Ramblings

Free Write Friday: Ski

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She looked up the mountain, the hill she learned on. Remembering the rope tow, gripping tight with mittened hands, chapped cheeks from chill winds. She wore a patterned hat, pulled it down over her ears, lobes pink. Her toes and fingers instantly numb to the freezing temperatures.

***

Her grandfather took her to buy new skis when she was in high school. She had never had new equipment before, always hand-me-downs from older relatives. It felt luxurious, the shiny new blades strapped to matching boots, electric blue with neon yellow accents. She sat compact on a wooden bench in the family owned ski shop, the only acceptable place in the well-to-do suburb to buy skis. The employees fit her feet to the restrictive boots. They felt tight, compressing, oppressive. Everyone assured her the fit was right but her long toes would burn with every run for decades to come.

She never took lessons, only her father giving instruction same as when he taught her to ride a bike or tie her shoes or scramble an egg with rice and just the right amount of soy sauce. He was matter of fact, detachedly patient, waiting for her to overcome her fear. She remembers the swelling of anxiety, looking down the sloping hill, the enormity of getting to the bottom an overwhelming task welling in her chest.

***

The beginner lift slows to a crawl, allowing novices to sit their layered bottoms down onto the cushioned seat, warily grip the arm rest, avoid looking down as they are lifted skyward, skis dangling, boots weighty, gravity pulling like a string taut to the ground.

Looking down, through ski tips, there’s nothing to keep one from slipping: a wayward glove, an aberrant pole, dangling then falling, floating, to the silent impact of snow drifts below. The silence, the stillness of the buffering snow soothes while coasting upward past white coated evergreens, tiny skiers like miniature figurines expertly weaving curves this way and that far below. There’s calm in the severity of the landscape, a numbing peace inherent in the crushing steepness and chill.

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Free Write Friday: Bike

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We walk the bike to the cul-de-sac, center the powder blue contraption in the middle of the street. My dad’s leathered hand holds the back of the white banana seat. I clamber on, gripping the handle bars till my knuckles whiten. I lean too far forward as the bike teeters precariously side-to-side. A white wicker basket hangs from the front, adorned with plastic daisy flowers in bright colors; it is the consolation prize for a hand-me-down bike from my brother, meant to transform it to an acceptable level of femininity.

I push one sneakered foot down, then circle the other. My ankles waver as my dad trots behind. I glance anxiously over my shoulder; is he still there? Pumping my legs, the sudden transition to stability is exhilarating. Wind slapping my face, wisps of dark hair waving behind. I’m flying!

I suddenly panic, remember: I’m unsteady, I’m unsure, this is new. Is he there? I turn just slightly, a glance for comfort. But he’s gone, far behind me. As he grows smaller in the distance, the angst in my own chest expands. “Keep going! You’re doing it!” He shouts. But the trembling, the uncertainty have already taken hold. Anxiety disrupts and I topple: bloodied knees, gaping frustration as I crash down.

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Free Write Friday: Birthday

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When she was a kid the coolest birthday parties were hot tub parties. Skinny seven-year-olds wearing Care Bears swimsuits would pile into the spa, overflowing the water, grinning through their giggles, secrets whispered past wrinkled palms as bubbles rose from the churning jets. Some parents would let them snack in the tub: sticky caramel corn or lollipops. After soaking there’d be cake and ice cream, opening presents and receiving favors dropped in plastic handled bags. 

She didn’t have a hot tub at her house, always admired the girls who did. One year though her mom threw an elaborate birthday party, a carnival theme. Their sloped backyard was transformed, different stations set up for children to explore. Her mom manned the face painting, tiny lions and rainbows inked onto rosy cheeks as she perched on the picnic table bench. Her older brother told fortunes in the green canvas play tent, towel fashioned into a turban as he passed predictions on to the little partygoers. There were balloons and plastic door prizes. With three kids in her family, it was rare to have such an elaborate birthday celebration. All her best friends and girls she wanted to be her friends were there; she was overcome with glee. 

Her mom always made the birthday sheet cake, sprinkles on top, tube frosted lettering: Happy Birthday! This was before Pinterest, long after and decades before handmade was considered worthier, the hipsters’ and modern moms’ claim to superiority. It was the progress and image-obsessed eighties: Hypercolor t-shirts, squared polyester shoulder pads and blue eyeshadow were king. She always, ungratefully, wished she could have a store-bought sheet cake or an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins; perfectly frosted corners and magenta lettering sprayed on. Her parents were frugal though, and her mom’s cake surely tasted better. Two facts lost on a child who wouldn’t know, until decades later, what was best for her. 

Now, with three children of her own, she bakes tiered birthday cakes, carefully procures themed party favors, plans activities and decor to suit each child, so their memories will be bright. But she’s also exhausted in the stretched way every modern mother is; she’s gained perspective. Maybe every other year will be a big birthday party when they’re young. Sometimes store bought treats, sometimes just one friend over for a special outing. Because she knows: you really only need one outstanding birthday party memory to last a lifetime. 

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Free Write Friday: Hair Accessories 

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I used to play beauty parlor with my best friend. She didn’t like the game of coiffing, but I enjoyed the tugging on hair, taming her strawberry blond curls, selecting and applying the ribbon or hair clip just so. I would stand back and admire my handiwork, wisps and strands situated as I commanded. They succumbed to my coercion and I was satisfied. 

*

My hair was cut too short in fourth grade and I never got over it. It was a “boy” cut, not the cute Dorothy Hamill kind made popular by the 1980’s figure skater. Instead of a bobbing bowl cut, it’s as if the hairdresser took clippers to the back, the sides, the whole mass of thick dark tresses. It was too short for any hair clips and headbands gave me a throbbing ache at my temples. I wore a blue and red and white knit button up sweater in my school picture that year. I liked the sweater, the fanciful snowman perched near the hip pocket. My smile though was strained as if I knew the aberrant hairstyle would haunt my year. 

I went skiing once that winter with my brother and as the attendant was helping us onto the chair lift, toes frozen in clumpy boots, I heard a distinct, “There you go, boys!” He was being friendly but I was mortified, this mistaken identity at a time when all begins to hinge on your perception of what others think about you, molding what you come to think of yourself. 

*

My son gets upset that I can’t braid his hair like I do for his big sister. I pull out accessories: clips and bows and headbands in an attempt to give him alternate adornment. He seems placated, a thin line of a smile as I pull back a strand of his bangs with the royal blue polka dot clip. He steps back, but doesn’t scurry away to admire himself in the mirror as my daughter would. No, it’s the participation that matters to him. He rushes downstairs to show off his fancifulness. 

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Free Write Friday: Candy

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Her favorites were just candy canes, really, root beer and cherry, ribbon of contrasting color twirled around the candy stick. She liked how they were organized by flavor into sturdy glass jars, fanned out, as if leaning, calling to a child’s eager hand. She’d struggle with the wrapper, ask a parent for help. She was the type of child to keep the wrapper on, roll it down slowly, avoid sticky fingers and prolong the treat by keeping it intact. She never bit into a Tootsie Pop until the last minute, resisting the final satisfaction of the chocolatey core. 

She liked Smarties, similar to Sweet Tarts. Smooth discs of sugar cradled on her tongue, easy to savor incognito. She could keep a roll in her pocket, swing across the monkey bars and pop another in her mouth. Portable and practical. Anything gummy was appealing too: severing bear’s heads with her tiny teeth, the novelty of a cola flavor in chewy candy form. 

On Halloween she’d sort her sweet lot, save the best for last. Some years she waited too long, and the prized candy bar would be lost or forgotten. She was good at self-discipline, sometimes to a painful fault. Her best friend’s mother rationed their Halloween candy, doling out one treat a week. It lasted her well into the other holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas peppered with the distant memory of a costumed past. 

She never liked Snickers, any nutty interruption to the palate seemed intrusive, unwelcome when enjoying a sweet. Instead, she preferred caramel, coconut. Almond Joy and Mounds, 100 Grand and Three Musketeers. She knew this wasn’t a popular opinion, that she should prefer Snickers like all the rest. 

She watched Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory in awe, wanted to float via Fizzy Lifting Drinks with Grandpa Joe, savor an Everlasting Gobstopper, dance with the Oompa Loompas, search for a golden ticket with the rest of the world. Years later, she’d visit Harrods’ shiny Candy Store in downtown London, stroll through the sleek abundance of Disneyland’s Main Street Candy Palace. Even as an adult, she’d savor the innocence in indulgence of pure sweetness, find comfort in an overwhelm of treats in a world that often runs sour. 

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Free Write Friday: Jewelry Box

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On her tiptoes, she sneaks, carefully slides open the tiny drawers of her mother’s bedroom armoire one by one. A musty wave rushes toward her tiny nostrils, itching at excitement of fanciful objects just within reach. Each item considered carefully, she knows her favorites. 

She likes the amber shine of a pendant necklace, smooth oval jewel in her tiny hand, silver links slipped over her neck. The scarves slide through her fingers, smooth as the silken tofu her father slurps with his morning miso soup. A similar disjointed juxtaposition, her own squat neck against the designer scarves, printed floral, geometric navy and regal red. The clip-on earrings hang heavy on her tiny lobes, faux jewels shine just as bright as the real thing to her undiscerning eye. She is suddenly transformed: bejeweled, an empress, a queen. 

She wonders why her mother never adorns herself, with all these treasures at her disposal. If it were her (it will be her) she’d drape herself in accoutrements, dazzle with accessories daily.

Years later though, despite an endless array of accessory options, she wears minimal makeup, stud earrings, her wedding ring only most days. She inherits her mother’s designer scarves, her grandmother’s antique beaded purses. But, like her own mother, she learns to cultivate other treasures, she finds different priorities in her daily routine. 

She looks at her own young daughter and wonders: why the obsession with adornment, with makeup, with appearance? Her daughter watches in amazement as she puts on mascara, mimics her intently as she applies blush, begs to wear a shiny statement necklace around the house, strutting in her plastic high heels. 

Maybe we all want to appear to be more than we are sometimes, live into our imaginations. Maybe it’s okay, even necessary, to try on different, more glamorous selves. Maybe that’s part of growing into, and revealing, who we really are.

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Free Write Friday: Pool

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2017

I hold her squirming, slippery toddler thighs, evasive like slick eels. She clomps her feet down, uneasy steps in the little pool, even with the extra buoyancy of the chlorinated water. She likes to open her mouth, like a great whale, letting the pool seep in, then out through her widely spaced teeth, two on top, two on bottom. She, surprisingly, exults in going under, seems to fall purposely: Oops! Silly me! Throwing her head back, eyes squeezed tight shut as she leads with her upturned chin, mouth open, nostrils flared, beckoning the water toward her until she is fully immersed, sinking, trusting that I’ll catch her, lift her upright to breathe clear air. As she emerges, a look of unadulterated glee followed by just the faintest hint of melancholy. A mermaid she wishes she could be.

1990

She is so thin and graceful, wearing an electric blue bikini, mousy hair. I’m surprised when she approaches me poolside. Overweight and awkward, I wear my pudginess like armor; it keeps me humble, it keeps me introverted. I long to be charming, liked. Don’t we all at this preteen age? (At every age.) I can’t believe it: friends with me? She’s inquisitive, chatty, polished. I feel more elegant just being near her. It is revealed eventually, this is the truth: I am just a means to her end, a conduit for connection to my tall, older brother. He has reached the golden age: past gangliness, past acne, post-braces. I’m in awe of him too. 

1983

I’m learning to swim in the side pool, previously a hot tub but converted to what we call “the baby pool.” A bridge of dark brown tiles, just an inch under the surface, divides the tiny pool from the larger. Like a stumpy appendage, a bleb of an outgrowth, the small pool protrudes. The older kids like to coast back and forth on their tummies, sliding like monk seals. I can barely touch the bottom, on my tippy toes I bounce along, suspended for just a moment, like a moonwalking astronaut. A perimeter ledge for seating, I leap from side to side arms outstretched with orange inflated “muscles,” skinny legs flailing behind me. Sometimes I sink under with the effort, sour liquid up my nostrils, eyes stinging from chlorine. I grab the a handhold of smooth tile, turn, and try again.

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Free Write Friday: Spoon

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He carries the spoon everywhere, has for the last few weeks. It’s a wooden spoon, sturdy and stick-like, good for digging and rapping along a concrete wall on the way to preschool. His constant companion, the spoon is good for a lot of things.

He has an affection for the spoon, like he does his cozy blankets or baby sister. The spoon can’t be left at home without an uproar. It accompanies him to bed for naps and nighttime, it rests on his lap for episodes of Octonauts, it’s enclosed in his hand when he’s having his diaper changed or in his car seat, it lays in front of him when he’s brushing his teeth or eating his yogurt.

He knows never to use it to hit others but he brandishes it enthusiastically, swinging this way and that as he gestures emphatically telling animated stories. It’s become an extension of his upper appendage. I have to remind him to not accidentally knock his baby sister on the head. It’s been a magic wand, a shovel at the beach, a fishing pole, a drumstick, a golf club. 

He’s had obsessions before: rope, treasure maps, kites. But the spoon in its simplicity, its practicality, has staying power. It stirs, it points, it protects. It’s a tool, it’s a weapon, it’s a musical instrument.

The spoon is a steady, sturdy companion to rely on; I can see why he keeps it by his side. I know at some point he’ll move on to his next obsession, the next important thing in his singularly focused world. But I suspect he’ll always remember this ratty spoon fondly, and treasure it as so much more than it seems to be. 

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