March, 1953
Having never changed schools, I’d no clue that new kids rarely break into well-established clicks, right away. However, that unrealistic expectation pales in comparison to the experience that's about to bring the social self confidence of my self-image to its knees.
With no clue that change is a mixed bag of tricks, I open the back door to our new home after the first day at our new school and follow Lauren into Mom's brand new kitchen. Having planted a quick kiss on my mother’s cheek, I slide onto one of two naugahyde melon-colored, high backed benches, which flank the rectangular attached table top that matches our olive green Formica counters, and I think this booth (which makes up our cheerful breakfast nook) is really cool.
Once my little sister slides onto the high-backed bench facing mine, we can be seen downing our after school snack while I jabber away about my classroom experiences until Mom, who's been eager to listen, points to the wall clock, cautioning me to watch the time. So, after gulping down what's left of my milk, I grab my school things off the counter and moving swiftly through kitchen, dining room and living room, head for the full flight of stairs leading to the second floor landing that separates a pair of large, sunny bedrooms, one being my parents’, the other shared by Lauren and me. And as I reach the top of that flight of stairs, we catch a glimpse of a full bathroom situated on the landing between the bedrooms, as well.
Today, while sitting here staring at my computer screen, I’m aware of words streaming past my eyes as the intuitive portion of my processor releases one insight-driven memory after after another, suggesting that hindsight offers me the clarity to recall detailed changes for the better, which improved our family's quality of life resultant of my dad’s work ethics, which made our move possible—for example, I remember how good it felt to know that two bathrooms were at our disposal rather than re-enacting those times when two or three of us had simultaneously converged outside the locked door of our apartment’s sole bathroom, expressing need of hurrying whoever had scurried inside while the rest of us, feeling need of relief from physical restraint, saw our patience levels waning as stress heightened, making seconds seem to pass in slow-mo until each one’s constrained sense of impatience stretched so far beyond self control as to snap, releasing frustration to spew angrily out of our mouths as seconds, tick-tocking ever more s l o w l y, makes each of us feel that we’ll surely go crazy if that door doesn’t unlock, right now!
Having two bathrooms is just one of many luxuries which none of us had experienced before moving into our new home—I mean, we even have a dishwasher, and a full sized freezer, standing next to our state of the art fridge, and once our washer and dryer (replacing a wash tub, ringer and clothes line) are delivered and installed in our basement, which is only one flight down instead of three (our apartment had been on the third floor), you can see why our family of five left city life behind without even one backward glance so eager were each of us to follow the moving van across town until Dad parallel-parked our bright yellow/burnished gold, brand new Chevy sedan curbside where we’ll waste no time dashing into our spanking new suburban home ready to enjoy ‘the good life’, which is certain be ours and so—
As I enter my bedroom, we see me setting my zippered notebook and fifth grade texts neatly atop my desk followed by sweeping a short stack of Hebrew books into my arms. Then, right before running back down the stairs, I stop in place just long enough to glance around this picture perfect room. And everything I see inspires my smile to sparkle with delight, because each piece of blond French provincial furniture has been purchased especially for Lauren and me. (And even if our furniture isn't really French, it is brand new!) I mean, in addition to eyeing matching desks and chairs (arranged side by side, facing twin windows that offer us the clarity to oversee several blocks of landscape until our little red school house (I kid you not!) can be seen just beyond the major intersection, which will, one day, be completely obscured from our second story view as tender young saplings, just starting to reach for the sky, grow toward encompassing the wide berth of a multi-branched, matured state of greenery as one vacant lot after another is sold, turning expansive areas of unoccupied land into a neighborhood populated by families, very much like our own, and while one season follows another, Lauren and I walk to and home from school, watching non-stop construction with great interest as home after home is erected resulting in every classroom within our little red school house bursting at the seams as newly enrolled girls and boys continue to pour in.
Upon turning away from the window where my desk looks out onto the street, you and I spy a three tiered, double drawer dresser (above which my reflection smiles back at us from within the French inspired scrollwork framing the large, rectangular mirror hanging above the dresser on The wall). Next, let’s imagine my sister and I switching off the light before settling ourselves comfortably, night after night, in our very own twin beds, which will be perfectly made up, every day before breakfast, with brand new, matching, floor length, pink satin bedspreads, trimmed in gingham, our pillows carefully stuffed into matching ruffled shams, which rest gracefully against twin headboards (sporting the same scrollwork as seen on the framed mirror and dresser, as well).
One thing that we’ll not see is even one wrinkle from morning till night when Lauren and I (who don't dare to even think about sitting on our beds) will fold our spreads down followed by withdrawing pillows in white cases from their shams so as to meticulously layer these decorative coverings upon the bed-stand awaiting to receive both ensembles, being that my sister and I will have been taught to unmake our beds every bit as meticulously as had been true of making up our beds upon arising with hopes of the sun smiling over us throughout the day, and as with every life lesson that my seven year old sister and I continue to absorb from all three of our role models, the concept of—there's a place for everything and everything in its place—is accepted by Lauren and ingrained within me as responsibly as the postman holds himself accountable for delivering our daily mail regardless of rain, snow, sleet or hail suggestive of the fact that our beautiful new home—being the first one built on our block as well as the first one owned by anyone on both sides of our extended family—is run in such a shipshape manner (year in and year out) by Mom and Gram (and Dad, when he is here) that every inch of living space always looks as clean, tidy and pristine as is true of a brand new model home as yet unoccupied by human beings.
Back on the ranch, if you ask eleven year old Annie who captains our ship vs who serves as first mate—well—the fact Lauren and I answer to three live-in role models, makes that difference difficult to determine, because I do not recall questioning Mom’s supremacy vs Grandma’s authority over Lauren and me until I reach my teens; however, at the age of eleven, I can tell you this—ONCE Dad’s key unlocks the front door at sunset, each day, the king of our castle will hang his jacket on a hanger, and—lo and behold—an invisible admiral’s hat will land on his head as my father, clearly feeling deeply enriched at this point in our lives, whistles his way into the kitchen where his bigger-than-life personality envelops his Queen of hearts and each daughter (all three of us having been patterned by society to refrain from giving male authority any lip about following through with our designated responsibilities, which, reflection suggests, are not many for Dad's pair of princesses). And as we three, feeling safe, secure and deeply loved within the natural warmth of Dad's bear hug, sit down at our formal dining room table eager to enjoy a delicious, home cooked dinner served on a fresh tablecloth, nightly, my father can be seen beaming with happiness at his bevy of well groomed females, whose emotional reactions have been so well groomed by societal customs as to see each of us sporting sweet, compliant smiles while meeting Dad's every need, knowing that this man, who loves us unconditionally, works hard, every day, to earn the financial security that pays for this lifestyle, which is truly my parents' dream come true.
If at this point, eleven year old Annie exits into the wings while I appear on center stage and if you feel inclined to ask me to explain how this paint-by-number-picture-perfect image of family life during the 1950's could possibly be for real, I'll honestly reply that that's the way the conscious portion of my memory remembered our family interactions for the most part, over many decades—and in case you’re thinking that a barrage of details has already been revealed, please think again, because I've just begun to clue you into my current need to identify 'defining moments' arising between my birth and the eleventh year of my life, which will offer both of us sound reason to understand why socially self confident, eleven year old Annie, upon returning to center stage, is about to feel so completely cowed by a gang of bullies as to choke on the self assertive portion of her voice—BTW—detailed descriptions of earlier ‘defining moments’ will be revealed in chapters, coming up. As for now, let's take a quick glimpse at my Dad's relationship with Grandma, who, in his estimation, is in no way entitled to crown herself queen of his dream house ...
Memory suggests that my father and his mother-in-law will have developed little reason to exchange more than a cordial nod accompanied by brief smiles and very few words as though acknowledging a hard won truce made long ago, which had decreed that both had chosen to accept each other’s presence (as well as Dad's dominance), and speaking of Grandma (whose white flag is raised only when Dad is at home), I believe it's important to note that with our move, she has regained her own room (as had been true in our two bedroom apartment before I was born), which is seen on the first floor of our new home adjacent to the den, suggesting that our family’s autocratic matriarch does not have to sleep on an enclosed sunporch just beyond the living room where her privacy proved utterly nonexistent when my sister Lauren was moved from crib to share a bed with me, displacing Grandma from her own bed, for years, and thus can we clearly understand why my mother's mother feels as eager to reclaim her double bed in a room of her own as I feel delighted to share this spacious, second floor bedroom (situated directly above Grandma’s private domaine) with Lauren.
As memory revisits this particular moment in time (moments before my rosy expectations will be seen tumbling down an imaginary rabbit's hole, leaving my self esteem feeling all alone and deeply bruised 'neath a dark cloud that just won’t quit pelting golf ball sized hail at my head), it’s easy to see why I assume that all of my pipe dreams will fall into line with the extraordinary life that fate has blessed our family with (for the most part), thus far. So when a honking horn signals the arrival of my ride, my high spirited smile and I run back down the stairs, stopping just long enough to kiss Mom good bye at our front door before dashing outside with nary a care, because all I can sense is my eagerness to enjoy yet another positively focused adventure in the air. And though my Hebrew books are pressed like a shield against my chest, I’ve no reason to suspect that my self-confident, high flying spirit is about to be shot down—BIG TIME—leaving my processor floundering about, feeling utterly confounded to find myself feeling like an outcast for—the first time in my life—or so I'll think, based upon this fact: More than five decades will pass before my power of intuition readies the conscious portion of my mind to muster the courage to recall an earlier 'defining moment' when I'd been as lonely as any outlier would have felt in the aftermath of my baby sister’s heart-stopping ‘disappearance’, which had frightened three year old me to no end during the interminable weeks which saw me moping around our apartment, looking up (feeling confounded, forlorn and emotionally abandoned) at everyone who'd kept crying until their swollen eyelids could release no more tears for that day, while periodically I'd hear my loved ones taking turns wailing aloud—Oh my God! Janet! What happened? Where are you?—and so enveloped in shock were my care-givers as to have missed the fact that the on-going depths of their grief, week after week, is cause for highly vulnerable, deeply imaginative me to feel completely unnerved and utterly forgotten at the tender age of—three ... suggesting that it's not uncommon for the intensity of a defining moment of this magnitude to shred the self confidence of a small, observant child—and thus is a traumatized outlier born.)
Three year old processors do not recognize ‘defining moments’ in their lives any more than is true of adults, whose think tanks have not yet felt intuitively stimulated to question the on-going development of certain character traits, which will, one day, prove to have been experientially (environmentally) rather than hereditarily acquired.
Dictionary definition:
“An outlier is an observation that lies outside the overall pattern of a distribution (Moore and McCabe 1999). Usually, the presence of an outlier indicates (the formation of) some sort of problem.”
Here I am at three, seriously contemplating or imagining 'Who knows what?'
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