The Tree

 

(not the actual Tree)

When I was little, my friend and I played every day. We would run through my horse pasture miles and miles, (actually less than 2 acres) until we reached the Tree. Later we found out it was only a fig tree, although it only grew one fig, which was promptly plucked, examined, studied, thrown around, and probably eventually eaten by the unwelcome cows that grazed there sometimes.

            A long time before me, the Tree had split in half. It had a deep crack down into the core of the earth, miles and miles until you could see the magma and feel its heat. Or it ended in the dirt and became the forbidden home of many an unknown species of spider. Either way, it was cracked just down the middle, being the “Y” to our YMCA.

            On either side of the splintered Tree crack grew two new stumps, each which grew two huge stumps a short distance from its source. One side of the Tree repelled us, its branches growing upward, slippery and difficult to climb. The other side, its first huge branch grew horizontally, 3 feet from the ground, with cracks making tic-tac-toe squares on its upward facing surface. The second branch grew and branched up, making so many lookout perches for us.

            We would run at the speed of light through the tall, horse-mowed grass, down and up again through the dry creek-bed, at full speed to the Tree. The horizontal branch was the control center, the lookouts just that, watching for intruders: Nazi submarines (AKA: Lassie the cow), Russian spy planes (Fotah and Burgundy the horses), or The Law (my parents).

            We plucked the leaves from the Tree and used the white sticky sap to play tic-tac-toe or write secret notes, or swiftly disappearing mission logs. We used the sap to glue leaves together, to the Tree, to ourselves. The broad fig leaves were everything: dinner plates, hats, little servant followers under our dictator regimes.

            Our fig Tree had, growing out of its head, a million billion vine-like branches extended out over the dry creek bed, low enough to leap, reach, grab, and swing. We were Tarzan, yelling wild girls swinging and tumbling through the rainforest. One vine-branch in particular had a certain shape, like a sideways “J” that was the perfect horse saddle. It bounced with such elasticity, and never ever broke.

            A few years later, when I was about 8 or 9, I had finally fallen short of my friend. She, right there in her front yard, had a tall evergreen tree of some kind that was absolutely perfect for practice climbing. My scrawny, scrambling legs could no longer keep up with her on our Tree, or any other for that matter. Soon she was on top of that other, forbidding half of the Tree, looking down on me with smug satisfaction.

            While she was up in the sky, laughing at the birds in the sky and the silly animals on the ground, I found my place, tucked in a nook in the branches with a book. And here was the crack down the middle of our lives. I would forever be the bookworm, the studier, the sedentary one. She did all the sports, ran the playground every day, and played with all the kids. She was rambunctious and I was somber. She wanted to run around and do things, and I wanted to direct her action.

            She was my yang and I was her yin. And our Tree was our Everything.

 

(photos from here and here)

The Day After

            I am sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I often wonder what other people do on Valentine’s Day, since historically, I have spent the majority of the day at either school or work. I used to imagine that, like the prom queens of yesteryear, all activities stopped for adults on Valentine’s Day so that things like manicures and hair stylings could occur. However, just like the girls in high school got a week’s suspension for ditching on prom day, skipping out on life is not acceptable on V-Day. Oh well.

            This V-Day was the third (consecutive) one that I have spent with C, in one form or another. I was reminded that we were so lucky to have only started dating AFTER Valentine’s Day that first (fateful) year. He says he was lucky because he did not have to spend big bucks on some girl he barely knew. Secretly, I say I am lucky because if he had not recognized that first, hypothetical Valentine’s, we probably would not have made it as far as we have. Such is the vanity of women.

            Since the very beginning, we decided to tone down Valentine’s Day in an effort to save money for our anniversary, which falls less than a month from V-Day. So far, this has worked well for us, since usually we decide to just have a nice “play house” date where one of us cooks for the other. The cooking-in tradition actually started at the very first Valentine’s Day, where all dials were set to MAX on the impression meter.

            The first V-Day, 11 months after our first date, was on a school day. I woke up early to eat breakfast, only to find a huge red heart Mylar balloon outside my front door. “I LOVE YOU!!” it proclaimed! Already elated, I left for school in hopes of seeing my love before class. Behold! He is early to campus, ready to greet me with a bunch of roses, and a kiss of course! We spent the rest of the day planning a special night, possibly at a nice restaurant, then maybe a popular movie. Everything was set by the time lunch period was over, and I was so excited. But it was no to be. During the last period, I got monstrously sick and had to go home early. After that, I was not allowed to go out on my perfect date. 

            Later that evening, while I was camped out on the living room couch, there was a knock on the front door. And who could it be? But my love, bearing gifts! In spite of my illness, he had brought me wonderful soup and his wonderful company. All was not lost after all. A few days later, I received the only gift I have ever asked for for Valentine’s Day from him: a HUGE teddy bear which I promptly named Toby, after the Basset Hound in Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective. It was a V-Day to remember. 

 

            By the second Valentine’s Day that we spent together began to fall into a routine. I decided to cook, and being myself, I planned the entire meal way ahead of time. I found the entire meal recipe online (here), including a shopping list and a prep schedule. It was a plan after my own heart. Everything went well, and for the first time, I cooked meat! I am told that it was one of the best things I have every cooked for C, and even I can assure you, it was so good; I ate the whole thing (something that is rarely true, especially of red meat). C rented a movie that night called Love Story, which has the famous line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”. I can also say that, for an old(ish) movie, I enjoyed it greatly. And so, a tradition of comfort and conservativeness is established.

            This year, not much was different. Both C and I worked in the morning, I from 9-5 and he from 11-4. By the time he would come over (too cook for me, for a change!) I was, in a word, exhausted. He assured me that cooking what he had in mind would take at least an hour, so I holed myself up in the bathroom for a long hot bath and the proceeding beauty rituals. Finally, with legs shaved, hair curled, and dress (self-) zipped, I emerged to find the kitchen alive with smells. He had prepared fettuccini with cream sauce and pepper shrimp. After dinner, he served my favorite dessert, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, cut into little hearts for the occasion. During dinner, we decided to see a (very) late movie, so to kill time, we watched one of my favorite new movies, Away We Go. Later, we headed off to see The Eagle in the theaters, returning home quite late.

            I am so happy to be able to spend my Valentine’s Day with my love. I have heard a lot over the last few weeks on whether people love or hate the holiday. I hate to gloat over the special things we did yesterday, but in all actuality, it was just like any other date we could go on. It just happened to be on a day where the ENTIRE rest of the world wanted to go out also. Either way, it was a special time for both C and I, especially since yesterday is really the only day one of us will cook a decent homemade meal for the other for the next year.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

(photos from here, here, here, here, and here)

Cinderella's Slipper

Just like lots of other girls my age, I played with Barbies when I was young. I have so many stories about my dolls; it’s hard not to tell them all.

My earliest memory of my Barbies was when I lived at my first house. I was less than five years old and I was at that time an only child. Somewhere I had received a Cinderella-esque Barbie doll, complete with glass slippers. I had been playing with my doll in the living room/foyer area of the house, which was completely carpeted. I remember that Barbie shoes were endlessly frustrating. Either you couldn’t get them on, they wouldn’t stay on, or you couldn’t find them to begin with. This event was a combination of all three scenarios. In my frustration in trying to get my Cinderella’s glass slippers back on her tiny feet, I threw the tiny shoe across the room. The next part, I remember most clearly, even though I’ve been told it is impossible. As I lay belly down on the living room carpet, looking at the forlorn slipper on top of the carpet, it began to slowly sink into the scratchy, woolen abyss. I was horrified that the carpet, one of the few household items that was hardly ever a main character in horror films, could eat my prized Barbie shoe. I rushed over to the site, clawing at the carpet, but to no avail. The slipper was gone.

It’s funny to think that I remember this incident with almost cinematic clarity. I’m not altogether sure why I am still so hung up on the mystery of the shoe, except perhaps, that I still don’t know the answer. It could be that I miscalculated the location of the slipper on the floor, and overlooked it by only a few feet, or even inches. It could be that after giving up my fruitless search, my mom tried to vacuum, and the shoe (being notoriously small) got sucked into the infinite dust bin. It could also be that, being overlooked by both myself and rejected by the vacuum, it was unceremoniously chewed up by our family cat. And finally, it could have been that, after being overlooked, rejected, and hacked up by the cat, it was scooped up and thrown out, just a mangled piece of glittery plastic.

But, there is literally no magic in that outcome. Even after going through all the possible rational outcomes for my Barbie shoe, my memory rejects each one. I am stuck on believing in the childhood mystery that my tiny Cinderella slipper was sucked into the carpet, almost like it sunk in a muddy bog, never to be seen again. I think it’s the whimsy that I’m stuck on. Maybe, even when I was little, I recognized the importance of whimsy in a child’s life. And now I can keep it alive. I truly believe that carpet ate my toy shoe, and that someday, if I were to ever meet that carpet again, there would be a tiny lump where it is somehow still digesting the glittery plastic.

(Photos from here and here)

My Room III

(You are at part III of a series.)

Other items of interest in my room are: the decrepit shoe rack hanging from the back of my door that houses at most only one shoe from half the pairs that I own. I also have taken in the poor orphaned recliner that has essentially been in every house my (local) family owns. I finally took it in and used it to store Toby, my huge Valentine’s bear, and more of my assortment of stuffed animals. Finally, my secret stash of art supplies is hidden under my bed. At least 20 re-purposed canvases that I have collected, a huge portfolio, a drawing board, numerous sketchbooks, and some finished pieces that don’t deserve the light of day, but probably don’t deserve to be thrown out either.

My room is far from my sanctuary. It is cold and far away from civilization. In fact, it is the exact opposite of me. I am warm and have a need to be close to people, and my room accomplishes neither of these goals. My sister, on the other hand, has a room right at the front of the house, down the hall from my parents. It has 2 walls of windows and is always warm and bright. Sometimes I wonder why I decided to take the back room instead of kicking my little sister out or just sharing the room for a few more years. Looking back I remember wanting a place of my own, even if that place was dark and cold and lonely. I guess we all make sacrifices for things we want so much.

My Room II

(You are at part II of a series)

The bed that I have now has been a progression. When I first began sleeping in the room, I had a double bed, which used the bed frame I now use, only extended to its full width. In the search for MORE ROOM, I decided to eventually consolidate to a trendy, brand-new loft bed, which I convinced my grandparents (yes the same ones) to purchase for me. It was treacherously close to the ceiling, and, unfortunately, the ceiling fan. Wherever its placement, it was always within a foot of the fan’s swinging death-blades. Only when I finally became tired of climbing UP to bed every night and wedging myself underneath my bed to finish homework did I realize what a mistake I had made. To add insult to injury, I was reminded by my mother that in my joyful nonchalance at acquiring a cool loft bed, I had left the old double bed mattress outside through the last 8 months.

In my pursuit to find the perfect bed, I slept on a futon mattress, a foldable couch (complete with phonebook box spring) and finally, a small twin bed, wedged in the NW corner of my tiny room.

I didn’t always believe that my room was tiny. When I was younger, I fancied my room like my own apartment. The environment was perfect: my room was the furthest away from the house, with only a long, dark, concrete hallway connecting me with civilization; I had a kind of stoop leading into my room, as I suppose it would have been a mistake to place my room on the foundation like the concrete hallway; and, only a few years into living there, I acquired my own phone line. Technically, the phone line was produced by me squirreling away an old cordless phone from my grandfather (the same one) and running a phone cord from our dial-up internet line, through the vent, into my room.

Until just recently, I had a huge L-shaped glass desk that hogged one corner of the room. My mom and I found it at Officemax and decided that it was a decent deal and bought it. it was the first “some assembly required” item that I constructed entirely by myself, with the assistance of the ever-helpful Allen wrench. Just before I sold it, it was covered (COVERED!) with papers, photos, pencils, pens, art supplies, books, computer parts, monitors, and (very recently) a terrarium with my 2 pet mice. When I made the decision to sell the hulky desk, all of those things, (except the mice, of course) went into boxes that now reside on the floor where the desk once was.

At the end of my bed is a shelving unit that is a relic of my loft set. It is the home of most of my knick knacks, along with the large bulky set of drawers I use as a bedside table and a tall skinny set of rainbow drawers behind the door. Each is full of things I just can’t bear to part with. Maybe someday I can catalogue them for you, future children.

My Room I

I’d like to begin by saying that (on my honor) I am not writing from my bedroom. I feel that it is important for my future children to realize the full impact of their future mother’s domestic neurosis.

Although the details are, perhaps, for another day, the fact is that I have memorized my bedroom. Let’s not get confused with the idle memorization that satisfies the urge to not stub one’s toe at 3 a.m. when one needs to rush to the bathroom. No, this is a neurotic, extensive brain-catalogue of items and their whereabouts inside my own personal sanctuary.

The carpet in my room is roughly 15 years old, and was placed in there when I, at five years old, moved into the house with my parents to find that the back room (deemed my sister and I’s playroom) had previously been home to a cow. To clarify, the cow moved in as a helpless calf, and then grew up in the room, as I surely would in the coming years. To remove the unmistakable “eau-de-bovine” my parents desperately carpeted and painted the room a stark white-on-white.

Since I moved out of a shared bedroom with my sister in the front of the house, to a single room deep in the depths of the cave we call the “add-on” 10 years ago, things have changed, if ever so slightly. The walls were painted years ago in accordance with my obsession with the night sky. They are a deep dark blue with funny little handmade stars stenciled on in yellow and some sort of opaque white. The ceiling, my mother’s masterpiece is light blue with big white puffy cloud outlines swirled on it.

The carpet has since been fruitlessly covered up by a clearance area rug that covers all but a 3 foot space between it and all four walls. The rug is a deep blue with spots of green and maroon, and has been hand-sculpted into a lattice-and-rose pattern. It was a kind of gift from my grandparents on a shopping trip. Most recently, I was devastated to find that our new family vacuum would like nothing better than to suck up small tufts of my beautiful rug, leaving the dead, dry rug-bones behind.