There's a Facebook post making the rounds about being a girl in the 70's. It's Donny and Marie and Shrinky-Dinks and Shaun Cassidy. It's bell bottoms and Dorothy Hamill haircuts and Little House on the Prairie. And, it's bikes - bikes with a banana seat and a plastic basket with flowers on it hanging off the handlebars. Those are my memories! That was my bike!
My banana seated bike took me all over the streets of our subdivision in Florida. The subdivision where we lived was on the Tampa Bay - a series of streets and cul-de-sacs designed to maximize the canal system so that as many homes as possible had access to the bay. I remember riding my bike around the neighborhood, dropping it on someones lawn and heading back behind their house to the canal in their backyard. We'd walk along the sturdy brick wall edging the canal. Just one slip and we would have plunged into the waters - left to claw at the dock covered with barnacles in order to climb up to safety.
I rode my bike to the edge of the subdivision. There was a construction site for condominiums. This part of the subdivision wasn't on a canal but was edged by a sandy beach with all sorts of crabs to chase. We'd build crab houses and try to entice them in. Little crab resorts with crab swimming pools and crab chaise lounges. We had plenty of building material for our crab resorts - construction debris -rusted nails, broken glass, shards of wood. They (the crabs) were never impressed. We made the same elaborate resorts for lizards back home in our yards using our mothers' Tupperware and our old toys but the lizards were equally unimpressed.
A little older, I rode my bike to the five and dime. Next to the Publix grocery store, the five and dime sold every kind of trinket imaginable. Looking back now, it was the dollar store of it's day! I would buy beads. We girls had metal choker necklaces on which you could string beads - big chunky wooden earth toned beads. An add-a bead necklace for the hippie era.
My bike took me to places that made memories. Pedaling hard, wearing my knee high white go-go boots, my banana seated bike took me places that only a girl from the 70's would remember.
This post was written for the monthly Write-Away contest hosted at Scribbit. This month's topic is First Bike.
Showing posts with label Write-Away. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Write-Away. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Finish Line
There's a line I love in David Sedaris' book When You Are Engulfed in Flames, it is a non-English speaker trying to describe that someone has quit smoking and he says, "He is finished with the cigarettes." Sedaris notes, and I agree, that it sounds like the person was allotted a certain number of cigarettes and he had smoked them all; he was finished with the cigarettes. That sums up how I felt on the day I had the last cigarette. I was finished. If I close my eyes and allow my body to relax, I can transport myself back to that moment.
I head out the side door to the utility porch of the rambling two story clapboard house. I'm dressed in a flowing denim dress with tights and long johns underneath, a turtleneck and sweater over the top, and my heavy lace up boots. At that point the girl who never wore jeans hadn’t yet succumbed to what would be become my uniform during the Maine winters - L.L. Bean flannel lined jeans. I reach for the window ledge and feel for the pack and lighter hidden there. I stand facing out to the landscape surveying the snow and ice as I go through the familiar ritual. Tamping down the pack, finally, hitting it just right to make a single cigarette shoot out into the waiting opposing hand. Bringing it to my lips and lighting it with that first heavy drag. My warm breath is already making visible puffs as I exhale and that combines with the tendrils of cigarette smoke to obscure the scene in front of me. I savor every drag of the last cigarette.
The first cigarette came years earlier at an age much too young. The summer I was preparing to turn 13, my family moved due to a transfer in my father's work. I left seventh grade at middle school expecting to go to another middle school for the all important "top of the hill" eighth grade year. But this particular town didn’t have middle schools. Here kids went to elementary school from kindergarten through seventh grade and then high school for eighth through twelfth grade. So the first day of school found me streaming into the building with an assortment of unknown and some much older students. I was a sub-freshman - the lowest form of life at the high school. All the kids from Hightower Elementary assume that I had gone to Kingslee Elementary, and the students from Kingslee thought I must be from Shallowford Elementary, and those kids from Shallowford were sure I was from Chestnut Elementary. So no one felt the need to befriend me because surely I had friends from my old elementary school. The teachers were no better, they were facing a sea of new faces all converging from the four elementary schools and everyone was new and they didn’t know their names much less their history or whether they had a need for matchmaking.
For a new student with no one to talk to the longest six minute of every hour are the change of classes. When the bell rings and you are dismissed from the safe structure of your assigned seat and the classroom's prescribed expectations, you are thrust out into the hall where everyone seems to be busy with their friends. The couples are pressing each other up against lockers for a mini make out session, the single girls are in groups at their lockers looking into mirrors, talking to each other and applying lip gloss, the jock guys are horsing around pushing and shoving in that fraternity of physical familiarity. I escaped from the halls by heading into the bathroom, pretending to go, dilly dallying as I washed hands to use up the endless minutes. And as the day passed, I ventured further and further back into the bathroom until I was at the very back of the bathroom where the other misfits hung out. The smoking girls were huddled in the last stall puffing on their cigarettes. To join this clique, all that was required was a quick lie, "I left my cigarettes at home, can I bum off you today? I'll pay you back." And I was in.
I smoked through high school and through college and through the first years of teaching as a young single woman, and through my engagement. But it was during the engagement that the fiancée, who also smoked, suggested that we quit. We would quit together before the wedding and start out married as non-smokers. I agreed and we managed it. We did not smoke through the first move, the pregnancy and birth of our baby, nor through the second move. Then when the baby turned one year old, I decided it was time to return to work. The work place I chose happened to be populated with many smokers. My boss smoked, and her boss smoked, and her boss smoked too. As the new girl, with little to do, I became everyone's favorite chum to ask outside to keep them company for their cigarette break. At first it was just that, sit with them, talk, get incredible inside scoop on office politics. Then it happened, I caved and had one, and another, and another, and before you know it I was smoking again full time.
This time smoking had a new aspect. It took me away from my family. Husband didn’t smoke. I certainly didn’t want to smoke in front of the baby. So it became a complication to find the chance to have the next cigarette. Baby fell asleep in the car seat? Pull over and stand on the side of the road and have a smoke. Husband busy on the computer? Take out the trash and while you're outside, have a smoke. Eventually, there was no need of the trash taking ruse, I just left the two of them inside to read books, play with Little People, or watch the Disney movie, and I went outside to sit in my chair and smoke. It went on like that for two maybe three years until it was time for the next move.
But the next move brought a surprise, I was pregnant with baby number two. And so I stood out on the porch the morning of the positive test looking at the blue plus sign on the pregnancy test, with the phone handset beside me, knowing it was time to call husband and tell him the news. But first, I had to have that cigarette. I was one cigarette away from the finish line. I was about to be "finished with the cigarettes" but first I needed to have those last few seconds of just being me. I stood still in the cold, surveying the snow and ice covered landscape, slowly smoking the last cigarette before I squashed that butt, made that phone call, crossed that finish line and became a non-smoker, an expectant mother - finished with the cigarettes.
This post was written for the monthly Write-Away contest hosted at Scribbit. This month's topic is The Finish Line. Head over..there's still time for you to enter too! And, just for the record, haven't had a cigarette since - baby number two is now twelve years old!
I head out the side door to the utility porch of the rambling two story clapboard house. I'm dressed in a flowing denim dress with tights and long johns underneath, a turtleneck and sweater over the top, and my heavy lace up boots. At that point the girl who never wore jeans hadn’t yet succumbed to what would be become my uniform during the Maine winters - L.L. Bean flannel lined jeans. I reach for the window ledge and feel for the pack and lighter hidden there. I stand facing out to the landscape surveying the snow and ice as I go through the familiar ritual. Tamping down the pack, finally, hitting it just right to make a single cigarette shoot out into the waiting opposing hand. Bringing it to my lips and lighting it with that first heavy drag. My warm breath is already making visible puffs as I exhale and that combines with the tendrils of cigarette smoke to obscure the scene in front of me. I savor every drag of the last cigarette.
The first cigarette came years earlier at an age much too young. The summer I was preparing to turn 13, my family moved due to a transfer in my father's work. I left seventh grade at middle school expecting to go to another middle school for the all important "top of the hill" eighth grade year. But this particular town didn’t have middle schools. Here kids went to elementary school from kindergarten through seventh grade and then high school for eighth through twelfth grade. So the first day of school found me streaming into the building with an assortment of unknown and some much older students. I was a sub-freshman - the lowest form of life at the high school. All the kids from Hightower Elementary assume that I had gone to Kingslee Elementary, and the students from Kingslee thought I must be from Shallowford Elementary, and those kids from Shallowford were sure I was from Chestnut Elementary. So no one felt the need to befriend me because surely I had friends from my old elementary school. The teachers were no better, they were facing a sea of new faces all converging from the four elementary schools and everyone was new and they didn’t know their names much less their history or whether they had a need for matchmaking.
For a new student with no one to talk to the longest six minute of every hour are the change of classes. When the bell rings and you are dismissed from the safe structure of your assigned seat and the classroom's prescribed expectations, you are thrust out into the hall where everyone seems to be busy with their friends. The couples are pressing each other up against lockers for a mini make out session, the single girls are in groups at their lockers looking into mirrors, talking to each other and applying lip gloss, the jock guys are horsing around pushing and shoving in that fraternity of physical familiarity. I escaped from the halls by heading into the bathroom, pretending to go, dilly dallying as I washed hands to use up the endless minutes. And as the day passed, I ventured further and further back into the bathroom until I was at the very back of the bathroom where the other misfits hung out. The smoking girls were huddled in the last stall puffing on their cigarettes. To join this clique, all that was required was a quick lie, "I left my cigarettes at home, can I bum off you today? I'll pay you back." And I was in.
I smoked through high school and through college and through the first years of teaching as a young single woman, and through my engagement. But it was during the engagement that the fiancée, who also smoked, suggested that we quit. We would quit together before the wedding and start out married as non-smokers. I agreed and we managed it. We did not smoke through the first move, the pregnancy and birth of our baby, nor through the second move. Then when the baby turned one year old, I decided it was time to return to work. The work place I chose happened to be populated with many smokers. My boss smoked, and her boss smoked, and her boss smoked too. As the new girl, with little to do, I became everyone's favorite chum to ask outside to keep them company for their cigarette break. At first it was just that, sit with them, talk, get incredible inside scoop on office politics. Then it happened, I caved and had one, and another, and another, and before you know it I was smoking again full time.
This time smoking had a new aspect. It took me away from my family. Husband didn’t smoke. I certainly didn’t want to smoke in front of the baby. So it became a complication to find the chance to have the next cigarette. Baby fell asleep in the car seat? Pull over and stand on the side of the road and have a smoke. Husband busy on the computer? Take out the trash and while you're outside, have a smoke. Eventually, there was no need of the trash taking ruse, I just left the two of them inside to read books, play with Little People, or watch the Disney movie, and I went outside to sit in my chair and smoke. It went on like that for two maybe three years until it was time for the next move.
But the next move brought a surprise, I was pregnant with baby number two. And so I stood out on the porch the morning of the positive test looking at the blue plus sign on the pregnancy test, with the phone handset beside me, knowing it was time to call husband and tell him the news. But first, I had to have that cigarette. I was one cigarette away from the finish line. I was about to be "finished with the cigarettes" but first I needed to have those last few seconds of just being me. I stood still in the cold, surveying the snow and ice covered landscape, slowly smoking the last cigarette before I squashed that butt, made that phone call, crossed that finish line and became a non-smoker, an expectant mother - finished with the cigarettes.
This post was written for the monthly Write-Away contest hosted at Scribbit. This month's topic is The Finish Line. Head over..there's still time for you to enter too! And, just for the record, haven't had a cigarette since - baby number two is now twelve years old!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Ice, ice, baby.
I have many cold stories for my years spent in Maine but the one that stands out is the Ice Storm of 1998. It stands out because all the other cold stories have one thing in common - the possibility of being warm - just GO INSIDE! Yeah, it's cold picking apples, raking leaves, watching parades, shoveling show, sledding, making snow angels, and all the other outdoorsy things that make up a Maine fall and winter but you can, at the end, just go inside and get warm again. But the ice storm was different because the ice took down the trees, which took down the power lines, which blocked the roads, and the end result of that domino trail was that we ("we" the people of Maine) had no electricity, no fuel to be delivered, no way other than wood to heat our homes. So it was cold.. even on the inside.
The first day, not realising the magnitude of the storm, I was home with my two children huddled in my bedroom under tons of covers with candle after candle burning. I had never fully appreciated until that day and night how much warmth even a single candle flame can emit. But I certainly appreciated the danger of the open flames and so stayed up as late as I could to watch them and then finally relented and blew them out to get some sleep. The temperature immediately plummeted and sleep was hard to come by. I met the new morning more tired than I had been the night before.
Where was my husband? At that time he was an active duty Marine. As a Marine wife, the first thing you learn is that you come second. When the hurricane comes, when the streets flood, when the prisoners riot, when the towers fall, whenever anything bad happens, your Marine goes off to help other people and you are left alone. So I started out the ice storm alone.
As the storm continued my husband came home to check on us. He helped us move downstairs and start a fire in the wood stove. The wood stove was in a room that was an addition off the back of the house. It stuck straight out of the back, an awkward appendage built on a slope so that it was exposed on every side even the bottom! The wood stove put out a lot of heat but the force of nature, the wind whistling along every wall and corner was too much competition. You were only warm as long as you were within inches of the stove and that was a tricky thing to accomplish with a preschooler and a toddler. Next thing I knew someone felt almost too warm and I realised that my daughter was sick with a fever. We spent one long night huddled together in sleeping bags and under every cover we could gather trying to sleep beside the stove. The cold was unrelenting and there was no hope of sleep in such a dangerous situation. What if my daughter got sicker and needed help? What if my son toddled too close to the wood stove and got burnt? All these worries kept me from any sleep and when morning came, I was exhausted and worried and scared and most of all still very, very cold.
How would we ever make it through another day and night? It humbled me that "just the cold" could bring me to such a state of desperation.
My husband was finally able to be relieved of his duties at work and came home with a plan. The main highways had been cleared and the bigger cities had power restored. So we loaded everyone in the car, got onto 95-South and drove to Portland, Maine. (Oh, how I wished we could just keep driving 95 all the way South to home! To warmth!) Husband settled us into a hotel and returned to his duties. It was less than a day or so until we heard that power back home had been restored and we piled back into the car to reverse our journey.
The irony of the ice storm is that it doesn't seem stormy at all. After the initial rain, there is calm, The ice silently forms and everything comes to a halt. There is silence that seems so peaceful but the numbing cold keeps the land encased in the blanket of ice and prevents it from healing. In fact, the sound that would break the silence was the crack of limbs falling and after less than a day at home, the power was gone again. Refreshed from a good night's rest at the hotel, we braved it for a night in the cold, cold house before giving in and looking locally for other accommodations.
The "other accommodations" were a flea bag motel on the wrong side of town. When I registered and all the clerk wanted was a first name and payment in cash, I knew it was going to be one of the more interesting nights of my life! The motel didn't disappoint because my only hope and expectation was to be warm. Being warm, even in a lice infested cheap motel, being warm was a blessing.
Now I cuddle in the warmth of the blessings I have in my family and faith and know that I will not take this warmth for granted. When it gets too cold, I will come inside and be thankful for the warmth.
This post has been submitted to the Write Away contest for December hosted at Scribbit - this month's theme is "keeping warm". I started this post when the contest was first announced - long before the elements combined to create another ice storm, devastating the Northeast. Prayers for all the people living through it now.
The first day, not realising the magnitude of the storm, I was home with my two children huddled in my bedroom under tons of covers with candle after candle burning. I had never fully appreciated until that day and night how much warmth even a single candle flame can emit. But I certainly appreciated the danger of the open flames and so stayed up as late as I could to watch them and then finally relented and blew them out to get some sleep. The temperature immediately plummeted and sleep was hard to come by. I met the new morning more tired than I had been the night before.
Where was my husband? At that time he was an active duty Marine. As a Marine wife, the first thing you learn is that you come second. When the hurricane comes, when the streets flood, when the prisoners riot, when the towers fall, whenever anything bad happens, your Marine goes off to help other people and you are left alone. So I started out the ice storm alone.
As the storm continued my husband came home to check on us. He helped us move downstairs and start a fire in the wood stove. The wood stove was in a room that was an addition off the back of the house. It stuck straight out of the back, an awkward appendage built on a slope so that it was exposed on every side even the bottom! The wood stove put out a lot of heat but the force of nature, the wind whistling along every wall and corner was too much competition. You were only warm as long as you were within inches of the stove and that was a tricky thing to accomplish with a preschooler and a toddler. Next thing I knew someone felt almost too warm and I realised that my daughter was sick with a fever. We spent one long night huddled together in sleeping bags and under every cover we could gather trying to sleep beside the stove. The cold was unrelenting and there was no hope of sleep in such a dangerous situation. What if my daughter got sicker and needed help? What if my son toddled too close to the wood stove and got burnt? All these worries kept me from any sleep and when morning came, I was exhausted and worried and scared and most of all still very, very cold.
How would we ever make it through another day and night? It humbled me that "just the cold" could bring me to such a state of desperation.
My husband was finally able to be relieved of his duties at work and came home with a plan. The main highways had been cleared and the bigger cities had power restored. So we loaded everyone in the car, got onto 95-South and drove to Portland, Maine. (Oh, how I wished we could just keep driving 95 all the way South to home! To warmth!) Husband settled us into a hotel and returned to his duties. It was less than a day or so until we heard that power back home had been restored and we piled back into the car to reverse our journey.
The irony of the ice storm is that it doesn't seem stormy at all. After the initial rain, there is calm, The ice silently forms and everything comes to a halt. There is silence that seems so peaceful but the numbing cold keeps the land encased in the blanket of ice and prevents it from healing. In fact, the sound that would break the silence was the crack of limbs falling and after less than a day at home, the power was gone again. Refreshed from a good night's rest at the hotel, we braved it for a night in the cold, cold house before giving in and looking locally for other accommodations.
The "other accommodations" were a flea bag motel on the wrong side of town. When I registered and all the clerk wanted was a first name and payment in cash, I knew it was going to be one of the more interesting nights of my life! The motel didn't disappoint because my only hope and expectation was to be warm. Being warm, even in a lice infested cheap motel, being warm was a blessing.
Now I cuddle in the warmth of the blessings I have in my family and faith and know that I will not take this warmth for granted. When it gets too cold, I will come inside and be thankful for the warmth.
This post has been submitted to the Write Away contest for December hosted at Scribbit - this month's theme is "keeping warm". I started this post when the contest was first announced - long before the elements combined to create another ice storm, devastating the Northeast. Prayers for all the people living through it now.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Ghost of Depression Past
I am still afraid of ghosts. The ethereal presence that haunts me is the possibility of falling back into the abyss. I am surrounded by signs of strength - family, faith, friends, career - but I wonder if inside I am fragile. Is my seemingly solid mental state actually more tenuous than I imagine? This ghost is real; I have experienced depression more than once. Both of my documented episodes of depression seem linked to an obvious reason. The first was postpartum - birth of a beautiful, healthy, happy baby followed by bouts of uncontrollable bawling. The friends who called to congratulate me were terrified that something horrible had happened when their cheery "hello" was returned with heaving sobs. My dear mother flew across country and stayed with me for almost a month. When she finally had to return to my father before he wasted away from lack of properly cooked home meals, I was still a mess and looking back on it I'm sure walking away from me at the airport as I cried was probably one of the hardest "mom moments" my own mom ever experienced. I didn't think I could survive that ...but I did.
I regained my footing, put it behind me as an isolated episode. But the ghost remained. When I became pregnant with our second child, the thought of the ghost so terrified me that I ended up in therapy during the pregnancy. The pre-post-partum variety of depression - perhaps a new entry in the DSM-IV! I just knew the inevitable post-partum depression would be the end of me. There were other factors involved this time as well. Hubby, Ex-Marine, was a current Marine at that time and his job was keeping him away from us at a time when we needed him. That same job had taken us to a foreign locale...no, not Japan or the Philippines or Guam.....Maine! To a "Girl Raised In The South" being dumped in Maine and finding myself pregnant with an absentee husband was scarier than the special effects ghosts in any horror movie. This ghost was real. But the second child came and the post-partum depression didn't. So I survived that too.
But now I wait. Waiting with this ghost is waiting for the other shoe to drop. That sense that it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time. The ghost scares me. I evaluate events in my life and wonder, "Is this bad enough? Is this the thing that will send me tumulting into depression?" A child struggling in school - is that bad enough? Financial hardships - will this do the trick? Unrelenting stress from responsibilities both loved and hated ...will one of those things be the straw that breaks me? I also avoid considering how some episodes of insanity in my earlier life may have not really been just the typical antics of a walk on the wild side teen/young adult but may have been the first signs, the foreshadowing of coming madness. So I tread lightly through my current life and I wade infrequently and with great trepidation through the pool of memories of my old life so as not to awake the ghost. The ghost has me scared and hesitant - afraid of the battle. But the ghost has not yet won. I have survived all of this...so far.
This post has been submitted to the Write Away contest for October hosted at Scribbit - this month's theme is ..you guessed it - ghosts!
I regained my footing, put it behind me as an isolated episode. But the ghost remained. When I became pregnant with our second child, the thought of the ghost so terrified me that I ended up in therapy during the pregnancy. The pre-post-partum variety of depression - perhaps a new entry in the DSM-IV! I just knew the inevitable post-partum depression would be the end of me. There were other factors involved this time as well. Hubby, Ex-Marine, was a current Marine at that time and his job was keeping him away from us at a time when we needed him. That same job had taken us to a foreign locale...no, not Japan or the Philippines or Guam.....Maine! To a "Girl Raised In The South" being dumped in Maine and finding myself pregnant with an absentee husband was scarier than the special effects ghosts in any horror movie. This ghost was real. But the second child came and the post-partum depression didn't. So I survived that too.
But now I wait. Waiting with this ghost is waiting for the other shoe to drop. That sense that it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time. The ghost scares me. I evaluate events in my life and wonder, "Is this bad enough? Is this the thing that will send me tumulting into depression?" A child struggling in school - is that bad enough? Financial hardships - will this do the trick? Unrelenting stress from responsibilities both loved and hated ...will one of those things be the straw that breaks me? I also avoid considering how some episodes of insanity in my earlier life may have not really been just the typical antics of a walk on the wild side teen/young adult but may have been the first signs, the foreshadowing of coming madness. So I tread lightly through my current life and I wade infrequently and with great trepidation through the pool of memories of my old life so as not to awake the ghost. The ghost has me scared and hesitant - afraid of the battle. But the ghost has not yet won. I have survived all of this...so far.
This post has been submitted to the Write Away contest for October hosted at Scribbit - this month's theme is ..you guessed it - ghosts!
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