Cue the Child, Stage Write (Blog-o-sphere-Think-Tank)

What: Monthly Group Blog Posts
Why: Because of Andes Cruz & Her Indomitable Spirit
Who:

• Andes Cruz
• Stephanie Nocito Clark
• Natsuko Hanks:
• Shaun Young:
• Brad Severtson:
• Beth Cyr:
• Kathleen Krucoff:
• Andrea Bell:
• Pal Gooz:
• Laura Flavin:

This month’s topic being a favorite child memory.

So here I am, right after my bath, right after my first full day downhill skiing since, oh, I don’t know, 1989 maybe? (and it was retro day at Whitewater, too!)

In my hands, I am holding my baby picture. I am smiling in both pictures.

I was, in the early 1970s, what they now call a “spirited child” (i.e., Raising Your Spirited Child) Walked at 6 months, first stitches at 14 months (from running down the beach smack into the lifeguard’s stand). In my first Easter picture, I have a black eye and am glaring at the camera. This is in wonderful juxtaposition with the adorable basket I am holding at a jaunty angle.

The funny thing is that family lore always goes that my mother didn’t know what to do with a child like me. She’s petite, adorable, and was only 25 when I was born. (cue the smelling salts and a brandy) I love her story about flipping through the baby book (Dr. Spock) and not finding me in there anywhere.

A quick fast forward to me, a young mother, flipping madly through baby books, feeling a slight panic setting in as I realize that my babies aren’t in there anywhere

And then, a quick flashback, first to 1942 as my dear, sweet, petite grandmother flips madly through the baby book, hands in the air, declares she can’t find her baby in there anywhere!”

And, yes, back another few years to 1917, where I imagine her mother in a similar scene.

What could have been my saving grace is that I did not have a daughter. Something, in any case, snapped me out of this multi-generational fog and I began to see a pattern: my mother (as a small girl) was a hell-raiser (adorable, but spunky) She preferred baseball to tea parties, etc. My grandmother’s favorite story is that she would do handsprings all the way from her home to the subway to meet her father after work every day. Absolutely adorable, dimpled face cutely smiling in every picture, but my, oh, my, if you didn’t catch that fire in her eyes you were blind.

My mother’s cousin is interested in family history, and it turns out that Emma, my grandmother’s mother’s mother, “stole” William Hendricks from his first wife to start our line : ) and there is no evidence that she ever married him (legally, that is). (Just to cement the long line of spunk)

My favorite memories of childhood include making mud pies and trying to feed them to the younger siblings, making forts in pecan trees in the vacant lots across the street, riding in a wagon at neck-breaking speeds down hills (a la Calvin and Hobbes, but there were cars involved). I loved wake boarding and diving under huge waves at the last second. I have several sets of stitches in my head.

Since I do not have girl children, I do not know if I would have broken the cycle completely. With each generation, the spirit was beaten down. Dresses were imposed, with white tights and black patent leather mary janes. One of my favorite funny but telling memories is that I, a gymnast, was not allowed to wear shorts under my skirts to school. (I had to wear a skirt). So I always had to make the choice: sit out and watch the other girls do cherry drops on the bars (metal bars with asphalt underneath) or do one, and let my underwear show (I see London, I see France…) Hard choices.

The kind that define you. I ended up mostly sitting out.

As I began to see this pattern, I began to reclaim the fierce (but cute) strength that has been simmering for generations in the female side of my family.

All I can say is, “Watch out” : )

Be Sociable, Share!

•