Miss Match

I remember this dress of my Mothers. I remember seeing it hanging in her closet as a little girl. She made it from a stiff fabric of turquoise and lime green. It was almost a damask-type of material, heavy and thick. The dress was trimmed in soft, aqua velvet ribbons. The fabric was almost shiny or sparkly but not quite. The ribbons were dull and smooth. I still have those beads she's wearing. They were (are) a sort of light aqua blue too. They were the opposite of the dress, very unrefined, uneven, unsparkly and unsophisticated. I was never sure why she chose them to go with this dress except that they were the perfect color. Nothing else about the pair felt right though. Like many things in her life, they were opposites in every way, but she put them together anyway. Her most prevalent and glaring pairings always included one part extreme sophistication, the other part exquisite cottage art. Her way of illustrating how she felt in her world, I suppose. She would have been happy a medieval earth-mother living in the forests with the druids, but life demanded that she be a member of the working middle class and the wife of a notable member of the community. A sophisticated and rough-hewn piece of the same puzzle.

It's funny. I remember the dress. I remember the jewelry. I have no recollection of the person wearing them. My Mother - happy. Looking at this picture of my Mother makes me feel the same way that I do when I think of this dress and those beads together. They just don't match.
I only remember my Mom as a worried and simultaneously absent participant in our lives. She worried endlessly - about everything. Her fear grew as I grew older. At first it was just concern, then it nervousness, then it became depressed worry and a few years ago it blossomed into full fledged paranoia. Finally it left her essentially unable to concentrate on any matronly task long enough to complete it or care that it remained undone regardless of whom might be affected by it's incompleteness. Big tasks, like 'dinner' or 'being at home' were most days just ignored because they presented too much to worry about. It was so much easier to just go shopping and forget about the hard choices in lieu of the much easier ones.

I don't remember her as chatty or friendly or gregarious - but I do remember her attempts to be. Again, constructing misplaced aliegances to take the place of relationships with actual family members. They were so much easier to navigate when the participants didn't demand her attention every minute of the day as children and spouses tend to do.

Christmas began at 10 o'clock

Now that the holidays are over, I can spend some time - as I always do - thinking about how I wish they were different. I wish there were family around, I wish I could go to bed at nine and wake up with everything done, people coming to visit and have it all happen so effortlessly like I thought it used to as a kid. I thought a lot of things 'just happened' as a kid. What did I know?

Well, I knew enough to know that there was no Santa. I knew that my Mom and Rudolph couldn't possibly have the same hand-writing and I knew that if that were the case then it was just as likely that my Dad and Santa also had identical handwriting. I knew that came at 10 o'clock on Christmas Eve. After we got home from Christmas Eve service, we got ready for bed. We wouldn't have dreamed of opening anything on Christmas Eve despite that there were always a few things under the tree. Gifts we'd chosen for one another. I heard him every year. Once we were in bed - too afraid of repercussions to risk getting up to sneak any sort of peaks - Christmas began.
The back door would slide open in it's aluminum track, there would be footsteps out into the yard right past my window and then the barn door would creek open after the clang of the padlock snapping open against the jam. A few minutes later, all these noises would happen in reverse and they would end with a great bustle of paper bags, and boxes. My Dad loved to put things in boxes. He still does.

Santa? Yeah right. I heard the unraveling of reams of tissue paper, the Scotch tape ripping, scissors being set down heavily on the wooden table and ribbons buzzing as they were curled along the blade of a table knife . . . . and martinis. Don't forget the martinis. It all started at 10 o'clock sharp - those weren't no elves.

In the morning there was always more gifts than there was space around the tree. They spilled onto the floor and blocked the doorway. There were so many colors and so many sizes and just so many, many.

One year, as legend has it, I woke up around 4am. I was probably around eight years old. Of course it was Christmas morning so waking my parents up early was allowed this day. I did just that and was summarily sent back to my room - to bed. My Dad finally had to wake me up around eight o'clock when my sister and brother were out of every last shread of patience. It became the family joke at Christmas. How early was I going to wake or how late would I sleep? The one who couldn't wait making everyone wait for her. The one running the show in her own way.

Why do you think my sister is so pleased that I'm screaming? Maybe she just knew I'd be trouble. Or maybe she was just happy to know that I wasn't actually in charge of everything.

Well, someone had to be.

My sister is three years older than me. My brother is three years younger. I am 'the middle child' in every conventional way.
My sister had the really great clothes. I think my grandmother made most of them for her. She was the first grandchild. In many ways, she was spoiled rotten and always the center of attention. She was truly a physical version of 'hope' and 'expectation.' It could not have been easy. She was going to be great - whether she liked it or not.

My brother had all the autonomy. He could do no wrong. And, he was a boy as well as the baby. He was spoiled in a very different way. He was excused, he was cajoled and he was catered to because he was different (male) and allowances were made for him that were never made for either me or my sister. He was always believed, never doubted or suspected.

I . . . am the middle child. I clung to one of my siblings most of the time. Usually, which ever would tolerate me. I wasn't as remarkable as the oldest and I wasn't as unique as the youngest. I shared each of their respective spotlights with them and likely much to their chagrin at the time. I was autonomous and learned to hide in plain sight - right out in the open where nobody was looking.

We were, for all intents and purposes, entirely regular kids from a middle class neighborhood in the Midwest. We fit the mold of 'suburbanites' perfectly. We went to school and to church. My Dad went to work where he taught elementary school and my Mom stayed home, where she watched soap operas, gossiped with neighbors and attempted to cook dinners.

Tonsilitis

Do you find that there are questions that come up repeatedly in your life? I do. The one that comes up most for me is; "Is this the way this is supposed to be? Really?"
Whether it was my Mother's cooking, my hand-me-down clothes, the level of parental oversight (or lack thereof) or my Dad's unsympathetic approach to everything, I have always and still find myself asking, "Was this supposed to turn out this way?" Most times, I'm convinced it wasn't.

When I was five, I got Tonsillitis. Most kids do at some point. My case was pretty bad. I remember staying home sick which in and of itself was remarkable. But I also remember the doctor being fairly alarmed at the state of my condition when I was finally taken to him. He wanted me in the hospital right then - immediately. My Mother was told not even to bother taking me home. She told him 'No.' Instead, she chose the 'prescription and return home' option. Since part of the prescription - along with the antibiotics - was that I begin chewing gum, I guess I was okay with it too. I was never given gum and I remember how much it hurt when I tried to chew it. (Was it always like this?) My whole jaw ached with each 'chew.' It was only then that I knew I must have been pretty sick. I couldn't eat. I had alarmed the pediatrician. My Mom was indifferent. (Was her reaction normal?)

It was almost Halloween. Because was sick, I couldn't go out Trick-or-Treating. So not fair and definitely not how I thought it should be. But neither was the impending trip to the hospital that I knew lay nearer and nearer on the horizon. I was so scared. (Was I supposed to be scared?) But I had heard stories that there would be ice cream - all I wanted - and that I wouldn't remember a thing. Even at five years old, I understood the implicit value of being able to block things from my mind.

My parents took me to the hospital in the evening. I would be having a Tonsillectomy the next morning. They walked me to my room, helped me change and put me in bed. They said goodbye and they left. That night was one of the most unsympathetic exchanges and the loneliest nights of my life. I remember the sound of my Mom's shoes fading down the hallway. Nobody came. Nobody told me what to expect. Nobody told me what to do if I needed a bathroom. Nobody told me if I was supposed to sleep with the lights on. Nobody did anything. (Was this how it was meant to be?) The only thing anyone told me is that there would be ice cream and so far I hadn't been offered any.
Finally, I had to go to the bathroom so bad I got up and walked out of my room to the hallway to find a bathroom. As I came out a nurse scolded me for getting up and hurriedly put me back to bed and turned out the light. I thought nurses were supposed to be caring. (Was this how it was supposed to be?)

I woke up the next day with a pain in my throat worse than I have ever experienced. My parents still weren't there. I felt groggy and the kids in the other beds were watching cartoons with their parents. A nurse brought me breakfast - scrambled eggs and toast. My Mother showed up - she put salt on the eggs and told me to try and eat. Can you imagine how salted eggs felt on my skinned throat? Still no ice cream. (Really? Was this how it was meant to be?)

A day or two later, my Mother came to pick me up and take me home - which was fine because I had still not been given a single dish of ice cream by anyone. I was still very sick and could barely keep awake as I lay on the blue vinyl backseat of the car on the ride home. She wanted to take me to lunch on the way - because I had been brave. We stopped at one of my favorite restaurants. She ordered me hot dogs and fries - with ketchup, plenty of ketchup. Again - not the wisest choice for a kid who just had her throat torn off in two places. I still remember how good it smelled and how bad it felt. I was done after one bite, but I sat while my Mother ate her lunch. (Was this how it was supposed to be?)

No. Not at all.

Hallmark Halloween

When I was a kid, we dressed as ideas, notions of behaviors or activities like lambs, spaceman, Fairies instead of the branded, iconic individual and very specific cartoon characters that movie studios license to sell. We made costumes.
We got together with a bunch of other kids our age (under twelve), went to the barn to get buckets and raced like a wolf pack through the darkened neighborhood screaming, laughing and blissfully at ease in the independence that traipsing across lawns and tripping over Jack-O-Lanterns demands. We were free and we were on a mission. -A true team effort if ever there was one. Despite that we didn't actually like any of those kids during the daylight - they made perfect companions for one night.
Our buckets were filled with home made treats (popcorn balls were my personal favorite), apples, games, puzzles and pieces of gum or hard candy.

Things sure have changed!
This year, I watched my kids yearn for mass-produced costumes that weren't embarrassing the way that home made costumes must be. Funny, even as Aunt Jemima or Fu Man Choo, I was never embarrassed. It was a costume - not a political statement. Then again, I was eight and had sugar on the brain.
My son ran with just one other boy as opposed to a pack. Operating under the 'you can only go as fast as your slowest member' theory, he decided to cut his losses and stick with speed - which hopefully, would ensure more candy.
I guess the 'sorting' ritual is still intact. Especially for my youngest son. He likes to take inventory. He has always been preoccupied with organization. (Why this doesn't carry over to his dresser drawers is beyond me. But it doesn't.) When I was invited to survey the takings, I was really surprised to find only one piece of Double Bubble, no candy cigarette sticks, no Chicklets, not an apple in sight, nor a popcorn ball, a Rice Crispy Treat or even a box of raisins. Even more alarming - no Candy Corn and only two Caramels. Nothing that couldn't be hermetically or figuratively sealed from the outside influence of the world - like the germs left behind by the innocent touch of another as they offer it.

Even the Jack-O-Lanterns are different. Most I saw were made of painted Styrofoam and illuminated with electric lights. Clean, homogeneous, sanitary. They don't smell like pumpkin pie as they 'cook' in the flame of an actual candle. No actual slugs crawling in and out - feeding on their own private and tiny holiday feast.
I thought Halloween was supposed to have an implicit layer or gore, vileness and rawness to it. These are the characteristics that pushed it just beyond the realm of entirely safe and that also made it so feverishly attractive to kids.
Out at night, candy from strangers, the absence of parental supervision, be someone else. It was a beautiful thing. It was a tangibly different day with rough edges that required real bravery not canned pseudo-bravery.

The new version of Halloween is for syndicated, licensed and branded weenies. And don't even get me started on Devil's Night. Those were the days!