anna1liese's Open Salon Blog

A Baby of the Boom

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:04:41 -0400

What is it that this term truly means. A war raged. One that wasn’t meant ... to rage. Mankind hoped the Great War, the war that had called so many of the world ... to come ... to die ... to leave so great a gulf ...

Mankind grieved a loss ...

Mankind hoped ... such a call ... would never come again.

What follows war is called a peace ... perhaps it is far more a piece. How does one divide the spoils. How many ways will the loser lose. How many and how much is lost. What is it that we call ... peace ...

Perhaps there need not have been another great war ... if peace had meant its peace ... if humanity had been better served ... if fields had been allowed to nourish those whose love had for so long ... nourished them.

My father was three when the Great War began. Mankind had hoped he would know no war ... and yet ...

There was another war and so a number came. Two. A second. The second. Ever since mankind has hoped there will be no third.

Two men in my family ... in what would become my family ... volunteered for war. They lied. A cousin said he was older than he was ... and because his mother, my second cousin, loved him, she signed the papers so he could go. My father said he was younger than he was. His glasses were so thick that he could have been deferred. No one saw. From Boston he ... both of them ... went not to Europe ... but to the East.

My mother had wanted to be a nurse. Her mother thought it was a filthy profession and wouldn’t allow her to train. She went to work for a milk company. On V-E or V-J day, both perhaps, my eighteen year old mother-to-be was in a crowd where her mom had told her not to be ... to share joy ... that there was peace.

My father came back to his ancestral home ... a middle floor apartment. Both of his parents had died ... in that home ... while he had been at war. One by one his siblings married. He was the last at home.

Five years after the war, he needed someone to look after him. My mother needed to be away from her mom. She lived down the street and so looked after the children of my father’s best friend. She was young and pretty. My father was dashing, I think.

She had been an infant in The Depression. He had been eighteen when a market crashed and it all began. All of this was part of them. It was always somewhere ... there ...

Sixteen months later my father’s ancestral home became my home. He worked as he had worked for so many years down the street at the neighborhood’s oldest store. Perhaps he worked part-time. He never worried about what he earned. He had been a gunner in the war. In peace he worked as hard as he could work. Hard work, physical work, was what called his name.

We lived then as many lived. Simply. Gratefully. Often there was drink. Often there was war ... the kind we make between ourselves ... when we can feel no dreams ... perhaps a different aftermath of war.

How many men came home. How many babes were born. How many were conceived ... to conquer war ... to remember that life ... could be ...

Simply. Simple lives. My mother finally learned to be a nurse. She found work for my father at the milk company. When I was old enough, I could walk alone to the library.

These are the two who gave me life. One found a way to be a nurse. One lied to go to war. He, unmarried at the time, volunteered for suicide missions ... again and again and... again ... to save those whose families prayed for their return. He smoke. He drank. He peeled as many potatoes as would bring him someone else’s cigarette rations. He watched ... far too many ... die ...

One of the earliest lessons I was taught ... because often I was home alone with him, my father who worked all night and so slept all day ... was how to safely waken him ... when nightmares ... claimed him for their own.

“Don’t ever go right up to him. He might strike out not knowing who you are. Stand by the door and call to him, softly, quietly until he stops crying out. Once he has stopped, he’ll fall back to sleep.” How often was I at his door ... Daddy ... Daddy ... Daddy, please ...

Baby of the boom ... how often do you think of these ... moments ... people ... such as these ... memories that never die ... for those born of men back from war ...

My father and I disagreed only once. Vietnam. He had given all he had to fight that we and others might be free. He rarely rarely spoke of anything that he felt of that. But when I spoke that once of all that seemed so wrong to me ... he exploded not this time at my mom, but because he could not hold it back he spoke his wrath to me. On this one thing we could not meet. We never spoke of it again.

These were boys my age, younger, older ... too many gone to war. No draft for them, at first. Enlistment still. A boy I loved enlisted to escape his dad ... a dad who had gone to war ... a dad who drank himself almost to death ... a dad he was afraid ... he would kill ... a dad who ... not here ... not now ... At least this boy would talk with me.

He was the soldier to whom I wrote. He wasn’t at My Lai, but Chu Lai. He loved the people there. This boy-soldier wrote poems to me. How many men ... find their souls ... when all the world ... seems so wrong ...

I remember once meeting him at the airport and almost fainting at the sight of him. His mom caught me so I would be the one he could hold ... he was so terribly terribly thin ... but home ... before he would go back again ... another baby of the boom ... the boom of men who from the second not the great ... managed to return ... who in their fear ... in their pain ... in their love of peace ... of life ... wanted to give ... life ... sustain ... life ... replace ... life ... fulfill ... life ...

How many words never spoken ... held quiet in hope of refinding ...

life ...

War ... and Peace ... Tolstoy is not the only author of these words ... though surely he helps us think ...

How many kinds of war ... how so few ... of peace ... honest ... lasting ... soul ... nourishing ... peace ...

What kind of peace do we have now ...

Corruption is corruption and greed is greed ... when did they become the accepted way ... for anyone ... anytime ... anywhere ... No one generation holds them. No one generation escapes.

Babies of the boom ... perhaps far more than anyone ... are old enough to sense what might have been ... how seams might have been held together in ways they were meant to hold ... how we hoped to hold them for those who would follow ... how we hoped to pass on hope ... how we hoped our hope ... would hold ...

Light begins to dim ... to cloud ... but for the sake of peace ... I hold on ... to hope ...

He fought by taking arms ... I fought by holding him ...

My father and I may have chosen separate ways to fight ... for peace ... but I think we saw peace itself similarly ... simply ... easily ... through a lens ... of love ...

That Night

Thu, 5 Apr 2012 21:04:53 -0400

Some birthdays are ... so easy ... to remember. Every four years ... my mother’s was Inauguration Day ... here ... in the States. My father was an April Fool ... the world remembers his ... day ... still.

The birthday I married approaches. 15 April. Tax deadline ... here.

For my once ... this year ... his sixty-fifth. He was thirty when we met. Early summer. This hemisphere. June. I was twenty-five. It was York.

He was the driver. The Dickens tour. He, the courier and I were the youngest ... by far ... of the group and so when others drifted back to their rooms ... once dinner and coffee were done ... often we would wander away ... long walks ... as longest days lit our way ...

That night in York, he took us on a rambling ... another rambling ... he was the only one who knew these streets ... town by town ... we two Americans followed him. That night we walked oh so slowly through a street that once known is ... always yours ...

Second storeys jut out ... over the first ... so that ... long ago ... when someone reached out a window there ... to relieve chamber pots of last night’s fill ... the waste would find the gutter ... instead of you ... you, who were stopping to look in windows that had shown their goods these hundreds of years ...

Cobble stones ... you must look down ... and so stop ... in order to look out ... and up.

The Shambles ... even now ... in memory ... even now ... no wonder I always ... brought my students here ... no wonder that they ... too ... fell in love ...

All of York ... catches you ... makes you hold your breath ... but on that night ... after we had stopped so many times ...

crooked, crooked meanderings ... so you could only see ... so far ahead ... until ...

pale yellow stone ... just beyond ... up ... and up ... and ...

on ... and on ...

the Minster ...

York ... Minster ...

and then ... we were ... before ... it ...

how does one begin ... to take it ... in ...

This is not ... the piece ... I meant ... to write ...

Layers ... threads ... all magic ... in moments ... like these ...

If you’ve ever stood right in front of the Minster ... you will know ... feel ... remember ... breathe in ... all ... of its ... immensity ...

A voice was speaking in my ear ... my professor’s voice ... English history ... medieval cathedrals ... through pale yellow stone ... I could see ... within ...

All that he had spoken to us ... craftsmen ... generations of ...

craftsmen ... of stonemasons ... who began to build ... began to dream ... began to help ... the dream ... come real ... layer by layer ... row by row ... the higher the spire ... the higher ... the prayer ... might rise ...

so much begun ... now here ... all ... here ...

At some point you simply must ... look up ... your eyes are there ... before you know ... but when you are so close ... you must look ... directly ... up ... and I ... I can’t look straight up ... even yesterday ... when I saw a rainbow arc once more ... when I tried to find it again while standing up ... I needed to find something to hold ...

I couldn’t stop my eyes ... that night ... and there was nothing to hold ... my hand reached out involuntarily ... and something appeared ... for me ... to hold ... so that ... my moment ... wouldn’t break ...

I was so held ... so completely entranced ... all those words ... that history ... had prepared me ... no ... had prepared the ground so that in this moment ... all history was one ... all history ... was now ... and all of the Minster ... all the souls ... now mingled ... here ... acknowledged an ... acknowledging ... trusted another’s ... trust ...

even now ... even now ... that moment ... I have ... never ... lost ...

Sometime after ... I must have lowered my gaze ... and as I did ... the supporting one ... backed away ... I don’t think I had known who had reached out ... and when I looked to see ... it had not been the other American ... he had walked away ... impatiently ... but ... as I was remembering where I was ... I looked across and knew ... that the driver ... had recognised ... what the moment had been for me ... had reached across to support ... the moment ... for me ...

Just before the Minster ... on that night ... I first saw ... first knew ... my ... once ... the knowing ... in his eyes ...

Perhaps what I had meant to write ... was meant ... to wait ...

until ... once more ... I could remember and ... allow ...

the moment of ... and the moment following ...

the moment that ... began ... so much ...

Perhaps it is in the not knowing what it is that we will write ... that words we’d not have chosen ... rise ... perhaps it was the remembering ... in the last piece ... of the fear ... that once I saw ... in this driver’s eyes ... perhaps if I had one gift to give ... it would be simply this ... my ... remembering ... of the moment when he allowed ... my peace ...

Coach Crash

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:03:12 -0400

First words I heard ... this morning ... 0400 ... BBC.

Children gone ... children hurt ... adults gone ... as well.

Once ... for a while ... this was my life ...

This morning as I hear the words ... these words ... every part of me ... aches ...

I have been inside that coach ... with children ... adults ... pensioners.

I see the moquette. I smell the cloth ... in the dry ... in the wet ...

I see it in ... the upside down ...

I have seen it in the almost ...

This morning ... in the moment I dare look ... my eyes ... my heart ... see ... far too much ...

Only once ... but once ... I saw fear ... in my husband’s eyes ... a mountain curve ... in the South of France ... children and their teachers ... a driver ... this driver ... my husband ... his eldest child sitting by my side ... I ... right behind him ... seeing all that he could ... and could not ... see ... the ache of fear ... still lives ... it doesn’t go away ...

I hear these words and I am there ... looking for the children ... the adults ... the way to help them out ... but this time ... Swiss tunnel on the motorway ... such darkness ... and were any adults ... adults that they knew ... left ... alive ...

Part of me ... the driver’s wife ... the owner’s wife ... is thinking of the second driver ...

I wish I knew nothing and could not see ... was he in a seat behind the one who drove ... or underneath ... in a sleeping compartment ... hoping to find some sleep ...

I’ve not been inside the upside down ... thankfully ... but ... always ... somehow ... there is ... was ... fear.

From the first moment when I began that life, my husband left for ... somewhere on the Continent. Italy ... three week tour ... Brighton Youth Orchestra ... musicians ... instruments ... their conductor ...

Some roads you know. Some ... you don’t. But you meet schedules. And hopefully drivers’ hours. You deal with the roads. Motorways ... even mountain roads.

You deal with maintenance. You know the feel of each different vehicle, the way each one handles on every kind of road. You anticipate ... surprise. Yours is to take them safely there ... and then bring them safely home.

You, the wife at home, pray that the middle of the night phone will never ring. You pray that your driver/husband managed enough sleep ... was not distracted by ... anything. You hope that you helped keep him calm ... so that all his energy ... was in the moment ... with those in his charge ... with every aspect of every road ... especially ... middle of the night ... unfamiliar ... roads.

I am inside that coach ... with the children ...and their teachers ...

with all ... on board ...

in the moment before ...

the moment of ...

I see ... and hear ... and feel ... too much ...

for in another moment ...

any and all ... of them ...

might ... have been ... mine ...

Air brakes ... always it is ... for me ... the sound of air brakes ...

screeching ...

and now ... I hear children ... all ... of them ... and as I hear ... I ache ... I ache with an ache I never thought I would feel again ... it never really goes ... away ...

Belgian children, adults this time. Skiiing trip ... Swiss roads ... this time. Too soon to know yet why or how. None too soon for grief.

Belgian parents, friends, fellow students, teachers ... waiting ... flying in ... brothers, sisters, closest ones ...

Above the tears ... beside the tears ... the screeching ... air ... brakes ... sound ... for me ...

May somewhere there be ... angels' wings ...

Always ... it is morning ...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:01:21 -0500

Always ... it is morning ... when familiar church bells ... ring ...

We were seven ... when we met. Second grade. St. Ann’s ... Neponset ... Dorchester ...

She lived almost across the street from the church. I lived at the parish’s far end. One way and another we travelled through grammar school together ... have some of the same stories to tell.

In eighth grade ... when we were thirteen ... we chose the same high school ... St. Gregory’s ... at the edge of Lower Mills ... Dorchester ... Baker’s Chocolate Dorchester.

This time we weren’t parishioners. We were outsiders who’d been let in. Didn’t matter. We were friends. Stories from here ... oh yes ...

Now she walked up Ashmont St. ... the street I’d always walked down. One block left turn ... on Adams St. From here we walked on side by side. To this day, she is the only one who can easily walk beside me. I go inside my head and so weave and wobble ... as I go. From the first she ... has gauged and woven ... wobbled back ... around ... through even. We’ve never lost our way.

She grew up in her grandmother’s house ... the house her mom had always ... has still ... always known. She ... in time ... was one of ten ... more or less the middle ... of ten. Six girls. Four boys. Her mom was always cooking something. Her dad worked for the telephone company. He wore a suit to work.

I, the only child, grew up on the middle floor of a Dorchester three-decker. We had a front porch though we never sat on it ... and a back porch ... my outdoor space ... my place to swing ... and sing ... and see the moon ... to sense space ... of my own. All my father’s family had lived together in this space. My guess is that he was about sixteen when they moved here. He ... and we ... were the last to leave.

My mother was a nurse. She loved her work. My father ... when I knew him ... worked down the street at the corner store. I think he’d worked there even before he went to war. He also loaded milk trucks ... in the dark of night. Heavy, physical labour ... his. He wore starched flannel shirts and often ... thermal underwear.

All from Dorchester ... St. Ann’s ... St. Peter’s ... Dorchester-Boston accents ... not all quite the same ... oddity but ... the way it was.

My friend and I intended to be Florence Nightingale and so spent fair bits of time talking with my mom. We became Candy Stripers together ... always shared same volunteer shifts ... and so walked our walk together ... even in summer ... when we were free.

The hospital, Carney, Catholic, of course, was the closer side of Dorchester Park while St. Greg’s was just the other side. Just over a mile to Carney. A mile and a quarter to school. Well ... from my house at least. At Carney we came to know everyone on the Neuro floor where we weren’t afraid to be. I think we learned most there.

Somehow she found paid work at the maternity hospital, St. Margaret’s, a bus ride or two away. She had had a good deal of experience with babies growing up. In time I stayed on at Carney ... filing at first ... in the Business Office. We both worked all through school. Hospitals became part of our lives.

In grammar school we’d had some classes, years together. In high school we shared every class for all four years. Biology, chemistry, physics, math and math and math and math, Latin, French ... all the rest. I loved the reading best of all and writing saved me ... always ... but it took a long time for me to hear ... that words ... would call my name.

She went to Regis and I went to Emmanuel. Catholic women’s colleges ... working women’s colleges ... where tuition was low because ... the nuns ... had taken vows of poverty. We knew a world led by women. We always had. We thought it was ... the way it was. In the beginning we could start the ride together even on the Riverside trolley. I’d get off at Fenway and she ... stayed on.

Money ... nonsense. I was lucky enough with scholarships and then I was offered ... what were they then ... loans ... grants. The scholarships covered everything. I lived at home. So did she ... but her father wore a suit to work and though there were ten children ... and she was the first to choose college ... he earned too much. How ridiculously absurd. By then she hoped to become a doctor and she would have been one of the best. I wrote and asked if I could make my loan or grant over to her. No one ever wrote back though it made perfect sense to me.

Academic scholarships ... she must have had them too. We’d had the same classes for we’d had the same grades.

We had dreams ... and we knew then what they were ...

I listened to hers. She listened to mine. We believed ... in dreams ...

She studied. She worked. She stopped for a while. I’ve not thought of this for a long time.

Money ... nonsense. Why. She went back to Catherine Laboure School of Nursing ... Carney’s school ... and earned her R.N. and associate's degree. In time she finished her bachelor’s and then her master’s. She helped run and later ran one of the earliest Neonatal Intensive Care Units for premature births. St. Margaret’s. She is so at home with those who need her most.

***

There it is ... really ... how many of us have needed her most ...

How many of us ... are there ... for her ...

***

Last Tuesday morning ... I ached for her ... for her heart ... and all it feels ... all she feels ... if she can let herself ... feel ...

On the face of it, I appear to be here ... but as she aches ... as she has lost the one she loved ... really ... I am there ... with her ...

Middle of ten. One of one. She doesn’t need to be anyone or anything for me. She is part of me. She is my friend.

When she rang to tell me of her husband’s death, I asked when it would be best for her ... for me to come. Just to be with her ... and let her ... be ... let her feel ... what it is ... all it is ... she really feels. Not now with everyone. Later perhaps when no one is there.

And so I wait ... and sit with her ... hold her ... from here. Please let her lift the phone and ring ... even if only to remember ... someone who loves her ... is ... ready to come. Perhaps we’ll walk ... a beach. Everything is easier ... when we can see ... the sea ...

I keep thinking that when I last moved away ... from her house ... I made her husband promise ... that if she ever needed me ... he would not wait for her to ring ... that he would ring ... and let me know.

Do you have a friend with whom you don’t need to make a start ... with whom the middle is ... simply where ... you always are. When she rang the other day ... she breathed ... and then she cried. I spoke her name. At first I thought it was her health. She doesn’t speak of that very much ... but then ... I knew ... I just knew. There was nothing anyone could do and so she brought him home. Home with her ... and with their girls. Now he’s gone ... and I ... wish I ... could lift her pain ... all their pain ... away ...

With both my parents she was there with me.

Last Tuesday morning ... I was with her ... for the last moments at Mulry’s Funeral Home. It is right beside our grammar school ... then the convent ... the rectory ... the church. How familiar it all is ... a lifetime worth of memories ... I knew every moment of the mass ... especially masses there ... with her ...

Last Tuesday morning ... I thought for a moment that the final procession would turn on Ashmont St. But that would take them by my house. No. Neponset Ave ... by the street where she and he have lived ... where she and their two daughters still ... live ... to Gallivan Blvd., then right ... I could see that spot from my kitchen on her second floor ... cross Adams St. - my part of Adams St. A few roads more ... turn left ... the other part of Adams St. and then the driveway ... to Cedar Grove. My parents ... and uncle ... are near the water there. I don’t know where her husband lies now. I will know ... soon enough ... but for now ... there is little of this cemetery ... that I ... that we ... do not ... know ...

Last Tuesday morning ... I knew ... the moments when she did not cry. They were the moments when tears fell here. It’s almost a ... choreography. It’s always been ... like this. For us.

Somehow in the oddest way ... always ... we two ... from Dorchester ... have held ... each other ... even when we know ... that we ... can only be beside ... unable ... to lift ... whatever pain ... whatever grief ... the other feels ... away ...

We cry ... and then we smile ... and then ... somehow we always laugh ... somehow ... we find sun ...

From the first we have ... gauged and woven ... wobbled back ... around ... through even ... easily walked together. We have never lost our way.

If there were no illustrations ...

Thu, 1 Dec 2011 19:12:33 -0500

would the words stand on their own ...

first words ...

written words ...

for most of us ...

Sometimes perhaps, when one ... creator ... hasn’t perfectly understood the other, when one misses ... what the other sees ...

but ...

when the one who writes the words, who hears the story in her mind, who hears the cadence, the rhythm, the beat, the heartbeat the words must have, who already sees the look in the eyes of one who reads ...

when the one who writes the words ... has words read ... by one ... who hears the beating ... feels the pulse ... knows the look in the eyes ... because he is now ... the one who reads ...

who reads ... and as he reads ... who sees ... who sees perhaps far more intimately than even she who wrote the words ... sees ... what it is ... she sees ...

and then ... when ...

the one who sees takes pencil or brush in hand and begins to fill a canvas with all it is he sees ... in the words ... from the words ... because of ... and ... within ... the words ... and all he himself brings to them ...

page by page and

stroke by stroke ...

colour by colour ...

image by image ...

light and shade and light again ...

only then ...

all the story ...

all the essence that all the words do hold ...

begin to find their shape

line by line by line

artist’s lines ...

artist’s eyes ...

artist’s heart ...

a meeting

a blending

a melding

that ..

in the moment

when eyes

a child’s eyes

first fall upon ...

first gasp ...

first know

that they must know ...

what lies within ...

beyond the very first

illustration

that has drawn them in ...

then ...

is it the words ...

or is it the drawing hand ...

that allows the seeing ...

that allows the child’s first seeing ...

the seeing that stays ...

and holds ...

and sometimes never leaves ...

as long as ...

the eyes ...

the child’s eyes ...

the child’s eyes even when ...

childhood was long ago ...

remembers ...

and so keeps

the love ...

first known ...

alive and

thriving ...

as it was hoped to be ...

Is it ...

was it ...

the words ...

or the illustrations ...

that held the heart that ...

has always ... known ...

and still ...

remembers ...

perhaps at least for me ...

who

on my own ...

finds it hard ...

see ...

for me

first words

melted away ...

for me

an illustration

a silhouette

is what

is still

with me ...

the one who writes

who can not draw

who sees no pictures

on her own

even as I write my words

rarely pictures form ...

even now ...

and so ...

I wonder ...

if there were no illustrations

for the first words

the very first words

that hold us

capture us ...

open us ...

begin us ...

would the words alone ...

be ...

what we remember ...

or ...

am I not the only one

for whom ...

the illustrator’s vision ...

is the story ...

has always been the story ...

first story ...

holding story ...

first thread

of weaving

that

all my life

has held ...