So this is something completely different. I've been on vacation this week and spending a lot of time doing things other than the dollhouse so no progress there. This is something I wrote for my college class which I took because I didn't want to be told what to read and writing is pretty much easy for me. But I just wanted to say that this whole piece is from the perspective of my memories of childhood which we all know can get a little unfocused and in a completely opposite way condensed so one thing is overwhelming and everything else fades out. It's not meant to be hurtful or mean or whiny...this is just how I remember things.
Creative writing class in college was mostly concerned with fiction and non-fiction. (No poetry to my disappointment.) Non fiction could be about anything but it had to be true. (Hence the name.) Most of us wrote about ourselves, someone we knew, or an experience we thought would be interesting. One woman wrote about being diagnosed with breast cancer and shaving off all her hair. Another one wrote about her first foreign travel experience.
I had a childhood that a lot of people find troubling. Since it was my childhood I really didn't see anything wrong with it at the time. The dysfunctional family was not something discussed in Catholic school. It was only when I grew older, gained a sense of perspective and heard about the way other people had grown up that I realized my childhood had prepared me for somethings very well and very poorly for others. But hey, its what I live with just like everyone else lives with their past. I don't like to moan about it because as childhoods go mine wasn't the worst. It wasn't perfect but who's life is?
My non-fiction story was about how different the world can seem with just one small change.
From The Corner of My
Eye
I can see wonder
out of the corner of my eye. For the
first time in my memory I could see perfectly.
The room around me was, quite suddenly, different from the day before.
Our kitchen was
small by today’s standards but in my childhood it was considered large, with a
battered, round wooden table at which we sat for breakfast, me and my siblings. My brother Bill, who was only a year younger
than me, my sister Meg and my younger brother Joe, he was only a baby then,
all sat at the table to eat cereal, milk, and orange or apple juice. Sometimes there was oatmeal, but usually
cereal was what we ate for breakfast if it was a school day. Peter, my youngest brother by eleven years,
was not yet born.
I am the oldest of
five children, four still living, and so I can remember more clearly than my
siblings the day the kitchen was wall-papered in its current colors of white,
gold and brown. We were not to go into
the kitchen under any circumstances barring loss of life or limb, but to stay
in either our rooms or the basement recreation room, or ‘wreck room’ as I
interpreted it. I’m certain now that my
mother meant ‘rec room’ for recreation, but as Mom was always saying the place
was a wreck; I naturally assumed ‘wreck’ was its actual name. This interpretation was something I told my
mother years later, both of us finding amusement in the workings of my young
mind.
My father had not
done the papering. I learned later on
that he had no interest (and little skill) in redecorating the house. My mother and her father had spent a day with
the smelly paste and long sheets of damp paper draped over the table and
counters until the ugly green pattern with pineapples and other fruit was
covered completely with the latticework of white and brown and golden yellow.
To me the
wallpaper was a lovely blend of these three colors, only when I was a foot or
less away from the wall could I see the details of the gold and brown woven
pattern against a white background. The dominant shape of white octagons from a
distance tended to overpower the more delicate tracings of color so to my
perspective, my mother and grandfather might as well have painted the entire
kitchen a dusty goldenrod.
Later Mom would
carefully remove the doors from the kitchen cabinets, line the shelves with
paper, and paint all the wood a deep mustard color, echoing the walls. Antiquing was all the rage in the seventies;
we had several pieces of furniture my mother had ‘antiqued’ with a strange
streaky brown paint. She did the same
with the kitchen cabinets until her entire kitchen was a bright cheerful space
of white and brown and gold.
Above the white
sink and Formica counter tops a wide window was framed by yellow curtains and
spider plants hanging from macramé plant holders. My grandmother had a green thumb and
continually brought living plants into her youngest daughter’s house, until
they both discovered a plant my mother had difficulty killing. Spider plants proved to be the best at
surviving my mother's good-intentioned over watering.
The macramé
holders were intricate and sturdy, but to my view they were simply lumpy
looking ropes of brown around white plastic blobs with a profusion of green and
white strings springing out from the top with smaller green and white blobs
hanging down. There was a great deal in
the kitchen that remained a mystery to me.
The numbered dials on the gas stove, the buttons on the telephone and
the details of the sparkling glass cinnamon-sugar shaker for buttered toast (a
kitchen essential unique to our household so far as we knew) were all vague and
blurred to my sight.
I don’t remember
when I could see clearly, or the point that my eyes began to deteriorate. Vision tests were required at alternate
school grades, so certainly my eyes were fine when I entered the first grade. Second grade may have been perfectly normal,
but in third grade, nothing in the class could hold my attention but
books. The teacher may as well have been
speaking and writing Swahili for all I understood of what was happening at the
front of the classroom.
I don’t remember
how it was determined that it must be my eyes that were the problem, not my
lack of interest in history or math, though as those subjects were taught lack
of interest might have been a contributing factor if not the dominant one. I have a vague recollection of a parent
teacher conference somewhere in the school year and afterwards one of the
‘discussions’ with my parents that I always found completely terrifying.
I am determined
that I will not be misunderstood. I was
not beaten more than normal spankings or slaps on the hand or occasionally if
my smart mouth and tone warranted, a slap on the face. I was not hit without provocation, certainly
when I was punished I admit that I did more than enough to earn the
punishment. And punishments were not
always a spanking. I could be deprived of my allowance and still be told to do
chores or confined to my room. My mother
was brilliant at devising punishments her children would least like and so do
almost anything to avoid. I became
fairly skilled at lying, not that it did me much good with my mother; she could
sniff out a lie like our Collie could find bacon. I attribute my father’s lack of awareness to
lack of interest not lack of perception.
But I found
discussions with both of my parents utterly paralyzing with fear. There was always something that I should have
done, or not done. Worst were the times
it was a thing I had thought of myself and discarded, afraid to take a chance
and be wrong. I was always confronted
with whatever it was that had offended and the conversation always ended
miserably, at least on my part. I
remember hearing once maybe on some TV show that childhood ends when we begin
to worry. I can’t remember a time in my
life when I didn’t worry. I can’t
remember a time in my childhood when I was not afraid.
The conversation
about my eyes was as terrifying as any other, worse because I had no idea there
was anything wrong. That particular
feeling was to be the theme of my entire life during my parent’s marriage. Situations I considered totally normal or at
least normal for me, when described to others were greeted with stunned
silence. I learned eventually that there
were other families like mine, if not in every detail at least in general, but
that none of them were considered normal, not at that time.
Somehow during the
course of the conversation it was decided that I would be taken to the
optometrist and my eyes examined.
Perhaps this decision was reached due to the teacher’s input during the
conference, or perhaps simply out of recognition of heredity, as both my
parents were near sighted. I can recall
a simultaneous feeling of relief and guilt, relief due to the notion that
perhaps I wasn’t entirely at fault, but guilty because surely there was
something I might have done or said which would have called this issue to
attention before my grades began to slide.
Grades were a
subject I avoided at all costs. Somehow
my grades were never quite good enough.
A failing grade was the subject of ‘discussion’ with my parents and an
average grade warranted at least a ‘talk’ with whatever child earned it. My parents, my father especially, had
standards for their children. I think heard my
father tell my mother once that he was smart and she was smart so their
children ought to be smart as well. Expectations
of a certain amount of intelligence did not have a galvanizing effect upon
me. I was immediately certain that I was
stupid, particularly at certain subjects (math), and that I would never be able to
live up to my parent’s standards. In a
way I welcomed the thought that I wasn’t responsible for my poor grades due to
my lack of intelligence, or lack of eyesight.
At the same time though, I was convinced that such excuses would merit
no exceptions from my parents in regards to my grades. I was to get good grades, it was
expected. To get good grades I would
need to see the material at the front of the room.
The optometrist
visit was a blur, but the result was quite clear. I was to be fitted for glasses. There would be a two week waiting period for
the lenses to be ground but the frames could be chosen immediately. Actually ‘should’ as opposed to ‘could’ would
be more accurate, as the lenses must be fitted to the frames. The frames were large and round, as was the
fashion, and an interesting pink beige in tone that complimented own
coloring.
My glasses frames
were the first thing I would wear everyday that I had chosen myself. Purses weren’t allowed in third grade, and my
mother had firmly but gently guided my choice on shoes for the year. Everything else I wore to school was part of
the uniform. A dark green and navy plaid
skirt, shot with narrow lines of red and yellow with a short sleeved white
blouse with Peter Pan collar. Navy blue
knee socks and a crew neck blazing red sweater completed the ensemble. Sacred Heart
Elementary Catholic
School insisted that
everyone dress alike and the uniform strictly enforced that code. Often my uniform wasn’t new, but handed down
from my older cousins who attended a sister school near their town. I wasn’t precisely thrilled about wearing
glasses but at least they were something I’d picked out myself. My mother had helped but for once I had
gotten exactly what I’d wanted.
The day the lenses
were ready my mother somehow contrived to take me back to the store without
anyone else along for the ride. At least
this is how I remember it. My brother
and sister may have waited in the car, but somehow I doubt it. I can remember standing at the glass counter,
warmed by the lights inside the case, and being fitted with the frames and
lenses. The world suddenly snapped into
focus. Amazing.
Leaving the store
was dizzying. As I habitually looked at
the floor it was disconcerting to see the carpet pattern seemingly rising up to
meet my steps. My mother held my hand
firmly and told me not to look down. I
couldn’t help it. Disorienting as it
was, the sensation was also fascinating.
The drive home was equally amazing.
There were so many details in the car that I hadn’t noticed before. I could have looked around the car for hours.
In the winter and
autumn months up north, darkness comes earlier than it does south of the Mason
Dixon line. By five and six o’clock the
sun is nearly down and long shadows cloak every building or tree beyond the
reach of street lights. I could not see
much beyond those shadows but the sharp lines of the reflective paint defining
the lanes of the road caught my eye for several long amazing minutes.
The return to the
house was an abrupt return to reality.
My excitement was immediately quelled as we pulled in the gravel
driveway. The rest of the evening was
spent as it always had been, mostly in silence broken only by the sound of my
parents talking and the clink of flatware forks against stoneware plates. I might marvel at the definition of the
graduated lines of color on the wheat toned plates but I did so in
silence. Dinner was the time for my
parents to talk, and for children to listen and attempt to perfect our table
manners.
Etiquette was a
subject of high priority in my father’s house.
There were a number of rules that I follow to this day. My husband marvels that even when I feel near
starved, I do not saw at my steak, arms akimbo, ruthlessly elbowing my
neighbors as I cut a bite of meat. The
napkin must always be spread elegantly across my lap. Butter is not to be spread directly upon the
bread but a portion taken, placed on the bread plate and applied to each bite
before is to be consumed.
As a child these
table manners were more difficult to follow.
My brothers had allergies, which necessitated tiny bites so that they
could chew and swallow in time to breathe through their mouths. Opening one’s mouth with food inside it, even
for oxygen, was apt to earn at least a glare, and at worst, a heavy reprimand
from my father. Slumping at the table
was not encouraged, though perfect posture was something that was not demanded
completely. Talking with a mouth full of
food would result in some stinging language guaranteed to result in complete
lack of further appetite. Elbows on the
table would get you jabbed with a fork until my mother put a stop to that.
Then there were the rules peculiar to our household, as opposed to well
mannered homes across the town.
The rule I can remember
most vividly had to do with talking at the table. Talking by children was never encouraged, but
as my next youngest brother and I grew older occasionally we had news to share
regarding school or my brother’s friends.
When it seemed as if our conversation might become of more interest to
our mother than his own, my father instituted a new rule. When someone wanted to speak, they were to
finish whatever food was in their mouth, without tucking it into the cheek like
a cow’s cud, take a breath and then speech was allowed. We became faster at masticating and an
addendum to the rule was made. We were
to take a breath and count to a silent five, and then if no adults were
speaking, we might speak. Of course the
practical application of this rule was that rarely did we ever speak at the
table.
My mother had her
own version of the rules, mostly to do with the food. We were to take a helping of everything passed
to us, regardless of whether or not it was a dish we enjoyed. In the case of my brothers, they were
required to take at least a few pieces of lettuce from the salad bowl. Drowning the aforementioned lettuce in
dressing was not encouraged but Mom didn’t say anything against it either so my
brothers managed to choke down a few bites of lettuce drenched in French
dressing. Another rule of my mothers was
that if she inquired if we wanted more of something, if we did not, we were to
simply say, ‘no thank you’. Commentary
on the dish was not necessary. If we did
say we did not like something, my mother combated that rudeness with the utmost
simplicity. If we did not like
something, she served us more of whatever it was. This was not a serving we were allowed to
portion ourselves. Butternut squash, for
instance, was a particular enemy of mine and I was given a ladle size serving
of it when I innocently (or not) commented that I didn’t care for how it felt
in my mouth. I hadn’t said anything
about the taste but apparently that was simply a matter of semantics to my
parent. I had to choke down every last
bite.
Of course, the
result of these stringent rules of behavior wasn’t all bad. When spending the night at a friend’s house I
was amazed to see all four of the other girls simply get up and leave the table
while my friend’s mother simply sat finishing her meal. When the other girls asked me if I was coming
I inquired if I might be excused from the table. This brought jeers of laughter from my friends
and surprise from the woman, but I heard from my mother later that I was very
well behaved. That pleased my mother a
great deal.
I learned later
that manners and appearance were of concern to my mother because she had
five children. She told me she never
wanted anyone to point at us and say that ‘that family should never have had so
many children; they can’t even take care of them’ or 'look how badly behaved they are'. It was a point of pride with Mom that we
should always appear well groomed and well mannered as if we were all only
children and had plenty of money.
I never knew money
was a source of concern until after my father left. My mother had a huge vegetable garden every
spring through fall, and it was the source of many of our vegetables. As a gift she’d received a sealer and a
quantity of plastic bags. She was able
to freeze a great deal of the garden’s harvest for winter. Many of our clothes were hand me downs, from
older cousins, and my mother also sewed, so she was able to take up or let down
the hems in whatever was needed. I
learned to sew at an early age and, with the scraps Mom and her mother gave me,
had the best dressed Barbie doll in the neighborhood. I suppose to hear that a child needed glasses
was not the most welcome news for a couple with so many children. But it was unacceptable that I go without
them.
So during dinner
that evening I could simply look around the kitchen and marvel at all the
details I’d missed. The pattern of the
wall paper was like straw woven into a basket, laid flat over a creamy white
background. The cabinets were streaked
in gold and brown and the spider plant’s had green leaves with white stripes
down the center. I could even see all
the artwork on the fridge. Not that it
was all that impressive of an effort for any of us, but I could still see red
and blue finger-paint delineated in careful swirls rather than the normal
vaguely purple blur.
The next morning
was the true revelation, though I must admit I recall a fascination with the
evening ritual of brushing my teeth. For
the first time I could see everything in the mirror. My looks were of no interest to me, I did not
consider myself pretty and dwelling on my reflection merely emphasized that,
but I could see the block letters on the toothbrush and the precise shape of my
teeth.
The next morning
my usual routine of dressing and making my bed before leaving the room was
nothing out of the ordinary. I was
excited at breakfast to realize I could read the cereal boxes in the cabinet
from several feet away, though the selection of Cheerios, Lucky Charms or
Golden Grahams remained exactly the same.
Everything seemed new and amazing that morning. The light outside the windows was clear
though the day was overcast and the yellow curtains near the table were open.
I sat in the
corner between the two windows due to the fact that I was the oldest and
capable of getting myself prepared and to breakfast, whereas my siblings
required my mother’s occasional help.
Now and then I had to be prodded into movement but usually concern for
my father’s reaction should I be late was sufficient to speed me through the
daily routine.
Eating my cereal
and drinking the despised orange juice was always a chore as I did not care for
milk either. I had been forced, by the
nuns in first or second grade, to drink my left over milk warm, and I had hated
it ever since. Orange juice wasn’t a
matter of taste, the taste was actually good, but I could not stand the feeling
of the pulp as it touched my lips or slid down my throat. I won’t drink orange juice to this day. That morning though, I somehow managed to eat
and drink without spilling either the cereal or the juice, which could be
considered a minor miracle given my distraction.
I could see wonder
everywhere. Outside the kitchen window
was a view most would consider dull. It
featured the garage, the back fence, the neighbor’s house on the other side of
the gravel drive, and the neighbor’s backyard just past the corner of our
garage with a bird feeder hung from the eaves.
But all of this was new to me, at least as seen from the distance of the
kitchen window.
I could see the
peeling paint on our garage doors and individual gravel of our driveway. Prior to my glasses the drive had been a
solid mass of grey white and the doors to the garage blurred green squares. I was absolutely amazed to see that the red
brick of our neighbor’s house was not a solid color after all, but stripes and
blocks of red with pale grey mortar in between the bricks. Even the bricks were interesting because they
weren’t all the same color, but several different shades of burgundy and
red. The iron work holding up the small
roof over the front stoop had elaborate curlicues and I could see spots of rust
staining through the white paint concealing the metal. The roof was no longer a solid dark mass but
row upon row of orderly shingles in varying shades of grey.
I could see
through our chain link fence squirrels chasing each other or busily locating
and gobbling down maple seeds, or ‘helicopters’ as we children called them
then. My dog Liz, the Collie that was so
sweet around kids, barked and chased the squirrels to my never-ending
amusement. I was ordered to turn around
and eat my cereal and though I grudgingly obeyed I still kept an eye out for
anything else interesting.
The bird feeder
caught my eye as a squirrel teetered over the eaves of the garage to steal
seeds. A few birds not yet gone south
lingered on the ground and the lower rungs of the feeder, daintily nibbling
their share. I could not name all of
them, but I knew wrens and robins, and I eagerly identified these to my mother.
I could hear the
smile in her voice as she replied and told me the darker birds were
starlings. Breakfast was usually a safe
time for children to talk if we were close to finishing our cereal. Our father was usually getting ready while we
ate, and he never shared breakfast with us the way he did dinner. Our mother still kept an eye out for
etiquette infractions but the atmosphere was more relaxed at the breakfast table. Excitedly I told her about the bricks and the
squirrels and Liz. I didn’t understand
the expression on her face as Mom listened.
I heard later that she was amazed to hear that I couldn’t see any of
those things prior to receiving my glasses and a little sad that she hadn’t
noticed. But then, my brother hadn’t
commented on bricks or the roof of the neighbor’s house, simply because he
could see them, their existence was taken for granted.
Breakfast was
concluded as my father came into the living room and everyone began to bolt
their food or gulp down their juice.
Teeth were brushed with a great deal of running up and down the stairs
to the basement bathroom and coats were hurriedly donned. Every morning Dad gave us a ride to
school. Mom would pick us up in the
afternoon until we were old enough to walk home ourselves, which would be the
next year, though my memory is admittedly fuzzy regarding the timing.
The ride to school
was even more fascinating than the view outside the kitchen window. I could read the street signs and did so out
loud, but quietly so I didn’t irritate my father. The detail in the houses we passed was
extraordinary; I could see the difference in the color of the trim against the
siding or brick. The trees were also
vivid and amazing. No longer were they
dark sticks topped by blobs of green. I
could see individual branches, the shape of leaves, and the way the leaves were
slowly turning colors in the cool weather.
Our arrival at
school was decidedly unwelcome to me. I
was not well liked by my classmates, too different, too quiet, and too afraid
of doing something wrong. But at least
now I could see, perhaps answering questions from the blackboard would not be
as difficult. Maybe now, I would have a
better chance of being like everyone else.
It would take
until lunchtime before someone called me four-eyes. It would be six months before a large maroon ball
hit my face and bent the frames of my glasses, rendering me half blind for
nearly a day until my mother could fix them.
It would be another five years before my father would leave our
house. It would take me another eight
years and a stronger pair of glasses every year, before I would learn to stop
looking at the floor and lift my gaze to the world around me. It would be at least ten years before I had enough
sense of my own worth to stand up to my father and tell him that I had no
intention of fulfilling his expectations before my own.
That day I had no
idea of what was coming. I knew only
that I could finally see. The world
around me might not live up to the world I found in my books but for the first
time there was a chance that it could. And I
might not yet be able to meet my father’s eyes, but from the corner of my eye, I
could see wonder.
