We're off on a really large ship to Spain
“You have Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Grade 2. Score 6 out of 9. Estrogen positive receptor.” Blah, blah, blah. “Surgeon... All laid out... Options... Choice... Possible Chemo. Radiation...” Blah, blah, blah.
The heart knows what the heart knows.
Wichita, 1971 (nine years old) The girls are playing in the colonial house’s basement. It’s cold outside, the prairie wind batters through shirts, sweaters, jackets, epidermis, sinew, bone, to where it matters most, a heart ache. The leader feels the cold like a shivering blanket. Her muscles ache, but then they always have. She doesn’t even know any other way to feel. Most nights her mother rubs her restless leg muscles, her aching shoulders, her back, with alcohol and calls them growing pains. If true, she should be ten feet tall by now, not the small-boned, nine-year-old she is now. She has amassed a large trunk full of dress up clothes. Inside are dresses given to her by a very old woman who is friends with her parents. They are from the early ‘30’s, one silk, one whalebone and lace. There is a large-brimmed black hat. Her mother’s white cape made from alpaca wool she had made in Paraguay is part of the ensemble. There are elegant dresses worn to parties hosted by the American Ambassador to Paraguay. Long gloves. Ropes of fake pearls. The girls are pretending to be Victorian ladies. The leader knows all about this. She’s been watching Upstairs, Downstairs. Some girls play the maids and some girls play the aristros. Then they trade off. The leader makes up more stories. It’s a fine mixture of Dickens, a set of his novels on the shelves in the house which she has been devouring, with the BBC’s attention to detail, and an active imagination.
“And now we’re going to have handsome men come and visit us,” she instructs. “They’re going to bow over our hands like this,” and she illustrates the motion, “and we’re going to curtsey.” The girls practice curtseying. “We’ll go on carriage rides out into the country and have picnics.” And so they pass through an imaginary door the butler holds open to them and take the picnic basket already packed with goodies out to the countryside. The countryside is back in the room but with a blanket spread out on the vinyl tiles and a lovely spread of small china plates, mismatched teacups, an old silver teapot, and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. The munch and drink tea with their pinkies held out and speak to the imaginary beaus who whisper how beautiful they are and how big the estates are that they own. Sometimes they go horseback riding with wooden broomsticks, the horses pawing and rearing up on their hindlegs. The girls are expert riders, unless the horse gets away, then beau comes speeding up on his steed to save the day. Then it’s back to the playroom where the head girl turns on the gas fireplace and it warms the room. The girls huddle around the fire and watch as the bars glow hottest where the gas hisses.
Wichita, 1965 (five years old) We’re back in the States and living in a small red house not too far from Wichita State University where my father teaches. The racial tensions are growing in Wichita which sits 90 miles from the Oklahoma border. Bloody Kansas is an important staging ground for what some people argue is the first battles of the Civil War, because it is this battlefield on which the forces of anti-slavery and the forces of slavery meet. ... Literally, the forces of slavery and the forces of anti-slavery meet in Kansas. Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. In response to proslavery forces' destruction of the antislavery press and Free State Hotel, radical abolitionists, including John Brown, murdered proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie. Kansas was a foreshadowing of the coming war
I’ve started kindergarten and remember a few things. I remember closing my eyes and being asked to taste the slice that was placed in my hand. I nibbled it and say apple. It was pear. I remember feeling ashamed. What does that mean to a five year old? Shame? Single-digit age that can’t keep pace with the invisible currents of fear, anger, and the need to be appreciated. My eyes are wide open but I’m alarmed at what I see. Segregation isn’t particularly successful in Wichita, that city in Kansas well south of the Mason-Dixie line. The elementary school closes at the end of the year and I remember older kids running through the school stealing everything that they can carry. A boy runs up to me and thrusts a black stapler at me.
“Here, it’s okay. Nobody’s gonna do nothing.”
When all I could do is stare at him he grabs the stapler back and runs out of the building. It felt like the crumbling of the Republic. The burning of Rome. I was an obedient child. Raised to be kind and not to steal. Older kids ran by me carrying armloads of books. I don’t remember teachers or any authority stopping anybody. My brother found me and brought me home. But it worried me. Mostly, I didn’t like seeing but not knowing. It seemed that most of my childhood was spent in moments of profound ignorance, and knowing that to be what it was.
In 1965, the population of Wichita was 297,000. Over 70% of it was white.
My best friend was named Louella and lived in the Black neighborhood of Wichita, which wasn’t that far from my own. The little red house we rented was on an amorphous line between the White and Black neighborhoods. So at school and in the little park down from our house there was always a blend of children. But as racial tensions grew throughout the country the angst spilled over into the neighborhoods. None of this was apparent to a little five year old girl whose best friend Louella was turning six and had invited her to her birthday party. My father dropped me off and met Louella’s mom who greeted us at the door. I was a naturally shy child so I was overwhelmed by the effusion that greeted me. All her aunties, cousins, siblings, grandmas, and ladies from church pulled me close for hugs and exclamations about how sweet I was, and look this way for a picture, come here we’ll blindfold Louella and put her hand in the bowl with cooked spaghetti and grapes, ooooh now isn’t that just like intestines and eyeballs, now pin the tail on the donkey, now let’s eat, grits, and ham hocks, birthday cake, watcha, whoops, granny nearly sets her wig on fire, but laughing, laughing, and aren’t you just the darling, Louella come and put your arm around her. Say cheese!
What are those hints and murmurs children feel and hear but don’t understand? Those invisible waves that ride through the air and crash against their sensibilities? My father taught all day and came home in the evenings to sit at the dining room table after evening meal and write his poetry. With three children under the age of ten in a house that was less than 800 sq. ft. not including the attic where we three slept. When I say attic I mean attic. It wasn’t remodeled at all. The steep wooden steps led up to a small room with a window to the left, a main space, then to the far right, another small room with a window a fan the size of a jet plane engine installed in it. At least it seemed that big to me. That was the year my bare feet got tangled in the spokes of my brother’s bike as we were riding back from the park. It was painful and put me off rotating blades for the rest of my life. My older brothers were given the two rooms while I was given a junior bed in the middle space.
The Los Angeles Watts Rebellion. Three thousand four hundred thirty eight arrested. Thirty four dead. One thousand thirty two injured. In The 1966 Chicago West Side Riots. Two dead. Thirty plus injured. Two hundred plus arrested. The HOUGH RIOTS. Cleveland, Ohio. Four dead. Approx. two hundred seventy five arrested. Then the long hot summer of riots in 1967 beginning with five days of The Detroit Riots. Forty three dead. One thousand one hundred eighty one were injured. Seven thousand arrested. The Newark Riot. Twenty six dead. Seven hundred twenty seven injured. One thousand four hundred sixty five arrested. April 4, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated. The Holy Week Uprising. 110 cities nationwide. Forty three dead. Three thousand+ injured. Twenty thousand+ arrested.
Zaragoza, Spain, 1968 My father has been offered another sabbatical, this time at the University of Zaragoza, in the Aragon region of Spain. I have finished kindergarten and unbeknownst to me will never return to the little red house. We now rent a three bedroom apartment in a huge tower block that faces a small gully across the street from a large park.
With Wix Blog, you’re not only sharing your voice with the world, you can also grow an active online community. That’s why the Wix blog comes with a built-in members area - so that readers can easily sign easily up to become members of your blog.
What can members do?
Members can follow each other, write and reply to comments and receive blog notifications. Each member gets their own personal profile page that they can customize.
Tip:
You can make any member of your blog a writer so they can write posts for your blog. Adding multiple writers is a great way to grow your content and keep it fresh and diversified.
Here’s how to do it:
Head to your Member’s Page
Search for the member you want to make a writer
Click on the member’s profile
Click the 3 dot icon ( ⠇) on the Follow button
Select Set as Writer
Comments