white suits showed up to remove it. My mother and my oldest son used spray bottles and sheets of plastic, scraping it off with wide spatulas. My oldest son has never been able to breathe to begin with, so Hell. Why not take on this little Do-It-Yourself project? Just because something was tolerated in the past doesn’t make it appropriate to ignore it today.
- On the lead-based paint? Absolutely many people survived — most noticeably the person who wrote this email. But those who happened to have their cribs positioned near windows that could be chewed on when teething didn’t quite survive the same way. They ended up with permanent brain damage and have needed medical attention, and special assistance in school to the tune of millions and millions of tax payer dollars. They never had a chance, and their parents didn’t know, because lead-based paint is what was used. You could call Oliver Stone to see if he has a film in the works about a government conspiracy on this…
- Childproof caps were definitely a horrible thing to inflict upon the unsuspecting public. But I’m thinking it may have been necessary since the “If you touch this medicine, I’ll knock the shit out of you” threat to children had seen better days. Anyone who’s been beat by a parent more than once will confirm this.
- Seatbelts? Well, just go back up to the lead-based paint issue. If you survive a car crash but have injuries so severe that long-term medical care is required, ultimately the tax payer is paying the bill to keep you alive. (Just think about all those “child-proof” caps you’ll have to deal with.) And if you survived that car crash even though you didn’t have a seat belt on, I’m thinking you should have to foot the bill for your own care. I’m tired of paying for my health care AND everyone else’s. How hard is it to just buckle the damn thing?
- The reason there were no lawsuits from injuries caused from falling out of trees or needing stitches because the neighbor’s kid ran over you with a bike is because 1) there weren’t very many lawyers. College was something most couldn’t afford — hence, fewer lawyers; and 2) People couldn’t afford lawsuits even if they realized that sometimes the losers in the world DO need to be accountable for their actions. The tree I was in and fell out of when I was 8 was on private property. I was trespassing and stealing fruit. If anyone needed a lawyer, it was the farmer.
- Yes, I had a teacher who had a paddle and used it. She was pissed because I wouldn’t hold hands with a boy during a game, so she lifted my dress (ahhh…remember when girls had to wear dresses to school? So lovely to have to tolerate that while playing on the monkey bars…) and paddled my butt in front of the entire class. Should kids today have to tolerate that to grow up and say, “Look at me! I survived a teacher who whacked me! Should any kid have to deal with a bully anywhere? At some point, just sucking it up in those situations is weak. Teaching kids how to stand up for themselves and to know what’s okay, and what isn’t matters. Of course, today, bullies often have guns, don’t they?
- Drink milk with Strontium 90? And survive? Evidently, the concentration is key to whether you end up with bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissues surrounding the bone, or leukemia. It doesn’t just come from cows grazing in a field, it’s connected with weapons testing, which has decreased tremendously since the government was forced to realize that it was affecting people’s health. You know, like benzene in drinking water. Scary stuff. And sure. I’m totally angry that the government has regulated this out of my environment. Not.
- “Mum” may not have to go to work to help Dad make ends meet today, either. In fact, “Mum” may have a college degree, and realize that working all day, and taking care of her house and family after she gets home is like having two jobs for less than what Dad earns, so how stupid is that? “Mum” can now choose to stay at home to raise her children instead of paying the childcare provider her entire salary AND have a title: SAHM. Some of us refuse to call ourselves anything of that nature, however.
- Yes, the “Good Old Days” are gone, aren’t they? Just think. Without our beloved laptops, computers, Macs, PCs or however you lovingly refer to them, we wouldn’t be able to write and send emails such as the one above, would we? We’d actually be getting the work done that our employers pay us to do! What an interesting concept.
I could keep going, but this is way past the length all those You Too Can Make Money At Home Blogging gurus mention. God forbid that whatever is on my mind exceeds a few paragraphs.
Goodness. What a snarky woman I am today.
I’ll write about something pleasant next time, or just avoid reading those emails.
Today is my mother and father-in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary. Fifty years is a very long time. I should know because that’s how long my very own bones have been on this planet learning to walk, and run, falling down, then starting again. Relentlessly.
Fifty years.
A marriage lasting fifty years is more something to read about in the section of the newspaper that also records births and deaths, engagements and graduations than it is something people I know have accomplished. Sure, my grandparents were married fifty years, but it took my mother’s mother three tries to get it right, and at that point, I think maybe she was just tired.
When I think of my mother and father-in-law, they’re rarely considered separately. They go together like a nicely wrapped present, and if you’d told me years ago that they would matter to me as much as they now do, I would have had trouble believing you. But they matter quite a bit. 
Maybe it’s because of their unwavering support — their interest, their enthusiasm, their curiosity, energy, patience, graciousness…uncomplicated kindness.
I’ve known them for nearly half the time they’ve been married, which is an interesting perspective now that I think of it. And in that time, we’ve shared quite a lot: Thursday night pizza and wine — lots and lots of wine; annual dinners out to celebrate our anniversaries and birthdays all in one big night; old jobs and new jobs; trips and family holidays; mint juleps and phone calls from the Kentucky Derby. It may not sound like anything out of the ordinary to others, but I’m smiling as I think about it all.
I think about my father-in-law’s quiet, positive outlook, and my mother-in-law’s plans of places to go and things to see. I think about what caring grandparents they are, and how good they are at making sure everyone knows that he or she is thought of in a special way.
I guess thinking about all of this today has made me realize that outside of a few stories about how they met, and where they lived, I don’t know all that much about their lives together — except that they raised a remarkably patient man I happen to be married to. I haven’t seen many photos, either, and wonder about them now.
We’re all going out to dinner tonight to celebrate their 50 years together. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get a story or two out of them, and if I’m lucky, some photos not too much longer from now, just to see.
Fifty years.
The MoH and I aren’t quite half way there, but we’ll get there. We’ll get there with bells on, grinning all the way.
I was ugly when I was thirteen. I don’t remember if I thought so then, but sorting through old photos proves it: I went from innocent beauty to zit-ridden adolescent in three short years. Add chubby to that as well, and the image is complete. It was no wonder that Peter McClueless didn’t know I was alive. What boy would be interested in returning the unwavering admiration a fat, ugly girl beamed at him every single day of most of his eighth grade year?
No boy would, except for someone like Paul, who lived across the street. He tried to shove a note at me once while we were in the library in Seventh Grade. He was much shorter than I, weighed more, and had smooth, round cheeks. A year later, I’m sure he was counting his lucky stars that I refused to take his note, relieved that he wasn’t burdened by the stigma of being associated with a fat, ugly girl.
A tow head, I’d had long hair and braids for years but always wanted it cut. The lure of something different was more important than having shorter hair, and it was never a matter of wanting to look a particular way. My hair was thick and more coarse than fine — not quite like a Brillo pad, but similar. There were no glossy curls that bounced when I tossed my head, but uneven waves that turned under on one side, and not the other. When I finally got my hair cut short, it was a relief to not have to worry about it any longer until my father bluntly mentioned that one of his friends had asked if I was his son.
What kind of father tells his daughter something like that?
A fat, ugly girl’s father.
None of my girlfriends seemed to notice I was fat and ugly. We were all awkward victims of fashion then, wearing granny skirts and peasant tops, or ribbed sweaters and plaid A-line skirts in brown and ochre, avocado green or rust. Our shoes were clunky and dark — not the best way to end legs without nylons, and often still unshaved. On some days, we donned giant sunglasses with lenses tinted yellow or purple, thinking ourselves cool. We must have seen other girls at school who wore them, because none of us had a clue about what was in and what wasn’t. We didn’t have subscriptions to teen magazines, or older sisters, and outside of what we saw on television, we had no idea about what we should wear. Most of us made our own clothes.
The world seemed just as much in transition as we were, our bodies changing whether we wanted them to or not, and forcing us to think of ourselves differently than we had before. The Vietnam war had three more years of lives to waste before it would end, drug education at school was relentless, and the new Hollywood was no longer a fanciful escape.
I had my head inserted firmly in the clouds, reading books and watching old movies on television, or wasting afternoons with Susy, who lived next door and made me laugh. She was fat, too, but didn’t seem to notice, flaunting her legs in Levi cutoffs with seams split so high, the pocket linings showed. Strutting around in our back yard, she talked about being Racquel Welch, clasping her nonexistent breasts, and pushing up as if to fill her tee shirt, laughing the entire time. She loved vampires and roller derby and would have killed for a boyfriend.
I don’t think I ever told her I was madly in love with Peter McClueless because I knew she was the kind of person to blurt it out during lunch in front of everyone. It wouldn’t have been to hurt my feelings or embarass me because she didn’t know I was fat and ugly either. In fact, I’m not sure anyone knew, but if my secret got out about Peter, then I’d see judgment on their faces, and have to acknowledge it myself.
No, I’d be 15 before I actually thought I was ugly, and 15 was miles and miles from 13 if you were me.
Day Four: NaBloPoMo. Not in the mood for chastising.
November 4, 2007
Dear Childhood Friends,
It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen many of you, but you’re not far from my mind. You exist in and around the shadows that surprisingly haven’t diminished with time, reminding me of how special you were. How much you helped shape who I now am. And I wonder more than you might think about where you now are, who you’ve become, and whether your life has been a good one.
Becky, I think you’re the one I remember the most. Unfortunately, much of that memory is tinged with sadness. We had so much fun in that ridiculous clubhouse your father built and that strange van with the running boards he used to drive. I could recall more detail at this point, but don’t need to. The details are there when I want them to be. It’s funny that I now realize the memories aren’t like video. No one moves or speaks. There’s no sound. They are just like photos kept in a box. Still shots of games we played, and fun we had.
I remember how broken-hearted I was when you moved away, and then later, that you had clearly matured more quickly than I. Somehow, I was embarrassed and felt betrayed. I’ve always wondered how you felt being pregnant at such a young age and then marrying the boy. It was so far from something I would have done myself then, still wanting to believe in fairy tales and perfect lives with happy endings. Houses with paned windows and chinneys that puffed smoke when it was cold. But I’m sure it wasn’t anything you expected either, was it?
If I remember correctly, the last time I wrote to you was after I had my oldest son. Was I responding to one of your letters, or was I writing to you? And who stopped writing first? I suppose it’s difficult to keep a lifetime relationship alive on only three years of a childhood friendship and 3,000 miles of country between the two of us. Isn’t it? But I’m sure it’s been done.
I hope you’re healthy and that you’ve been fortunate in the ways that matter most to you. And that maybe, once in a while, you remember me with as much fondness as I recall the laughter and imagination you brought to me.
Much love,
Kelly
