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My Father Never Told Me, Cissy
My father never told me if he drinks coffee or tea when he wakes, if he favors early morning hours or the late of night. Francis Michael White never did say how he got the nickname Whitie. It could have been the name alone or his white bright blond locks. He never said how it felt when he found out that the man he was named for was not his father after all, that the name, white was a lie but not a white one.
I carry that lie too, the name White and the myth that a name makes us belong to anyone. I share my name with him but what we have in common is our status as fatherless children and the genes of sister. I know her but not him, not in the way I know a memory I can call up and lean on.
White is the name on my birth certificate, the tan paper with the orange seal that my Aunt Worry and I went into to Boston to get when I was in my twenties. It says he is my father but I have no memory of a Dad or a Daddy, of a man holding me on his shoulders so I can see if only briefly his view.
I know I was a child. There are pictures and I have proof. I don’t recall being on anyone’s lap, getting a running start and jumping while someone steadies them for my landing. I don’t remember flailing arms or legs left dangling as though the adults in my life were never bigger than me.
My daughter screams when her father arrives home, leaps from a chair or the floor and goes into his arms, runs around his legs and yells “Daddy!” He acts as though they have been apart for months or years. He screams back her name. It is loud, their love, palpable and glorious.
I don’t remember the felt sense of a father’s love. I don’t recall my father pulling a long wisp of hair out of my eye or saying, “hop in the car, we’re going for a ride.” I don’t remember learning to change a tire or him telling boyfriends, “be careful with my girl.”
He wasn’t the kind of father who hung around the borders of my life. He didn’t plant trees to give me shade, edge borders to make the path clear but he was a seed and I am evidence.
Blossoming now, a perennial wildflower covering new ground, I am less angry. My father never told me why he didn’t stay for my first birthday or return for my fortieth. I have stopped waiting for him to return and rescue me from my own scorched earth or strangling overgrowth. I am grateful at least for the gardener, my mother, though only a teen who did remain to feed and fertilize.
What I got from my father, I hear, is poor vision. But I see my daughter riding her father’s back through the common and she is as comfortable there as she is in my lap each morning. My father never told me why he left and stayed away. I would have told him he was missed. But I can’t know, from what I know of him, if I missed out on anything other than the myth.
Anyhow, it’s a rainy stretch. The earth gets moist from the gift of sky. Plants can grow even in lousy soil and without proper tending. They need only to be dropped on dirt or planted.
Anna: Life in Pajamas
Who wears pajamas all day?
Infants. People in prison. The infirm. The insane. Writers. Mothers. You can call ‘em yoga pants, girlfriend, but you know you slept in ‘em.
Life in pajamas, while appealing in concept, can be quite dangerous. To your health. To your appearance. To your standard of what makes an attractive outfit. You know this because you have spent so much time in your pajamas that you have lost the ability to select suitable attire for visits to The Outside. Juicy sweatpants and a fleece without baby boot or peanut butter on it, is not an “upscale casual” ensemble.
When you first make a slovenly commitment to your bedclothes, it seems funny. Amusing. On the phone you brag to a friend, “It’s four o’clock and I’m still in my pajamas,” and the friend laughs and says something cute like, “must be nice.”
A
fter a while it occurs to you that if you’re still in your pajamas there’s no point in putting on deodorant. You are, after all, in your pajamas. Who cares? The UPS guy? Because you have a rabid watchdog, the UPS guy never even rings the bell anymore. He leaves your deliveries between the bushes and the trash can.
And with pit stench is no longer driving you to the powder room it is all too easy to forget about brushing your hair. Or teeth.
Yes, teeth. Nasty.
When you drink as much coffee as a writer and mother does, there is never an ideal time to brush your pearly whites. Which are now kind of khaki. Coffee and toothpaste are two great tastes that do NOT taste great together. So, you put off the tooth-brushing.
Around six o’clock, you notice your teeth have knitted themselves little cozies of filth. But it’s six o’clock. Cocktail hour. And the only thing worse than toothpaste with coffee is toothpaste with gin. But, you discover, if you gargle gin and tonic, the tiny scrubbing bubbles of the tonic and the citrus snap of the lime leave your mouth feeling as fresh as a sit-down with the dental hygienist.
So, there you are. Stinky. Sweaty. Reeking of coffee and gin. It’s eight o’clock now. Hungry? Hells, yeah. But going out at this point would take so much effort. So you order in.
Does the delivery man care what you look, smell, or taste like? If, he does look a tad concerned when he arrives, you just move fast and tip well and he has almost no time in which to judge you.
That you can see.
What he does in the privacy of his Tercel is his business.
After you watch a bad movie – you were too tired to bother looking for a good one – you shove the remains of your take-out into the fridge and grab a paper towel. (If you’re feeling motivated, you moisten it.) You wipe your mouth and hands.
You are clean and ready for bed.
Scuffing your way to the boudoir you consider changing into pajamas. But then remember you are already in them. Feeling very satisfied with your ability to plan ahead, you fall into bed and await the magic of morning.
Barb: Bathrobes and PJ’s
Bathrobes and PJ’s are my havens in cloth. Warm, accepting, and free of responsibility, they are also free of ironing and timetables. Flannel doesn’t care about day jobs or mid life crises. I am home savoring the delicious quiet and saddened by my waning freedom. There is currently no one I have to play with or take to the potty. I can nap undisturbed if I wish. I am pregnant and have not embraced the joyous anticipation that many feel. A part of me wonders, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ This is no different from any of my other 39 years, only the circumstances have changed. Perhaps life has proved too precarious these days to think beyond today.
The relief of not having to leave my house is palpable. A dear friend suggested that the reason I’ve been feeling an urge to hide was because I felt as though I had been attacked. Losing my job, my father, and a baby made functioning as normal like walking through thick muck. It was too much for the space of eighteen months.
Like swamp gas bubbles on the surface of my brain, I fight the flare ups. Your new job is a nightmare, how are you going to fix it? Are you sure you’re safe? What if you get robbed? This house isn’t ready for a baby, when are you going to get started? ‘DOES THIS SERVE YOU?’ asks a voice, finally: Reason. I try to focus on what’s in front of me right now. Why is it such a struggle to remain uncluttered? Eat your elephant one bite at a time, cut yourself some slack, I tell myself. Giving my brain the day off seems to be yet another lofty goal.
There are other havens. Sometimes it takes the physical embrace of my spouse to squeeze out the chattering in my head. Other times it takes the sound of rain, or the ocean, or even the calm of a warm shower to help. I escape my committed profession and dip my toes into writing. There is unquestioning comfort the moment pencil touches paper. I am far from Hemmingway but much closer to home in this pursuit than my daily grind.
I bought oil from a yoga center I visited. I hope the scent will remind me of a place where I felt peace wrap around me such that even my frightened self could not deny it happened. To wear this serenity like a robe of armor everywhere, that is my dream. I wonder how I can hang on to the feeling of calm when I have to face my external reality.
I am forced to live in the now, to enjoy the quiet while I have it. This “now” which forces the catastrophising beasties at bay, quelling the daymares of what could happen if I just leave my house. This is my respite, and the warm, fuzzy embrace of the flannel lets me finally calm down. The beasties can wait another day. I am no longer in a bad job, no longer frightened of the changes coming, and no longer frightened of attack. Right here, right now I am warm, safe, and home.
Rajka: PAJAMAS AND BATHROBES
I am walking through majestic halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking for a special exhibition of European clocks. Entering the exhibiting room the first object that catches my eye is a “Grandfather’s Clock” very much like my own. My grandfather gave it to me as a wedding present. I am waiting for a fat couple to move so I can read about my Grandfather’s clock. To my surprise I learn that the
pendulum was discovered by Galileo Galilei in the 17th century. Ever since the
pendulum is beating in its own rhythm marking the passage of time.
I do not feel like seeing any more exhibitions. Instead I will sit on the steps in front of he museum. Outside is a slow moving, unpleasant humid afternoon promising to stretch for ever.
I know that as much as we would like to stretch or shorten the passage of time to fit our needs, we cannot. We have to accept certain designated time periods: Morning, noon, afternoon, and night, adding up to, what we call, 24 hours a day. That is it. Nothing you can do about. You keep looking at the clock deceiving yourself that you are in control determining “how much time” you have “left” to do something. The pendulum is ticking in annoyingly steady precise movements. When you are in a rush, you keep glancing at the clock more and more often .You are getting more anxious and feel like taking that clock and throwing it out of the window. You know that it would be stupid and change nothing.. “I am running out of time” you say. What an illusion. It is not time that you are running out of but your acceptance of real time. You have no choice but to succumb to men- made time slots for most of your “daily” activities.
“Can we help you with something?” The voice cuts through my musings. This time I am not daydreaming. I am trying to concentrate on something else but myself. Looking up I see an odd looking couple.
She is short, long curly chestnut-color hair and slightly plump. Not overweight, just pleasantly plump. A kind of plumpness that makes you want to squeeze her and pinch her cheeks.
He is everything she is not. Tall, skinny, with a crew cut. You would probably just walk by him without any desire to do anything with him. Yet they are standing above me, holding hands and smiling.
“No, thank you. I am just waiting for somebody.”
I look at my watch. The long humid afternoon was only 45 minutes long.
The museum is closing. I feel foolish just sitting there. It is time to get up and not wait any longer.
I am going to make myself coffee with a touch of brandy. Then I will cuddle up with my pajamas and warm bathrobe and read about Gallileo Gallieli’s discovery of the pendulum. There is only one unpleasant thing: I do not like the color of my bathrobe: sage with green, blue and brown polka-dots. I will take my favorite soft blue blanket and wrap myself and the ugly bathrobe with it and listen to the time as it goes by, announced every quarter of an our by the pendulum’s swing.
Word from Nance - the next topic is - “My father never told me”
Mary M. - PJ’s & Bathrobes - Group 3
Lamby Pajamas
O, how I loved my “lamby” pajamas with their flock of little white cotton ball lambs dancing across a pale aquamarine field of flannel. It was a time in my life when I would indicate how old I was by holding up two fingers, a time when everything had to have a name, a time when pajamas were friends.
I sobbed when they were gone. It was one of my earliest memories–non-verbal, and gut-wrenchingly physical. I didn’t have an abstract category, “Things one wears to bed.” I couldn’t separate reality from imagination. I lived in a mythical world where every thing around me was real and alive because it touched me and was part of my world.
Lamby pajamas were warm and soft. They smelled like me, my crib, and a bit like my Mother. They were the good part of the scary night when I had to go to sleep and it would be dark and moonlight would slice the dark (What child is afraid of moonlight? I was) … when car lights, in dizzying yellow squares, would slide silently around the walls of the room and out the window as a car passed our house.
I was afraid of little white “eyes” of light that would lock a small, shining circle on the inside of my bedroom door, reminding me that the door was closed, reminding me it was dark. My only comfort was my lamby pajamas.
There was no ritual for the release of the lamby pajamas, no saying goodbye. One day they were there and the next day they were gone. My new pajamas, striped pink summer seersucker, were stiff and crinkly and the sleeves were short. The color was completely wrong. Pink was my sister’s color, not mine! I was blue. I hated them, these usurper pajamas, stiff and unloving, and I was cold in them. My lambies were gone. I was bereft.
It was like the deaths happening in my family at that time. Old relatives would be there and then they would be gone. No one would tell me what happened, except to befuddle me with words that didn’t explain a thing: “Dead.” “Heaven.” “With God.” Since I was afraid of God, too, that last one was not a good idea. I simply hated the fact that things around me were there and then not there. When I was a toddler, my Mother was taken from me, hospitalized for nearly two months during a pregnancy–there and then not there.
In my family, no one told children things. They felt that we wouldn’t understand, that it was better that way. But leaving a child to a lonely imaginative field of terror is worse. As a child, I used to have nightmares where I would put the people and clothes that I loved in a dresser drawer and when I’d open the drawer they would all be gone.
There and then not there. Pajamas taught me about death.
Kathy M. - PJ’s
He wasn’t wearing pajamas when he stood at the screendoor ~ standing in his boxer shorts instead. I was in first grade. He had heard the screech of the school bus tires, and jumped out of bed, my mother told me, to make sure his daughter, me, was alright. The kids laughed at my Daddy in his underwear and boarded the bus. I was ashamed for him. Norman never wore pajamas.
Neither did my stepfather, Herby, who also used to stand, in his boxers, sipping his morning coffee and shoving a needle full of insulin into his leather hide arm by forcing the syringe against the handle of the freezer door. His scrawny, scarred hockey legs sticking out of his boxer shorts while I tried to keep my eyes averted from the slit in the front of the material threatening to open.
Mostly we avoided talking. Not because we didn’t like each other (love is too strong a word), but because neither of us were morning people. We were comfortable enough to sip our coffees in silence while my mother slept. He, standing in the corner, no pajamas, ~ just coffee and insulin ~ and me, sitting at the table, just coffee and insolence. I couldn’t help it, I was fifteen after all.
He was my step-father for eighteen years, from the time I was twelve, until he died when I was thirty. Eighteen years, and if I’ve ever missed him, I’ve never noticed. Where is my heart? Because I loved him, I did. But we were not close. He didn’t meet a single one of my emotional needs. He was just there, married to my mother, paying my college tuition when my father wouldn’t. And me, oblivious. When I was young, I accepted the parade of characters who came into my life without question. And I loved, though in a superficial way. Except for my father. For him, I longed. For him, I grieved ~ this man who in my fantasy, would be the one person to understand me, if only he didn’t live out of state.
Norman, dead for thirty three years, is a presence to me still. Palpable. Like the lingering scent of a cigar. The feel of a black and white movie from the 40’s with a nostalgic sound track. He is memory deeper than memory. Desire and dread.
We were outside on a summer’s night, with neighbors. He lay sideways on the grass, relaxed, legs out. Handsome and inviting. I adored him. He made me nervous. Playing with clover. He, smoking a filtered Tareyton, engaged in the grown-up laughter with Dick Curley. I was jealous. He never laughed like that with me. Why not? The magic of fireflies ~ spotting them twinkling in the grass ~ catching them in an empty jar. Delicious to be up past my bedtime. I wanted the grown ups to keep talking and laughing, so I could stay out under the stars, with my father, who was, for a change, happy.
On other summer nights, my mother would hear the bell of the icecream truck from inside the house, and flash the front light on and off, so the driver would know to stop, like a traveling Dairy Queen on wheels. We got hot fudge sundaes with soft serve vanilla icecream, real whipped cream, chopped nuts, and the cherries, my own, and theirs, given to me.
Why don’t I have more memories of my childhood? Deficient brain? I remember Bonanza and the Chevrolet commercials and the Sunday night blues. Being afraid to walk down the hall to my bedroom, but noone said, “I’ll go with you, sweetheart. Don’t be afraid.”
I had matching pajamas in those days. In the picture I am wearing blue flannel pajamas and red corduroy slippers, smiling for the camera, and holding her hand. She is ready to crawl down from the black, nubby swivel rocking chair. Freshly bathed, with a wet finger curl coiling up from the middle of her head. She was wearing yellow footed pajamas. I need to find that picture. Me at eight, she, my baby cousin, at six months. That picture was a moment in my life, and I think I remember the moment, but perhaps I only remember the picture? I’m frustrated with my memory. I want all of them back. I want to be able to feel, taste, smell, recreate the scenes. My mind is like swiss cheese, filled with holes and I grieve for what I can only partially recover. Like almost re-uniting with a lover, close enough to embrace, but not embracing. The loss of my memories feels like the loss of myself. As if I am a partial amnesiac victim who has lost her history. The best writing I could ever do would always be about restoration. I was there. I do remember. Digging through memory on an archeological dig, I have refigured the bones. See how I have recovered them, so that it can never be lost again? But, oh, that isn’t possible. Only the first time around is the experience, whole and pure. Everything after that is shards.
I loved the little girl who was me, but not well enough, and now her life is half over, and like a parent who realizes she has been neglectful, I want a second chance to be conscious, even if it hurts like hell. I want someone to shake me awake, one memory at a time. Let me be grateful for even the dimmest recollection, murky and mysterious. Let me celebrate what is excavated, not mourn what is lost forever. Let me trust that what I have is always enough for now. Each whisper of memory is filled with infinite love. Can I rest in that?
