jeannebirdblog

The mother of all snowflakes lands on my tongue.

            It’s cold joy.

            Grandpa waves hello from the kitchen window that overlooks the driveway, where I stand, as my sisters run about, snow-dusted-confectionary-sugared, in the fluttery snow.  I wave back to Grandpa, and push my hair away from my face with winter armor of a red, hand-me-down mitten.  I don’t know it today, but one day, Grandpa will be gone, and harsh tears will catch in my throat when I see his gray sweater lying alone on the chair by the window.  No more waves from Grandpa.

            It’s winter in Darien.  I grab little sister Maria’s fake-fur-trimmed jacket hood, pull her along, and order the other one, Barb, to follow our older sister Donna.  We run to Nanny’s front yard, make snow-angels, our bodies crazily thrashing as we lie in the snow.   

            God’s angels in heaven, in the soft blue winter sky, look at me.  My arms slide up-and-down to make angel wings.  I pump hard, wish hard to get rid of the defenseless fear that silences me.  I try not to be afraid and pray to Jesus to give me strength, just like Mom does.  I try hard to think of good things.  Christmas is almost here.  And with that day, Baby Jesus!  Baby Jesus!  Baby Jesus!

            Yesterday, I put Baby Jesus in the manger of my Polish grandparents’ nativity.  Babcia and Dziadzio brought it with them when they immigrated from Poland.  I know that God loved the world so much that he gave us his only Son, and, here, the Baby Jesus in his crib, goes from my hand to his place of honor in this little wooden shed in my grandparents livingroom. 

            I hope that God loves me and I hold onto this hope real tight, especially when I feel that no one else loves me.  Maybe this is why Babcia and Dziadzio carried the nativity from their homeland, to have something to hold onto, hoping that God loves them, too.  I don’t know it today, but one day, Babcia and Dziadzio will be gone, and somehow, some way, I carry God’s only Son and their nativity with me.

            It’s winter in Darien.  I follow the slushy tracks of Donna’s white rubber boots as the four of us girls go inside, to Nanny’s warm, Christmas kitchen.  It is here where the burdens of life are flung out the back door, thrown out as far as can be.  It is here where Christmas is found, in the winter in Darien.  It is here where I feel that God will protect me from enemies.  I think Mom must feel this way, too.

            In Nanny’s kitchen is where I pump my mind hard, make it push away thoughts – don’t want to think about the butcher knife weapon that Mom crazily thrashed at Drunk-Daddy last night, a mad-woman-as-protector, of me and my sisters.  That’s when I knew Mom would divorce Daddy.  Her defense attack was over.

            Our world is gone.  I am gone.  I don’t know it today, well, maybe I do, and my stubborn-self won’t accept it as I fight against God’s plan for me, but someday, somehow, I begin to believe that there’s not a battle in life that I’m left to fend for myself. 

            Dear, Sweet, Jesus is with me, fighting alongside, in the battle of life.  He was always with me, in my Christmas prayers to give me strength.  Jesus gave me armor, for all kinds of battles, in the winter in Darien.

Dedicated to my older sister, Donna.

Come one, come all!  Aunt LaLa surprises us with tickets, and here we are, sitting in our seats at the Ringling Brothers Circus at Madison Square Garden in New York City!

Aunt LaLa, Donna, Mom, little Maria, Barb, and me, all in a row.

I’m hungry.

Mom unrolls a brown paper grocery bag and out comes our lunch.  She doesn’t have any money to buy yummy, hot, hotdogs, cotton candy, popcorn, peanuts, and soda at the concession stand.  We’re here for the show only.

Down the row, my sisters pass the lunch to me.

It’s the dreaded cold hotdogs that Mom cooked at home and wrapped in wax paper.

Disgustedly, Barb looks at the cold hotdog in her hand.

“Don’t look at it, just eat it,” said Mom.

Barb throws the hotdog on the floor, wax paper and all.

“Now you’ll have to wait until you get home to eat,” said Mom and turns to order little Maria to have her lunch.  Obediently, she slowly chews a springy bite and points to a clown with a stupid, painted red grin on his face.

“Look at the acrobats, Jeanne,” said Mom.

I know Mom’s words are said to distract me from this lunch.

Oh!  No matter what Mom says, I can’t look at the acrobats.  I’m deathly afraid to watch the pretty girls in flouncy-glitter skirts swing from trapeze bars, let go, and catch a guy’s outstretched arms mid-air.  What if he doesn’t catch her in time?  My heart skips as though an acrobat flips in my chest.  The girls walk the tightrope far above.  My stomach drops.  They fly through the air.  There’s a deathly hush in my head.  What if one slips and falls to her death?  What if she breaks through the safety net below?  Thoughts of death make me stare at the floor.  I see Barb’s fallen hotdog and angrily kick it away from my feet.

Barb crossly folds her arms and looks straight ahead at elephants with feathered headbands and pink daisies painted on their backs.  Obediently, the elephants follow their trainers’ whips, one foot on a stool as they spin in a circle in the three-ringed circus.

The strong, big elephants that outweigh all of the rest.

I wish I could be strong and ignore food, like Barb, but, darn-it-all, food is a constant worry for me.

I look down the row to check on how Donna is doing.  She picks at her cold hotdog as she yaks with Aunt LaLa.  Following her cue, I pick off the mushiest part of the roll, red with ketchup, throw chunks onto the wax paper on my lap, and eat the cold hotdog.  I don’t look at it.

_ _ _

Later, at home, Mom heats up one-pot spaghetti for supper and then it’s off to bed.

Soon enough, little Maria is sound asleep next to Donna in the twin bed they share next to mine.  Donna asks me how I liked the circus.

“I hated it.”  Honestly, I’m never gun-shy with my sisters, just with everyone else.

“Go to sleep, girls,” scolds Mom from the livingroom where she watches t.v.

“Geez, Jeanne!  What’s not to like?”  Exasperated, she can’t believe that with my usual, confrontational attitude, I gripe about a circus.

No word from me.

Gotta’ love her, peace-making Donna then softly asks, “Well, Jeanne, didn’t you at least like the acrobats?”

Wherever Mom moves to, photos of her four girls sit on the square, leather-topped coffee table in the livingroom.  The photos are of school days – Catholic uniforms hand-pressed by Mom, my wavy hair brushed and barrette-d by Mom.  Many times, as if in a trance, I trace the scrolled border of gold tooling on the leather of the table – my finger weaves in-and-out, in-and-out, along with my senses, as my young girl self watches from the picture frame.

In-and-out, in-and-out, as life flits by, I still reach for those days.  Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not-so-good, because sometimes my senses are a lousy blue.

Can I tell you that Mom and Uncle Pippi enter my thoughts every day?  As if in a trance, something happens and clicks me right back to them.  It might be that I see a wild rabbit dining on wild strawberries in my yard, it might be an American flag, of red-white-and-blue, on a front door, it might be a tomato plant in a garden, a drive along a beach, a Heineken beer, a clam shell, a beach towel, a book on dementia, a cotton puff of a cloud against a blue sky, the North Korean Chairman at the 38^th Parallel on t.v., or, dear, sweet, Jesus, God only knows what else.

Can I tell you that I wake in the early, early morning, turn on the t.v., and see our U.S. President shaking hands with the North Korean Chairman?  Can I tell you that Mom and Uncle Pippi are with me then?

Perhaps it is just a matter of missing them.

“Turn off the t.v. and go to bed, Jeanne,” Mom would say.

In-and-out, in-and-out, as life flits by, I reach for them.

“Some things in life are just lousy,” Mom would say.

Photograph by Videler Photography.

I am pleased to announce that Jeannebirdblog won Third Place for Personal Blogs in a 2019 statewide competition sponsored by The Connecticut Press Club.  In particular, the award was for my Purpose Statement (1/23/19) and the story “Mary To The Rescue” (2/20/19).  I received recognition at the CT Press Club’s Awards Ceremony on May 15, at The Delamar Hotel in Southport.  Shown at left is Michele Turk, President, CT Press Club and at right, Emcee Jane Green, author, with over 10 million books in print worldwide.

The Virgin Mary turns on the spigot at Nanny’s house.

She wears a blue veil that flows onto the ground, fluid, like water.  Red roses crown her head.  A foot holds down a still garden snake, a serpent quieted by Mother Mary.  Blessed is she.

The spigot, at the front of the house, is attached to a green garden hose lettered with silvery words that say sisterly love.  The hose snakes its way across the front yard, past the porch, where Nanny sits on a lawn chair and eats an Italian sandwich of fried peppers and eggs made by Aunt LaLa.  Nanny is the queen of her world in Darien, the brick porch her throne, and she rules by the front door shielded with an American flag.  The hose snakily slides down the slate steps cut by Grandpa, to the driveway, and ends in my sister Barb’s hand, where its shiny, copper-threaded connector sprays magic water onto the asphalt driveway, which glistens wildly.

I stand in the driveway, next to Barb, watch the water spray onto the hill that slopes easily from the front porch to Maple Street, which was named after Great-Uncle Mike’s maple tree, (now aged and regal), near the top of the steps.  Barb wears a yellow t-shirt and brown barrettes clip fly-away hair to keep it out of her sweet face.  A red rubber kickball waits for my red Keds sneakers to kick it, the mailbox holds an Italian newspaper for Grandpa’s eyes, the stone walls hug the driveway to another stairwell that leads to the back door to the kitchen.  Grandpa, warmed by a gray sweater, waves hello from where he sits at the kitchen window.  Across the driveway is his zinnia flowerbed that caps a stone wall.  Bees zip-zap through the zinnias, the hardest-working flowers in the summer garden; I know they expect me to pick them.  The ironed-down grass path alongside the zinnias is the way to the neighbor’s old gray cat that sleeps atop another stone wall, on a bed of coppery pine needles, fallen from the shadowy pines that shelter us from neighbors.  We are in our own world, where Uncle Pippi’s wheelbarrow, filled with just-picked sweet corn from his garden waits by the garage door, where big sister Donna, in a yellow dress and white knee socks, hands an Italian cookie to little sister Maria, and flick-flecks of snowy white sugar dust her pink-and-green flowered dress.

The magic water sprays the stone wall near the slate steps, hits the green grass of the sloped hill, to the sidewalk and quiet street, and droplets reach me.

“Did you ever want to fly?”  I ask Barb.

“I want to fly!  Fly, fly, fly!” yell I.

“It’s magic water!” whoops Barb.

Suddenly, my hands turn into two colorful parrots that wave their wings and lift me upward.  Off I go!  I fly up, up, up, as Barb sprinkles magic water from the hose onto me.

Suddenly, high above, I am in white clouds shaped like an airplane and a sailboat.  Translucent clouds puff along slowly in a faded polaroid dream.  A blue cape flows behind me, and my legs, with red Keds-sneakered feet, are out-stretched.  My arms extended, the parrots disconnect and soar away.  I am flying!

The driveway scene is below.

I call to my sister.

“Barb, I’m flying, I’m flying, I’m flying!”

And here I go, through the clouds, above Uncle Pippi’s garden, and then I wildly zoom down, low to the garden, to see the tomatoes, peppers, basil, parsley, whatever he’s planted, so low to just touch the top of the cornfield, where I see Uncle Pippi smiling at me.  The garden gate is open, the hoe waits for me.

Yet, up and up I go, fly away over Noroton Heights, until I see our Noroton Avenue house, where Donna, Jean, Barb, and Maria grew up, and then over to my aunts’ homes – Aunt Matheline on Relihan Road, to Aunt Joyce’s on West Avenue, to Aunt Mae’s on Park Lane, and even to Aunt Dee Dee’s on Sterling Place, the one sister of Mom’s that moved to a neighboring town.  I fly over Weed Beach on Long Island Sound, where I label everything mine and it is all my Darien.  It will always be my Darien, this joyous feeling in me.  The blue flowing cape falls off from around my neck and drifts slowly away.

I don’t need the cape to fly, and once again, I’m back at Nanny’s, where she lives with Grandpa, Uncle Pippi, and Aunt LaLa.  I’m over the driveway.  Now Mom is there with my sisters.  She smiles up at me.

With a birds-eye view of the house, the yard, the gardens, the clothesline in the back yard, where Aunt LaLa hangs pink, billowing sheets, where Grandpa’s cactus plant sits on the back porch and cucumbers grow in the garden, where everything is beautiful and safe, and where the Blessed Mother sends the magic water to Barb, I turn and call down to Mom.

“Mom, look at me!  I’m flying, flying, flying!”

And, off I go again, sprinkled with sisterly love, into the endless blue sky of my magic world.

My life changes because I see with new eyes in my dreams.

In a dream, I walk up the old stone stairway from the driveway to Nanny’s front yard.  My head is bowed, not in the scaredy-cat way of my little girl self, but in an honoring way of my adult self.  I am calm.  I know that this will not be the last time that I walk up these gray slate steps, cut by my grandfather.  I look to the left, across the street.  At the back of the stone house, near the garden, is a gravesite that holds two graves.  It’s Mom and Uncle Pippi.  I am calm.  They are at peace.  They are together.

In a dream, I am in a dark room in Nanny’s house.  I am calm.  In the next room are my sisters and Mom.  My sisters are adults.  Sunshine pours in through the large livingroom window and fills the room.  They are laughing and I want to join them.

I know that I will be with them in a minute.  I bow my head and suddenly before me is an image of Mother Mary in the darkness.  I see her from the waist up.  Not in human form.  Her body and veil is made of strands of twinkling white lights that sway up and down, a moving motion of bright waves that take shape.

It is Mother Mary who sways me to see in a new way.  I am calm.

The purpose of the blog is to explore familial relationships and societal factors that contribute to the development of children of divorce and how this affects the adults they become.  The central event followed is the protagonist’s fight in the justice system, standing up for her elderly mother who has an inheritance stolen.  They travel through the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney in the State of Connecticut’s specialized unit devoted to the investigation and prosecution of crimes against the elderly, to Probate Court and Superior Court.  A battle is lost due to banking regulations in a contested case with an uncle’s will as a relative exploits her position to become unjustly enriched, gaining an entire estate.  The memoir revolves around the protagonist’s uncle, a military hero, and their relationship.  He shapes her childhood as she struggles with emotional abuse due to her parents’ domestic abuse and divorce in 1970.  Through faith, she defines that people’s financial situations and exclusive positions in society do not make them more deserving of enrichment, whether by money or love, than anyone else.

On that day in November, when Mom enters a nursing home to live out the rest of her life, she tells me she wants to go home.

“I want to go home to my mother,” said Mom.

Sudden fear makes me want to throw up.

My head flips to Nanny’s house.  I want to go there, too, with Mom.  The place that is safe.

I can’t think.  I don’t think.

The thing is, is that home as we know it is gone, that mother is gone, and my mother is gone in a way, too.

It’s as though Uncle Pippi’s sod roller violently rolls over the right side of my brain, where the creative, free-thinking thoughts, the thoughts where I am able to see the big picture, are crushed down into the earth, broken pieces all junked up.

Much later, as my right brain slowly, slowly, slowly, recovers, I think that maybe it was a possibility.  Maybe nitpicky Mom could have lived in Nanny’s house, where Aunt LaLa lived with a caretaker.  Maybe Mom could have gone home.  Maybe I could have made it work, not junked it up.

And yet?

“You’re so fickle, Marie,” said Aunt LaLa.  The two sisters bickered over every other thing when I was a kid.

“Too bad they don’t get along,” said a cousin of mine.

On that day in November, when I believe in the right-brain dominance theory, and read Mom’s emotions, my imagination shuts down, rollered off so I can push ahead and try, try, try, to ignore my pain.  Dear, Sweet, Jesus, I try to ignore that pain.

Nanny is Mary, my mother.

Blessed mother, I bow to thee.

Mom is Mary, my mother.

Blessed mother, I bow to thee.

Saint Ann, Mother of Mary and of me.

Blessed Mother, I bow to Thee.

Lady Star Of The Sea is Mary, my Mother.

Blessed Mother, I bow to Thee.

Mom is Mary, my mother.

She gives me Ann, my middle name.

Am I the mother of she?

Saint Ann, Blessed Holy Mary,

Nanny Mary, Mom Mary,

merry Ann, I pray to be.

Oh, Most Holy Mother Of God, Mary, my Mother,

crush the head of the evil serpent that is in the middle of me.

Stand on the crescent moon,

with a Crown of Stars.

Blessed Mother, I bow to Thee.

When the rain falls down

the lavender irises lay on the ground

some struggle to stand

flatten, stalks bent

as the rain falls down

the sheets rap the window

the zinnias, petals wet from an overnight rain

with melancholy sighs

when the rain falls down

I struggle to stand.