Two Goodbyes

For one of the last writing exercises from my writing class this past semester, I elaborated on a prompt given in class.  Originally, we listed five goodbyes and then detailed one of them.  I went into detail two more...

Goodbye No. 1 Spring Break

Airplanes roared overhead, car breaks squealed, suitcases hit the pavement with cluncks and ca-clacks, people shouted over the din.   I hopped out of the red Grand Caravan and hauled my hopefully (fingers crossed) less than fifty pound suitcase with me.   My Uncle got out with me and gave me a farewell hug.  The usual, these weeks go by too fast, we’ll see you soon, love you.  I shouted a goodbye to Grandpa through the open slider door and he waved from the driver’s seat.

I had no sooner turned to face the sliding doors and the imminent ticketing counter when I decided that goodbye simply would not suffice.  I made the split second decision to abandon my suitcase (sorry airport security voice) and dash around the van to give my Grandpa a proper goodbye.   His hearty laugh, one that always came from deep in his belly and could fill a whole room, and no less overpower the sounds around us came through the glass before he opened the door.

“I love you Grandpa, see you this summer,” I promised as I hugged him.   I breathed in his familiar smokey scent. 
“Love you too, kiddo.”   His merry eyes were full of laughter.
That was the last hug I gave him.

Goodbye No. 2 Wednesday 30 June 2010

“Hey Grandpa, Happy Birthday!” I spoke into the phone.  His laughter filled the receiver.
“I can’t wait to see you this weekend!” I told him.
“I’m looking forward to it. So what’s the plan?”
“Mom wants to leave early on Saturday, so we should be in by eight.”
“Well I’ll see you on Sunday morning then,” he chuckled back.  This was one of our jokes.   He always went to bed around seven at night, so whenever we drove up to New York for a visit and got in past seven, we wouldn’t see him until the morning.

“Guess what?”  I told him next, “I want to get a motorcycle!”   There was that belly deep laugh again.  “Oh really?  A crotch rocket?  Why do you want one of those?”
“Because they’re awesome and bad ass,” I promptly replied.
“I suppose you’d be the first in the family to have one,” he laughed.

“On another note, Mom and I were talking the other day and it looks like I should start getting things in line for my commission next semester.”
“Oh so you decided then?”
“Yup, the plan is as soon as I graduate in ’12, I’ll be heading off to OCS in Rhode Island.   I’ll be a Navy Officer, Grandpa.”
I could just see his smile as he replied, “That’s really something.  I’m really proud of you, kiddo.”
“Thank you Grandpa, I’m proud of you too.”  I replied back, “I guess I’ll let you go then, it’s getting close to bed time, huh?”
“Absolutely,” he replied, “I’ll see you on Sunday then.”
“Alright, see you Sunday. Love you, bye.”
“Love you too, kiddo.”

Three days later, my Mom, brother and I were en route to NY when we got a call that my Grandpa had died in his sleep early that morning.   He had just turned seventy-six.

XXX

Goodbye Grandpa, I love and miss you terribly.

Love,

RF

A childhood through plants

My creative writing class today began with the following prompt: list fifteen plants from your childhood; why are they memorable?

Call me crazy, but I enjoyed this exercise.

1. Elephant ear hosta. I'm not sure if that's the technical name for them, but they're big and leafy and Momma used to plant a zillion of them in her "river garden" i.e. the garden I so christened as we spent a weekend one spring many suns ago adjusting the landscaping in our front yard and the result was a winding sort of garden that resembles a river.

2. Black eyed susan. In the back corner of my Godmother's backyard, which happens to border my own, there is a huge chunk of garden devoted solely to these cheerful yellow flowers with their black eyes. To be fair, there's brown ones too. Those are called brown eyed susans.

3. Marigolds. When I was a little tyke in Girl Scouts, my troop decorated terra-cotta pots for Mother's Day and planted marigolds in them. Mine died within a week. I was interested to learn not many years later in Spanish class that marigolds are associated with death in the Mexican culture, they make wreaths of the pungent orange things and decorate ofrendas for dia de los muertos i.e. altars to deceased family members for their holiday the Day of the Dead, which is around the same time as Halloween but an entirely different concept.

4. Mums. These are my Mum's (pun intended) favorite flowering bush and another candidate in the river garden. She buys them by the cartload in the late Summer/early Fall. The whites, yellows, and ruddy orange-reds remind me of harvest time.

5. Blackberry bush. These used to grow in abundance in the woods behind my old house outside Seattle. There was a little path we'd take through those woods to get to the shore. Along the way there and back, we'd collect stains on our hands and faces from eating the blackberries. Momma always said she'd make a pie with those berries, but they never made it home to occupy a pie in the first place.

6. Raspberry bush. My maternal grandfather, Grandpa L, loves his gardening. He especially loves his raspberry bushes, which grow in huge clumps behind his garage. I used to take great care in sneaking out there to munch on the berries when we'd come around for a visit (shh, don't tell him that).

7. Bradford pear tree. This flowering beauty used to stand in our front yard, right in front of my bedroom window. Every spring, the dainty pink and white blossoms would almost completely obscure my view of the street. They also added a light perfume to the air in late spring. I was standing in my room during a particularly strong thunderstorm one late afternoon. There was a massive crack, like a gunshot, and nearly half the tree fell over into the yard. We weren't able to salvage the old thing and it was subsequently cut down. The new cherry tree we replaced it with still looks scrawny in comparison all these years later.

8. Easter lily. My church sponsors Easter lilies each year. We always purchased two of them- one in memory of Aunt D and the other in memory of Grandma P.

9. Poinsettia. I'm not sure if this one counts because my memory is actually of an obviously fake-looking poinsettia bush we drag out every year at Christmas to add that "touch" to the house without poisoning our plant munching cats. Goofballs.

10. Peonies. These were my first plant, if you can have one, and they grew outside my window for many years. The pair have since been relegated to a plot in the backyard, which they've taken to nicely.

11. Frasier fir tree. Every year, my folks and Tapeworm and me sell Christmas trees. These puppies are my favorite to sell because A) they're beautiful and B) they have nice soft needles which are kind on the hands of tree lot workers.

12. Black hills spruce tree. And this one is my least favorite tree to sell at the lot. While these bad boys are a lovely deep shade of green, much darker than Frasiers, BHPs have unforgiving spiky needles that scratch, scrape, prod, and poke whoever is unfortunate enough to have need to move one. Snarl.

13. Fuzzy lamb's ear. Another plant I'm in serious doubt regarding the technical name for. No matter, these little plants have a misty grey-green color and are silky smooth. True to the name, they're fuzzy and I like cuddling these little guys. Don't judge me. They also grow like fertilized kudzu and as such there's quite a population of this plant in Momma's corner garden.

14. Azalea. I helped pick one of these dark red plants out once when Momma was in a landscaping kick. The thing died within six months. I always felt like this was my fault. RIP Azalea bush.

15. Catnip. A.k.a. kitty crack. My feisty felines love this stuff. I grow it in excess, which isn't difficult because it spreads like crazy.

The old blue house at the end of the lane

At the end of one sleepy lane in upstate New York sits an old blue house that's been there for nearly fifty years. I know it well. My Grandfather helped build it.

That dear old house has been the destination for countless road trips over the years. As a Navy brat, I grew up with what I like to call multiple-home disorder- i.e. I identify with more than one place as my "home." I've called the Midwest my first home most of my life, but the title gets stuck to wherever my folks and Tapeworm are. My second home has always been the blue house. It's my constant.

At the airport recently, waiting to board for my flight to the blue house, I got to thinking about how over the years there's been a change in the number of faces waving goodbye at the end of each visit.

Spring of 2010 was the last time the whole clan would bid us farewell. As we backed out of the driveway, the front patio was crowded with: my Grandma P and Grandpa E, my Uncle T, and my Aunt D (she lived with her husband and son in a different house in the same town, but I'm pretty sure she came by that morning to say goodbye). Grandma P was in an advancing stage of Huntington's Disease, but she was still standing and waving with the rest of them. I remember that last round of hugs.

That fall, we lost my dear Aunt D to cancer and there was one less beautiful face assembled to say goodbye as we left the week after the funeral.

It wasn't long after that our own numbers driving up to NY dwindled. Over the next few years, it became more and more common for just Momma to drive up with Tapeworm and I. The Trio.

My Junior year of high school, we lost my lovely Grandma P. That was also the last time my dad joined us at all on our two, some years three, trips to the blue house. My parents went through a messy divorce early last year, somehow finalizing what we had been losing over the years.

This past Summer, we (the Trio) planned a Summer vacation to the blue house. It was the weekend of the 4th of July, and also the weekend after my Grandpa E's 76th birthday.

We received the heartbreaking news six hours away from New York that our beloved Grandpa E had passed away the night before in his sleep. We were devastated.

I remember every minute of that car ride, from the moment the cellphone rang, to the moment we pulled into the driveway of the old blue house. I already knew something was different. The fresnel lamp wasn't lit, the one that is a replica of those used in lighthouses, the one that my Grandpa E had lit for years in the front window, welcoming us to the blue house when we arrived late into the night when the house had gone to sleep.

And the American flag on its pole was at full staff, as if the thirty year Command Master Chief that had lived under its banner for so many years was sleeping comfortably in his room upstairs. As if he was going to wakeup a few hours later and sip his coffee and look out that front window at the flag.

At first light, the flag was changed to half staff. The old blue house was in mourning again.

It's been almost two months since that week and I've been thinking about the blue house again and again. Everywhere I go it seems, I'm reminded of something that reminds me of one time or another in the backyard or the family room or the dining room or the garage of the blue house. Snowball fights. Christmas mornings. Early morning waffles. Storm watching. It's all there, in my heart, in the old blue house at the end of the lane.

To blog or not to blog?

I realize that's the second botched Shakespeare reference I've made in almost as many blog posts. Or, at least it was when I drafted this. Sorry Willy, please don't hate me. Literature mangling aside, the quote does lend itself well to the question I've asked myself since deciding to start this blog: why?

I've always been a fan of writing, and I'm the sort of person who wears her heart on her sleeve, so why haven't I ever blogged "sucessfully" before? I.e. why have at least four previous blog attempts gone by the wayside under my various pseudonyms, none of them ever more than a background and title or in the case of one, one little post, before they each were deleted? Well, here are my top 5 reasons of why I never blogged before now.

Reason # 1: Bloggers in Pop Culture

I suspect neither of the following commercial and film conversations have helped my view on blogging:

Thanks Twix, though you are a scrumptious candy bar, you have made bloggers, particularly female ones, out to be complete idiots incapable of realizing that when a guy asks her back to his apartment five seconds into their first conversation his sudden "chew it over" moment and subsequent (lame) excuse is really a flimsy facade for "please have sex with me."

[[[[[[[Excerpt from the transcript of Made of Honor (2008)]]]]]]]

Tom: Oh, God. Hide me.

Hannah: What?

Tom: It's my dad's patient coordinator...

Yeah, don't look, don't look. Don't look.

No, no. She's obsessed with me.

Yeah, she's created a website called AllThingsTom.org.

Hannah: The psycho blogger?

Tom: Yes.

Okay, come on.

Dance with me. Watch yourself.

Hannah: I think she's cute.

Tom: Oh, stop it.

I'm serious. Just keep going. Here just-

Hide me…

Her last blog was a two-page description of my face.

Blogger: Hi, Tom.

Tom: Oh, hi.

Blogger: Did you see the new blog?

Tom: Uh, no, we haven’t.

Blogger: Who’s this?

Tom: This? Well, this is my… girlfriend.

Blogger: Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone?

Tom: Because I don’t know you.

Hannah: Look, we have a really really open relationship.

Tom: Really? You know, I wanted to talk to you about that, princess.

Blogger: Princess…?

Tom: (to Hannah) I-I-I don’t wanna be with anybody but you.

Hannah: I don’t know if I’m really quite ready to make that commitment. You know my rules

(to Blogger) We’re a bit of an emotional retard.

Tom: Yeah.

Blogger: I think I need to start a new blog now.

Hannah: (after Blogger has left) That is so scary.

[[[[[[]]]]]]]

I apologize for having no video clip to illustrate this, there wasn’t one to be found on youtube. (le gasp)

This is the second media source that immediately came to my mind that makes female bloggers (pattern? I wouldn't know, I nixed my communications major a year ago...) out to be complete idiots. The blogger in Made of Honor is of the desperate and pathetic variety of idiots. It doesn't help my feeling for this clip that the woman is literally wearing the exact dress I wore in a play my Senior year of high school.

Reason #2: That word!

I hate the words blog, blogger, and blogging. I really do. The word, stripped of its connotations and denotations still makes me cringe. Some words do that for me. Blog and it’s derivatives are some of them. You may consider this a flimsy reason for not blogging before. Alone it's not enough of one. In addition to my already formed stigma against blogging, it was another hair that broke the camel's back.

Reason # 3: People in glass houses shouldn't throw things, I wouldn't live in one in the first place.

My writing is often times a reflection of who I am. I put pieces of myself into it, like horcruxes only I don't kill people or split my soul to do it. If you haven't read Harry Potter, ignore that reference. As such, I've never been one to want the whole world to see inside me. While I do wear my heart on my sleeve, there's a difference between that and what inspires my writing--the writing often comes from much deeper down.

Reason #4: Themeless and therefore pointless?

My life has no particular theme, my sense of humor isn’t always one that draws a ton of laughs, I’m lazy and impatient in one messy bunch, and I lose focus fairly easily on things. In short, I never thought a blog of mine would be very interesting, nor did I think I would I be willing (or have the attention span) to keep it up.

Reason #5: I sat and tried to think of one. One flitted by but I forgot it before I had time to jot it down. I went back and adjusted some of the previous ones and still couldn't think of a number five. So that's only four reasons. Which leads me to...

"You know Thomas Edison tried and failed nearly two-thousand times to develop the carbonized cotton-thread filament for the incandescent light bulb. When asked about it, he said 'I didn't fail, I found two-thousand ways how not to make a light bulb.' But he only needed to find one way to make it work."

-National Treasure, 2004

What was the one way I found that changed my mind about blogging? It was actually a memory, a memory of something a very dear woman once told me.

It’s funny, how one can be reminded randomly of something most would consider minute or not worth remembering, particularly from one's childhood. I find that especially true if the memories involve a loved one who is no longer with us. I suppose we hang on to even the shreds of memories with them because that’s all we have left.

My Aunt D and I once talked about diaries. I said something to the effect that while I admired Anne Frank's diary, I don't have the patience to write one myself. All of my attempts usually ended with me tearing out the few entries and pitching them. Most usually ended with my selecting a pretty journal, buying it, bringing it home, then setting it aside to collect dust. I have a box of empty journals and notebooks solely from this habit to prove my point. Sound familiar? Well, my Aunt suggested that I start typing my daily diary entries. Mind you this was back in the day when blogging and any other form of social interaction/broadcasting via the internet was strictly limited to e-mail. But her suggestion was to type my diary and save the entries in a folder on the computer. The only problem with this was my family had a public computer which sat in my parent's room. The issue was twofold. One, it lacked the privacy I preferred when storing my entries and I didn't feel like keeping a floppy disk (yes, floppy disks were around). The second issue was timing, I was a night owl (still am, time check? It's 1:11 AM) and my parents weren't. At least not both of them. There was only a limited time during the day which I could even use the computer. So the suggestion, while highly appreciated, didn't come to fruition.

Side note: Pictured is my Aunt D with me around 2 years old. I suspect our diary conversation came a little later in life; this is the only picture I have with just her and me in it. Momma and I were going through some old family albums at my Gpa's recently and came across it. It brought tears to my eyes how happy we both look.

Anyways, at least ten years down the road now, I can't help but think that blogging is the more modern version of what my dear aunt was talking about: a place to write out whatever it is I want to write about, without hand writing it. Blogging seems to take that one step further by giving you the concept of a literary third wall. Instead of just talking to myself or "my dear diary," I can envision readers whom I am talking to. It's not as strange for me to involve the potential readers (however many) as it is for me to involve an inanimate diary in an animate activity, such as cooking.

What got my gears rolling was that post I made about the Strawberry Cream Pie. That was actually my first blog post I'd made in a long time and I made it originally for a friend of mine to feature it as a guest entry on her blog. By the time I'd finished it, I located this blog I'd made months prior and revamped it. The rest is history. Literally. It's in the archives.

Verdict: to blog! I just want a new word for it. Oh well.

Signed,

RF

What's in a name?

If we call a rose by any other name, say a doorstop, it will still smell like a rose (thanks Willy S. for that input). If I called myself Sparkle O'Featherty I'd still be a twenty-something with a little more junk in the trunk than I care for and a playlist that has been repeated a few too many times.


I'm starting my New Year's Resolution a bit late. Okay, really late. It's August. Regardless, my here-on-out resolution is that I want to branch out. Step out of my comfort zone. I want to try new things. Try old things that have gone by the wayside. I want to try harder at things I've picked up only to forget about it in the back of my closet or in my garage or in a stack of notebooks under my desk. I want to move forward, in other words. But sometimes I literally feel like a running fish. or a caterpillar riding a bicycle. or an elephant pole vaulting. You get the point. The thing is, I want to go beyond what I "can't" do. It's not good enough for me to tell myself that I can't run a mile because I've never literally ran one non-stop and I'm out of shape, or to say I can't write a novel on my own because I don't think my writing is good enough, or to say that I can't have a serious relationship with a guy because I suck at those kind of relationships. No no no no no. I'm sick and tired of that logic because I've been using it all my life.

*queue ethereal flashback music*


As far back as I can remember, I felt huge around my peers. Literally huge. HUGE. huge. I was the girl who by First grade was already a good half a head taller than the average in my class. By time I was in the Fourth grade, I was taller and about twice the weight (not exaggerating) as my teacher. In my defense, she was super petite. But still, I was ten and entering the stage where my classmates noticed this sort of thing. It didn't help my case that I wore clothes that were a good size too big for my already roly-poly body, I hardly ever brushed my hair, and I used this God-awful lavender and something scented shampoo/conditioner that still makes my nose wrinkle when I think about how it made my hair smell. It reeked.
Fourth grade was also the first year we started doing distance running in gym class. The goal was a half-mile that year. By Fifth grade, we were expected to go a mile at the end of the year. I was always the girl who either never finished because we ran out of time or was the last one to finish. I'd try to run, I really would, but then I'd get winded and would stop. It was actually painful.
The other kids would laugh at me as they ran past in a big group, all with their slender limbs propelling them along. I just didn't fit into the mold needed to be a part of the pack. Some years I was fortunate to have a classmate who was also on the heavy side to keep me company, but I was always still taller (and in those days that meant "bigger" as well) and I never finished ahead of anyone. Not once. From Fourth grade through my Sophomore year of high school, the last year I had a gym class that required a mile-run. I always seemed to come up short of doing anything well. I even got in trouble for reading when I wasn't supposed to, but that's another story.


While this all might seem like a really long tangent that needs to nipped off and redirected, it's all quite crucial to how I view myself and the world around me now as an adult. I still get a chuckle out of typing those words "as an adult" in reference to myself. Chuckle chuckle.


Fully grown now, I stand at 6'1" tall barefoot. I started to get a handle on my weight in my late teens- I lost approximately 85 pounds between my Freshmen and Senior years of high school. No small feat (pardon the pun), I will give myself a clap for this. Clap clap. College wasn't that nice to me, however, in the weight department. I managed to keep myself nice and trim my Freshmen year, but the following Summer and on into the Fall of my Sophomore year I gained a good 25 pounds back. Which is where I have remained for the past year.
To continue the positive note, however, I've developed my sense of personal style significantly. I've never been the super girly-makeupy-frilly type gal, but I have found that I really enjoy the times I put more effort into my appearance than pulling on the first pair of jeans and t-shirt that I come across in the morning. Not that I don't still do that...cause I do and probably always will. The point is I enjoy being slouchy but I also enjoy finding funky clothes and some simple but unique jewelry to wear. A little makeup doesn't hurt either. Funky glasses are a nice touch as well. I've come to actually embrace looking different.


I find that I've come a very long way from that chunky blonde kid and her smelly shampoo hair (I've since switched to a less pungent line of haircare products). But I've come to realize lately that I don't think that girl's mind set, the one that she learned from years of being bullied and feeling like an outcast, I don't think it's entirely gone from my system.
That little girl sure shined up like a new penny though in high school, when I finally made some lasting friendships and positively flourished under the guidance of some amazing teachers and fulfilling extracurriculars. More on them at a later date. That's the woman I want to be now, the one who shines like that new penny all the time.


This brings me back to my pseudonym, Running Fish. I am the ugly duckling girl turned swan. If I could mail a picture of myself and what I feel about myself now to my eight year old self, that would be one flabbergasted kid. I might not be the beautiful swan of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, but I'm certainly not the ugly duckling anymore. I like the name Running Fish, it suits me because I've become what I never thought I could be.


I want more, however. Just like the little baby who takes his or her first breath of air and then sucks greedily for more, demanding life, I've gotten a taste of someone I never thought I could be and I want more.


Thus my next and final point: reinventing myself. New beginnings must be in the air. Or in the water here, because a close friend of mine is also going through a reinventing process of her own. We've been discussing the process, it's very technical. *takes a sip of refreshing water, asks to be pardoned for the pun*


I've always been of the list making variety (in school it's really the only way I can keep myself on track most of the time) but this time, I don't have a definitive "this is everything I plan to do to further myself" list. What I do have is an open canvas and a whole lot of paint I'd like to use. Some of the paint cans I've admired include fiction writing, martial arts, container gardening, creative cooking (my family has really loved it as I've explored this one, I must say), water color painting, and most recently archery. Some of the cans, container gardening for instance, I've only just opened. Some, like martial arts, I've already painted with quite a bit. Some, like archery, I've done before but haven't in a long while. I plan to try all of these things. I don't know what will find a permanent place in my repertoire of life activities. I don't know what else I'll stumble along now that my mind is cleared and opened.


I've taken a breath of fresh air. This past summer has been rather difficult emotionally for me. But I have high hopes for this fall and the seasons to follow it. My past will always be a part of me, but it is only that, a part not my entirety. I might have decided all of this a tad too late for a 2010 resolution or for spring cleaning, but I want this to last more than just a year or any other specific set amount of time. I want to reinvent not who am I but how I live. Because I want to live and live fully.


That's probably enough for now. I can put that deep, philosophical box of mine back on the shelf. Don't worry, it's still visible. I won't stuff it into the nether region of my closet.


Here's a fun video from the recent Disney film Princess and the Frog to wrap things up. If you haven't had enough of my philosophizing, and you're sad I packed that box up, you'll especially enjoy the sentiment behind this catchy ditty.

Signed,

Sparkle O'Featherty

(just kidding)

Running Fish