After eight hours of labor and a
quick cleaning, they placed me in my mother's arms.
“Not my baby — ugly baby.”
Choice words for a mother welcoming
her second-born into the world.
This might have been only a few
hours before my father came storming into the room, their first-born, my
sister, in tow. As he pointed at Amy, he asked, “Did you forget something?” I
imagine my mother wasted no time and immediately shot back, “What?! Are
you kidding me?” Or a gentler but still agitated, “I'm sorry I was a little
busy the past eight hours.” Or maybe she laughed and shook her head like she
did the day she told me that story.
At any rate, happy first birthday Sis.
I was born on October 20th, one day
before my sister's birthday, in Putnam , Connecticut at Day
Kimball Hospital Brooklyn , Connecticut Connecticut
Miraculously, without further
explanation, she says to me, “Oh, you mean 'poppycock'.”
“Yeah. Poppycock. Thank you.”
For quite some time after we moved
to Michigan I attempted to let my brief life
in Connecticut Boston
In my feeble attempts to remain a
... Connecticadian ... I tried to say “soda” instead of “pop” to please my
sister and father, but I gave up when I learned that my mother grew up saying
“pop.” Grinders quickly turned into subs. Bubblers became water fountains.
However, I have never given up on seafood.
After a few weeks of settling in at
home and my mother warming up to me (“She is
cute, right? I mean, it’s not just me?”), normal life had to resume. Since both
of my parents worked full-time, my sister and I needed a babysitter. At six
weeks old I was placed into the care of a loving couple, Nancy and Mal. For six
and a half years (seven for Sis) we were dropped off at Nancy
As far as memories go, I do
remember very clearly the day my second grade teacher, Mrs. Pratt, called my
name in the middle of what was probably a geography lesson.
“Kelly, do you know where you're
moving to?”
I rolled my eyes, feigning
disinterest in being the center of attention. “Michigan
“Can you point to it on the map?”
Heads turned. No. I couldn't.
My friend, Prima, raised her hand
to say that she knew. She had been studying her maps lately because she was
moving too. The lesson turned to the Great Lakes ,
an acronym, HOMES. My attention turned elsewhere. I was moving soon and the
classroom, the people, and the lessons no longer held my interest. I was ready
to see other places, have new adventures.
The bus would drop us off in the
early afternoon, and after a snack, we would play with the other children that
were placed in Nancy’s care.
Often times, I would roam the house
admiring Mal’s work. He was an artist, crafting flat, wooden figurines, mostly
cartoon-like cows, and proceeded to paint them in vibrant colors. Every year
when the Christmas tree comes out, I take special care in placing four wooden
ornaments at the front of the tree: two puppies and two trains crafted by Mal.
And if I wasn’t admiring Mal’s work, I was chastising him about his smoking
habit. At six years old I understood two things: death is inevitable and smoking
speeds up the process. After we moved, Nancy wrote us letters a lot, and one of
them included the following: “P.S. Kelly, Mal has still not kicked that icky
habit … and I’m not talking about picking his nose.” He eventually did quit and
Nancy made sure to tell me.
Nancy, of course, had her own form
of art. When the children no longer required her immediate attention, she could
be found in the living room, in her rocking chair, knitting. This was very
impressive to me at the time: two sticks waving in the air above a large ball
of yarn and, suddenly, there was a flawless, textured, tri-colored afghan. Like
Mal’s ornaments continue to adorn our Christmas tree, Nancy’s afghans and
blankets have kept our family warm for over a decade.
Eventually a basketball court would
be built in the field behind Nancy’s house. An above-ground pool was also
erected in the side-yard. Nancy bought a Shizu and named her Daisy. I became
less interested in spending time admiring their crafts than playing with that
cute little ball of white and black with the nipping problem.
But on that melancholy day when we
pulled into Nancy’s driveway to say goodbye, I don’t recall I rather cared
about leaving any of that behind. Not even Nancy or Mal.
When I saw Nancy crying and waving
to us, I didn’t understand what the big deal was. I didn’t understand that 800
miles would soon separate me from the couple that loved me, fed me, took care
of me, played airplane with me, let me use their 6’x6’ television to watch and
sing along with an annoying program of a purple dinosaur for hours on end, year
after year.
I didn’t understand.
This event, like many others, would
bite me in the ass later in life. It would instill in me a guilt that cannot be
eased by any amount of confession or chocolate ice cream, though it can be
argued that I am by no means at fault because of my age. I will always feel a
deep connection toward Nancy and Mal rooted by fond memories of a second set of
parents. I will always think of them warmly. I will always wish that I could
have understood the appropriateness of the words “thank you.” And I will always
wish, on that day, I had hugged them just a little bit tighter.
* * *
After we moved to Michigan, it took
my sister only a few days to realize that a boy in her class, whom she did not
look upon favorably, lived in the house next door. As a result, I would very
quickly become friends with Benjamin and his little brother, Daniel. At the
time, I concealed an enthusiastic delight over this, for my sister had always
been better than me at everything academic. It felt very good to be ahead of
her in something, especially something as crucial as the ability to make
friends. She could have all the brains and straight-A report cards she wanted,
but when Ben and Daniel came to the door, they asked my father’s permission for
me to come out and play.
Not surprisingly, to my
(short-lived) despair, one day he said to them, “From now on if you want to
play with Kelly, you play with her sister, too.”
It was all or nothing, and since
the fort in the woods wasn’t quite fully constructed and they needed my help,
they sighed and muttered, “She can come, too.” Sis and Benjamin were able to
set aside their differences and we all became fast friends.
Lo and behold, this proved very
beneficial to our activities, because we had at our disposal another very
vibrant imagination. Of course there were fights of the sibling variety, and
disagreements over how we could best spend our time — capture the flag,
swimming, HORSE (“Or we can play PIG. It’s shorter! Please, Kelly?”) — but
there were a few things we could always agree on: the video camera, Camp Walla
Walla Woo, and fireflies.
On some magical day, our bulky
black 1980s camcorder was donated to charity, and a sleek new silver model took
its place. I'm not sure my parents ever saw the camcorder that first year
unless there was a little girl behind it. Although there were times when we
fought over whose script we should act out that day, we always had fun when the
camera was turned on. Some days we would be in the basement acting out our
frustrations about school in front of a chalkboard, or testing out all the
settings on the camcorder (“Ohmuhgosh, Sis! It's like you're in front of a
strobe light!”), and other days we would be in the driveway shooting our latest
ingenious infomercial idea (Thin Quick! Except it was just a can of Slim Fast
wrapped in a colored piece of paper). However, I don't think any day was more
groundbreaking than the day we learned how to make spilt juice go back into the
juice box. Of course in real life, it was still a pain to clean up, but on the
camera, with the help of a slow-rewind button, you could impossibly undo any
mistake. Red juice would resist gravity, slowly conforming to a tube-like shape
and glide back into the straw from whence it came.
Of course, there were days when the
creative juices weren't flowing and there was no elaborate story of a monster
who lives in the woods (who looked suspiciously like Daniel) to act out. I
don’t remember how, I suspect we went on a southward hike in the woods behind
our houses, but we eventually came upon a dried-up pond that we would come to
call Camp Walla Walla Woo.
From then on, the adventure would
start on bikes at the top of the hill where a challenge was issued by Ben:
First one to the bottom gets to be the president! Halfway down Caroline Drive
we would let go of the handlebars. Grinning in the afternoon sun, we cheered
and whooped as we spread our arms and breathed in the smell of freshly mown
grass drifting on the summer breeze. Braking hard, we leaned into a sharp right
onto a short road and, ignoring the “Dead End” sign, we coasted single-file
into the woods. In the back of the clearing there was a broken tree where we
would stack our bikes and, with Ben in the lead, we followed him through a maze
of miniature trees. Trees that were barely taller than Daniel, the shortest of
us. Surrounded by low-hanging, skinny branches we clung to for support, we
crouched low, quickly scurrying toward our make-believe society.
The forest ended abruptly and after
trekking through a few yards of mud, we would find ourselves at the edge of our
pond. The largest of the trees, on the north end of the pond, was the
president’s tree, and the president of the day remains in its shade as proof of
his supremacy. After Ben, Sis was usually in second, making her vice president.
Between Daniel and I, I don’t know who would have won if I’d made an attempt,
but I didn’t like being treasurer, so I let him take third place. Besides, I
liked being the secretary; I liked the rock on the southern end of the pond
that looked like Ariel’s from The Little
Mermaid. (I’ve always secretly wanted to be part of her world, anyway.) Ben
would spend his time barking out official-sounding orders, while Amy would
scribble them down on her open palm with a make-believe pen, while Daniel would
walk around demanding that everyone pay their taxes on time.
At the end of the day, we would hop
on our bikes and head back up the hill and park in our respective garages. We
would grab our badminton rackets and meet in the middle of the yard, waiting
for the first glowing sign of fireflies. Fireflies were abundant in our lawns
during the summer, and even more abundant was our stamina. We would run around
for hours after nightfall, swinging our rackets at those bright little bugs,
sometimes catching them in the wire mesh, where they would pulse dully until
their lights went out forever. Of course it was cruel, but we were children,
and without the sun we couldn’t train a ray of light through a magnifying glass
onto an ant, so we had to find some other means of torturing our inferiors. We
spent many nights out on the lawn with our rackets, and it’s a wonder the
fireflies kept coming back.
There was a day, however, that was
not riddled with mischievous activities.
It was a day unlike any other.
Before the end of the night, my
mother would experience a total loss of emotional control. As I sat in my room
doing my best to ignore my sister (“Kelly, why won't you play with me?”), I heard my mother storm down the hallway, yelling
words I, for the most part, can't recall.
Until: “I hate my job.”
A door slamming.
Sobbing coming from the bathroom.
This time, I understood. On some
level, I understood my mother's hatred toward her job. I understood why she
harbored it. I understood that Michigan would not last. And this time I knew
what it was like to leave people behind.
Needless to say, when our parents
eventually told us, “Don't tell anyone until it's a for-sure thing, but we
might be moving,” neither of us were caught off guard. I was a mixture of sad
and excited. I knew I would lose countless friends over the next few years when
the letters would all but completely cease, but I knew that another adventure
awaited me 500 miles to the West.
* * *
Central High School was my only
social outlet. After the first semester of adjusting and making new friends, I
would delight in coming to school each morning and meeting my friends at the
end of the hallway my locker was on. We’d sit and eat our lemon poppy seed
muffins before home room, chatting about the events of yesterday, or parties
that were up and coming. But at the end of the day I would go home, grab a
snack and from then on I wanted to be left alone. After eight hours of school
and the constant buzzing of girls chatting, I was quite ready for some me-time.
LaCrosse, Wisconsin was too
beautiful and required so much exploring that I couldn’t justify wasting my
time on people.
For six of
the seven years I lived in LaCrosse, I lived in a house on a bluff, in a large
round-about called Wedgewood Valley off of Highway 33. In a general sense, it
was shaped like a horseshoe: bluffs on three sides and a small U-shaped gap
that drew the eye. Through that window I could see the Mississippi River three
miles away.
When we
were house-hunting, my only condition about the house was it had to have some
sort of roof access. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered to my parents if they
had found a house they adored; that trumps my dreams. However, I lucked out.
After my parents claimed the master bedroom and my sister called dibs on the
second largest room, I decided upon the smallest bedroom because of the view of
the bluffs out of the front window, and access to the roof from the side
window.
There were
many days and more nights that I would loose the screen, pull my computer chair
beneath the window and wiggle through the narrow frame out onto the roof.
Sometimes I would drag a blanket out with me to sit on, so the roof pebbles
wouldn’t stick to the palms of my hands as I leaned back to stare at the stars.
Other times I would carry my diary with me in an attempt to isolate myself
within nature and delve into something new, original and moving. It never
happened. Either my muse was taking a vacation for an undisclosed amount of
time, or, more likely, my surroundings would grasp my attention better than the
blank page.
I still
remember when Rodney, our real estate agent, said to my family, “Eventually,
you’ll get used to the bluffs and they’ll just be part of the scenery.”
He was so
very, very wrong.
I lived in
the bluffs, stared at, drove through, up and down and on top of them, and never
once in seven years did I fail to see the beauty. I never quite got used to
stepping out of the car in the K-Mart parking lot, and seeing a 600-foot wall
of rock and foliage towering behind it.
My favorite place to go was a mere
two miles west of my house on Highway 33, a scenic overlook. My boyfriend
(let’s collectively call all of my boyfriends Allen) and I spent many nights
there, looking out over LaCrosse; sitting on a bench beneath a dying oak tree;
watching the world sleep; street lights dimming and brightening as trees swayed
in the breeze. We hardly paid attention to each other when we were up at our
spot. Sometimes we talked seriously about relationship issues. But mostly, we
sat. We stared. We were in awe.
As often as
I could, or as often as gas prices allowed, I would drive out to a campground
called Goose Island with Allen. We would sit in the car by the river, watching
the headlights glitter on the surface, with the smell of the swamp drifting
through the open window. I would lean my chair back and close my eyes,
listening to the sound of crickets, most of the time forgetting that there was
anyone else near me.
Other days,
at the risk of getting caught, stuck in a mud puddle, or lost, we would go
off-roading in Allen’s truck. After about a half hour of cheering, our heads
lolling in crazy directions, we would come to a stop a ways off the road,
shakily exit the truck and go for a short hike through deer-infested woods.
Once I spent the night at Goose Island with friends and the image I woke up to
was one like I’d never seen. Exiting the tent that morning, I saw the sun
coming up over the bluffs, shades of pink, red, purple and blue cascaded over
the top of the bluff; rays of sunshine striking through the treetops, making
the river sparkle so brightly I had to avert my eyes.
When money
didn’t matter, I was on a mission to discover an area more beautiful than any
I’d adventured to yet. I would go out on a familiar road, turn off onto a
county road at random, turn up the tunes, and drive. There was a spring day I
remember clearly, where the sun was setting and a pink hue cast itself over the
clouds. After every hill I went over, and there were many, the sight took my
breath away. Rolling farmland covered in every shade of green, hugged by
colossal hills on each side; my path laid out in a meandering black line before
me; overgrown dandelions lining the road; my car kicking up their seeds into a
whirling storm of white fluff.
It’s safe
to say, I almost cried.
There was,
however, a magnificent place I would have never discovered if Allen hadn’t
shown me.
He asked me
to come over one night during the summer, around eleven o’clock. I drove my
truck through the back-roads to his house. It was a more direct road, but it
took longer because it wound through the bluffs. I preferred that route. When I
arrived, he got in my truck and instructed me to drive about half a mile up a
dirt road, and then off the road and down a hill. I parked at the bottom of the
hill, turned off the car and waited.
“Okay. Get
out of the car and close your eyes. I’ll guide you.”
I did as I
was told, closing my eyes tighter than was necessary, but I would have opened
them out of fear of tripping had I not contorted my face so that I could hear
blood rushing to my ears.
After a few
moments of dragging my feet and a, “Watch your step,” from Allen, I felt wood —
a bench. We sat.
I could
hear the excitement, the hope and the fear in Adam’s voice when he said to me,
“Open your eyes, Kelly.”
I couldn’t
help myself; I gasped.
Fireflies.
Hundreds, maybe thousands.
In front of my face, half a mile
away, I could see dim yellow lights pulsing.
I was sitting on a bench in the
middle of a playground. The moon was out, and since there were no city lights
the stars were bright and abundant in the vast dome of space. Next to the swing
set there was a stream, surrounded by overgrown shrubbery, and in the water,
reflections of numerous fireflies.
I don’t recall I felt at all like
running to Allen’s house to ask his mother, “Do you have a badminton racket?”
No.
On that night, as they danced
around me, in my hair, on my clothing, I danced with them.
This is well written and embodies all that is Kelly. I miss you.
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