Figure It Out

My horse's name was Ginger. She was red.
My grandfather bought her for me - probably for all of us. But he took me to see her.
I remember the day. We drove his Lincoln up the winding dirt road that lead past all the trailer homes and cabins that bordered the lake out into the shallow meadow where the turtle pond sat and up the hill to the right. At the top of the hill, the road joined the tractor road that ran east along the McLaughlin's pasture and the more formal Neguanee Lake Road that led west - out to the highway. Tall Maples had grown up along and through the barbed wire that fenced the pasture so that the south side of the washboard road was tunneled in green dusty leaves.

My horse was waiting there in the pasture right where the road turned toward the highway. There was another car there and a gentleman who probably "had a business meeting" with my grandfather. I knew better than to interrupt their conversation, but it was clear that this was my horse.
She was so tall and I was so - not. I've always been small, but at seven, I probably could have passed for five. I climbed the rusty barbed wire fence to get nearer to her - to touch her nose. Everything about her was deliberate. Her puffing breaths, her stomping hoofs, her flashing tail and her shivering skin. She was the coolest creature ever and I was going to be able to ride her someday - but I had to learn how first.

It was at this point that a pattern began in my life that I woudn't recognize until I was much older. I don't remember ever having been able to ride her. There was little talk of her after that day. I never saw her again. The next spring when I demanded answers as to where my horse was, how come I never got to see her and why it was taking so long to find time to ride her my Mother told me that she had been sold. The reason I was given was told, "You were too afraid of her."

Well, if I hadn't been, I was then. How could the absence of some beast that you only met once crush you like that? But more important, when had I said I was afraid? What had I done that my parents took her from me? They hadn't told me. I knew I was supposed to 'figure it out.' God - how I hated those words with a passion. I was seven, how sophisticated a consequence dialog could I possible attain?!

Eventually, I did figure it out - with no help from my parents. Ginger was too expensive. It wasn't that I was afraid; my parents and grandparents were afraid. They were afraid to tell me they had made a mistake.
I would have liked to have heard that just once.

The Marriage Contract(or)

My Mother wanted a helper. I truly believe that this is the only reason she married. She needed one who would be able to help her build her the life. -The one she had envisioned; Romantic, stylized, refined, idyllic and beautiful. She married a contractor who she believed would allow for this. My Dad was educated, attractive, smart and willing to do whatever he could on her behalf. He honestly did his best. But he was always the more down-to-earth of the two. My Mother had aspirations. My Dad had objectives. My mother wanted a rose-covered Victorian home and my Father wanted an economical place to come in out of the rain. He was always tearing pieces of our homes apart and refinishing them. My Mother tried in vain to make him understand her sophisticated vision and my Father tried to hone it with his utilitarian skills.

As usual with expressions between language and interpretation, the contractor had a completely different vision of her desires, but toiled tirelessly to meet vague requirements in a static environment. They worked like this for years. They still do.
She wanted a fine Bordeaux. He made her wine from Welch's Grape Juice Concentrate and Pioneer sugar. She wanted a Mazda Rx-7. He bought her a Toyota Tercel hatchback. She wanted a vacation home. He bought her a 150 year-old dilapidated farm house with no heat. When she wanted someone else to make dinner, he made waffles with ice cream instead of Fillet Mignon. It goes on and on.
That's how it is with contractors. There aren't many who cannot create exactly what you asked for. And when you get it, you see the fallacy of your request and howmuch of life's details are in your imagination.

Still, he tried and he still tries - every day to get it right.

How can she not be happy with that?

Five Captains

The summer of 1973 was difficult. I was too young to be 'big' and too old to be 'little.' It was hard to tell where I fit in - anywhere. As an 8 year-old, I'm sure it was hard for most to take me seriously. How could I know the things I did about how the world worked and the paths that people choose? As an intuitive observer in a fairly dysfunctional albeit completely normal family - How was it possible to escape those types of lessons?

I tried to fit - got pushed out, climbed back in only to be pushed out again. I knew the boat was overcrowded and that the destination wasn't correct. I instinctively knew there was a better way, a better route had to exist and a better vessel must be possible, but I also knew that people could be stubborn and sometimes didn't want to see - especially those too proud to learn from a little girl. Sometimes, just the energy it takes to change course or shift even the smallest degree is too much to ask let alone the flexibility to bend far enough to accommodate the ideas of a child. 

Yet somehow I knew without a doubt that the destination my family chose would be somewhere I was reluctant to go. It was too risky. The simple act of agreeing to accompany those passengers would be equivalent to letting my parents define and endanger me in a way I might not agree with. I didn't want to be made into what they expected. I wanted to be allowed to live on my own terms. I couldn't understand how they could be so completely incompetent in their parenting skills as to believe that I would turn out in a way other than fabulous with just the barest support and guidance. I didn't need any radical pruning or grafting. I had a good frame and almost ideal genetic stock. But they were doubtful and divergent in spite of their own intelligence. As a result, their total lack of confidence was projected on me causing enormous anxiety to them and a feeble attempt at resigned compliance from me. I knew better. Was I truly the only person who could see it - the blind one? Really?

There's an old saying, "When in Rome . . . do as the Romans do." Well, I didn't want to be in Rome or do as they did because it was a dangerous place for a young girl. It meant servitude, accepting violence and subsistence living.

Even at eight, I knew that it was possible to fade far enough into the background so as not to draw attention to yourself, and silently hold your own and go your own way - build your own boat in your spare time and eventually be your own captain and then travel wherever you'd like. At the same time, I hated to leave everyone I knew behind to struggle and possibly drowned. So I tried to help - by sticking with them as long as I could - as long as they'd let me and even if I had to force my way into some sort of position of authority - imagined, manipulated or usurped. I also knew that eventually I would get kicked off the boat or my renegade suggestions. And I did - around the age of 17. 

The boat had become crowded, leaky over burdened and some of the passengers had already jumped ship. Everyone on board thought he or she was the captain and they all tried to sail the ship according to their maps and views of the stars never sharing information, experience or ocean charts. We had five Captains, no Master, no Lieutenant, no Boatswain and no Gunner. Never mind Carpenters, Quartermasters or Mates.

My Dad tried tirelessly to keep the vessel seaworthy, I tried to keep the crew healthy, my brother tried to point out icebergs, my sister went in search of better, less faulty equipment and my Mother sabotaged as much of our work as she could in an effort to hold the tides still - to keep us in our places - believing that if you didn't move, it was hard to get lost. She had no faith.

What my parents didn't count on was that because they were so determined to block our every attempt to grow into ourselves as we were bound to do, instead of raising three compliant, respectful and obliging children who could would do as the Romans were doing, fit in and survive. They raised three of the most intuitive, creative, resourceful and accomplished children there ever were. Sure, we have battle scars and fish stories. But we have very distinct identities and make very few apologies for our interests and or skills which out of necessity are now vast and varied. We know we're not perfect and we understand that not everyone is cut out to be a Captain. But we certainly are and we each understand the need not to try to Captian someone else's boat.

Middle Class Normal

We appeared so normal. We were all dressed well, the sun was shining and everyone seems cordial. The true family story is much different. Or maybe it's exactly correct. Each member of our family tells it differently depending on his or her generation, position and perspective.
I wonder if the same has always been true for every family. If so, how did the peoples that were so dependant upon historical record-keeping through oral means make it? Did they learn lessons by telling it the way it was or by telling the lessons learned? -the ones that skewed slightly to one side of the truth or another.

I'm convinced that history in and of itself is largely inaccurate, one-sided and or one dimensional and that the pursuit of accuracy in history is what makes it such a compelling study. Sometimes, I wonder if there is such a thing as qualitative truth in history of if quantitative truth is the best we can expect to grasp.

My brother was born in the summer of 1968. I remember my Mother going to the hospital and my sister and I waving to her up in the window of her room from the lawn below. After they were both home again, there were new family pictures that included a new little person.
I remember my Mother keeping the house very quiet. My brother slept a lot as babies do and we couldn't wake him. We whispered in the kitchen as my Mother and I made dinner in the afternoons. The television where my Mother watched "As the World Turns" was moved to the other side of the living room. He needed sleep. All babies did. But maybe it was my Mom who needed a break.

Was it just too much for her, having another child? Factual history say, "No." She married, had children and loved us all very much. But from my perspective, according to my version of history, a third child only added to the life sentence of obligation that my Mother resented so much.
Now that I'm old enough to understand her pain, I know what it's like to want just five minutes of privacy in your own house. I know how hard it is to battle daily and sometimes hourly to retain your identity while the rest of the world seems to migrate their interpretation of you from "her" to "their Mom." All these social shifts are lost in the two dimensional history of photographs. They make life much simpler, much easier to remember and much less cumbersome to have to catalog.
There's always the possibility that we actually were what we appeared to be. Completely normal. Maybe every family has their understory that isn't really fit for public display.
Thank God for photos!

Left and Right

We didn't have a television when I was a kid. I was five or six by the time one arrived. Then, when we one did arrive (a gift from my Mother's Father), we weren't allowed to watch it. Well, we could, but not for longer than an hour a day as far as the written rule went, but according to the implied rule (there were lots of these in our house) - it was off limits. This worked out fine because it was a tiny 8-inch screen. Certainly nothing that you could watch for very long without your eyes starting to hurt. Besides, mine (eyes) didn't work anyway.

In an ever disappointing attempt to please our parents, we did other stuff. We kept ourselves occupied with bike explorations, outdoor adventures and make-believe. I remember a lot of coloring. My sister didn't have any patience for that. She was happier using the rock polishing kit that she had received for Christmas or the microscope that came in her Junior Scientist Set. Me? I was all over my Easy-Bake Oven! She made dioramas of dead beetles labeled like fortune cookies and anchored with straight pins. I was more concerned with the fact that the Easy-Bake was flawed - it didn't heat evenly. Who's idea was this and how in the world were cupcakes supposed to turn out well with this type of faulty equipment? My tea-party would be ruined! Even as a child she was definitely a left-brain kind of girl. I watched in awe from my little right-brain perspective.

We might make mud pies in the back yard and fill them with different components to see what happened - a happy mix of quantitative and qualitative data - something for each of us. The most disgusting was a rotten apple and sawdust pie with worms. I can't help believing it would be worth forgetting that particular experiment.

My sister used her brains when she played. I used my hands. Not much has changed. While she was polishing rocks, I sat beside her busily making jewelry out of them. While she gave shots, I was drawing the instruments on the charts in prettier colors. While she studied in her room, I re-decorated mine.

Our perspectives have always been entirely different and yet unopposed. I will always be thankful to her for being there to read me the information from the pages in the instruction manual that is my life while I am too preoccupied with the beauty of the paper it's written on and why the publisher chose such an awful color ink.

Don't you love fall?

Someone I recently met asked me if I liked the Fall. And despite the fact that I live in part of the world where there is no fall to speak of, but only a time of year where the weather isn't very nice and the trees without grace, brilliance or ceremony lose their leaves, I love the Fall. Every time I even imagine "Fall" I can smell hot cinnamon-cake doughnuts, slightly rancid oil, crisp, tart cider and wet leaves. Simultaneously, I ache to visit the Franklin Cider Mill. There are no cider mills near my home in Texas. The closest is in Medina - which sits in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. If you've never been to the Hill County, it can be beautiful in it's own way, but it will simply never be a northern cider mill.

I haven't visited the Franklin Cider Mill in decades. My memories of that place are like most of my childhood memories - I have no idea where my parents were, yet I'm equally as certain that I didn't arrive at this location on my own. I remember being with my sister and brother. First, we read all the historic plaques that told of the original owners - settler's really. Then we watched the big red water wheel in the mill house tirelessly spinning and read listened to workers explain where the apples came from, and how the process hadn't changed in over 200 years. We listened to apples popping under the pressure of the press and the brown liquid ooze from between the huge plates into a vat below as the history lesson continued. The conveyor belt of doughnuts was the last stop before the counter and the marker between what separated the obligatory history lesson from the impractical doughnut binge we had earned by our visit. There, we bought an afternoon's supply of cold cider and oily cakes - leaving behind the candied apples for those more fortunate or less practical parents. I would take my small brown paper bag of greasy doughnuts to one of the large rocks that bounded the stream behind the mill and sit there, my feet wet, my rear end cold from the rock, and eat my treats while I watched fallen leaves float toward a new destination. Pure bliss!
And while I cannot visit the cider mill this year or any year in the foreseeable future, I manage to go there every fall no matter where I happen to be living. Just ask, "Do you like the fall?" and I'm there.