In the 1960s, growing up on Jefferson Street in Stamford, I knew that the decorating was complete when my Daddy placed an angel with golden hair, a candle in her hand, and silver stitches around a gown, on the Christmas tree. My Mom bought her at the Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime on Atlantic Street. Daddy put the smiling beauty on the tree top and set a yellow lightbulb under her wings. Her sheer rank hailed her significance.
Published in The Stamford Advocate newspaper, December, 2022.
The Virgin Mary, my Blessed Mother, firmly hand-turns the outdoor spigot that connects to the water faucet and garden hose at Nanny’s house.
She wears a blue veil crowned with red roses that flows to the ground, fluid, like water. She smiles at me. Her foot presses a still garden snake – a serpent, his sins and sorrows quieted by Mother Mary. Blessed is she, as she stills my heart from devil-evil serpents of the world.
The spigot that releases water is at the front of the house, the green garden hose is lettered along its long length, with bold, silvery words that spell out “sisterly love.” The hose snakes its way across the front yard, passes the brick porch where Nanny sits on a folding lawn chair eating an Italian sandwich of fried peppers and eggs made by Aunt LaLa. Nanny is the queen of her world in the town of Darien, the porch, her throne. Her home is her castle, where she lives with Grandpa, Uncle Pippi, and Aunt LaLa, ruling by the front door shielded with a hanging red, white, and blue flag.
The hose snakily slides down slate steps cut by Grandpa, to the driveway, and ends in my sister Barb’s hand, where its shiny, copper-threaded connector sprays Mother Mary’s magic water onto the asphalt driveway, making it glisten wildly in the sunlight.
Standing next to Barb, I watch the water spray from the driveway to the hill that slopes easily from the front porch to Maple Street. My eyes fly over the scene, take everything in. The street is named after Great-Uncle Mike’s maple tree, now aged and regal, at the top of the hill. Barb wears a yellow t-shirt and brown barrettes clip back fly-away hair; a red rubber kickball waits for my red Keds sneakers to kick it, make it fly through the air; the open mailbox holds an Italian newspaper for Grandpa; and the stone walls hug the driveway to another stone-cut stairwell leading to the back door of the kitchen. Grandpa, warmed by a gray sweater, waves hello and smiles at me from where he sits at the kitchen window. Across the driveway is his zinnia flowerbed that caps a stone wall. Bees zip-zap and orange butterflies flitter-flutter through the hardest-working flowers of the summer garden. The zinnias are waiting, expect me to stop by with scissors soon. The ironed-down grass path that runs alongside the flowerbed is the way to the neighbor’s old gray cat, asleep atop another stone wall, on a bed of coppery pine needles, fallen from shadowy pines. Sparrows dart and dip, swoop from tree-to-tree over his head.
We are in our own world, under the blue sky, where Uncle Pippi’s wheelbarrow, filled with just-picked sweet corn from his garden, waits by the garage door, where my older sister Donna, in a yellow dress and white knee socks, hands an Italian cookie to little sister Maria; flick-flecks of snowy white sugar dust her pink-and-green flowered dress. Barb sprays water in an arc, up at the zinnia bed. I look back at Nanny on the porch. She smiles at me.
The Blessed Mother is no longer there, by the spigot near the porch. She’s gone. Yet, not entirely gone, as she is in my heart and intercession prayer – O, most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. I need to fly to her, for her mercy, to answer my humble pleas for help.
The magic water of sisterly love sprays the stone wall near the slate steps, hits the green grass of the sloped hill, to the sidewalk and quiet street. A surge of water reaches me, drenches my body and the constant, blue feelings of being trapped in a painful loop, like a twisted snake, with the back and forth of opposing emotions, fearful fight or flight thoughts, the mental anxiety of childhood abuse.
“Did you ever want to fly? I want to fly! Fly, fly, fly!” The magic water makes me freely shout. Fly, fly, fly, to get away from sin and sorrow.
“It’s magic water!” whoops Barb.
Suddenly, my wet hands turn into giant, rainbow-colored parrots that wave their wings with great strength and lift me upward. Off I go! I fly up, up, up, as Barb sprays more magic water from the hose onto me.
High above the driveway, I am in blue-tinged, white clouds that are shaped like an airplane and a sailboat. The translucent clouds puff along slowly in a faded polaroid dream. A blue cape around my neck flows behind me, fluid, like water, and my legs, with red Keds-sneakered feet, are out-stretched. My arms extend as the parrots disconnect from my hands and soar away in a bright-colored flash. I am flying!
I call to my sister in the driveway below.
“Barb, I’m flying, I’m flying, I’m flying!”
And here I go, towards heaven, far above the driveway and Nanny’s house. Above the street and then to Uncle Pippi’s garden, where I wildly zoom down, low to the ground, to see the tomatoes, peppers, green beans, basil, parsley, whatever he’s planted, so low to just touch the top of the cornfield, where I see Uncle Pippi working. He smiles at me. The garden gate is open, the hoe waits for me. The garden, a daily dose for peace from devil-evil wartime serpents of his own.
Up and up I go, fly away over the Noroton Heights neighborhood, until I see our Noroton Avenue house, where I live with my sisters and Mom, and then swoop over to Mom’s sisters’ homes that I know so well – Matheline on Relihan Road, to Joyce on West Avenue, Mae on Park Lane, and even to Dee Dee on Sterling Place, on the border of a neighboring town. I fly over to Weed Beach on Long Island Sound, where I label everything mine, and it is all my Darien. It will always be my Darien, that freely fills my spirit with joy. The blue flowing cape falls off from around my neck and drifts slowly away to the clouds.
With a birds-eye view and out-stretched arms, I fly over Nanny’s house, the yards, the gardens, see the clothesline in the backyard, where Aunt LaLa smiles as she hangs pink, billowing sheets, see Grandpa’s prickly cactus plant sitting on the back porch, and cucumbers that grow in the kitchen garden, a place where everything is beautiful and safe, and where the Blessed Mother sent the magic water through the garden hose to Barb. Mom is there now, in the driveway, with my sisters. She smiles at me. I turn and call down to her.
“Mom, look at me! I’m flying, flying, flying!”
And, off I go again, sprinkled with sisterly love from the garden hose, fly into the blue sky of heaven in this magic world, guided by the forces of Mother Mary, as she teaches me the healing power of sisterly love. I fly and search for Mother Mary, to stand before her, with my sins and sorrows, to beseech her never-ending shield of firm protection over my sisters and me.
As sunlight plays tag on the roofs of maple trees, dappling leaves glitter and shudder in the gentle breeze. These trees surround a beach where four, young girls sink in warm sand. Their father is there, too, and he picks his way through rocks bordering an inlet of the blue Long Island Sound.
I am one of those girls, searching for treasures of shells and other mysteries washed upon the beach.
The heat crawls along my skin and I pull off my t-shirt, revealing a faded, pink bathing suit. I fling my t-shirt down onto an old blue blanket that holds my sisters’ found treasures and a green jug of red Kool-Aid and melting ice cubes. And, undoubtedly, sand, too.
The ocean stretches and stretches, shimmering and flickering, as sunlight bounces upon gentle bumps of waves. I watch my father, waist-deep in the cool water. He wears a sleeveless shirt; his white shoulders and arms bulge as he bends down, seeking for clams to pry up out of the dark sand. He quickly finds them, and, one-by-one, chucks them into a wooden basket bobbing near-by. The clams clink against one another.
I long to be there, digging my fingers deep into the ground, blindly searching for the hard, familiar shape of a clam. I’d like to see my father’s curly, light hair become wet and curlier as he dunks down again and again.
His voice trails out to my youngest sister, who is five years old now. “Don’t come out any further, Maria.”
Maria stands up to her bellybutton in water, squints her dark eyes, and splashes at Barbara, who quickly splashes her back. They both giggle delightedly.
I gently rest my palms on the water, carefully, so it slips in-between my fingers. I walk slowly about, pulling one leg up, down, then the other. Suddenly – ouch! A creature rudely snapped and bit my foot. Hurriedly, I splash away. A crab! My fright makes me shudder and I cry out. My father, now coming in with the basket full of gleaming, black clams, looks at me, and frowns, “What’s wrong?”
Tears build up behind my eyes as I force words up and out.
He listens to my cry and tells me, “Don’t worry, I am sure it was nothing.” He busily sets the basket on the water, examining its contents.
I swallow hard, making my tears disappear. A struggle bursts inside and I try not to be a child, but stronger, like my father. He tells me, “A nine year old is a big girl and you shouldn’t cry.” I tilt my head and listen hard.
I decide all I wanted was some sympathy. I pretend the snap was my imagination and the stinging lessens.
Donna, who is eleven, and a big girl, runs down the beach to my father. Her plump, pink toes bounce up and down, momentarily disappearing in the pebbly sand. My sisters splash my father and he laughs heartily, his tall, great body towering above, his smile reaching the bright, blue sky.
Letting my sisters hold clams, he beckons to me. I wade over, silently grumbling about my stinging foot. Picking up a large clam, I hold it in my palms and inspect the graininess of the rough shell. I decide this clam must be a big girl, too, because it is strong and hard. And, then I think, beautiful, too.
Note: This little story was written by me when I was twenty-one years old, for a college creative writing course, Childhood in Literature. I copy it here, word-for-word, to enjoy the simplicity of my writing at that time. How often I think of Professor Parry, who encouraged me to write. Her comment about this story: “Jean, you write very sensitively about a vivid memory of someone you have lost, except in your mind and spirit.” Yes, I think – memory, mind, spirit, and clams go hand-in-hand, and are all treasures and mysteries found on the beach.
Jesus is knocking at my door today.
Dear, sweet, Jesus.
I never know what will hit me to turn me into a crying mess and I end up praying to my Jesus. Call me a big baby, I don’t care. Today, in the never-ending jab at organizing files, and a losing-my-mind search for a document that I just cannot find, I come across a letter from Daddy.
Open the little, faded envelope, with his blue-pen block handwriting on it, addressed to me.
Oh boy, here I go.
July 24, 1978.
Hi Love,
I have so much good news to tell you. Please send me your tel. no. My address is Rocky Hill Vet Home & Hospital, Rocky Hill, Conn. Love, Dad. P.S. I plan to be in Stamford Aug. 8th & 9th. See you then. Love again.
I wonder about the good news. There was never any good news about Daddy back then, when I was nineteen years old. Two postcards with photos of the Vet Home are in the envelope, too. One addressed to Barbara, the other to Maria, and both ask how are you? Love, Daddy. If Donna got a postcard, she probably ripped it up and chucked it out.
A year later, Daddy is dead.
And I still wonder what life would have been like with him.
“Say a prayer,” Mom would say, as advice for something to go well, or for a wish, or a want. Dear, sweet, Jesus. My words of the prayer of the heart beg Jesus to have mercy on blue me, a lousy sinner, a lousy thinker, a lousy everything today.
Yet, in spite of my lousy tears, Daddy’s words, “Hi Love” are a hug, a kiss, a joy, and, in some remarkable way, are knocking at my door.
A little story for my sister, Barbara, because my little stories put joy in her heart.
The first Dressbarn retail store opened in February, 1962, on Broad Street, in Stamford, and provided wear-to-work dresses and clothing for the working woman during a time when they were entering the workforce in greater numbers. I was three years old in ’62, so this held no importance to me. However, by the time the after-college years hit, and I became a working woman, Dressbarn was the place to buy my wear-to-work dresses. Bloomingdale’s down the street on Broad seduced me, too.
I was married and living with my in-laws, Ralph and Theresa, when Dressbarn went out the window with the economy in the 1980s. In the attic space of the vacant store, a German woman set up a warehouse shop to sell crystal ware.
I don’t know how Theresa found out about this shop. She convinced me to go to there with her on Saturdays. She wanted to buy crystal wine glasses. I didn’t want to go. I wanted my Saturdays off to be by myself after a working woman’s week of work. Couldn’t say no, didn’t know how to say no, just mad at myself for not doing what I wanted, yearning to get art on the page, a string of hopeful words on a page, to think and figure out who I am, waiting to be seduced by life, to be the woman I needed to be.
So, downtown we go, to the Dressbarn building, climb a joyless, shadowy, narrow staircase, (where on earth is Theresa taking me?), to meet the German woman who sells crystal ware out of cardboard boxes on tall shelves in a high-windowed space of a dusky place. Here, out of a box, come swirls of cranberry-colored glass of wine glasses, labeled Germany F.R. Theresienthal Handmade with a symbol of a crown.
I am seduced by crystal.
And, I am seduced by the Theresienthal Cranberry with Optic Swirl of lovely glasses for years, as they highlight holidays and wonder from a diningroom sideboard in Theresa’s house.
“I’ll give the wine glasses to you one day,” said Theresa.
Sadly, the glasses never come to me, and like broken glass, her promise is broken. Yet, do you know that hope lays next to heartbroken?
I think of the wine glasses for years after the death of Theresa.
One day, I decide to search online and buy the same glasses for myself. In my head, Theresa is with me as I search. I am hopeful. Turns out, I cannot find the wine glasses, yet I find matching champagne glasses, and now, here they are, in the sideboard in my house, waiting to be toasted to Theresa.
I think of Theresa and our crystal-buying days in downtown Stamford, as she built her collection, on my Saturdays off from work. In my search, I find out that the Theresienthal glassworks, built in 1836, was named after Queen Therese, the wife of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. How appropriate, I think, to find this out now, decades after our Dressbarn attic jaunts. So, Theresa the Queen, convinced me to go crystal-shopping with her, and unbeknownst to me at the time, this made me into the woman I needed to be.
In the end, the heartbroken promise did not matter. She loved me and I loved her. I am seduced by the joy in my own heart.
I am awake in the winter night. A train clatters as it slowly pulls into the station a block away from our house. A siren from a police car wails off into the distance. The metal pulley posted on the back porch for the clothesline sings softly.
The only other sound is of my three sisters’ nighttime sighs as they sleep; Donna and Barb share one twin bed, and little Maria and me the other. It is a time for me to pray to God, asking him to help me out in my little life, through the ups and downs. It is a time when the house is quiet – there’s no fighting or yelling, no bitchin’ and complaining. No slaps from Mom, no flying wooden spoon to hit my back, no black belt threat from Daddy, no hearing no, no, no.
I am talking to God. My God, known in many ways: God is Redeemer. God is Just. God is Beyond. God is Good. I am asking God. What is good in my life, God? I am looking, yet, good things are so hard to find when I cannot see anything but drunk Daddy and Mom fighting, and I am struck with an overwhelming sadness in my heart, and my older sister says that I’m thick in the head, because, don’t you know, it’s about time they got a divorce?
Geez, God, I try not to be so stubborn, but it’s hard to change, and this goddamn shyness blankets my head so darn tight, so I can’t get the many words in my head out of my mouth and to the ears of those around me, and even if I did, how do I get them to listen, listen, listen? I am sorry for swearing, God, and, please, let me off the hook – I promise to say an extra Hail Mary prayer at church tomorrow.
I am listening, God.
I hear a soft knock at the window.
It’s not God.
It’s Santa Claus. Santa is knocking at my window.
He opens the window, comes into the room, stamps his snow-dusted black boots on the carpet, and all I can say is, “Don’t do that – Mom will be mad – you’re getting the carpet wet!”
“Now, don’t you worry, Jeanne,” chuckles Santa as he sits on my bed, next to me.
I inspect Santa and determine that he is just as described in the poem, with twinkly eyes, rosy cheeks, a cherry nose, a snow-white beard, a right jolly old elf. I smile in spite of myself.
“So, God tells me that you’re looking for what is good in your life, right?” asks Santa, as he inspects me, a girl in a pink flannel nightgown, long, brown hair that won’t stay put, and a face – what a face – a beautiful face, yet one that wears too many frowns.
“Well…what?…how do you know?” I spit words out, embarrassed ’cause I just want God to know my secret thoughts, not Santa. I wouldn’t have told God if I knew he was going to blab to Santa.
“I know everything about all good girls and boys. God’s a friend of mine,” said Santa.
“Okay” is all I can say.
“The good in your life is right here in this bedroom with you, Jeanne,” said Santa, gently.
“Where? I don’t see what’s so good.”
I look around, however, all I see in this little room is bluebird-blue painted dressers, my sleeping sisters, and our starchily-stiff-ironed green and blue plaid school uniforms hanging on the closet door. Barb rolls over and her fuzzy toy dog slides off the bed.
Santa softly chuckles.
“The good is right next to you. The good in your life is your three sisters,” said Santa.
I squint my eyes and frown to figure out what he means.
“Your sisters will always be with you, to help you out, through the ups and downs. You don’t need to find friends because you have built-in friends for life. They are gifts to you from God,” said Santa, as he put his hands on his knees, pushed up his belly, and stood up.
“Merry Christmas, Jeanne,” said Santa, as he opened the window, and left.
“Merry Christmas, Santa.”
“Sisters for life. Thank you, God,” I whispered, and closed my eyes.
I figured it out. Santa is not Santa, and my God is Everything, and my God is Love, and my God is Santa.
Photo below was taken at Aunt Matheline’s, 1972.
We were at Nanny’s earlier in the day…still looking for that photo.
“Stick with me, Jeanne. I’ll show you the ropes,” said Mom.
I roll my Christmas eyes.
Christmas isn’t the same without her.
Christmas at Nanny’s, 1972
Do you see the four angel prints of smothered wings trampled by four girls’ boot marks in the white snow? Do you see the dark vertical stripes of my Great-Uncle Mike’s maple tree, leafless against the soft blue sky? Do you see me running down the hill, placing my red-mittened hand on the slate of the stone wall that my Grandpa built, as I curve into the driveway? Do you see Grandpa waving to me from the window at Nanny’s house? Waving to me to come inside, come in, come in, come in. Do you see?
Re-posting, from December, 2014.
Mom knows that I have ravioli hands.
“Are you going to make ravioli for Christmas, Jeanne? You make them so good. Mmm, Mmm,” said Mom. She has asked me this every year, for the past twenty years. I expect the same question every year. She smiles at me.
I make ravioli because Christmas wishes do come true. Merry Christmas, Mom.
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