Marked by heavy hands
This is the sensory soup of
childhood. It is a mix of family and
location, of bad luck and lucky streaks. We
continue the pattern with our own children,
begin the silent lessons, mark them with
heavy hands: this is who you are, who we are.
Whenever my son smells oatmeal pancakes or
plucks a plump blueberry from a glass bowl,
the past will live. "You Are My Sunshine"
will conjure up a darkened room, my soothing
cuddle against impertinent wakefulness. He
may spend years in therapy trying to get my
voice out of his head, only to find that same
voice coming out of his mouth in middle
adulthood.
I can only hope that his experience is as
painless as growing up can be. Sometimes my
best won’t be good enough.
I remember being seven, lying on that
flowered couch in my grandparents’ family
room, my hand sunk into a plastic bag full of
cherries. Cold from the manufactured air,
goose-pimpled, I clutched a pillow for
warmth. The television, which was as much a
piece of furniture as an entertainment
device, was showing Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers in Top
Hat.
That night I would have another asthma
attack, whether it was because of mildew, cat
hair, cigarette smoke, or my own melodramatic
emotions is up for debate.
Image: Me and my grandmother,
Hollywood Beach, 1973.