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Tag Archives: childhood

fog morning.

06 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Catskills, childhood, fog, memory, morning, ocean, poem?, Senses, silence

the kind of morning i wish would stand still
see what i see.
let me take in the silence
the scent
the gray
the cool soaking wet
let me hold you still
before it all becomes the day.

i remember waking and rising before everyone
and sneaking outside to sit on the concrete steps
shocked i could rise so early
that i could be so quiet mousy
elated that there’s no one to tell me
No
or
Don’t
a long green and white trailer nestled in the catskills
courtesy of grandma and grandpa
land of loud crickets, soft orange lights
strangers in pubs who are friends
a pool that’s off limits
and a basketball court where my dad actually bounced a ball.
so many tiny white spider tents in the grass
should i walk, yes i should walk and soak my socks
i’ll take them off
my tracks look like skis in the wet grass
the world was still and mostly silent
accompanied by tiring crickets
soon grandma will rise with her little slippered feet
and pastel house dress to make us toast with too much butter
that is life
and no one around to say
No
or
Don’t

sun please hold before you burn this fog away
fluttering flock of mourning doves say otherwise
the guy downstairs comes out for a smoke
the chemicals chase the ocean scent away
still, everyone is reverent this morning,
keeping quiet.
so far.

What Does This Button Do? (book review)

23 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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autobiography, band, Bruce Dickinson, cancer, childhood, children, creativity, fencing, heavy metal, insomnia, Iron Maiden, life, pilot, review, survival, wife

At the time Bruce Dickinson published his autobiography many things were going on in my life that kept it on the back burner. He is one of the heroes of my young-woman and heavy metal life, and I was shocked and prematurely mourned when he announced his cancer diagnosis. A new album was expected but I was still uninspired by the previous album he made when he was healthy. My life was upside-down and I had little patience for much of anything, particularly the band Iron Maiden where I felt their music and tours were, while high-octane, mostly the same.

During another recent bout with insomnia I said, “f*k it,” so I downloaded the book and thought I’d have a look. I page-turned it to the point where mid-morning when I woke I was pretty sure it really happened to me; it wasn’t a dream, I was actually there in his tiny village in their tiny rooms with no televisions and few cars and people were losing their men in the war and little boys fell in love with aircraft. (Perhaps I had my first and only Edgar Cayce moment? )

Perhaps a better place to begin is here: Bruce is an excellent story-teller. Everything happens quickly, goes down easy, and you can see it all. What spoke to me most was his formative years up to when he began performing onstage, then his solo band’s venture into Sarajevo at the height of the war and their orphanage visit. The chapters that described his induction to the music life that introduced him to the Iron Maiden life, the interim years of solo life, and returning to Iron Maiden life had few moments I didn’t already know because I’m a Maiden fan and any fan who didn’t know those moments aren’t worth their salt were okay, and would be more interesting to those of us who don’t already know their story. He goes on a great deal about fencing which tells me it had a lot more influence on his life than any of us knew. I thought it was a hobby he was devoted to and not much more, but no. Same for his desire to learn to fly. I learned that he must keep his mind active, not just focused but laser-focused and full of creating and completing a task so he can feel okay; comfortably sane.

I knew before I read the book that he chose not to include stories about girlfriends and wives. This doesn’t surprise me as he’s always kept family closely guarded. He dedicates a passage to wife and children at the front of the book but that is all. In the epilogue he says he chose not to bring them in because the book was big enough and they didn’t move the dialogue forward. And that, my friends, pissed me off. Finding and falling in love and having children and all the stories in between does not move the dialogue of You, Mr. Bruce Dickinson, forward? Throughout the process of reading this book I kept hoping he would throw out a little mention of a wife or kid moment but no. It was microphones, amps, cassettes, managers, trousers, fencing partners, movie treatments, commercial airline pilot training. Not a word for the woman who stood behind him all those years? This might be a shocking comment coming from one of the Maiden females who wanted him all to ourselves, but leaving out any goodness you had with Paddy and your children makes it less autobiography and more like another Iron Maiden tour. This was my only disappointment with his work.

The casual reader will consume the book quickly because he’s an excellent writer. Here’s hoping he will regale us with more tales from the skies or possibly the stage because he is unstoppable. Not sure I’ll buy another album or see another show, honestly but that’s not why I’m here. I will end with two quotes from the book that spoke to me: “Nothing in childhood is ever wasted,”  and “It didn’t matter what it was that you engaged in, as long as you respected its nature and attempted some measure of harmony with the universe.”  

To Kill A Mockingbird, A Confession

03 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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childhood, courtroom drama, film, Harper Lee, innocence, memories, middle school, play, poor memory, required reading, social justice, To Kill A Mockingbird

I know I read this in middle school, must have. I remember thinking about what a mockingbird must sound like, and also feeling a little spooked thinking about Boo Radley hiding behind Scout’s bedroom door. I must have taken a quiz or test or wrote an essay, fumbling for some kind of understanding of the bird and the Boo. And that’s it. It didn’t stick to me. It just faded away along with many of the stories from dogged-up sun-faded anthologies sitting on windowsills. (Poe was more to my liking, since I’m confessing.)

Read an article recently that mentioned Harper Lee’s most famous story and it sparked interest so I sat down and watched the movie for the first time. That’s right. I have never seen Gregory Peck channel Atticus Finch until a few days ago. Guess I thought that since I’d read the book there was no reason to go there, never had much interest in Peck as an actor or black and white films in general. The brief opening credits began to roll, a picture of a cigar box filled with childhood treasures and so help me I could smell that box and I began to weep. And it’s happening again as I write this. Childhood, it’s all there. The children appeared and acted as children do but spoke in most adult ways. It was an odd mixture and we were asked to suspend our disbelief that children of a widowed lawyer could be sneaky, have wonderful play, but speak in grown-up ways. I was surprised (why?) that Atticus had a colored servant (housekeeper). Where was that in the book? I thought Atticus was more progressive than that; wow, my memory is bad. Then, the revelation that a colored man raped a white woman. Where was that in the book? Wow, my memory is bad. The n-word was used in the film and I guess I read it but didn’t flinch? It was used on the street and by some older relatives, so it wasn’t a shock. (Unless I was surprised at the use of the word in this book and I just don’t remember?) I was most interested in the courtroom scene, watching the witnesses come and falsely accuse Tom of a terrible crime, the African American people in the balcony, Whites on the main floor. Judge, prosecution, defense, witness chair, none of this was like Law & Order SVU but it was still compelling. How is it that I knew Atticus made a good case but Tom would still be condemned? Was it from memory or just my jaded heart? I did not remember Tom allegedly attempting to run from the cops and getting shot instead of being jailed. Why did I not remember? And why do I care so much now that this shit is still going in full color with only a 10-second delay from camera phone to internet?

The film goes on and I was surprised that the white man came to harm or possibly murder Atticus’ children. Where was that in the book? I was surprised that Sheriff Heck Tate allowed the white man’s death during the attack to be chalked up to “he fell on his knife” as justice for the lies he and his daughter told about Tom that led to his death. Heck was a man trying to do a decent thing, and I believe his character and his actions were largely ignored. There are more heroes in the story can be counted and should all be on one line, they’re all first place. Sorry Mr. Peck, but at least you won the Oscar.

Another confession: I did not know that Boo Radley was played by Robert Duvall and it was his very first role. They could have given it to any actor, but I think he did a fine job being a frightened man coming out of his safe place to rescue Atticus’ children.

So childhood and play and innocence are huge in this story. It’s no wonder I largely buried it somewhere. Found it difficult to watch two children who love and care for and stick up for each other; where a little girl’s voice mattered and might have made a difference. We used to play like that once; we had good times; I remember those more than this book. Maybe that’s what I like best about the end of this essay.

March 14, 2020

14 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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childhood, dream, home, message, morning, no pain, sunlight

Before I opened my eyes I could feel the light on my lids.
For 10 seconds I thought I was in my bed at my parent’s house.
When I opened my eyes I expected to see the 6 panels of cold glass,
peeling paint
in a bed a little too cold but pillow deep
For 10 seconds my body felt no pain, and my mind did not reach
for the usual noise.

When I did unpeel my eyes I was a little surprised to be in this bed,
warm, safe, no peeling paint, and no fear.
Strange my self reflected on that time and place I have no love for.

I do not believe dreams are random. They come for us.
I was sent 10 seconds for a reason. A reminder. A connection.

This morning I take note of the message: 10 seconds without pain
or fear: safe, secure, and OK.

(in Just-) e e cummings

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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amwriting, begin, childhood, e e cummings, inspiration, Pan, poetry, Solstice, spring

in Just- 
spring          when the world is mud- 
luscious the little 
lame balloonman 

whistles          far          and wee 

and eddieandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it’s 
spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer 
old balloonman whistles 
far          and             wee 
and bettyandisbel come dancing 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 

it’s 
spring 
and 

         the 

                  goat-footed 

balloonMan          whistles 
far 
and 
wee

Flue Rules

16 Saturday Feb 2019

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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childhood, dad, Delirious, family, Flu, memory, Mom, the Doors

You should spell it flu and not flue because it’s the flu but you’re sick and don’t really care because when you’re sick anything goes…


You will remember tiny steel cans of apple juice you drank in kindergarten. You will remember clean, shredded towels that came from your mom’s apartment. You will remember Dad in his bed and his legs and everyone around him and the moment he departed and you will look at his picture right there young, smiling in a suit from you don’t know when, and you will remember tomato soup and grilled cheese tucked in on the couch, mom ministering.

You will sweat sweat sweat in your hoodie not wanting to breathe on the Walgreens employees who are tracking you in the aisles ‘cus it looks like you got stealing on your mind as you wander with your hood up but all you really need is a thermometer you can’t find (which you really don’t need to tell you you are farked) but you pay for little cans of 7-Up and saltines and cough syrup and the girl behind the counter who knows you says “feel better” and you give her thumbs up as you float away.

You will walk out to your car like a drunk, concentrating one foot at a time, conscious of every movement, planning your route back home sweat trickling down your scalp, beneath your breasts, body aching wishing you had someone else to take up this chore, but when you exile yourself you only got yourself to make shit happen, so you drive home like you been drinking all night, hoping not to weave and you make it back to “your” parking spot, you drag yourself upstairs gasping for breath, sipping water, fearing food and your bed and all you got is sitting sideways on the couch watching NYPD Blue.

You will cough all day and night and your neighbors will take out a contract on your life because the coughing is keeping them up but you haven’t slept a true sleep in ten days and you figure by now if someone comes in and strangles you on your couch it would be a relief.

Your earlobes will turn into golden raisins because you ain’t got water in your body. You will be a fool for not forcing water or broth or saltines, but it’s all you got.

You will wake up on the couch and wonder where you are. You will wonder at everything and not care about anything and pray for sleep sleep sleep.

You will have that song stuck in your head, that phrase, it won’t go away and you’re good with that because nothing really matters.

You will wonder if you will ever sleep again and who will do laundry and if you will ever eat again.

“Don’t you love her madly…”

You will desire rain, hard rain, wind.

You won’t be able to breathe for a long time, but when your breath returns it will be unbelievable.  You will be able to lie down and cough often, but maybe not so much, but a dream will slip in and that means you’re not crazy anymore, or less so, anyway.

You will be able to speak in full sentences with your brother without gasping for breath (not like before when you told him “I really have to go now, sorry.”) You will take a little bag of garbage out.  You will sit upright longer than you have in a long time, the fog of flue receding. 

You will return to Walgreens to buy some frozen veggies (covered in cheese) and toilet paper. You will apologize to the counter girl for not speaking to her earlier as you were afraid to spread the flu and kill the world.  God bless her pretty cotton-candy blue hair.

You will sleep and dream.  You’re still not poised to journalize, you’re still not ready to make gourmet meals or walk five miles, but you’re in the 4th turn now and headed for the finish line, tissues filled with phlegm in the garbage can, one load of laundry done, and your bed made of clean sheets.

The flue no longer rules you. How will you celebrate? How will you give thanks for the sweat and ache and loneliness and perseverance thru a shitty flu?  

Hallows Eve 2018

31 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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brother, candy, change, childhood, children, costume, dark, Halloween, hallways, memory, parents, sister

It is said that today, this evening is when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, those who have passed may walk among us.

Today I think about the recent talk I had with my son in the waxing hours of night. We talked long about my Dad–his grandfather–who we both love and miss. He had questions and worries and pain and I answered best I could, and those answers said aloud reaffirmed my beliefs. It all felt right.  Perhaps he went back to sleep, but I stayed awake then slept in the middle of the day, my heart ringing with memory.

This morning I close my eyes and remember Halloween of the past, when me and my brother were kids. Mom got us our costumes at the store, but I do not remember which one. The cellophane came unglued from the cardboard boxes they were packed in by the time we got home.  I am 100% sure I tried mine on and played with it before Halloween and got yelled at.  We lived in a large development, apartments galore, and you would think we would come home king and queen of Halloween candy, but no. You would be wrong.  Mom told us every year we could pick one. ONE. apartment house outside our own to trick or treat and that would be it for the day. Oh? Did you not know that we only trick or treated during the day? Yep. Too dangerous at night we were told. So we donned our paper-thin costumes, slipped on our masks, and knocked on our first door.  It was exciting! Neighbors answered and tucked candy into our plastic pumpkins, a ritual that was wonderful outside the usual nod as we passed each other on the stairs, and I got to peep inside where they lived!   One year I was Lady Liberty, another Cinderella, and my brother was a Firefighter and Chewbacca, if memory serves. Most neighbors gave us a good haul, and some slipped us pennies instead of candy. Our marauding ended at the kitchen table where Mom let all the air out of our tires: She picked through every piece of candy and threw out just about half of it because she said it didn’t look right.  In those days there was fear of razors in candy apples and LSD on paper candy, so anything that looked open she tossed, no negotiating, THAT was the real horror!  We clanked the pennies into our matching glass piggy banks which have gone I don’t know where…  I used to eat candy corns color by color, first the tip, then the orange, then the base, one small bite at a time, because I’m really not sure why.  And once we used to have a contest to see who could make their candy last the longest, and I think we both hit the “Thanksgiving” target.

One thing we don’t remember is Dad being with us.  It was always Mom shuffling behind us down echoey dark hallways with us.  I’m pretty sure it’s because Dad was working, or he was sleeping because his shift was in the middle of the night.

Dad moved us from the city filled with apartment complexes where Halloween candy and pennies and neighbors and friends were abundant to a field in the middle of nowhere, darker than hell and nobody around.  Trick or treating became dead to us because there was no way Mom and Dad was going to pile us into the car and take us into “town” where the rest of the kids were trick or treating. Halloween died when we moved upstate.

When I became a Mom we used to keep a bowl of chocolate treats for kids who might come to visit us on a route that is used for fast-moving traffic. One kid came. Probably the best part of Halloween was Mike making elaborate costumes for the kid–he was Halloween king of the cul-de-sac!  Okay, maybe the giant tarantula the guys stuck up on the roof was pretty cool, too. Cool but icky as it bobbed in the breeze.  But that’s Halloween, eh?

Last year I had a bowl of candy ready but no one comes to this apartment complex. Nobody came so I gave it all to the realty office across the way.  This year I have nothing to offer but hope and protection for anyone who comes by.

My how the times change.

Jim Nabors

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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childhood, choir, don't give up, holy, Jim Nabors, memory, mother, music, passion, poem, power, sing, tears, voice

Jim Nabors has left us. I am glad he is in peace. I can’t say that he’s the reason I wanted to be a Marine. It’s too complicated for that. (It’s certainly more complicated than the unyielding call of the jets flying over the warehouse where I toiled.)  His most recognizable character, Gomer Pyle, was simple in nature, kind of heart, which seems antithetical to being part of the war machine. He was part of my childhood thanks to Mom and his voice… oh. Jim Nabors’ voice.  I learned about passion by his voice alongside Andy Williams, Johnny Cash, Cher, Barbra Streisand, so many more. I heard his voice sing the hymnals I recognized from church, and it moved me, a girl of impressionable age.   Jim moved on, and I am grateful to the internet for sharing his performance of Impossible Dream (The Quest).  I dare you to listen and not be moved and reminded that the world is the life and we are stewards of it all, and our voices are holy. Our voices are holy.  (don’t waste it all.)   He is with my mother now, who introduced me to black and white TV. Shazam, and Golly, and Surprise.

Oh, by the way.  Tell me how you feel after reading the lyrics to this song. How does one bear it, how will you learn to bear it, where does your strength come from to sing those notes he sings effortlessly the power of that poem, to find the will, and the will, and the will to do anything at all, in those years that I didn’t know I had any power at all, little girl? Jim’s song seems effortless. I will never write or live or be as effortless as the victory of his voice… but it sure does give me something to strive for.

I may or may not stop weeping on the sound and the voice of his memory. And that’s just okay.

Pop Pop, I Dream You and Miss You

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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alarm clock, childhood, dream, grandpa

“Nah, nah, nah, what the hell are you doing?” he hollered at me. A little kid. I wasn’t doing something the right way.  Pop Pop ran up beside me and told me for the third time how to work the foot controls and the hand levers to keep the race car he made on the lawn and not run into the flower beds. It was called the MudSlugger.  He hollered any time I did something “dumb” but it wasn’t a painful admonishment. It was just how he talked.  My mother’s father, Pop Pop, meant a lot to me as a kid.  I loved wandering into his garage and smelling the smells of old gasoline, oil, and everything in between, his shelves neat, his jars and drawers neatly labeled, my aunt Ruthie’s artwork hanging here and there.  To this day I wonder where their Plymouth Fury, the sea-green one with the push-button transmission has gone. I wonder where the pigeon he kept in a house outside his garage has gone, the one he healed and helped survive its injury. So many tiger-lily, mimosa, lightning bug, captain crunch, super salty roast, leave the dogs alone memories are with me now and I wonder where they’ve gone.  I miss his white Ford pickup, the one with green highlights, clamshell hood, the one he covered in dark orange carpet and hand made a tool shed in back, where we sat on the way to the grocery store.

Last night Pop Pop came to me.  The dream was me in the back of a something, probably a truck, leaning over a tailgate.  The truck was connected to that trailer, the one made of old grey wood that will flip up when the weight is unequally distributed.  The truck was pulling the little trailer, and my son and Pop Pop was sitting on the trailer.  My son was happy.  Pop Pop was as I remember him. He was kneeling, wearing a dark blue down vest over a plaid shirt, his wire-framed glasses on his wrinkled smiling face, and both he and my son were happy.  I took pictures of them with my camera phone from the back of the pickup.  I leaned over and showed them the picture.   My son saw that my phone had a broken lens, and he somehow, I don’t know how, made the cracks disappear and the phone’s pictures felt magical.  My son and Pop Pop were sitting together on a trailer being hauled by Mike.  Pop Pop was with me, and I know few will understand what that feels like and that’s okay, but he was.  I miss him. I want to remember him, his fastidiousness, his devotion to creativity but his desire to keep it all in its place. I miss those mimosa blossoms, visiting my aunts, carrots that were terribly salty and yet I loved them.

Pop Pop came to me last night, and I cry because I feel so blessed to see him again.  I cry because I hope his creativity and fastidiousness won’t be lost on future generations.  We should all be so lucky to have a Pop Pop who made things, who learned, who worked part time right up until the end. He taught me so much.  Meanwhile, I’m looking for a giant clock they kept in their bedroom that you could hear anywhere in the house, ticking, a pink double-alarm ticking, that comforted me in ways I am still looking for.

Tales From The Mattress

26 Friday May 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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amwriting, brother, childhood, dragon, father, mother, sleepless, story

And there it was, through the struggle of the night, another long Goldilocks night where I’m too hot, I’m too cold, but oh, please, bring me just right….  I awoke in the middle of the night and remembered that story I used to tell myself when I was little.  Actually, I was telling my stuffed animals, for they were good listeners, but I am getting ahead of myself.

My brother and I went from cribs to bunk beds, nothing in between.  Brother got the bottom bunk which means I got the top.  It was so high up, though, and Mom was worried about me falling out of bed.  Dad had every Craftsman tool known to man (or at least it seemed that way to a little girl who liked following him around, wanting to help spackle or anything else he thought I was capable of doing.)  Dad brought home a ginormous piece of wood, longer than the bunk bed and thicker than a pizza box.  He drew lines and sawed the ends into curves, sanded, then he varnished the shit out of that thing which stunk to high heaven and set off my asthma, naturally.  When it was done, he fitted the smooth, dark wood piece over the edges of my bunk so that it would keep me from falling out during the night.

I accumulated stuffed animals over the years and I lined them up, just so, at the head of my bed.  They were my cabinet, my aides du camp, the only thing helping me through Godzilla / tornado dreams — or worse.  Mom used to read us bedtime stories like an orator on a stage, me high in the balcony.  I used to make up stories as I lay in the laps of my dear stuffed animals, and they listened.  And I remembered one of those stories last night.  You know.  It’s the one about the dragons.

My goal is to write the story today.  I don’t know what I will do with it when it’s done.  There are so many places I could hobble up to and beg they take my paltry thing and publish it.  But it all starts here. In my bed.  The place where I still sleep with dragons.

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