I spent many hours on the telephone with girlfriends when I was a teenager. I'd sit on the floor in my mother's room leaning against her bed. We didn't have much to talk about, and many times we'd just eat snacks and watch tv together while on the phone. I'm not a big conversaltionalist, never have been.
One time I remember talking to my girlfriend Mary Anne on the phone one day when we were out of school due to a snow day. She and her sister were raised by a single mom who worked at the GE factory in the next town. Their house was quiet. In my house were six kids and two parents, an assortment of family pets and always someone's friend over. I always thought my personality was so different from my siblings that I must have been adopted. I was a quiet, introspective child, didn't talk much. My siblings are loud and boisterous and talk a lot.
So I was sitting on the floor with the phone in my ear and our conversation was dull as usual. It was snowing outside and cold and I was bored. I wanted to liven things up. I made a loud noise opening a drawer of my mother's bedside night stand. I gasped out loud. Mary Anne asked me what was wrong. I inhaled loudly. I told her I found some papers that looked important with my name on them. She asked me what they said. I told her something about blood type and something about adoption and something about sealed records. She completely believed me. The next day at lunch time in the cafeteria she told our other girlfriend that I had just discovered yesterday that I had been adopted. My other girlfriend didn't believe her. I told her I saw the paperwork and it had my blood type on it. Something about that made her believe. For the rest of that school year, my two girlfriends believed my lie. I expanded on it at odd times, told them I understood now why I was the only blonde in the family.
My mother tells everyone she named me after Mary, the mother of Jesus, because she wanted a girl so badly. I created a fantasy world where my mother adopted me out of fear she'd never have a girl. Once she did, she got pregnant with my sister. Why did I create such a bizarre story and expand on it over time? Maybe because I was the odd one out in the house. My siblings excelled and took first place in science fair exhibits, piano recitals, ice skating. They all had talents and outlets for those talents. I could sing, but my mother had been on the stage and sang opera so I couldn't compete there. I could ice skate but we couldn't afford lessons when I was growing up. I could play piano but taught myself and still have trouble with the bass notes because I never took lessons. Again, we could not afford lessons when I was growing up. But lessons were affordable for my younger siblings. And they got honors and praise for their efforts. That made me disappear even more.
The fact is the only paper I found in the drawer that day was a receipt from a drugstore. I was lying, or perhaps creating for myself another world in which I was the star rather than the one who blended into the background. Psychologists would probably have something to say about my desire for attention. But I did not attempt to get attention at home. It was best to keep quiet, stay out of trouble. But at school my girlfriends looked up to me as their leader, their star. This story seemed to lift me a little higher in their regard but I'm not really sure why.
The day before school ended for the summer, I told them I had made it all up. They didn't believe me. They thought I was lying.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Insomnia
Last night I went to bed at a good time, overtired and ready for a good night's sleep. Yet here I am for the last two hours surfing the net, reading, writing, and playing word games and totally wide awake! Why is it that every now and again, something wakes me up in the middle of the night? Was it a busy day? Oh yes definitely. Too much information to process in a sixteen-hour period and my mind cannot settle down even though my body is screaming, "Get some sleep! You're gonna regret this at work tomorrow." My husband was snoring. Loudly! He was the first one to wake me up. Then my dog started crying outside the bedroom door, so I got up and put her out. And waited in the chilly night while she explored the back yard at 2am. Then I tried to go back to sleep. I hit the couch but it was no use. My mind is too active. I need sleep. I crave it. There is a full day of meetings scheduled tomorrow, today actually. But I'm awake. Why?
Perhaps it is the uncertainty we live in. Economics. Downsizing. Layoffs. I stopped watching the news when my company's stock price went down from the thirty-dollar range to single digits. Perhaps at the bottom of this insomnia lies a fear unspoken or unmasked. It sits there waiting for me to peel back the layers. Thinking about it and pondering. What is this fear? Why am I wrestling with these negative thoughts? Why do I fear for my job? Yes, I am qualified to do my job. But many others are too. Yes, I am ready for a change. But I like my boss. I like my work. I don't want too much change. Maybe fewer tasks, more time to write - I blog at work, too. But I can't share that one because it is inside our firewalls. So many people at work are worried. I worry with them. It is inevitable at my age (I am older than the president!) without a degree (which is why I am at Queens) and a lack of math-ability (call it math dyslexia, poor training in elementary school, math fear, whatever! I don't do numbers) and I'm working in a financial services company, it is more than inevitable, that I will get a pink slip one day. I'm working my tail off to add value wherever I can. I've learned a lot on my own. I've networked. I've taught others. Yet with every transition, every re-organization, I find myself wondering if it will be my turn.
Maybe that is why in the middle of the night, I awaken, toss and turn, fire up my laptop and check into Facebook, read what my friends are doing. Try to forget that my workday is drawing near. We could see a lot of changes with today's announcement. I told my team not to lose sleep over it. No heartache necessary, we're learning to deal with change on a regular basis. And I'm not usually the fearful one with reorganizational announcements. They come so frequently of late. I don't know why I'm even thinking these irrational thoughts. It's not normal for me. Maybe because we had to write about our fears last week. They are bubbling to the surface and in forefront of my mind. I'm thinking about things that make me fearful. I've been out of work before and don't want it to happen again. Not until I can make it on my terms.
I'm dragging myself off to bed now but afraid I won't be able to sleep.
Perhaps it is the uncertainty we live in. Economics. Downsizing. Layoffs. I stopped watching the news when my company's stock price went down from the thirty-dollar range to single digits. Perhaps at the bottom of this insomnia lies a fear unspoken or unmasked. It sits there waiting for me to peel back the layers. Thinking about it and pondering. What is this fear? Why am I wrestling with these negative thoughts? Why do I fear for my job? Yes, I am qualified to do my job. But many others are too. Yes, I am ready for a change. But I like my boss. I like my work. I don't want too much change. Maybe fewer tasks, more time to write - I blog at work, too. But I can't share that one because it is inside our firewalls. So many people at work are worried. I worry with them. It is inevitable at my age (I am older than the president!) without a degree (which is why I am at Queens) and a lack of math-ability (call it math dyslexia, poor training in elementary school, math fear, whatever! I don't do numbers) and I'm working in a financial services company, it is more than inevitable, that I will get a pink slip one day. I'm working my tail off to add value wherever I can. I've learned a lot on my own. I've networked. I've taught others. Yet with every transition, every re-organization, I find myself wondering if it will be my turn.
Maybe that is why in the middle of the night, I awaken, toss and turn, fire up my laptop and check into Facebook, read what my friends are doing. Try to forget that my workday is drawing near. We could see a lot of changes with today's announcement. I told my team not to lose sleep over it. No heartache necessary, we're learning to deal with change on a regular basis. And I'm not usually the fearful one with reorganizational announcements. They come so frequently of late. I don't know why I'm even thinking these irrational thoughts. It's not normal for me. Maybe because we had to write about our fears last week. They are bubbling to the surface and in forefront of my mind. I'm thinking about things that make me fearful. I've been out of work before and don't want it to happen again. Not until I can make it on my terms.
I'm dragging myself off to bed now but afraid I won't be able to sleep.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Write about Fear
Writing about my fears is easy. Facing them takes guts. Fears are personal, intangible. Fear lives within. No one sees it. When I was asked to write about fear, I hesitated. I moved my pen across the paper. Should I share this personal journey? Should I open up? I tried to think about my childhood fears. Sitting in a dentist chair. Waking up suddenly from a nightmare. Or what about some of my adult fears? Finding out my husband was having an affair. Universal fears. Things that touch the human condition, shake the soul. Should I share? Ok. Pen on paper scratching an outline of a fear I experienced.
2003 - a year that was supposed to be my bellweather year. My oldest son graduating from college. And not only graduating, but with honors, summa cum laude! And his major was aerospace engineering. Tough courses. Math and science. I am astonished a guy with such a mind came out of me. He was also getting married a week later. I was busting with motherly pride. It was the last year of my forties and life was really good.
Until.... I was drifting off to sleep one night in that twilight time of not asleep, not awake. I was doing a self exam like every woman ought to do regularly. There was something that should not be there, just a pea-sized thing. Hard. I ignored it and went to sleep, but it was gnawing at me. I slept fitfully. I din't tell anyone for three weeks. But it was there. I would not steal my son's spotlight. It was his year! He had worked so hard for this. I kept silent. But like all things ugly I sweep away, push out of sight, toss in the garbage, this would not disappear. I felt it during graduation, through the wedding, at the reception. There was this thing that I knew I had to face.
Finally, the whirl of life slowed and I called the doctor. He got me in that day. Time for an ultrasound now. I saw it on the screen. It was bigger and nastier and darker than it felt. It looked like a gargoyle without a face. Just this black spot looking back at me with a vacant stare. My fear caught me in the throat. The technician glanced sideways at me. She knew I knew, but she would not speak. I saw their looks. She left the room to get the doctor. Decided to do a biopsy right then.
My husband was nervous but quiet. We lived silently with our fear for another week while the biopsy was shipped out to be examined microscopically. It was not necessary to go back to hear the results. I told my husband what I expected. He was introspective as we sat in the room waiting. My doctor arrived with a large manilla envelope and stoic face. She was guarded, "This is not the news I want to deliver to anyone. It seems to be news I am sharing more and more."
A woman hears she has breast cancer. Is that the greatest fear of life? I think there are worse fears. Losing a child is a mother's worst fear; losing a breast is bad but not as bad. I lived through the cancer, the surgeries, the chemo. I am free. I am a survivor. It was a year I would not want to relive. It was a scary, fearful time. But I embraced my fears and learned about cancer. I learned mine was only stage two. Survivable. Life goes on. Happily I might add. I'm back in school determined to get this degree, maybe more.
Fears come and go. What do we do with them? Face them. Embrace them. Accept them. Nothing is as bad as it seems. Change is inevitable. The experience did not kill me, but made me stronger. Sounds cliche. But aren't cliches formed out of universal experiences.
2003 - a year that was supposed to be my bellweather year. My oldest son graduating from college. And not only graduating, but with honors, summa cum laude! And his major was aerospace engineering. Tough courses. Math and science. I am astonished a guy with such a mind came out of me. He was also getting married a week later. I was busting with motherly pride. It was the last year of my forties and life was really good.
Until.... I was drifting off to sleep one night in that twilight time of not asleep, not awake. I was doing a self exam like every woman ought to do regularly. There was something that should not be there, just a pea-sized thing. Hard. I ignored it and went to sleep, but it was gnawing at me. I slept fitfully. I din't tell anyone for three weeks. But it was there. I would not steal my son's spotlight. It was his year! He had worked so hard for this. I kept silent. But like all things ugly I sweep away, push out of sight, toss in the garbage, this would not disappear. I felt it during graduation, through the wedding, at the reception. There was this thing that I knew I had to face.
Finally, the whirl of life slowed and I called the doctor. He got me in that day. Time for an ultrasound now. I saw it on the screen. It was bigger and nastier and darker than it felt. It looked like a gargoyle without a face. Just this black spot looking back at me with a vacant stare. My fear caught me in the throat. The technician glanced sideways at me. She knew I knew, but she would not speak. I saw their looks. She left the room to get the doctor. Decided to do a biopsy right then.
My husband was nervous but quiet. We lived silently with our fear for another week while the biopsy was shipped out to be examined microscopically. It was not necessary to go back to hear the results. I told my husband what I expected. He was introspective as we sat in the room waiting. My doctor arrived with a large manilla envelope and stoic face. She was guarded, "This is not the news I want to deliver to anyone. It seems to be news I am sharing more and more."
A woman hears she has breast cancer. Is that the greatest fear of life? I think there are worse fears. Losing a child is a mother's worst fear; losing a breast is bad but not as bad. I lived through the cancer, the surgeries, the chemo. I am free. I am a survivor. It was a year I would not want to relive. It was a scary, fearful time. But I embraced my fears and learned about cancer. I learned mine was only stage two. Survivable. Life goes on. Happily I might add. I'm back in school determined to get this degree, maybe more.
Fears come and go. What do we do with them? Face them. Embrace them. Accept them. Nothing is as bad as it seems. Change is inevitable. The experience did not kill me, but made me stronger. Sounds cliche. But aren't cliches formed out of universal experiences.
Changes, Changing, Changed
Every so often I get this urge to rearrange the furniture in my house and it makes my husband roll his eyes when I say it's time. I have lived in this house for about nine years and every room in my house has undergone radical changes, all rooms except the bedroom. We have not touched the arrangement of our bedroom for a number of reasons. It is partly due to the odd configuration of the windows. Where would this fit or that go? Mostly we haven't moved things around due to the weight of our furniture. Solid oak. King sized. Huge. Heavy. "Impossible!" my husband would say, "too much work." But for at least eight of the last nine years, I have been pleading for change.
Last weekend I pulled out some graph paper, ruler, and a measuring tape. Change was overdue. I measured and calculated. I had not been able to do a decent vacuuming behind the bed for much too long. That says something about me I know. Housekeeping is not my thing. I couldn't dust behind the furniture so I'd throw my duster back there and let it fall down. I had to bend and stretch and gyrate to find the duster to bring it back to the surface knowing full well I couldn't get all the dust up. I might throw out my back moving the furniture, but at least I could get at those dust angels.
He came in to my office to inquire what I was up to and when I showed him what I was graphing, he rolled his eyes. "You're gonna kill me yet," and grabbed his back in mock pain. I laughed at his joke, but he knew I meant business. He saw my resolve.
"Time for a change!" I smiled. My conservative husband does not like change. He is routined. You can set your clock by his actions. We are very different. While I might take a different route to work every day, he goes the same way. While I might go to bed and wake up at odd hours, he is structured and has set times. He is predictable. I'm not. He hates moving furniture. I don't. Usually. The bedroom furniture is huge and heavy. But I am resolved.
The rearranging went quite nicely; better actually than both of us expected. It feels good to walk in the bedroom. We now have a corner with nothing in it. No other room in our house feels this spacious. I like the zen of it, the minimalist feel. The expanse of space in there feels good. It feels like the title of an essay I read for my Monday night class this week - "The Solace of Open Spaces" by Gretl Ehrlich. There is solace in the void. She went west to get away from things. She discovered herself out on the open range. She found the spaces within herself a solace.
My room feels as though the space is waiting for something. More change. More - something. It is going to stay empty for awhile. I'm tired of more. Aren't all of us? We have so much. Let it be. A phrase from Erlich's story comes to mind, "our affluence is strangling us." One of the biggest real estate booms right now is in storage units. Americans have so much stuff we have to buy space just to hold it. Space really is the final frontier. We want to fill it up with our stuff. Change it. Rearrange it. Fill'er up.
Writing my piece About Me for class this week, looking back, reflecting on my history, life has been nothing but change. Loss, movement, rearranging. A lot is being said these days about change. Change is in the air. We are ready for change. Change is on its way. It's unusual to hear these phrases bandied about, because for most of my life I've often heard just the opposite. That people don't like change. Changes are scary they say. People like to keep things as they are. I work at a company that likes to change, mix things up, "reorg" they call it. People get nervous. I ask why be nervous? Change is coming, they'll say. I stop and wonder about the fear of change. Me? I don't remember life ever being void of change.
Change is healthy. Rearranging clears the cobwebs and the dust angels. It brings a fresh perspective. I woke up in my rearranged bedroom this morning, peering out in the darkness and still half asleep. Which way is the bathroom? My mind had been trained for eight years to see things a certain way. It feels good to change.
Last weekend I pulled out some graph paper, ruler, and a measuring tape. Change was overdue. I measured and calculated. I had not been able to do a decent vacuuming behind the bed for much too long. That says something about me I know. Housekeeping is not my thing. I couldn't dust behind the furniture so I'd throw my duster back there and let it fall down. I had to bend and stretch and gyrate to find the duster to bring it back to the surface knowing full well I couldn't get all the dust up. I might throw out my back moving the furniture, but at least I could get at those dust angels.
He came in to my office to inquire what I was up to and when I showed him what I was graphing, he rolled his eyes. "You're gonna kill me yet," and grabbed his back in mock pain. I laughed at his joke, but he knew I meant business. He saw my resolve.
"Time for a change!" I smiled. My conservative husband does not like change. He is routined. You can set your clock by his actions. We are very different. While I might take a different route to work every day, he goes the same way. While I might go to bed and wake up at odd hours, he is structured and has set times. He is predictable. I'm not. He hates moving furniture. I don't. Usually. The bedroom furniture is huge and heavy. But I am resolved.
The rearranging went quite nicely; better actually than both of us expected. It feels good to walk in the bedroom. We now have a corner with nothing in it. No other room in our house feels this spacious. I like the zen of it, the minimalist feel. The expanse of space in there feels good. It feels like the title of an essay I read for my Monday night class this week - "The Solace of Open Spaces" by Gretl Ehrlich. There is solace in the void. She went west to get away from things. She discovered herself out on the open range. She found the spaces within herself a solace.
My room feels as though the space is waiting for something. More change. More - something. It is going to stay empty for awhile. I'm tired of more. Aren't all of us? We have so much. Let it be. A phrase from Erlich's story comes to mind, "our affluence is strangling us." One of the biggest real estate booms right now is in storage units. Americans have so much stuff we have to buy space just to hold it. Space really is the final frontier. We want to fill it up with our stuff. Change it. Rearrange it. Fill'er up.
Writing my piece About Me for class this week, looking back, reflecting on my history, life has been nothing but change. Loss, movement, rearranging. A lot is being said these days about change. Change is in the air. We are ready for change. Change is on its way. It's unusual to hear these phrases bandied about, because for most of my life I've often heard just the opposite. That people don't like change. Changes are scary they say. People like to keep things as they are. I work at a company that likes to change, mix things up, "reorg" they call it. People get nervous. I ask why be nervous? Change is coming, they'll say. I stop and wonder about the fear of change. Me? I don't remember life ever being void of change.
Change is healthy. Rearranging clears the cobwebs and the dust angels. It brings a fresh perspective. I woke up in my rearranged bedroom this morning, peering out in the darkness and still half asleep. Which way is the bathroom? My mind had been trained for eight years to see things a certain way. It feels good to change.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Why I Write
Last night in class, I loved reading out loud the piece I shared with the class from Terry Tempest Williams, Why I Write. It felt as though the writer captured the essence of why I write. It has taken years for me to believe what I have heard all my life, "you're such a good writer." I don't know why it's hard for me to believe it. Writing seems to come naturally to me.
Sometimes it feels like there is an invisible pipe connected from my brain, to my heart, to my fingers on the keyboard. (I rarely write with a pen anymore.) The words form, they flow, in a natural rythym the words course through this invisible pipe and onto the page. I do suffer writer's block at times. Usually when I feel stress about an assignment, I worry myself to complete distraction. I put it away, try not to think about it, procrastinate, do everything but write. It's weird. But when I let go, move into a stream of consciousness, thoughts begin flowing, meandering, and I am making meaning out of air, of nothing, creating, it's like magic. I don't play sports, but I think it's like when Michael Jordan would get into his game. No one could stop him. He was in the zone. That's how it feels when the words are flowing through my magical invisible pipe. Writing just feels good. It feels right. Maybe one day I will have the courage to call myself a writer.
Curious whether any of you feel the same way?
Sometimes it feels like there is an invisible pipe connected from my brain, to my heart, to my fingers on the keyboard. (I rarely write with a pen anymore.) The words form, they flow, in a natural rythym the words course through this invisible pipe and onto the page. I do suffer writer's block at times. Usually when I feel stress about an assignment, I worry myself to complete distraction. I put it away, try not to think about it, procrastinate, do everything but write. It's weird. But when I let go, move into a stream of consciousness, thoughts begin flowing, meandering, and I am making meaning out of air, of nothing, creating, it's like magic. I don't play sports, but I think it's like when Michael Jordan would get into his game. No one could stop him. He was in the zone. That's how it feels when the words are flowing through my magical invisible pipe. Writing just feels good. It feels right. Maybe one day I will have the courage to call myself a writer.
Curious whether any of you feel the same way?
My history of blogging....
My brother who is more of a geek than I am LOL started blogging long ago. He kept after me to start my own blog, but I felt what I had to say might not be of interest to anyone. But now and again, if something interesting happened in my life, I'd put up a post, then delete it and then create another one. This went for a year or so when I decided to start blogging some of the writing I was doing at school. But life is hectic for this gal and I could not make the time to keep it going.
I am hoping now that I have to blog for this class that I will get into a good habit this semester and faithfully put my random and sometimes quirky ideas into a format that others may ingest.
I shall go forth and blog...
I am hoping now that I have to blog for this class that I will get into a good habit this semester and faithfully put my random and sometimes quirky ideas into a format that others may ingest.
I shall go forth and blog...
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Not many kids have a mom like mine. I mean how many mothers do you know who have made a tent for their kids? It was the summer I turned twelve. Freddie had been gone two years. Mom thought it best we all learn to swim and so we had a pool in the backyard. The summer days were dull back then. No video games, TV was black and white and there were only three stations to choose from, and we had chores. We usually got the chores done early so we could spend the afternoon swimming. We lived outside of town and our pool was an above-ground pool about five-feet deep and we had a great diving board. The pool was behind a privacy fence, so we’d stand on the diving board and wave and yell at anyone passing by and disappear behind the fence.
That was the summer Patti and I wanted to have a sleep-over with our best friends. My best girlfriend was Margaret from church, but we nicknamed her Werby. All of us had nicknames but hers was the best and it stuck. She had a sister Nancy who was the same age as Patti. But since our friends lived in the next town, we had to plan what would we would do from one Sunday to the next Sunday. With a large, flat backyard, lots of trees and seven acres of woods, we had the perfect spot to entertain our girlfriends and have a camp out.
We made a complete itinerary of things to do each day. As we were compiling our list, Chip and Patrick came into our bedroom and like most brothers began pestering us about what we were doing. Finally, a ruccus ensued and the noise brought Mom upstairs to intervene. Chip left the room saying it wasn’t fair if the girls were going to have their friends over for a camp-out in the backyard, they should be allowed to have their friends over too. Chip’s best friend was Cary. His mom was Mom’s best friend June and they lived on a working dairy farm. Mom didn’t think Cary could be spared but she’d find out. As we shared our day-by-day itinerary, she realized this was something we had put real thought into and as we talked, she appreciated it might be fun.
“But what tent will you sleep in? Remember the hail storm we had camping last year? The bigger tent was ruined and all we have left is the pup tent.”
“Well, you could make one,” I knew Mom loved to sew. “Didn’t Auntie send you all that green denim?”
That denim was a huge bolt of dark green material and would be perfect for a tent, Mom said out loud but more to herself than us, “None of you kids will wear green denim jeans.” Well yes, it may have been the sixties, but green denim jeans were for Captain Kangaroo’s sidekick, not little girls in elementary school.
Her aunt was always sending us things in bulk and that green denim was the latest in a line of large deliveries that would intermittently appear at our doorstep. Once when we were visiting Auntie in Boston, Patti remarked that she liked the rice pudding Auntie served us. Wouldn’t you know about a week later, a delivery truck pulled up and out came cartons, no actually cases, of rice pudding! None of us really liked rice pudding. Even Patti didn’t really like it, she was being polite. Those cases of rice pudding were distributed at so many school events that I’m sure the town fathers thought we all lived on rice pudding. Once Auntie observed that we must use a lot of toilet paper in a family of nine. We always had kids at our house so Auntie probably thought there were more of us than we were.Which was sort of true because Patti’s friend Sandi was always at our house. But wouldn’t you know it, not much later a truck came rolling up the street with so much toilet paper that we had to store it all in the attic.
“Yes, that green denim would be perfect, but I’ve never made a tent!” Mom laughed.
“Bet you could!” all of us knew when Mom set her mind to doing something, it got done. Mom made all our clothes, so we figured a tent was easy enough.
Mom picked up a pencil from the desk and began to draw a tent in the form of a house.
“I would need to make a pattern. I have some netting and that would be good for the windows. I’ll need a strong zipper for the door. And what about the roof and the floor,” she was talking out loud while drawing and thinking about the fabric she had.
“That’s a lot of kids to feed for a whole week. We’ll have to charge admission - say about a dollar a day. And if I’m going to be sewing a tent, you kids will need to help out with the chores.”
That was fair and as the oldest (and I might add the bossiest), I set about to divide up the household chores amongst us all. Even the boys got excited anticipating something besides chores and swimming all day long.
“I will have to call all their moms to invite them and explain about the admission fee,” Mom was certain the other moms would appreciate a couple of days free of kids.
The next morning we were out of bed early and I had breakfast ready for the boys.They all headed outside to weed the garden and feed the animals while we took care of the inside chores. We had a garden of fresh vegetables all summer and Mom would can tomatoes for spaghetti sauce in the wintertime. Our farm was not a real farm. We actually called it the Funny Farm because we had an assortment of chickens and ducks, rabbits, geese, goats, and a pig we were fattening up for slaughter. We had names for all our animals. The pig became a family pet named Sylvester. We would stand outside the back door and yell, “Suey! Pig! Pig! Pig!” and Sylvester would come scurrying down to the back porch. His favorite place to sleep was stretched out on the side of the pool wall where it was cool and muddy from the oversplash. We all cried the day Sylvester went to the slaughterhouse. It took me a very long time to eat bacon after that. To this day I get sick whenever I eat pork.
So Mom called up all of our friends’ mothers. She made a pattern and layed it out on the kitchen floor. She cut out the various sections of the tent and began to sew. Werby and I talked on the phone every day and we could barely wait to go home after church the next Sunday. It was Tuesday so the tent had to be made within the week. Patti’s friend Sandi practically lived at our house. Sandi’s home life was not anything to be proud of and even today has told my mom that time spent at our house was her saving grace. She’s gone on to being really big in Mary Kay and is on her fifth pink Cadillac so she attributes her some of her success to her life at our home. When she heard Mom was making a tent, she decided she had to see that for herself! And of couse, she would pitch in and help out as Sandi was just like another one of us kids.
Now instead of a girls’ sleep-over, it was turning into a week’s camp-out that consisted of Patti and Sandi and Nancy and Werby plus my little sister Christine and another neighbor girl but I forgot her name. Oh, it was Cheryl and her home life wasn’t anything to write home about either.
The tent would need to hold seven of us girls and all our stuff so it had to be fairly large, but there was plenty of denim thanks to Auntie. As Mom pushed the denim through the needle of the large Bernina sewing machine, Sandi would hold the fabric at the other end so it wouldn’t put so much weight on the machine. The sewing machine was on the front porch and Sandi would stand in the living room and walk the material onto the porch and pick up the other end to keep it from falling on the floor. It wasn’t long before the big green tent began to take shape. It had a floor made of left-over grey denim. And it was so heavy that it took three people to carry it outside. She made a casing along the pitch of the roof and strung rope through the casing. At each corner where the sides met the roof were four rings. Ropes went through the rings tossed over tree branches and pulled like pulleys to lift the tent up. When the tent stood upright, all the kids cheered! It had a zipper opening for the window with netting so the mosquitoes would not get in at night. The tent had a large zippered front door. It was large enough to stand up inside and at twelve I was already at my full height of 5’2” and there was room to spare above my head. And Mom had made it from scratch!
Nancy and Werby had a brother Paul and he wanted to stay over too when he heard about the big green tent. And Mom convinced June to let her two boys come over. June said they could stay over two nights, so the boys pitched their pup tent for Chip and Patrick, Cary and his brother Craig who was my age, and Paul, also my age in their little pup tent. Mom spent most of the night sitting by her bedroom window making sure no hanky panky would happen during the nighttime with so many twelve-year olds in the back yard.
We had a blast that week! We may not have had a full week camping out. I seem to recall rain and sleeping indoors. But it was close to a week. All I know is we made good memories for lots of kids that week. We had fun; we laughed and sang Beatles songs, teased each other and splashed in the pool for hours. We ate up everything in sight as we were hungry! Being in the pool most of the day worked up our appetites. We teased Craig, whose twelve-year old voice was changing. We would call out from the girls’ tent to the boys’ tent in a deep gruffy voice, “Hey, Gregg!” Then we would roll over in fits of laughter. We went for moonlight swimming sessions trying to be extra quiet. We’d tip toe through the dewey grass and slither into the water, but we would scare one another in the pool and fall into fits of suppressed laughter.
Finally it was either the rain or the weariness of a patient mother that ended the greatest week in summertime history. Everyone had to eventually leave and go back to the usual summer boredom. But that week is stored up in our memory banks forever. Although we have lost touch with many of those good people, our childhood recollections are rich with a mother who knew how to sew and actually created from scratch a very big green tent. Sandi still talks about it today, “Who has a mother who makes their kids a tent!”
And Sandi knows that sewn up in the stitches of that tent was Mom's love for her children, a lot of laughter in our back yard, and a childhood rich with happy memories.
That was the summer Patti and I wanted to have a sleep-over with our best friends. My best girlfriend was Margaret from church, but we nicknamed her Werby. All of us had nicknames but hers was the best and it stuck. She had a sister Nancy who was the same age as Patti. But since our friends lived in the next town, we had to plan what would we would do from one Sunday to the next Sunday. With a large, flat backyard, lots of trees and seven acres of woods, we had the perfect spot to entertain our girlfriends and have a camp out.
We made a complete itinerary of things to do each day. As we were compiling our list, Chip and Patrick came into our bedroom and like most brothers began pestering us about what we were doing. Finally, a ruccus ensued and the noise brought Mom upstairs to intervene. Chip left the room saying it wasn’t fair if the girls were going to have their friends over for a camp-out in the backyard, they should be allowed to have their friends over too. Chip’s best friend was Cary. His mom was Mom’s best friend June and they lived on a working dairy farm. Mom didn’t think Cary could be spared but she’d find out. As we shared our day-by-day itinerary, she realized this was something we had put real thought into and as we talked, she appreciated it might be fun.
“But what tent will you sleep in? Remember the hail storm we had camping last year? The bigger tent was ruined and all we have left is the pup tent.”
“Well, you could make one,” I knew Mom loved to sew. “Didn’t Auntie send you all that green denim?”
That denim was a huge bolt of dark green material and would be perfect for a tent, Mom said out loud but more to herself than us, “None of you kids will wear green denim jeans.” Well yes, it may have been the sixties, but green denim jeans were for Captain Kangaroo’s sidekick, not little girls in elementary school.
Her aunt was always sending us things in bulk and that green denim was the latest in a line of large deliveries that would intermittently appear at our doorstep. Once when we were visiting Auntie in Boston, Patti remarked that she liked the rice pudding Auntie served us. Wouldn’t you know about a week later, a delivery truck pulled up and out came cartons, no actually cases, of rice pudding! None of us really liked rice pudding. Even Patti didn’t really like it, she was being polite. Those cases of rice pudding were distributed at so many school events that I’m sure the town fathers thought we all lived on rice pudding. Once Auntie observed that we must use a lot of toilet paper in a family of nine. We always had kids at our house so Auntie probably thought there were more of us than we were.Which was sort of true because Patti’s friend Sandi was always at our house. But wouldn’t you know it, not much later a truck came rolling up the street with so much toilet paper that we had to store it all in the attic.
“Yes, that green denim would be perfect, but I’ve never made a tent!” Mom laughed.
“Bet you could!” all of us knew when Mom set her mind to doing something, it got done. Mom made all our clothes, so we figured a tent was easy enough.
Mom picked up a pencil from the desk and began to draw a tent in the form of a house.
“I would need to make a pattern. I have some netting and that would be good for the windows. I’ll need a strong zipper for the door. And what about the roof and the floor,” she was talking out loud while drawing and thinking about the fabric she had.
“That’s a lot of kids to feed for a whole week. We’ll have to charge admission - say about a dollar a day. And if I’m going to be sewing a tent, you kids will need to help out with the chores.”
That was fair and as the oldest (and I might add the bossiest), I set about to divide up the household chores amongst us all. Even the boys got excited anticipating something besides chores and swimming all day long.
“I will have to call all their moms to invite them and explain about the admission fee,” Mom was certain the other moms would appreciate a couple of days free of kids.
The next morning we were out of bed early and I had breakfast ready for the boys.They all headed outside to weed the garden and feed the animals while we took care of the inside chores. We had a garden of fresh vegetables all summer and Mom would can tomatoes for spaghetti sauce in the wintertime. Our farm was not a real farm. We actually called it the Funny Farm because we had an assortment of chickens and ducks, rabbits, geese, goats, and a pig we were fattening up for slaughter. We had names for all our animals. The pig became a family pet named Sylvester. We would stand outside the back door and yell, “Suey! Pig! Pig! Pig!” and Sylvester would come scurrying down to the back porch. His favorite place to sleep was stretched out on the side of the pool wall where it was cool and muddy from the oversplash. We all cried the day Sylvester went to the slaughterhouse. It took me a very long time to eat bacon after that. To this day I get sick whenever I eat pork.
So Mom called up all of our friends’ mothers. She made a pattern and layed it out on the kitchen floor. She cut out the various sections of the tent and began to sew. Werby and I talked on the phone every day and we could barely wait to go home after church the next Sunday. It was Tuesday so the tent had to be made within the week. Patti’s friend Sandi practically lived at our house. Sandi’s home life was not anything to be proud of and even today has told my mom that time spent at our house was her saving grace. She’s gone on to being really big in Mary Kay and is on her fifth pink Cadillac so she attributes her some of her success to her life at our home. When she heard Mom was making a tent, she decided she had to see that for herself! And of couse, she would pitch in and help out as Sandi was just like another one of us kids.
Now instead of a girls’ sleep-over, it was turning into a week’s camp-out that consisted of Patti and Sandi and Nancy and Werby plus my little sister Christine and another neighbor girl but I forgot her name. Oh, it was Cheryl and her home life wasn’t anything to write home about either.
The tent would need to hold seven of us girls and all our stuff so it had to be fairly large, but there was plenty of denim thanks to Auntie. As Mom pushed the denim through the needle of the large Bernina sewing machine, Sandi would hold the fabric at the other end so it wouldn’t put so much weight on the machine. The sewing machine was on the front porch and Sandi would stand in the living room and walk the material onto the porch and pick up the other end to keep it from falling on the floor. It wasn’t long before the big green tent began to take shape. It had a floor made of left-over grey denim. And it was so heavy that it took three people to carry it outside. She made a casing along the pitch of the roof and strung rope through the casing. At each corner where the sides met the roof were four rings. Ropes went through the rings tossed over tree branches and pulled like pulleys to lift the tent up. When the tent stood upright, all the kids cheered! It had a zipper opening for the window with netting so the mosquitoes would not get in at night. The tent had a large zippered front door. It was large enough to stand up inside and at twelve I was already at my full height of 5’2” and there was room to spare above my head. And Mom had made it from scratch!
Nancy and Werby had a brother Paul and he wanted to stay over too when he heard about the big green tent. And Mom convinced June to let her two boys come over. June said they could stay over two nights, so the boys pitched their pup tent for Chip and Patrick, Cary and his brother Craig who was my age, and Paul, also my age in their little pup tent. Mom spent most of the night sitting by her bedroom window making sure no hanky panky would happen during the nighttime with so many twelve-year olds in the back yard.
We had a blast that week! We may not have had a full week camping out. I seem to recall rain and sleeping indoors. But it was close to a week. All I know is we made good memories for lots of kids that week. We had fun; we laughed and sang Beatles songs, teased each other and splashed in the pool for hours. We ate up everything in sight as we were hungry! Being in the pool most of the day worked up our appetites. We teased Craig, whose twelve-year old voice was changing. We would call out from the girls’ tent to the boys’ tent in a deep gruffy voice, “Hey, Gregg!” Then we would roll over in fits of laughter. We went for moonlight swimming sessions trying to be extra quiet. We’d tip toe through the dewey grass and slither into the water, but we would scare one another in the pool and fall into fits of suppressed laughter.
Finally it was either the rain or the weariness of a patient mother that ended the greatest week in summertime history. Everyone had to eventually leave and go back to the usual summer boredom. But that week is stored up in our memory banks forever. Although we have lost touch with many of those good people, our childhood recollections are rich with a mother who knew how to sew and actually created from scratch a very big green tent. Sandi still talks about it today, “Who has a mother who makes their kids a tent!”
And Sandi knows that sewn up in the stitches of that tent was Mom's love for her children, a lot of laughter in our back yard, and a childhood rich with happy memories.
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