Holstig-Mon

Holstig-Mon (HOLE-sh-tig MAHN) was a tiny monarchy which lasted only a few years.   Its cultural forebears were the ancient Hebrews,  the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the German-speaking cultures of Central Europe in the last few centuries before electricity, with a small sprinkling of North American Indigenous borrowings.  The president was young and inexperienced,  as were her subjects, yet her heyday was really its first three years.  It tapered off in the following years until her lands were sold off to a new despot who cared nothing for the culture, but following the laws of Texas, which surrounded it, took it over for their own purposes. 

Most of its edifices, laws, internal boundaries, religious festivities, and indeed language lived primarily in the imagination of its president, and indeed only small glimpses came to fruition.   Despite this, the country was the main focus of its president during its heyday, and much of her spare time was spent dreaming and diagramming and in occasional small construction projects.  The president was only eleven or twelve when the country was conceived, and the president was, of course, your truly.

Two partial homes were constructed.  Had they been as they were meant to be, they would have been heavy, rectangular wool tents, held up by wooden poles staked into the ground.   Each would have had an overhang on the front side and a vent in the top for the cooking and heating fires.  However, we (meaning my subjects and I) were not in possession of the proper materials,  so we built some of it with discarded branches and blue tarps.   The discarded branches were neither straight nor sturdy, so the loftiness of the ceilings was almost never assured.  The tarps worked fine, except we could not build fires under them.  The demolition of the Holstig-Mon housing district was ordered when our parents happened to go around that windowless side of the house and realize how trashy it would look to neighbors who would be seeing it from other spots.

The religion was monotheistic, and it required its own holy book and rituals, which were never written or fully designed.  The tent-based tabernacle was beautiful in the imagination: a two-room, colorful, hand woven wool rectangle in three dimensions, again held up by those wooden poles we did not possess.  It would have involved fire and water in its religious ceremonies, as well as beautiful smells and prayers in the local language.

That language, Holstenian, was developed enough that its creator would write a few pages here and a few pages there of its vocabulary and grammar and translated bits of a couple of children's books.  (I have found a few pages of this material, and written in a notebook during my seventh grade year; seventh grade also deserves its own post, and despite wanting to write about it for a year and a half, I have not yet gotten up the nerve.)  Holstenian was a Western Germanic dialect, somewhere halfway between broadcast German and broadcast English, putting it rather close in vicinity to Dutch and Flemish, but with a few more Teutonicized borrowings from French. 

Holstig-Mon was meant to be a constitutional monarchy with me at its head, and I roped in my two siblings, my brother's best friend, and briefly two neighbor friends of mine who lived on the cul de sac behind us.  We did hold an election for offices once, but, of course, the election could not be truly fair, as the country was mine, and mine alone....

It was also meant to be pre-Industrial, an era which still holds a special thrill for me in terms of connection to and reciprocity with our Earth and her many other life forms.  However, there was one exception.  I allowed Jeff and Noah to work on wiring up a phone system from what to outsiders appeared a playhouse in the back yard to Jeff's bedroom in the house.  Said playhouse was the capitol building in my diagrams. This was so we could call out for emergencies.   I don't think we got so far as to define what would constitute an emergency or to define policies around breaking the ban on electrical and fossil-fueled technology.

I did some study on how to build a public fountain using water pressure in ancient Roman design, but the specs of actually accomplishing this were out of reach, so sadly my civilization was less graced by a water feature than I had hoped.

I was able to learn some small bits around what native plants were found to be edible by our local Indigenous forebears,  and mainly that consisted of "pickle grass", a small member of the Oxalis genus with tiny yellow flowers.  We had native trees for the most part, but most other species of botanicals were of the foreign type, bought from the standard colonialist nurseries, which sell plants from Eurasia and Africa.

Despite presenting little beauty to the viewer's naked eye, Holstig-Mon was a gift to its creator,  in that it spurred and coalesced learning from many different fields and gave that same creator life-long loving memories. It was the perfect project for an intellectual but dreamy girl who loved books and lived in her own world, (which was mostly the real world but dialed back a few centuries.)

I have mentioned before my affinity to the picture book Weslandia, which a relative gave Anne when she was small.  Minus a few details (the mysterious seeding of a plant on which to found a civilization and the creation of a backyard country turning the creator's tormentors into friends), I felt that someone had written this book about my own childhood, and I have never felt SO seen.  I include here a link to watch it read:

On the Suddenness and Violence of Air Travel

I have never been on an airline trip which didn't cause me to tear up at some point.  I have not yet figured out exactly what causes this despite thinking about it over the decades.  Is it the racket of the jet engines and the onboard air filtration system?  Or the knowledge that airplane crashes, though rare, are almost always fatal?  Is it the motion sickness which follows me around and is worse when I am tired?  Is it the violence of revving up this unnaturally powerful machine, hurtling through the skies with strangers at altitudes for which human development has not prepared us and suddenly dumping us in a totally different physical and cultural landscape?  Is it the crowds of people, all strangers, shuttling through this giant impersonal system of computerized hubs?  Is it the worry of what might happen to the luggage and having to use strange and noisy restrooms?  Is it the mixture of boredom and panic created by timeliness and schedules?  Is it through overwhelm of changing from one routine and set of people at home to a different one somewhere else, no matter how welcome? Maybe it's all of these things together that upset the delicate equilibrium inside the human....

Ice Skating

 I have so many memories I want to write, but I have been uninspired with all of them for a week.  But the beauty of the ice storm here in the PNW put me on the right path.

I was quite enamored of the idea of ice skating as a child, but the opportunities were limited.  We had freezing weather mild enough to keep any ponds impassably dangerous, and the one indoor rink was far from us, in the middle of a mall, and spendy.  

When I was six or so, I was given my first pair of roller skates, and after a couple days crashing, I took to them.  Inspired, I tried very hard to make ice skates out of plywood in the garage, and with my dad's kind assistance, I did make a ridiculous and semi-matched pair that I tied over my shoes with string.   When a freeze came up the next day or so, my dad let the hose drip onto the back patio to make a little rink so I could try them out.  It was a rather bruising experience, but it did not slow down my adventurous nature.

In an ice storm, I went out roller skating the neighborhood, which was great fun, except for returning home rather bruised up.  My mother was not particularly sympathetic to my self-induced injuries, to which I was prone.  I was always a leap-before-you-look child (/adult???)

There was the time I thought I should rollerblade down the steepest hill in the neighborhood. At the bottom, the sidewalk turned and then crossed a lumpy, gravel dead-end, and then if I had made it across that at high speed, the sidewalk reconvened with a small turn next to a planting of cacti.  There was not way to end that impulse gracefully, and after my crash, I still had to skate the mile or more home.

At some point my dad reroofed our house, and I was invited up to "help" briefly.  Afterward the roof became the "mountain" for my complete, complex, culturaly distinct country in the backyard, Holstig-Mon (which deserves its own post.)  Afterward, I did discover a way to climb up via the fence on the side of the house, and I jumped to the grass below on more than one occasion, despite the absolute jarring impact.  I also frequently braved the high dive at the pool in the summer, back when they still let people attempt to become paraplegics all summer.

I learned to climb the large oak at the back of the yard by climbing the fence, swinging over the lowest branch with a certain technique,  and then going up, up, up.  My mother recalls seeing me 20 or 30 feet up there on many occasions. 

There were many biking accidents on the hilly cul de sac behind our house, not usually from riding the bike in transportation mode, but from doing things like obstacle courses, or riding hands-free.  When I was 19, we were visiting some younger cousins around the holidays, and they had a ramp off of which they would jump a stunt bike.  I had never done such a thing, but I was absolutely game to go without any instruction...and went over the handlebars on the first and only try.

In my 20s I took a three-week course in Munich and afterward took the train to Rome to see ancient things.  I rode a bus out to see the catacombs, took the tour in German (which I understood about every other word of), and decided I should return to Rome on foot via the Apian Way as was historically accurate.   I did not think to try to find out if anything had changed with the advent of automobiles, and I found myself, at one point, walking as flat as I could against the ten foot high stone wall next to the narrow two lanes of rush hour traffic and getting lost in an unsavory neighborhood.  I am, miraculously, still alive. 

There was the time that Jared and I went camping in the Adirondacks before our move to Alabama, and we undertook a 20-mile loop at a point in the day which forced us to run the last five miles to get out of the woods before it was absolutely pitch black.  We seem to hike and camp that way in general.  Can't say if it's his fault or mine, but I'm thinking I am not a totally innocent party...

Lots of things in my life seem to be this way, although with the responsibility of children, pets, and earning a living, I have become a little better at thinking ahead in some circumstances. 

Waltz of the Snowflakes

 I heard said item from The Nutcracker on the radio on the way home from Anne's school drop off this morning,  and I knew what my next post would be about.

As a child, I was apparently on the physically awkward side and had poor posture, so my mother eventually proposed ballet classes to combat these defects and teach me to be more graceful.

My first foray into this arena was in the fourth grade. Our next door neighbor was taking a weekly class at a little studio in a strip mall south of us.  So my sister and I were signed up.  I don't recall if Emily and Mara were in the same class or not, but I was in a different class, I presume due to age difference.  During my sister's class, we occasionally walked down the parking lot to the grocery for a treat, and I always picked the same thing: a large, soft chocolate sandwich cookie with creme filling and root beer from the soda fountain.  When we didn't do that, we sat in the lobby of the studio and I did homework or read.  The class was fine.  We did some basic ballet for a while, and then we strapped on our tap shoes for the last few minutes and made some semi-organized noise. After the year or semester or whatever it was was up, we discontinued with no particularly strong feelings on my part. (Except for sadness about missing my specific weekly junk food treat.)

When I was in sixth grade, the quest to endow me with more grace and coordination was re-embarked on, and this time I was enrolled in Grade 1 at the Ballet Austin Academy.  This was twice a week, and was a much more serious course of study.   We wore black leotards, pink tights, pink shoes, white elastic waist bands, and our hair in a bun, held in place with bobby pins, a hair net, hair spray, and often a scrunchy.  As I was starting Grade 1 at age 11, mid year, rather than the more typical age 8, I was obviously larger than the other kids in my class. I was also more determined, and I worked harder and with more focus than most (or all?) of my classmates.  My inner competitive drive payed off, and after a semester in Grade 1 and a year in Grade 2, I ended up skipping straight to Grade 4. I took Grade 4 even more seriously and was passed the following year to Senior B (which was the equivalent to Grade 6.)  I was still older than most of the class, except for one other late bloomer who also took the whole thing very seriously and is still my friend nearly 30 years later. By this time, I was in class three or four days a week, and we were starting some pointe work.

I took my study seriously, but it was more like an inescapable obsession.  I read books about young pre-professional students at the state sponsored ballet school in Moscow, the Royal Ballet School in London, and the School of American Ballet in New York City.  I became these children.   I did everything possible to perfectly memorize the combinations taught at the barre, to balance longer and stronger, to stretch further, to improve my posture and turn-out, to stay precisely with the music,  to move my arms and head more gracefully.   I pushed myself in every way, and I showed up even when miserably sick. I often spent many hours in the studio building, a rennovated historical fire station, which housed the professional ballet company, the academy, and the offices of both, as I would go directly after school in the same neighborhood and then stay until my classes and my sister's classes were over. I would sit in the back corner of the women's dressing room and half-heartedly tackle my Latin homework while observing the conversations of the professional dancers and the older teens on the pre-professional track, trying to figure out what that artist life was like.  These adults were probably struggling financially, but they were all in this because of their love of dance and absolute inability to see themselves in any other place in life.  I related to that passion with intensity.  I ate, slept, read, and dreamt ballet.  

When I was there early enough, I would sneak upstairs and peer through the open back door of Studio A to watch members of the Company rehearsing for upcoming programs.  We had season tickets to the ballet, and they presented four or five sets of performances each year: one in the Fall, the Nutcracker (ten performances in December), and two or three more sets in the Spring.  One of the Spring performances was another classical full-length, such as Giselle or Coppelia or Romeo and Juliet.  The other programs were made up of shorter dances, some newly choreographed. I saved the programs and pored over the bios of the dancers, noting where they had studied,  what other companies they had danced for, and what famous choreographers they had worked with, as well as what rank they were within the current company.  When we acquired a TV and VCR, I taped one or two full-length ballets off PBS to watch when we had the rare opportunity to use the device.  My mom also ordered VCR tapes of a couple more obscure 20th century ballets.  I asked for tickets to the annual AIDS benefit performance at the Paramount where we saw all sorts of fascinating new choreography which caught my imagination.   I listened to the full Nutcracker score on CD untold numbers of times and even moreso, listened every single night (for over a year) to the Prokofiev score to Romeo and Juliet. I wrote a virtuosic arrangement of the Bon-Bon's dance for violin and piano, as well as an arrangement for the same of the Arabian dance.

In the early Autumn each year, the Company held auditions for students in Grade 3 and above to participate in the Nutcracker performances.  The first year I auditioned, I was sorely disappointed to not be given a part.  This was not a surprise, given I was so much taller than the majority of students dancing at my level, and it was a combination of ability and height that denoted who was fit for particular roles.  I later learned that Miss Martin, the ballet mistress, considered my dear friend and I for the part of Fritz in alternating casts, but didn't end up assigning us as she thought we wouldn't want a boy's part.  She was quite wrong, and I wish she would have asked rather than assumed.  

Two years I was given a role - one year as a soldier and the following year as the soldier's nemesis, a rat.  The soldiers danced with painted wooden rifles and uncomfortable hats.  The rats danced with long tails and giant gangly grey heads with red light-up eyes.  My sister was awarded parts more years than I, most especially as a bon-bon, one of the most coveted sweets.   There were five casts.  Most of the older parts were assigned to five performances each in a pair of alternating casts. Some of the other parts were on a three-cast rotation with three or four performances each, all blocked together.  Each group had its own heated-to-80 dressing room, and parent volunteers would shepherd groups to the stage and back at the appropriate times.  Each group also had its own call time back stage at Bass Concert Hall, and a stage monitor would check everyone in and out during the production.  Dippity Doo turned out to be a more or less required hair product, along with specific stage make up. ...All of this was proceeded by months of additional weekend rehearsals in Studio A at the old fire station.

In class, I liked the barre work the best.  The combinations were so logical, worked through all the steps so thoroughly and evenly, and seemed so nicely organized.  We practiced with music, either a live pianist or a pianist on LP.  The musical was almost always Chopin or Joplin.  I have recently found some old notebooks in which I created tables of my own invented notation for all the different steps.  The work in the center of the room felt harder as we had to practice jumps and turns and it was trickier to stay precisely in your spot.  I remember all the teachers - Toni, Kevin, Denise, Inga, Steven, Bill, and Miss Martin.  Some were tougher than others, but they all expected precision and focus.

At the end of my Senior B year, my evaluation came back, and I was asked to repeat Senior B (we wore desert mauve leotards), rather than moving on with my class to Pre-Elementary in the pre-professional division (where they wore forest green leotards with 3/4-length sleeves.) I was devastated but did not let up on my struggle for self-improvement in the least.  I worked and obsessed harder than ever, and was admitted to the coveted Pre-El class the following year.  By then we took a 90-minute class Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and 105-minute class Tuesdays and Thursdays, including a 45-minute segment on pointe, and on our marathon Fridays, we took an additional 90-minute class in jazz dance with our black leather jazz shoes. (If I had made it to the Intermediate/Advanced class with the burgandy uniform, I would have taken modern dance instead of jazz and had class six days a week, the Saturday class taken with the Company.)  All of this was obviously a huge time and financial outlay for my family... I honestly don't know how they managed it.

It was no surprise I had been asked to repeat Senior B despite my extremely intense efforts.   My genetics did not grant me the body of a professional dancer - my arches, ankles, knees, and hips were not flexible enough, despite extensive daily stretching on my part, and my leg-to-spine ratio was too top heavy, with too much lower back arch.  Also, my toenails do not lie flat on my toes, but are angled slightly upwards, meaning that no amount of taping and lambswool would keep me from losing them regularly due to pointe work.  Pointe work is physically demanding for everyone, but I think it was bloodier and brusier for me than for most other dancers who had flatter nails.  I knew these things and knew they would prevent me from pursuing a career as a professional ballerina, but the love was there.

Half-way through my Pre-El year, my parents pulled me out.  The time and money outlay was far too expensive, especially considering I would eventually have to give it up. I was absolutely shattered.  I was given a portable barre and mat for my little bedroom at home, and I tried half-heartedly to practice a few times, but I knew deep down I could not keep it up on my own.  I left my final class wailing uncharacteristic public tears, in the best physical shape of my life. In a short time I could just feel my dance muscles melt away and atrophy, and all my insides dissolved into a puddle of truly depressed goo.  The violin was there waiting for me.

Obscure Ice

 Some decades ago, when I was in ninth or tenth grade, it was well known in my small circle that I was seriously pursuing the violin as a career.  What that career might look like or how exactly I might get there was a bit of a mystery, but the general concept was inescapable; it seemed like destiny.  In an effort to knock on figurative doors, my mother arranged a trip for the two of us to a tiny town in Michigan.  This is because, on a rural campus by a lake, there was a performing arts boarding school which may possibly have been part of that journey.  There were no great expectations or hopes of this visit that I remember; it was purely exploratory.  I did not end up enrolling, and that was probably for the better.  I remember very little of the trip, with the exception of a few small incidents which stick with me still.

I remember walking across campus through the snowy landscape, the slanted northern light filtering through low-lying clouds.  It was my mom and I and some sort of adult representative of the school.  I was enamored of the northern winter and knew some day I would live in it, and it seemed really important to me to impress this stranger with how well winter and I got along.  And I did not know about the black ice which can show up after shoveling and plowing...  So I slipped mightily while walking too confidently.  It hurt, but I knew I could not acknowledge that, so I popped up and kept moving like nothing had happened.  I always "knew" it was dangerous to show any weakness or lack of knowledge...

After I played for the two violin teachers - I suppose it was a sort of audition (I think I may have played some Bach and Lalo, but can't say for sure), one commented that they had never seen a violinist turn their head on the instrument the way I did "to enjoy the music."  I absolutely was in the habit of that posture, but I don't know what led to it.  It may have started as a way to deal with the anxiety of trying not to miss a big shift. In my adult life, I have found that there were some big shifts I could not play in tune without the peculiar head turn, and I also associated it with physical tension.  I have practiced some spots in the repertoire over and over to work out a way to play them with a more natural spine arrangement, and it was a frightening transition. I did deeply enjoy the music and easily and often got lost in my own world while playing, but that seemed a separate item from the crooked neck.

Additionally, the teachers asked what I planned to do with my music, and it was true that I wasn't quite sure.  I answered: "Solos, chamber music, orchestra, I would be happy to do any of it."  But that wasn't quite true.  I did not want to play in an orchestra at that time for a career - mainly because I did not know what it might be like.  And I think I knew I would want to teach.  And I did know I wanted my individual artistic voice out there being heard.  Honestly,  I could have answered the question the same way at the end of graduate school, because I did not know what questions to ask myself in formulating a plan going forward. And I did not want to lock myself into a trajectory, because what if I did not like it after all?  I have always had many, many ideas but am not much good at long-range planning.  This has its obvious downsides in our society, but also has had the effect at keeping disappointment at bay, because I do not have a specifically imagined dream to find my life deviating from.

I remember going out to dinner with my mom, and instead of the usual bread and butter or crackers or chips and salsa while waiting, they had bread and a plate of olive oil with rosemary.  The server explained about dipping the bread in the oil, and this was a new experience to me.  There is absolutely no significance to this tidbit - only a grainy image in my mind and a taste on my tongue.

Lastly, we went to some sort of student performance one evening.   I remember one teenage girl in the audience, slightly stocky.  I don't recall if she was our guide or if she was merely another spectator.  She was up and down the aisle, greeting people in a friendly way.  Later, perhaps at the hotel, my mom asked me to tell her about this girl's social skills.  This felt like a loaded question, and I did not know what the right answer was.  I said she seemed like she had a lot of friends, because she was greeting so many people.   It turns out I was wrong.  My mom explained that she was socially awkward.  Anyway, I was, too, so I missed the cues.

Coincidence

 Many, many years ago, when I was living in Cleveland, I was spending time in the basement practice rooms at school, as one did for hours each day.  During breaks, friends may congregate for a few minutes to chat.  This was not scheduled, but more of an organic process.

Once during one of these breaks, I somehow got to thinking about one of my childhood piano teachers in Texas with whom I studied for a year or two.  She was in graduate school at the time, and lived in a little apartment on the crest of a hill.  We'd park on the street, and then walk on a perpendicular sidewalk past front doors to hers little home.  Her tiny living room contained a small sofa and a grand piano.  Just past this, there was what one of my husband's aunts refers to as a "one butt kitchen", and then there was the teacher's small bedroom.  By walking through said bedroom, one could access the bathroom.  In addition to going back there to access the facilities,  I was sometimes sent in to the bedroom during my brother's lesson, as our teacher had a weighted-key electric keyboard which could be used with headphones.  This was because she wanted me to practice while waiting for my turn.  

Each teacher has their own peculiarities.  This teacher stood out to me for the following two reasons...

First off, she felt that young children were not ready to play music by the greatest composers (something a previous long-term teacher had made a point of having us do with the point of elevating our minds), but should play "student" music until a stage of greater maturity.   As a result, the curriculum got easier, and we were also introduced to a small series of graded piano books called Bastien's Pop, Rock, and Blues.  These particular  books were simple and fun.

The second peculiarity had to do with how she annotated our scores.  Rather than marking with the sacred pencil (so annotations could be erased or changed as ideas developed or progress was made), she marked boldly in colored Magic Marker.  It was a different color each week, and she made use of a specific non-standard term, FLIP, which was frequently written on the page.  By FLIP, it was meant to suddenly move the hand to a new part of the keyboard, without creeping or reaching.

...As it happened at this particular practice break with friends in Ohio I seem to have mentioned the frustration at having my scores decorated in a rainbow of Magic Marker, and one of the friends from the West Coast mentioned he'd had a piano teacher do the same.  So then I mentioned the FLIP annotation, and he confirmed that his teacher had written the same.  So he said to me, was your piano teacher Dr. Elizabeth so-and-so?  And I said, well, my teacher was Betsy so-and-so, although she was only in the process of becoming Dr. when I studied with her.  This seemed to surreal to be true, so we emailed our respective parents.  Indeed, after my teacher had finished her graduate work, she had moved out to Oregon, and had taught students there.

So, I who grew up in Texas (and was in Ohio majoring in violin performance) and this friend who grew up in Oregon (and was in Ohio majoring in cello performance) shared a childhood piano teacher!  

And you may as well know that in after years, I married that friend.  It was Jared. 

4A

When I was a toddler, my grandmother and her three sisters purchased a piece of land in the Texas Hill Country, and they had a large log cabin put in.  The land was a long, narrow rectangle; the largest bit was flat and atop a hill, adjoining the paved country road.  Then there was a wooded hillside which descended to a small, flat meadow, and there was another short, steep, rocky hill which dove right down to the Blanco River, lined with river cypress and tiny bivalve shells half buried in sand.  On either side of the long, narrow rectangle there were other plots of similar dimension with the same terrain.   These plots were all separated by a string of barbed wire on weathered, wooden posts - a common way to divy up pastures in ranch land.  (I was taught to carefully touch the wire with the back of my hand first to confirm it was not accidentally or purposefully electrified before touching with the inside of my hand.)  The four sisters had a painfully-spikey-in-bare-feet, crushed grey gravel track put in from the cattle guard at the top of the property down to the two-car garage.  The garage was separated from the house by a handsome Y-shaped wooden walkway over a shallow depression, which was semi-landscaped, mostly with rocks.   Rocks are family heirlooms in this clan.  Each rock has a story - where it was found,  what shape the collector loved about it, its color. Moving house involves moving treasured rocks.

The garage wasn't much used for cars.  One unfinished interior wall had every sort of tool you might need hung on it - rakes, hedge clippers, screw drivers, hand saws, etc.  There were also the river shoes belonging to all the regular adult visitors and a compressor for pumping up the huge pile of inner tubes stored in the back corner.  The items on the wall were precisely arranged, and a pair of 4x6 color photos mounted there were useful for referencing exactly where to return a borrowed tool.  Woe to the individual who did not promptly return the item to its designated mount.  

Along the back wall were a fridge and counter with a sink.  Here, some of the men folk stored coke bottles or beer (for those who were Methodist or Presbyterian, rather than Baptist), not approved for taking up space in the kitchen fridge.  The sink was mostly used for cleaning fish - there were several of the men, including my own grandfather who would take turns passing a quiet afternoon in a folding lawn chair on a shaded strip of river bank, supplied with a 5 gallon bucket of water for storing catches, a tackle box, a fishing rod, and a can of beverage. On hot days the shade of the garage, with doors open for breeze, was a place for some of the men folk to get away and set up lawn chairs on the cool, smooth, polished cement floor. 

In addition to the riding mower, one other vehicle was eventually added to the garage collection.  This was a little, gas-powered four wheeler.  Kids were allowed to ride this with adult permission and supervision.  It was red.  The gas pedal was a small lever on the right handle, depressed by the thumb.  On one of my first outings, I pushed it a wee bit too hard; the machine lurched forward and slammed into the fridge at the back of the garage, leaving a very small dent.  I was terrified by my lack of control, and my father was concerned that one of the great aunties would have a fit over the small scratch.  The vehicle, though it was fun, was not purchased to amuse the small fry, but to aid some of the older, less mobile family members in traversing the rugged terrain.

The four sisters, of the maiden name Alexander (hence the moniker/brand of 4 A), had grown up on ranches, but in their adult lives were domesticated to houses in towns and cities.  Once they built 4 A, they spent a weekend each month together out in the hardscrabble landscape of their origin.  They were, eldest to youngest: Julia Mae, Roberta, Emalu, and Seleta, all born in the 1910s and '20s.  Their brother Rufus and his family were occasional visitors to 4 A, but he was not a part-owner, and I have the vague whispered sense he felt his sisters too much of busy bodies and needed some space from them.  

On the designated visit weekends, the sisters and their husbands would start pouring in around Thursday and Friday, and some would last until Monday or Tuesday.  Children and grandchildren would show up after work on Friday night, or on Saturday morning, sometimes for the day, or sometimes spending the night. Between these four sisters there were six adult children, several of whom married; some of the single ones brought a beau over from time to time.  There were eventually seven grandchildren, of whom I was the eldest.  Unless, of course, some of Rufus's family showed up.  His two children had produced three grandchildren,  who were between three years and two weeks older than I.  Various other more distant relatives might visit from time to time - cousins of the four sisters, or nieces and nephews of my grandfather who had married into this big mess.  Sometimes, one of us might bring along a friend, though I am not sure that such interlopers fit as well into the schemes of the elders.

The most distinguished visitor, who was generally a regular while he was alive, and who had his own bedroom, was Dad.  That is to say, the four sisters' dad, known to friends and extended relatives as Frank, but called Dad by all three generations of his descendants.  I have fond memories of Dad, born in 1888.  A patient, good humored man, he was happy to repeat old stories, and he played dominoes at his table every day.  I learned dominoes there, and Dad also patiently taught me to play Connect Four, the vertical, three-dimensional version of tic-tac-toe.

The log cabin was quite spectacularly comfortable,  though certainly not frilly.  It had two stories, with part of the living area that tall, overlooked by a loft, all with windows opening out over the giant deck to the wooded downhill.  The natural stone fireplace was filled up with a roaring fire on cold evenings, and the stones would get so hot; there was a stack of cushions sewn by one of the sisters to keep the fire-sitters bottoms from scalding. The living area was open to the dining area under the loft.  Depending on the number of diners and the weather, the three daily meals would be taken at the three small tables (with straglers eating in the living room), or in fine weather, eating would often happen on the giant wrap-around deck on the hillside, a wooden picnic table and built-in benches along the edge providing seating.  There was a reasonable sized kitchen,  presided over by Uncle Ken, the husband of Seleta.   His day job was to cook for the giant First Baptist Church in Houston, so he knew how to feed comfort food to a crowd.  The 4 A kitchen had no dishwasher, so after each meal a small team was required to volunteer to wash the copious pile of dishes, dry them, and put them away in the specific spots where they each lived.  Between the kitchen and dining areas was a long, wide counter, used to serve meals buffet style. 

Each sister had her own bedroom, as did Dad.  In order to accommodate extras, the living room sofas (some of which folded out) became sleep spaces, the loft sofa folded out, and a closet in the downstairs contained a couple of folding beds on wheels.  My own grandfather used one of these, sleeping in the kitchen near the refrigerator,  as he was a life-long diabetic and would occasionally have to take some juice or whatnot in the night to keep himself in balance.

My grandmother's bedroom was on the ground floor, right across from Dad's.  She had an antique double bed, a small sleeper sofa, and an antique folding cot, so our family of five could squeeze in there for the night.  She also had a toy bin, which was the special province of my siblings and me, but of course,  it was to be shared with the second cousins or any other visiting children.

All four sisters were enamored of antiques and frequented country flea markets in search of pretty, old things.  Each Spring, the four of them went out on a Spring Fling for several days, where they galavanted around the small towns of the countryside,  buying antiques.  (They were out on one of these Flings, when my grandfather, home alone, died after a heart attack.)  4 A, or as it was also called, the Riverplace, was tastefully decorated with many of these finds, in addition to the old family items already in circulation. Notable to me was an ancient player piano, not in working order, which adorned the wall near the front door.  

While being at the Riverplace was a pleasant way to pass time, getting there, for me, was not.  It involved lots of twisty country roads, two lanes at best.  The trip was shorter if the low water crossing on the Blanco was passable, longer if the water was high and we had to go around (phone calls discussing the river situation were common in the days before a trip).  And for me, as for my mom, winding roads meant motion sickness.  My mom could solve this by being the driver. I just had to sit in the back and do my best....

While my great aunts had many wonderful abilities when it came to house keeping, doing things decently and in order on a schedule, having a place for each thing, and tasteful decorating (all skills I did not seem to inherit), I don't remember any of them being the sort of stereotypical, warm grandmotherly types.  I was vaguely afraid of all of them, and specifically afraid of one of them whose particular housekeeping tendencies made any children or untidy folk steer clear.  For many years I had trouble telling which one was which, as I had difficulty remembering faces, although I learned the most particular housekeeper some years ahead of the others.  

The great uncles, as a whole, were more laid back, although I did find it necessary to sneak carefully past one great uncle most of the time.  He loved to give unexpected bear hugs and to tickle children, both of which made me quite frightened and uncomfortable. Uncle Armin, I came to appreciate over time, as he grew up speaking German; it was a dialect spoken by immigrant families in the US with a decidedly American accent.  Here my fascination with linguistics, and German in particular,  made me turn an ear in his direction, listening for any foreign words and constructions sprinkled into his speech. 

Gatherings at 4 A were scheduled every month or so, and I have fond memories of the Thanksgiving gathering.  The amount of food produced by this multi-generational grouping was phenomenal,  and any holiday favorite you could think of was there.  My favorite was pecan pie.  One of my mom's bachelor cousins cared a lot about football, so he spent much of the day up in the loft in front of the medium-sized TV hidden seay on a cabinet, watching all the games.  A few other relatives would pop in and out, and a small chorus of voices would denote good or bads plays for those downstairs,  whether they cared or not.  Sometimes the bachelor cousin would shout down scores to people downstairs who wanted to keep track but were otherwise occupied. 

The Christmas gathering would be on a day which was not actually Christmas.   In addition to the roaring fire and the unbelievable spread of food (my favorite being Graham crackers topped with chopped almonds, drizzled with a melted butter-sugar combination, which hardened), there was a giant Hill Country Christmas tree.  It would be something like ten or fifteen feet tall, and not the sort of lush evergreen that people who live near the northern forests expect.  This was a more rustic and arid affair, and just as beautiful.   It was tastefully decorated with white lights and ornaments, many of them handmade.  There was a gift exchange, which was worked out some weeks in advance.  Gifts weren't anything fancy, and each adult drew the name of another adult.  Each kid got one present, too.  People liked when my mom's cousin-in-law drew their name, as she was apt to give a tin of her homemade chocolate-covered pretzels.  There was usually some hymn singing in parts, all from memory.  Despite growing up in what we might consider Second or Third World circumstances (agricultural work, wells, out houses, no electricity, primitive medical care), all the sisters had music lessons and sang in church.  They all attended college as well.

There was always a gathering the day before Easter, too, though many fewer folks spent the night, as Sunday church events were a priority back home.  Once all the kids had arrived, one of the great aunts or uncles would announce that the Easter Bunny had been spotted, so we all had to stay in and close the window shades.  No one actually believed in the Easter Bunny, of course, but the elders went around hiding things in the underbrush before sending us out with baskets to hunt.  Eyes were kept open for snakes, though.

In the Summer, there would be occasional all-family float trips on Saturday afternoon.  These were a mix of fun and uncomfortable. The anticipation was very exciting. However, getting so many people dressed in river clothes and shoes, matched up with the correct size of inner tube, all the inner tubes inflated and hauled down through the prickles to the river, was a mammoth task.  Despite the heat, the water felt cold, and I, for one, was slow to acclimate.  Then, one had to worry about water moccasins and leeches.  Some of the water was very slow and hard to paddle through. Some places, you could get stuck on a little island or a rock or a tree branch.  Some bits of rapids were frighteningly fast and one was liable to bruise one's rear end or shins on the rocks. Taking out at the low water crossing was dangerous where you had to avoid the spill over spot, and you would be shivering as you tried to reacclimate to the heat.  Then this huge mass of people had to get through the showers without outpacing the hot water heater and dress in clothes again.

Nonetheless, the river felt like the most magical spot on the property.  As Anne of Green Gables often exclaims: There is so much scope for imagination!  Every hollow and rock was its own place.  Tiny bivalve shells lay along the bank.  So many species of plants made for a whole magical country.  

Out back of the garage was a wire laundry line for hanging out of wet things.  The ground beneath was rocky and prickly,  most especially thanks to prickly pear cactus.  There was once when I was foolishly out there in bare feet, and I wound up stepping in the cactus and taking several tiny thorns home in my foot.  Having them extracted was excruciating. 

Despite the need to carefully avoid various scary old people, there were often other kids to play with, and when there weren't, there was plenty of room to find a quiet place.  One visit there was a hammock hung in the woods on the hill and I found it a wonderful reading spot.  When we felt adventurous,  we could climb under the deck and find new ways up.  Another time, I made a sort of imaginary play house in the upper field inside a ring of prickly trees.

In the lot just upstream from 4 A, there was a very old house.  It was a dogtrot, low ceiled and with a covered front porch.   I imagine it may have been as old as the 1860s, but I could be wrong and it may have been as new as the 1930s.  I don't know that I was ever in it more than once, briefly, but regardless, proximity to old things was a good education.  There was also a chicken coop and old barn alongside.

At the end of each visit, my parents went in to put money in the "kitty".  I never learned what vessel this was, but I did spy a handwritten list of contribution amounts for food and utilities in the kitchen, based on number of people and length of stay.  Everything was well organized and there was no room for squabbles along these lines.

As the four sisters and their spouses became older, upkeep of the Riverplace became more difficult, and after a serious family meeting of adults, it was decided there was nothing for it but to sell.  In the after years, the older generation has passed away one by one, and there has not been such a convenient or regular meeting place since.  I have seen extended family members only occasionally, and there is nothing similar in the younger generations, as my mother is an only child. I have no aunts, uncles, or first cousins to create this same brace of people for the 21st century.  My children, at least, are close to their own grandparents and my two siblings, and this is wonderful.

Jane Eyre

 In college I became more cognizant of a personality trait I had carried all of my remembered life.  Through chance, or fate, I wound up with a lovely set of friends from school who attended a nearby Baptist church, and I joined them there as a novice.  It was in that evangelical hall of spiritual instruction that I learned a name for this irksome trait of mine which had so long plagued me: "fear of man".  This fear, I could not shake.  For most of my life, although I was not always well attuned to others intentions or meanings,  I had been very attuned to emotional energy, particularly of anyone even slightly older than me, and thus higher up in the authority stratum.  I was used to monitoring this energy and rating it in black and white terms: good energy or bad energy.  This monitoring and evaluation  was more unconscious than intentional. I was often unaware that I was choosing words and actions which would keep the balance of that energy on the positive side, and thus keep me out of "trouble."  Even the smallest bit of trouble and discord has always been very painful to me, and unknowingly, I have spent huge amounts of energy avoiding that pain. Where this seemed problematic to me, when I discovered this "fear of man", is that it often led me to be untruthful, partially truthful, or sometimes downright sneaky, in an effort to keep others happy.  And this... seemed manipulative.   I was, by contrast, attracted, to people who were genuine and unphased by status.  Was that my natural bent, corrupted by this fleshly sin?  Or was it something foreign to me by nature that I may one day hope to attain?

With many more years of reflection and reading, it seems clear to me that at some point, my very sensitive soul discovered, through unconscious trial and error, that such reactions on my part (and reactions they were - for despite enormous amounts of planning and mustering of courage, I could rarely bypass this habit) - had once upon a time been a way that seemed to keep me safe.  Now, they were no longer a choice and  often were far from the best course of action.  I am sure that living things are hard-wired for self-protection and  preservation first of all, and these priorities must be cared for before the more altruistic qualities can be truly nurtured.  As a result,  I spent a lot of effort doing things "for" others, but only some was altruistic; much was driven by the more basic desire to remain safe and on an even keel...

But this is about the book Jane Eyre.  I just finished my first time through on audio, read by the incredibly talented actress Thandiwe Newton.  Jane, although fictional, must be, in some way, based upon the thoughts of the author and people she knew.  Jane has no hint of bending her will, thoughts, and actions, to keep others at bay.  Her clarity regarding her own feelings and thoughts she uses as signals in choosing, moment by moment,  the best course of action, informed by truth and ultimate good.  I wish I had so much clarity and indeed, simplicity, in choosing words and actions with true intent.  Jane is not deferential or meek unless she chooses to follow such a course.  She is a keen student of the people around her;  she is kind when kindness is called for; passionate and angry, coupled with self-control, when there is injustice or untruth.  She is sometimes rather odd to others around her, but her mind is on full display under Charlotte's pen, and I find her rather fascinating.  

I do wish I had read and loved her long before.  Her deep wisdom and convictions and spirituality,  while Christian, don't follow the pack, and I feel I could have drawn a lot of insight and courage from her literary friendship for some of the internal challenges I worked through (not often very well) in my teens and twenties. 

Actually, I had briefly tried to read her once before.   Somewhere between seventh and ninth grades, a now forgotten compatriot extolled upon the novel and convinced me I should read it.  I got hung up on the detailed description of the draperies in the first chapter and put it down.  What I now regard as Jane's keen powers of observation and interpretation,  I once found too dusty, dull, and hard to comprehend.  I was at a place in life where I wanted action.  (I did not do all of the required reading for my ninth grade fantasy/science fiction literature class, because I could not motivate myself to read much of things which did not interest me, but I did manage to read all of the required Stephen King novel Firestarter in far less than the allotted time. It was a real page turner of the horror genre, and I did not sleep well for a few weeks.  As I grow older, I have developed the self-control to put down such terror-inducing books, because I know how badly I am affected by them.  However, at that age, the dopamine hit made continued reading truly unavoidable. )  

The most recent,  and successful, attempt at Jane Eyre came about as follows:  Last school year, in the winter, we were given a large TV by one of my students, who was upgrading.   We hung it over the glass cabinet in the living room, and began using it as a way of keeping the peace and providing some family education during our late-night dinners.  On our weekly Tuesday library visits, I would pick up documentaries and dramatizations which looked promising.   One week I took a BBC dramatization of the lives of the Bronte sisters off the shelf, and we enjoyed watching it.  This led to interest in their writings, so we ordered film versions of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre from other branches, as they were available.   We sort of made it through Wuthering Heights, but found it, at least in this film version, too dark, scary, and pointless.  Jane Eyre was dramatic,  but interesting.

Some months later on an internet forum I was following, a person commented on how much they liked Jane Eyre and related to the character,  which again piqued my interest.  So I finally gave it a go as an audio book. 

Written in a largely pre-industrial era, I was constantly impressed by Jane's connections to nature.   Daily weather was well observed and accounted for, as were the varying amounts of light afforded by sun, moon, and stars.  Whereas we (well, not I at the moment) are used to four-seasons heating and cooling via thermostat, the auto with heating and cooling parked in the garage for conveyance,  and indoor destinations of all sorts, again on that thermostat, we hardly notice the import of the weather. With electric lights everywhere we turn, we rarely notice sunrise or sunset, except as a tourist attraction,  and we rarely see moon and stars for all the light pollution,  much less use them to navigate by in the dark hours.  I am struck at how far removed even I am from the life of our planet. 

In an era of mass-produced goods for consumption and entertainment,  I was struck by the simple and pleasant ways people spent their time outside of work.  Conversation and silence, often mixed, filled the quiet hours.  So many times Jane related conversations where two or five or ten or fifteen minutes elapsed before a reply was made.  It sounded thoughtful and magical.   Perhaps some day I will try to experience such conversation.

...I no longer think of "fear of man" in those negative theological terms I first learned in that pragmatic Baptist institution.  When I notice it in myself, I see it for what it is - the confusion of a small child who does not know that disagreement is a part of all healthy relationships, and who is trying to hide from the inevitable by becoming a nobody-clone of everyone.  It *may* have been a functional piece of body armor to a small person who found other persons inscrutable and confusing, but it is no longer a piece of armor that serves me well.  Besides, I have now gone truly pacifist- not the pacifism of pacifying others for self, but the pacifism of desiring to creating true harmony by weaving together disparate parts and moving ever closer to the truth, rooting out falsehood.  This doesn't mean the old habit is gone - so very far from it.  But now I recognize and name it, and occasionally strategize to meet it head on.  And I do not deplore myself for weakness.  Rather I realize I am running a faulty operating system and make moves to debug.  The stranglehold of the beast has loosened ever so slightly.

The final paragraphs of Jane Eyre convey the after-story of her cousin, gone to India as a missionary.   The account terminates with the closing words of John's Revelation which brought an unexpected tear to my eye:
"Even so, come Lord Jesus..."

Kindergarten

 I shall now endeavor to compile my memories of Kindergarten,  as I am inspired by attending for the second time.  Lazarus is enrolled in a forest preschool two mornings a week for his Kindergarten year, and I am there at the park to support him, as he is not ready for a full drop-off situation.  I am so thankful that we have good options besides public school; it would not be a safe or comfortable space for him at this point. 

To be sure, I was predisposed to play-based Kindergarten anyway, and the beautiful German word lingers in my mind, designating a place for children to enjoy frolicking and observing the world, in a garden.  If I recall correctly, Kindergarten was not a required part of the public schools when my mom was growing up, and she attended a preschool program at a nearby church that year.  For my own part, I was sent to a little Waldorf Kindergarten which may be my happiest school memory.  In addition, I eschew the academicization of toddlerhood, trusting the science and the philosophies and educational traditions which state that young children learn best through self-directed play in a rich environment; natural wonder, interest, and curiosity are to be preserved, as they are the best qualities in receiving an education; and the academics can be added later and more compactly to equal or better result.  My own limited experience bears this out.

Anne, of course, was sent to a three-afternoons-a-week forest program for her Kindergarten year.  She and I loved that program, and I had very much planned to send the younger two to the same program as their Kindergarten years arrived. However, this year's scheduling and finances caused us to look elsewhere, and while I don't love Lazzie's school quite as much as I did Anne's - it's a little more proscribed and less open-ended,  they have welcomed him with open arms, and are happy to have me there as support as often and as much as he needs.

My own Kindergarten memories follow...

The class met on the small property of the Quaker Meeting House.  The actual meeting house was in one oblong building, fronting a street. There was also an oblong, fenced yard alongside it with beautiful trees around a long picnic table where we took our lunch on pleasant days. There was a second oblong building where we spent our inside time.   The door into this classroom was centered on the long side of the wall, opening from the fenced yard.  At the far right of the big main room, there was a partition to a small room where we had cubbies for our coats and our nap things.  At the far left, behind the wall of the main room, there was a bathroom and a closet used by the teachers.  The classroom side of this wall was lined with a kitchen.   We would put our lunch boxes in the fridge upon arrival, and we would each wash our own dishes in the sink after morning snack time, the eating of which was often accompanied by real beeswax candles on the child-sized tables.  The main room had tables and little chairs, a cozy reading area with pillows and a rocking chair, a costume box, and along the wall, a fold-down shelf on which we frequently did watercolor.  We all had brought old button up shirts of our fathers' to use as painting smocks. 

On the far side of the classroom building was a second fenced yard, this one a play yard.  I don't precisely remember all the acoutrements, but I do recall a sandbox with digging toys, a long climbing structure,  and a teeter totter.  There was also a hose, which we were allowed to run into the sandbox to make rivers and lakes.  

We had two teachers, and in my mind's eye I can see one of them from various angles, minus, of course her face (as alluded to in the previous piece regarding fourth grade.) She was tall, or at least seemed so to my just-turned-five perspective.   She wore wide, long skirts and Birkenstock sandals, with socks, when the weather required.  This style of footwear has become more prevalent as American clothing choices have tipped on average towards comfort, but at the time, it definitely exuded a hippie vibe.  She had very long, wild, curly hair - brown mixed with grey, and it was always loose and taking up a lot of space.  Her build was sturdy and round- the perfect matronly person. Come to think of it, when I imagine Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, she looks suspiciously like that teacher (again without a distinct face - I do not really see faces in their entirety in my mind's eye, even now.  If I try to focus in on one, it is as if I am looking through a peephole with an ever-shifting view : if one feature become clear, the rest retreat into fuzz.) I remember our teacher being kind and resonable, but also I felt a gulf between us in terms of authority; she was an adult,  and I was, of course, not afforded the same privilege and understanding, though I often felt more at home in adult company than in children's.) I do not recall her name anymore, but I remember my mom telling me she lived in the row of rental duplexes behind the elementary school, near my friend Margie's family, who was in the left side of one.  All those back yards backed up to a prickly, rocky, wooded cliff leading down to a large, rushing creek, which was, in that day, more of a river.  Now it is water-free, like an ancient streambed on Mars, except that it becomes a muddy and dangerous flood when the rain comes fast and hard for days on end.

The other I teacher I cannot recall at all, except that I think she was younger than the first.  Did we even have a second teacher?  I think we must have, based on the number of small people milling about.

Two children I can remember from the class.   One was Una.  She had her dark, straight hair in a bob and acquired a brand new baby brother during the year.  I was envious of that new baby, although I had already acquired my second new baby sibling two months before the start of school.  That baby was old news though, by the time Una's new family member arrived.  Una seemed somehow glamorous and floated effortlessly in a higher social stratum.

The other was a girl named Erin, whose house I frequented.  She was tall and had long, slightly wavy, mousy blond hair, which was always a bit messy.  She had younger twin brothers named Derek and Chad, and I could never tell which was which; I spent time pondering how their family could so easily and correctly identify them.  I remember riding home with her family from school in their little two-door car.  The front seats would fold forward so that you could climb into the back, as my dad's little mustard-yellow car did.  We fit all five of us in, as car seats were not used past babyhood, and the lack of airbags meant kids could sit up front.  Erin's mom would have the windows down for air conditioning, and I remember panicking and feeling Iike I was going to suffocate.  (I spent many years of my life feeling strong aversion to, and even fear of, wind, even into my 20s on occasion.)  Erin lived in a little, plain house which had once been a duplex.  I remember a shaded backyard full of scrubby juniper and a hammock in the semi-enclosed carport , and that Erin was allowed to wear Jellies, footwear deemed too fragile and perhaps unsanitary to spend money on at my house.  Erin's mother fed us a meal once which seemed rather exotic, as it wasn't in our household repertoire.  She topped halves of English muffins with jarred tomato sauce and sprinkles of shredded cheese.  These went into the toaster oven, and voila - miniature pizzas!  I was stunned when I pondered Erin's birthdate: January 1, 1980.  I realized that if she had been born one day earlier, it would have been a different decade,  a time assigned to the remote and unfathomable past, though not the more comfortably familiar ancient past of the 1800s and earlier.  It did not occur to me for several years, that given the school cut-off date of very late August or perhaps September 1st, approximately one third of my classmates should have been born in 1979.  As a child I was very cognizant of age, and was, as a rule, quite intimidated by those any older than me.  This only started to subside in my 30s.

...My  teachers once informed my mother about my exemplary behaivior at recess in the play yard, which tidbit was passed along to me.  I was apparently very judiciously careful to spend time with each group and each activity - I did not just play with a favorite.  They were apparently impressed that I played with each group of children equally. I was honestly surprised to hear this feedback. I don't think I was aware that I was carefully honoring time with everyone.  In retrospect,  perhaps every activity looked fun, and I was trying not to miss out.  I am also sure that I did not specially belong to any of the groups, as I was somewhat unmoored socially; perhaps I felt the need to move along now and then so as not to overstay my welcome where I did not fit.  However, I have always had very strong felt empathy, not always as a child for mysterious and seemingly all-wise other people (especially adults,) but absolutely for animals and inanimate objects.  It is possible that this sensitivity did drive me to divide up my recess activies with a sense of justice.  Self-awareness was not a strength of mine in childhood, or much of my adult life, either.

...One day at snack time, a suddenly terrible smell filled the room.  It seems our teacher with the wild, wonderful hair had leaned too far across a table in aid of another child, and some of her hair was singed in the flame of a beeswax candle.  She quickly smothered the flame and opened the windows,  but that odor still lingers in my nostrils to this day.

We made such wonderful crafts in that room.  I have already alluded to the water color.  We were given large, sturdy round brushes with wooden handles and thick paper with rounded edges.  We painted from our imaginations, just enjoying the feeling of the materials and watching the pale blobs of color spread with the water.  We also made things with colorful wool yarn, felt, popsicle sticks, and twigs from outside.  I still have a simple, small, sewn elf finger puppet, a woven dream-catcher, and a yarn-wrapped bundle of twigs from those days.  We were sometimes shown specific techniques, but we were not set out to follow the plans for some specific,  developmentally-odd proscribed finished product, as seems popular in many preschools of today.  Our own creativity and enjoyment were our guides.

Once or twice we took a field trip to sit quietly and reverently in the Meeting House, for the purpose of learning about what members did there.  Being a weekly attendee at the Presbyterian Church, I was quite surprised to lean that the Quakers had no clergy and sat quietly in the round,  speaking only as the Spirit lead them.

I remember one lunch at the picnic table out of doors on a pleasant, but chilly day when a leaf slid off a tree and into someone's thermos of soup.  The someone was disgusted, but the teacher pointed out that the floating leaf was a bay leaf, the sort often used to flavor a pot of soup.  I was, and remain, unsure of this plant identification: the leaf did not look entirely like the dried bay leaves in the tiny glass jar in the kitchen at home, and I had the vague sense that all spices were grown somewhere else, far, far away.

During the year, we all celebrated our birthdays at school.  Mine was in the summer break, so it was arranged that I would celebrate some random date in the spring.  There was a special process.  The birthday child picked two helpers.  All three dressed up in these amazing silver and gold capes and crowns, sewn by my mother for the class.  The three would then go out to the yard while preparations were made.  Upon the return, there were candles, and a gift in the story time circle.  I don't recall, but think that we had a special treat to eat, as well.  Unless my memory fails me, Erin and Una were my two helpers.

After our daily lunch, we had a nap time.  We each had two blankets brought from home: one to lie on and one to cover us, as well as a pillow.  Both my blankets were made by my family and involved hippos.  We had assigned spots, and mine was in the back corner near the cupboard.   The lights were dimmed, and we were not to talk.  Some days I slept; some days I did not.  I always was drowsy when at the end we were roused to meet our parents.  One child who was assigned to nap near me (I no longer remember who), often initiated conversation.  I had been carefully taught to respond to people talking to me, so as often as not, I was the one the teacher asked to stop conversing.  I sometimes felt the injustice of the situation as I was required by the rules of decorum to return verbal queries, and I was often chastised by my teachers to stop talking.  (I may have started some of the conversations on my own accord, although that seems somewhat less likely, as I was wont to follow the rules as I understood them. I tried very hard to do everything in my power to stay in everyone else's good graces, whether it was ultimately beneficial or not- a habit which is hard to shake, even now.)  Once I got into quite a whispered argument with my naptime interlocutor about the color of my thick, knitted tights.  She insisted they were black; I tried to explain they were navy, and that navy and black were from fundamentally different color groups, to no avail.

For most of my childhood (and indeed some of my adulthood), I drank very little water, and avoided using the bathroom anywhere but home.  And even there, I did not usually recognize the signals until it was almost too late, or perhaps I ignored them for not wishing the deal with the interruption and all the unpleasant and multitudinous tasks associated with a visit to the bathroom.  I have a stark memory of a day at Kindergarten where I suddenly realized that Nature was calling NOW; I was dressed in a beautiful plaid creation of my mother's tireless sewing skill.  This was a woven cotton jumpsuit in the deep blues and greens, short on the legs, with a sash of the same material, a small split collar, and probably twelve tiny oval buttons down the back, fastened in delicate button holes.  I danced in utter misery with such anxious haste in front of my teacher while she carefully undid the miniature buttons.  After I finished in the loo, my teacher patiently buttoned me back into my precious and formidable straight jacket, while suggesting I wear something else in the future.  I felt helpless at the recommendation, as I was not in charge of choosing my daily school wardrobe, and it would never have occured to me that I could be.  Had I been given such authority, I would have, undoubtedly,  appeared a fantastical vagabond with accidental dreadlocks. 

The first through sixth or eighth grades of that Waldorf school all met in another building some miles distant.  Another rental, it had some sort of historical significance.  When I visited once with my mother, I recall only an elderly canon out front with an explanatory brass plaque.  I do not know the specific reasons that my school career did not continue in that building, but I can imagine a lot of possibilities from the experience of responsibilities incurred in my 43rd year.

I stayed home from school entirely the following year; my mother felt that I awoke each morning with so many creative ideas and plans, that I needed space to just be... and brain to practice the piano without the exhaustion of attending school each day.  I am sure my mother could not have been more right.  After a year's hiatus, I went to first grade in a different situation. 

Fourth Grade

 Now that my eldest is attending public school, I keep digging through my own school experience to compare.  I have many distinct memories of fourth grade, so I will start there.  I think I will leave Anne's fourth grade experience out of it, because that is her own story.

My class at our neighborhood elementary school met in the right half of a portable we shared with a fifth grade.  The portable across from us had a sixth grade class, as well as a mixed 5th/6th class.  Around the corner, closer to the main building was the portable with Miss Jeffrey (music) on the left and the frightening-to-me Mrs. Mendoza (art) on the right. Around the next corner was the portable with the other two fourth grade teachers.

I liked Miss Jeffrey and her class.  She was young, and probably had a general education music degree.  I was far younger, of course, and obsessed with Baroque and even older music, studying - with the required daily nagging and imprecations from my parent - the violin and piano at an intermediate level (easy Mozart sonatas, and Vivaldi concertos, for example), sang in church choirs, and as my mother put it, "played anything that wasn't nailed down."  I was always divising instrumental teaching curricula for fun and was about to launch my own now-forgotten, private classical composing career. Miss Jeffrey's class was easy, and interesting, and I eagerly  joined the team for something called "Music Memory" - a statewide contest where we had a list of art pieces to memorize from genre ranging from Baroque to 20th century with some ragtime thrown in.  At the actual contest, all of the teams crowded into UT's Bass Concert Hall and listened to the Austin Civic Orchestra (with whom I would solo a few times in the upcoming years) play little excerpts, drop-the-needle style from the list, while we were to annotate the blank page in front of us with the title and composer of each work.  I also distinctly remember seeing and hearing Westside Story on film for the first time, thanks to Miss Jeffrey.  Once I was quite embarrassed for being singled out when she was teaching us something and couldn't recall a specific musical term at the moment; I raised my hand and supplied the missing term, and she kindly and jokingly said she should hand me her masters degree off the wall.  We studied the recorder in her class, and I took this endeavor seriously,  eventually amassing not just the required soprano, but also an alto and tenor.  When I had some spending money, I would go to the sheet music store and purchase volumes of recorder music to read through, and I also taped a Handel recorder sonata off the classical station and carefully and diligently learned it by ear.  Miss Jeffrey formed an after-school recorder club,  which I immediately joined, and we prepared music to take on tour to the little Renaissance Festival one weekend in Waxahachie, a small town between Dallas and Waco.   My mother made me a costume from a Breugel painting, and it is possible that our Saturday journey to that magical place of imagined historical reenactment was one of the highest highlights of my first decade.  Miss Jeffrey also had an after school choir club, which I joined, and a young astronauts club, which was another area of great interest to me.  I very much looked forward to sixth grade when I could join the orchestra and learn the cello.  However, I did not remain in that school long enough to see that dream come to fruition.

Mrs. Mendoza, the art teacher, seemed pretty hands off.  I said she frightened me, which was true, but I am not sure why.  Perhaps I was not able to read her well enough to predict if I was pleasing her or not.  She would present the project we were doing - making a collage of our family from old magazines, or using clay to make candle holders, or whatever.  Then she would circulate around the room to check up on our work, and I mostly didn't want her to come round to me and tell me I was doing it wrong.  I still have the afore-mentioned candle holder and a clay baby guinea pig I lovingly made in her class.  I always loved making art, but mostly for my own enjoyment and edification,  and not so much in this uncomfortable setting.

My own homeroom teacher was the very young Mrs. Baker, who left us for many weeks in the spring when she gave birth to her first child.  One afternoon not long before the school's-out bell rang, Mrs. Baker called to all of us in an atypically sappy voice with unusual-for-her word choice: "Gather round, children. "  I had no idea why she was talking out of character and immediately felt embarrassed and confused.   I "gathered round" as requested,  with my back very intentionally toward her so that I would not have to deal with the intensity of seeing her face or anyone else seeing mine, as I processed this weird off-the-script encounter.   She announced to us, that as many of the class had observed (though not I), she was pregnant and would be leaving us soon for some weeks when her baby was born. I felt excited about the idea of the baby, as I think I have always been drawn to the tiniest humans, but I also felt betrayed.  It takes so long to get used to a new teacher and new routine,  and now I would have to do it again with a stranger.  (We ended up with a man in his 50s who probably carried on as best he could with us, but I was relieved when Mrs. Baker returned.) 

Each day I, and a few others, went to Mrs. Ramirez's class for language arts, as this was a subject we switched classes for.  Mrs. Ramirez was probably in her 50s or 60s, and lived in the neighborhood; sometimes I would see her walking home from school.  She was regarded by the kids as the toughest 4th grade teacher, and I liked her, while I also felt little personal connection with her.  In retrospect,  it was probably the most advanced readers who were sent to her for language arts, and she stretched and challenged us.  My usual odd written drivel, inspired by language of previous decades and centuries with which I had rather insufficient experience, didn't merit automatic adulation from her.  At one point we were to give a report on a topic she helped us choose, complete with hand-drawn slides.   Naturally I wanted to do something about music, and was rather frustrated when she assigned me, to broaden my horizons, the topic of jazz, a style which was distinctly uninteresting to me for its lack of antiquity and foreign-ness.  We also did a poetry project and I still have the mimeographed book of 4th grade poems and illustrations we put together.  I still rather like one of my illustrations of my brother in the middle of his technology projects, but my own poetic contributions were rather insipid.

After lunch we went to Mrs. Thomson,  the final (middle-aged) 4th grade teacher, who was notable in our mostly-white neighborhood as being the only African-American faculty member.  It was for health class one semester and D.A.R.E. (to keep kids off drugs) the other semester.   D.A.R.E .was slightly more interesting than health,  as we got to hear all about the gruesome results of substance abuse.  Health was more mundane,  and probably more useful,  as we read in our incredibly dull text book about the importance of hand washing,  the four food groups, and wearing helmets and giving hand signals when riding our bikes.

Mrs. Baker's class was comfortable enough. Two academic points stand out to me.  We had our daily math book, which was full of the regular arithmetic numbers manipulation,  which I rather liked.  Then there was a secondary math book which I liked rather less, called Real Math Book, which was filled with word problems.  When assigning classwork or homework from said volume, she would write on the board: R.M.B. p. 17 #3,4,6,8,15.  As you can see, those are my initials, too, and I always felt that those assignments were directed at me. 

The second notable item was that when we opened our social studies book for the year (it was a Texas-based book), there was a demonstration map showing how to read a map key.  The map was of a real place, as it was paired with an aerial photo. I caught its import immediately.  It was the city park on the same property as our school and was the playground on which we took our daily recess, fifty feet from where we were now seated.  I felt some pride of place, knowing that students all over the state would be studying OUR park.

Each morning after we were arrived and settled and announcements had been made, our first activity was to walk as a class to "specials."  The music and art were already alluded to.  The third on the daily rotation, was P.E.  The P.E. teacher I found most terrifying.  She was tall and stocky, her wild, long, crimped hair, streaked with early gray stored in an 80's scrunchy, wavy bangs across her forehead.  She dressed in matched sweat suits and athletic shoes, and wore oversize, loud, dangly earrings.  She never spoke, she always shouted; she never encouraged, she always cheered; her whistle was shrill, and she kept us in order.  I was happiest when I was at the back of the gym, as far from her as I could muster, but we had assigned and rotating spots on the floor for our daily warm-ups, so proximity was not to be helped on a schedule.  I rarely earned an A in her class: I was small, slow, awkward, uncoordinated, short on stamina, and very disconnected from the rules of organized sports.  We did a unit on football (a subject which I have never learned to appreciate in the slightest), and on the written test, which I failed miserably, we had the chance to earn extra credit by writing in the names of professional players.  I remember one boy laughing and remarking that that was the stupidest,  easiest extra credit ever, and I cringed inside, as I would have no way of picking such a name out of the thin air.  (I may do no better today.)  I did enjoy track and field day, because I loved running hurdles.

Each day, midday, we took a trip to the industrial-smelling, noisy cafeteria, where Mrs. Baker took leave of us for 20 or 30 minutes.  On rare occasions I went through the lunch line and had to endure the terror of talking to the lunch ladies, pointing out which items I wanted on my tray and the terror of trying to pay the correct amount to the cashiers.  Usually, though, I had the standard lunch, packed daily by my mother - a sandwich, usually peanut butter and honey or tuna salad (or on rare occasions cheese), along with something plant-y: apple slices, orange sections, or carrot sticks.  This, plus an apple juice box.  We had assigned seats at our class's two assigned brown fake-wood-topped, folding cafeteria tables, with their alternating attached blue and orange circular seats.  There were more girls than boys in the class, and Jennifer and I were assigned seats together at the boys' table.  Jennifer was quiet and studious, as I was, but seemingly less awkward.  I assume we were assigned to the rowdy boys' table, because Mrs. Baker thought we could be a good influence on them.  It may, instead, have cemented our social distance from the more popular girls and made us the target of merciless teasing by the boys.  I was gullible and unsure of what was malicious and what was meant in good humor, so I became the brunt of much teasing,  moreso, I think, than Jennifer.  I dealt with this injustice by raising my hand at each infraction from the boys, who seemed to be eating this up, and reporting each misdemeanor to the lunch monitors.  These poor, long-suffering lunch monitors must have quickly reported this continual annoyance to Mrs. Baker, as she soon produced a laminated copy of the lunch seating chart, and a dry-erase marker, which I was to take to lunch each day and mark the infractions on. This had the positive effect of reducing the lunch monitors' constantly and fruitlessly visiting our table, and I think over time it reduced the boys' tormenting of us, allowing Jennifer and me to eat in relative peace, while still desperately longing to join the girls' table, which problem was never resolved.   I handed the marked chart and marker back to Mrs. Baker when she came to retrieve us as we lined up to leave for recess.  Once I was hurt to see her erasing my list of unassailable accusations without inspecting them.  I was, however, inwardly assured that whether or not she cared, I had done my duty in promoting justice.  I have puzzled over this lunch situation many times throughout the years and have never really decided what to make of the whole thing, my own part included.  I was invited to Jennifer's birthday party, where I saw an Ouiji board for the first and only time.

I went to a few other birthday parties that year, too, including those of the other girls in my "club".  Margie, whom I had known since preschool, had asked me to join a little club she started, whose membership included two others besides us - one, her future stepsister,  though it would be a few years before they knew about that, and another girl who lived up the hill, daughter of a pastor father and Amway sales woman, who had a fabulous trampoline.  The club did not have much of a point or any bylaws, but by jove, we were a club, and got our parents to approve meetups at the various houses every couple of weeks, though mostly not mine.

There was one other whose birthday party I remember with much vividness.  The celebrant was Stephanie Villegas, and she lived across the street from my former piano teacher, and more exotically, a few doors down from her own older cousin.  Hers was a sleepover party, which I was permitted to stay for all of, and the centerpiece of this gathering was the watching of the newly released New Kids on the Block video.  As a rule, I was against pop music, on account of its lack of antiquity and its obvious vapidity, but this boy band was all the rage amongst the female turning-ten set.  I don't entirely know the reasons - were the ripped jeans and dance moves considered hot?  Were they all looking forward to the freewheeling world of junior high and (ew!) dating in a few years like their older sisters?  I mostly did not watch the video, carefully keeping my back to it most of the time, but my musical mind couldn't help but get sucked into notating and secretly enjoying the repetitious refrains....

...We hung our backpacks in the cupboard in the back of Mrs. Baker's classroom, and once I chanced to have left a cloth bound blank book in my bag, which I brought from home.  I learned from one of my neighbor boys that he and a couple others were in the habit of snooping through everyone's things, as he told me they'd found this book.  And was it my diary?  And they hadn't read it, because it was probably full of gross stuff.   I was careful to excise with scissors everything that could be construed as gross stuff that evening in sheer horror (don't recall now what that might be), and I still have that book with many years of pictures and words, with probably a quarter of the pages removed by me.

During recess I mostly kept to myself, but interacted with others when our paths crossed.  We had a fun playground and some magical, gnarled live oaks.

I did talk with a boy called Richard who sat at my table for math.  I think he was in one of the other fourth grades and came to Mrs. Baker's class for math.  He was funny without making fun of me, and I enjoyed his company. 

There was another boy who came for math who was often sent to the principal's office on account of being disruptive.  I marveled at his lawlessness as he related a story, which I believe to be true, of being dropped off at school in the morning, sneaking out the back and hanging out at home while his dad was at work,  wandering over to play pinball at 7-11, and returning to school in time for pick up without being caught.  He was disruptive enough they sent him to Dill for a couple of weeks, which I learned later was the district's reform school for their toughest behavioral cases.  From the distance of more than 30 years, I wonder whether visits to the office and Dill made positive or negative impact or any impact at all, what was making school hard for that boy, and what ever became of him in later years.

One more thing sticks out to me from fourth grade.  In usual fashion, I had created something I had rather enjoyed in my free time at home.  This one was a detailed map, in colored pencil, of a mythical land, drawn from various literary and artistic resources in my mind.  I was quite pleased that I had seen this vision to fruition and not dropped it for another grand idea partway through, which was a common enough occurrence.   I wanted to show it to Mrs. Baker, and I was much too shy to just go talk to her about it - there was no script for such a scenario, and I would have been too nervous to make more than a squeak, anyway.  So I put it in the homework basket with a note, saying I was submitting it for extra credit.  I was rather fond of the map and looked forward to having it handed back in a day or two.  When it was not returned promptly,  I panicked, but waited another day.  I submitted another note to the homework basket requesting its return, and Mrs.  Baker caught me at a quick moment before recess to let me know she thought it was brilliant and had not returned it yet, because she wanted to show it to other teachers.  My response was a squeaked OK, but inwardly I felt humiliated.  I did not want to be some object the teachers were discussing behind my back  (even for supposed brilliance); I had only wanted, in my own awkward indirect way, to make a connection with an adult over a topic that I found exciting.

During the summer break, I was at the mall with my mother (a chore I am not sure either of us liked) when we ran into Mrs. Baker with her baby boy in a stroller.  I did not recognize her, as she was in the wrong place, and I was not in the habit of recognizing adults' faces anyway.  She and my mother chatted, and I was probably remonstrated to give a hello.  She seemed a stranger to me, off somewhere in the giant universe full of social rules made up by adults, that I couldn't ever quite grasp sufficiently. 

Happy Moment

 I was on my usual stroll, unhurried, as it was a warm Sunday evening.  I came round a bend, and saw a small, unnotable car pulled up to the side of the road, radio blaring.  The two occupants were disgorged with rhythmic steps and hands waving.  They circled the car, and met in the street.   The engine was still running.  The song, unknown to me, was upbeat, and similar in style to U2. The pair, a man and woman, perhaps in their 30s, dressed in ordinary clothes, he in casual linen and she in jeans and a red T-shirt, danced and danced to the radio, together, and the woman laughed and laughed.  Another man, close to their age, who had been sitting on a nearby street corner, talking on his phone, said to me in a thick accent, as I passed him, "Happy moment!"  I smiled and nodded, kept walking, and smiled more, as this observer had given words to what I had just seen, and the words seemed an accurate definition and thus vanished all traces of my confusion.  I could not imagine myself being one of the dancers,  and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing their own happiness.  Happy moment, indeed!

Wonder

 Many things which would have made dramatic stories on my blog some years ago have become common enough to ignore now.  And so many stories involve others who deserve their privacy, that I am turning to other sources of material.  As a child, I assumed, as probably all children do, that others' inner lives work the same as ones own.  Peoples' feelings and thoughts follow familiar tracks.  Yet, there are clues all along that one is different to others, and eventually one is 42 years old and intensely interested in what it is like to be other people.   By reading, particularly well-written realistic fiction, one can glimpse the inner workings of other beings.  I am digging up old thoughts, old feelings, old stories from my own insides, some neglected for decades and thinking about them.  Wondering....  Wondering what bits others relate to.  Each person has their own constellation of inner parts.

*******

...I was just lying here in bed and mentally cataloging moments of sheer wonder from my life.  They do not come to me in chronological order, but I am rooting around in the drawers of the library of my mind, searching the card catalogue for these moments.  They are almost out-of-body experiences, but also carry the feeling of being more Real than the mundane experiences of the daily logistics of real life.   They are also all very much alone experiences.  I would not describe them as religious, because that implies interpreting them according to doctrines, traditions,  and narratives, but I would easily describe them as spiritual.  They all seem to involve a sense of time which makes way for the ancient, perhaps even eternal, and they have all been fleeting,  while I yearned to hold on to them....

I was perhaps ten, and walking alone in the woody patch of hillside below my extended family's log house, perched above an untamed river in the Texas Hill Country.  I remember moving off the trail and carrying a walking stick, though my mind may not be accurate on that last point.  I also had the distinct sense of wearing a robe-like garment,  though I can't be sure of that either.  It is entirely possible I was in make-shift costume of ancient times,  as that was absolutely in my repertoire,  but I may only have wished I were, and the desire impressed itself in my memory.  I distinctly had a sense that I was not alone,  but I was in the presence of the Divine, the same Ancient one that the Hebrew wanderers on the other side of our globe had been aware of.  I felt connected to these unknown people of long ago, the trees and rocks whose home I was in, and that Ageless Thing which permeated and connected us.  It was not a biblical sort of moment - there was no voice, no message, no revelation - rather, just a breath-quickening, quiet,  immutable Presence....

Another lonely walk - in the field above the same house, this dotted with prickly pear cactus and prickly juniper shrubs.  I may have been older or younger.  I chanced upon the clean skeleton of a young fawn in the wild, hardy grasses, and rather than taking a scientific interest in it, as I might do at other times, I had a deep sense of the finality of death.  This specific animal had lived a short life.  Now that life was gone.  Had the life gone somewhere?  Or had it fizzled out of existence?  The no-more-ness of that small deer was all-encompassing....

I was eight, and our family had driven out west to Ft. Davis.   I was seeing mountains for the first time, hiking amongst ancient bits of volcanic history.  Without having seen such before, the distinctive rough, red-brown rocks told me a story as I sat among them.  High elevations, views, a few quiet moments to think to myself.  An overwhelming quiver of beauty, a planet far older than human memory....

A walk along the pounding waves of the Pacific Ocean at Rialto Beach.  Jared has the kids for a while, and I am alone.  The ocean is so vast, so insistent, so ancient.  I am an alien here.  This is an ocean planet, and the ocean is inaccessible to me - so watery, so deep, so cold.  I am here on its fringe, living my life on a shelf of rock on a tiny, ancient volcanic ball orbiting a one-of-billions star in a vast and seemingly empty universe.  Are there other planets like this?  Are there other beings on them feeling just as alien and alone and awed to be part of this fathomless evolutionary time?  I talk to G-d about a smaller matter, and I hear what I do not want to hear: I must reach out and answer my own plea, rather than waiting for a more comfortable deus ex machina....

I am in my early twenties, perched in the balcony of the performance hall at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  I am listening to a full-length concert given by a string quartet.  I enter a place where I am catatonic, but not asleep - the usually hyperactive analytics dashboard of my mind has dimmed.  I am carried by the waves of the music, and there is no time, only emotion.  Everything else is gone, though I feel rooted in my seat and physically present in this room. The world ceases to exist.  Is this what music is for?  How many others over the millenia of human existence have been carried away to this quiet, private place by woven sound?...

I am eleven.  My father's airline miles from work have made a dream come true - I am standing on ancient Roman ruins in the north of England.  Many centuries ago, the Emperor ordered this wall and these outposts built to protect his stolen lands to the south from marauders to the north.   It is a wild, rolling, grassy place, inhabited by sheep, perhaps not too different than it was when all these conscripted young men were marched up this way to build this fortification with their hands, and to live in the brick huts, eating, laboring, exercising, and discharging their duty to this distant power monger.  Being in the presence of these ruins, I could almost see the people who lived here long ago, with their handmade physical culture and their strange language, which fascinates me.  Old art and old photos have faded, and it is easier to imagine the past in a blurry black-and-white.  But in this moment, I can see that ancient present in color - the blue sky,  the tall yellow and green grasses, and the muddy orange brick...