Written 4/24/17
I’m 54 and I just survived another round of extreme stress in my life. I guess my “fight or flight” energy is still going so I’ll let it down gradually by taking a moment to write down a story from my childhood to help bring mental closure to this round.
There is a quote by James Taylor which I love: “To me, very much of what is artistic is people’s very creative and inventive ways out of impossible situations—life situations—and they show us a path when they do that. They make a trail or they make a mark of some sort when they do this thing—this daring daylight escape. And when we see this, it looks like art.”
To some extent, this is probably a composite account. But all the elements are true.
When I was a child, once a year in August we took a three hour drive to western Maryland for my father’s huge family reunion. It was the one time of year we traveled somewhere and the one time of year I connected with relatives—grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Being an only child in my situation, it was exciting for me. It was so exciting to stay at my Uncle Bill’s house and play with my cousin Laura.
Inevitably my mother couldn’t plan or get herself together to leave on time, pack, etc. My dad and I would pack the night before and be up early ready to go…and my mother would be trying to suddenly do “special” laundry (my dad did the routine laundry…I guess she had to decide what outfits she wanted at the last minute), take a bath (she didn’t do that often, it seemed to be an ordeal for her), be fighting with her sister on the phone over the trip details (we would also visit my mother’s sister Mabel) on these trips, putting curlers in her hair…you name it.
My mother would seemingly take hours loading stuff into the car…baskets of laundry and multiple suitcases…and I remember at least on one occasion…many rolls of toilet paper. As though whomever we stayed with might not have enough! All for a two or three day trip. My father would pace around with anger and disgust, smoking cigarettes.
When I was around 8 or 9 ish, I remember cutting my own play steering wheel out of a plastic sherbet container top. I was always innovative with my play things. I also had a set of play plastic keys. I used to ride in the car a lot with my dad to the store and church and places and I wanted to learn how to drive. So I’d sit in back and watch and imitate when and how he turned the steering wheel or put on a turn signal. Of course my steering wheel wasn’t attached to anything! I just held the round plastic cut lid in front of me and spun it around.
I remember one year we were on I-95 (the JFK Turnpike that we took to western MD) and my mother was yelling at my dad about his driving…maybe he was following someone too closely or speeding or going in and out of traffic, I don’t know…
I just remember what he said to her and did! Something like “Woman, don’t tell me how to drive! (GD-it) I DROVE AN AMBULANCE IN WWII !!!!”
And then he floored it and she was screaming. Or…perhaps she was calmly threatening him and admonishing him to stop. I can’t remember what I was literally doing—maybe I asked him to stop too?? I do remember being startled and scared….I probably was wondering whether to believe my mother that we might be killed or my dad that he was in control.
In later years I recall my dad saying to me—in one of our talks about my mom– “And to think I survived WWII to come back to THIS.”
While I cherish these conversations with my dad at a fairly young age, looking back that was a lot to dump on a child. But I don’t hold that against him one bit. In some weird way it helped me.
Thank You For Reading
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