Amid the Chaos

Maybe the pain pills have addled my brain, but I swear the gaudy robed wooden figures in the bookshelf are glaring at me. If they could speak, no doubt they would chide me in a sarcastic tone, “Well, that was smart wasn’t it?”

They would be right, after all they don’t call them the wisemen for nothing.  It was indeed foolish of me to place the painter’s step stool sideways in my effort to reach something on the top shelf of the cabinet over the washer. Since I’d done exactly the same thing numerous times before, I had no idea that the step stool could suddenly shoot to the left, sending me plummeting to the floor.

The fall put a halt to my decorating for Christmas.  Only twelve Santa or Father Christmas figures found their way to the mantel, joined by two other figures of indistinct classification. The rest of the crew that weren’t brought from the storage facility in the first load will have to sit it out this year, as will many other decorations, including the Christmas pillows for the sofa.

Not only will the decorating take a hit, fewer goodies are ready. But my sons and daughters-in-law have assured me that they will shop for groceries when they arrive, and will make some of our favorite cookies and candies. Since we usually have way too many sweets around over the holidays, having to make do with less might mean we don’t have to work off as many extra pounds in January.

I am refusing to let this accident completely spoil my holiday spirit. Or at least I can say that now, but I was very angry and cried several times from frustration and pain during the first couple of days. After the doctor finished stitching up my toe, as he was padding and wrapping my foot before fitting the orthopedic ‘sandal’ he said this was not that bad. When I said that it seemed pretty bad to me because I could barely walk or get out of a chair, he reminded me that it could have been a lot worse.

Then came his reminder that as we got older we probably shouldn’t be climbing on ladders. Older. The child disguised as a doctor implied that I was getting older. Seeing my dismay he reassured me that pain pills would lessen my pain and it would be a good thing to take them for several days. In a more gentle tone he told me that this inconvenience was a message to me from the universe. That it was to remind me that Christmas comes whether we are ready for it or not, so I should relax and enjoy the coming days.

If that’s the way it has to be, I’ll try. But I’d like to have a word with the universe, so I’m sending a little note.

Dear Universe,

I realize that I don’t always listen as well as I should, but I’m working on it. I’d like to make a pact with you. How about I try to listen more and you try to send me a more subtle message next time?

Yours truly,

Carol

P.S. Merry Christmas!

Clarification: Last Thursday I had a bad fall, as referenced above. I'm now in an immobilizer on left knee and the ortho sandal on my right foot. There are a few other bruises as well. I'll be fine. And the young doctor was wonderful and kind, but I don't recommend meeting him this way.

Bangs

A recent assignment from an on-line class was to write something in the voice of a female child. My very earliest memory is of the day Daddy came home from WWII, but not for the reason one would expect. That memory is the basis of the following creative nonfiction piece. Somehow it seems appropriate to post it while I remember Daddy on Veterans Day.

Bangs

“When can I have bangs?”

“When your daddy gets home. It won’t be much longer now, we hope.”

“How long? Will he be here tomorrow? Can I have bangs then?”

“No, not tomorrow. His unit is supposed to ship out soon. In the last V-Mail he wrote that he’ll call us from New York, when they get back from France. We’ll cut your hair after he gets home, but I want him to see how your long hair curls on the ends before we cut it.”

Then Mother showed me the picture again, just like she’s done every time we talk about Daddy. There we are, the three of us. Daddy’s picture is on the left. It’s hard to really remember everything about Daddy, because I was really little when he left. Mother said Uncle Sam called him and he had to go. I still don’t know who Uncle Sam is, because he’s never been to our house like Uncle James and Uncle Warren. She said Uncle Sam gave Daddy the uniform he’s wearing in the picture. It was scratchy when he hugged me goodbye.

Mother’s picture is on the right. She has on her pretty blouse that I like, the one she wears for something special. When she holds me in her lap it feels so soft and smooth. She says it’s made of silk. When I grow up I’m going to have a silk blouse. Sometimes she lets me play with one of her old scarves. I wrap it around me and pretend it is a blouse just like hers. One time when I was playing dress-up, I took her red lipstick so I could be pretty, too, like she is in the picture. I didn’t mean to ruin it, but it broke. When I tried to put it back together, my fingers got all messy, and I had to wipe the lipstick off on the towel in the bathroom. Mother wasn’t happy about that, either.

My picture is in the middle. Before we had our pictures made, Mother washed my hair, curled it, and put a bow in it that matched my dress. Uncle James and Uncle Warren gave me the dress. Mother says it is warm because it’s made from wool. She says wool comes from sheep. I know about Mary and her little lamb, but I’ve never seen a real lamb or sheep. PaPa has cows and pigs on his farm, but no sheep. In the pictures in my Little Golden Book, Mary’s lamb is white. Are some sheep pink? My dress is pink. Grandma says the little flowers on it were ‘broidered, with a needle, like when she made flowers on my pillowcase. I don’t get to wear the dress anymore because it’s too little now. Mother says I’m growing like a weed and that Daddy will hardly know me. She sends him pictures so he’ll know how much I’ve grown in over a year.

I hope he comes home soon, because I really, really want bangs. Some of the big girls have short hair, not long like mine. Mother says we can’t cut my hair until Daddy comes home. One of the girls that stays with me sometimes has bangs. She is in high school. She has long hair, but she has bangs in front. I want some just like that.

***

 Daddy is getting home today! Mother told me that he’d be here today. She was teaching Sunday School at the Methodist Church last Sunday when the call came. Miss Bertha, the phone operator, knew where she would be, so she put the call through to the parsonage next door and sent Mr. Dewey to the church to tell Mother to go to the phone. I was in the Sunday School room next to where Mother and the grown-ups were, so I heard them clap their hands. They were glad Daddy was coming home, too.

Mother and I have been living at Mrs. Clark’s house while Daddy is gone. Two other women and their children live here, too, while their husbands are overseas, wherever that is. Robert is only a little older than me. We play together sometimes, but he wants to play soldier, and I want to play with my dolls. Everyone here is so busy today. They are making a cake because Daddy is coming home. We hardly ever have cake. Mother says it is because they can’t get sugar. She said they all saved their coupons so Robert and I could have birthday cakes. I don’t know how those little pieces of paper have anything to do with sugar. They talk about rationing, but I don’t know what that is, either. Anyway, Mrs. White put a pretty white cloth on the table, and the special plates, too.

***

Daddy got here this afternoon. When he hugged me tight his uniform was scratchy just like when he left. He danced me around and around until I was almost dizzy. “My big girl, you’ve gotten so big,” he said. He laughed when I said I was ready for my cake now, and told me that I would have to wait until the other people got here. It seems like someone is always telling me to wait. When Daddy called me his “pretty girl” and stroked my hair, Mother didn’t even tell him I was getting bangs.

In a little while the house was full of people. Everyone came to see Daddy. Mrs. Clark cut the cake and Miss Doris gave everyone punch in fancy glass cups. After I finished my cake, no one paid any attention to me.

Mother promised me I could have bangs when Daddy got home. He’d been home all afternoon but no one took me to the beauty shop to get my hair cut. So I went to my room, picked up my little scissors, then hid behind the door. I untied the bow, and held the hair that fell across my face. Snip, snip. I had bangs! I held the long section of blonde hair in my hand. Mother wouldn’t like it if I left it on the floor, but I didn’t know where to put it. Then I saw my tea set on my little table. The salmon colored teapot was perfect. I rolled the hair into a wad, hid it inside, and put the lid back on the teapot.

I went back to the living room to show everyone my bangs. When Mother saw me, she said “Oh, baby, what have you done?”

“Baby? I’m not a baby. I’m Daddy’s big girl and I have bangs like the big girls, don’t I, Daddy?”

Daddy laughed. Then he picked me up and swung me around so everyone could see my beautiful new bangs.

Flip Flop

My father had an expression, "A day late, and a dollar short." How often that applies to me! On Sunday a friend pointed out that there is actually a National Flip Flop day, and that it had occurred a few days before. 

So here I am posting something vaguely appropriate more than a day late. But in my defense, I wrote it in April, put it aside, and forgot it until Sunday. So if you, too,  missed National Flip Flop Day, celebrate it belatedly with me. 

Flip-flop

The sandy-haired young man hesitated, turning slightly toward me as he closed the door to his room. Assured that the door had locked, he walked away. Wearing casual shorts and an untucked T-shirt, his clothing was in contrast with his surroundings, the hall with its formal striped wallpaper and floral medallions in the carpet. As he walked, the plush carpet muffled the sounds his shoes made as they slapped the soles of his feet with each step. Though soft, the sound was unmistakable   Flip, flop, flip, flop, or as a friend once described it, the sound of summer.

I knew nothing about the stranger, but from the appearance of his untanned legs and arms, I surmised that he might be visiting Point Clear from a cooler clime, or perhaps he was a young executive usually attired in a business suit and this was his first opportunity to dress so casually. After all, it was still springtime if one followed the calendar. But in south Alabama the daffodils bloomed in late February and early March, fully leafed dogwood trees had lost their blossoms shortly after Easter, and temperatures had begun to soar.

As I continued down the hall, I caught a faint whiff of something familiar: sunscreen. You know the one, the one that smells a little like coconut. Faint in the air-conditioned hall, by the time his arms were warmed by the sun, the aroma would intensify. Did the scent remind him, as it did me, of happy times on the beach?

I smiled. The month of April might be considered springtime by some, but flip-flops and eau de coconut proclaimed that in south Alabama, summer had arrived.  

Is There Such a Thing as Less Than Sporadic?

 My few minutes of fame, well, really not quite fame, happened this morning when Akashic Books published my piece of flash fiction, "Walk Away?" in the Terrible Twosdays section of their website. I immediately called, sent texts, or emailed several people. Several friends have responded to those or to the Facebook post.

When I visited the website myself, for about the umpteenth time, (it really is heady seeing my name and work out there) I actually read the bio and realized that it gives this blog address. Although it said I posted sporadically, when I looked over the blog I realized that might be an understatement. The blog has been almost completely neglected recently,

It wasn't my intent to be so lackadaisical about the blog, but apparently I have been. Sometimes I just forgot that I hadn't posted. At other times I was really busy. More often that not it was doubtful that you really wanted to read about my adventures in installing wall-hung lamps, doing the laundry, or other similar exciting household chores. In other words, I'm still a bit unsure where this blog thing is going or what I have to write about.

So this is my heartfelt apology, especially to those who might be new to me, that we sent you here and you found little. Thank you so much for taking the time to read "Walk Away?" and for being interested enough to see what else I might have written. If you come back later, I'll try to have something more than an excuse, but then again, I might still be resting on my laurels,

Well, hello, Virginia.

Do you ever find yourself doing something, wonder why, then have a moment when you feel connected by that act to someone not there? I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do know that people stay with us in other ways. As I get older, I’m told more and often that I look or sound like my mother. Sometimes I get a glance of myself in the mirror, catch a certain tilt of my head or expression and say, “Well, hello, Virginia.” Even more often I say something and realize that that it sounds not only a little like Mother, but is exactly what she would have said.

Appearance is easy. Genetics will out. But what about how we speak? There again, perhaps genetics play a part, but it could be that we may sound alike because from an early age, we learned to talk by listening to our parents and others around us. Certainly I would not have had my southern accent if I had been reared in another part of the country. As to the content, I suppose many of my views were influenced by Mother, but there still are times when what comes from my lips is so like what she would have said that it is as though she, not I, uttered the words.

What brought on this observation today? Potato salad. Yes, potato salad. I must preface this by saying that I like potato salad, but am not a huge fan. I go for months without making it or ordering it when eating out. The only time I absolutely must have it is on the Fourth of July. Yet today at the salad bar in Fresh Market, I found myself drawn to potato salad.

The spring forward time change always messes me up for several days, so it was not uncommon that today everything seemed a little off. I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather to drive around to see the trees in bloom. I needed an item or two from the grocery store, so I stopped by Fresh Market on my way home. It was then that a growling tummy reminded me that I had not yet eaten lunch, even though it was mid-afternoon. As I passed the salad bar everything looked enticing. Tender green spinach leaves, strawberries, pineapple, and honeydew melon were soon placed in a take-out container. I paused before closing the lid. There was the potato salad. I smiled as I added a small scoop to the side of my salad.

I’ve said before that I heard some of the family stories so often that they became as much a part of me as my own. So often Mother recounted trips to Shreveport when she was young. She and her brothers or friend Mary would be given money to go to a movie, then after the movie they would go to The Big Chain, a grocery store, where for a nickel she would buy a little cup of potato salad.

I think today may have been the first time I bought potato salad at a grocery store, but as I added it to my container I knew why I choose it today. Well, hello, Virginia.