The melody lingers on….

Does your day ever start with a song on the radio that ends up dancing through your head, repeatedly, all day long?

Mine just did and it has me smiling on a rainy, gloomy, Monday morning to boot; the familiar tune drifting across my kitchen brought back a pleasant memory.
 

Allow me to set the scene……
  
                  

 
A hot summer day, in 1974, finds me en route to Jones Beach State Park in New York, driving my huge Pontiac Catalina station wagon; 400 cu in V8 <manly-type grunt>, heavy as an ocean liner, fully equipped, including the latest 8-track Quadraphonic tape player, <sigh>  how I loved that car!

 
In the back seat, my firstborn daughter, age 2 ½, decked-out in the cutest bright pink bikini, direct from Bamberger’s (known now as Macy’s).  Jennifer sported her “Pebbles Flintstone” hairdo and bobbed back and forth, clapping her hands, to the Hues Corporation as the group sang “Rock the Boat” on the car stereo.

                                                  
No Astronaut-engineered, claustrophobic, car seats back then, heck, parents tethered their offspring into their vehicles with just the seat belt. Most children, like my daughter, managed to slip out of the restraint and stood up to look out of the car window.

Looking back, I was impressed at how well she held on around sharp turns.

I know, I know, cars were so much bigger thirty years ago and people were not so hell-bent on driving as if they were in the Indy 500. Road trips were enjoyable, even with children in the car because the necessity of being “connected” to a choking assortment of electronic devices in our automobiles back then did not exist!

No Cell Phones, Navigation, iPods, Mobile Video and game systems, Bluetooth this n’ that or Radar Detectors combined to create hazardous distractions while we were on the highways and bi-ways.  We talked with our kids while driving, reached into the back seat, without losing control, either to feed snacks or administer a slap, when necessary.  Let’s face it, we were not in as much of a mad rush to go everywhere as we are in present times yet managed to all arrive in one piece!

Nope….life, for me, was just a happy song, shared by a mother and her child, on a beautiful summer morning, on their way to a day at the beach.

                                                        

      


 

      

 

                                                             
 

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Dysfunction Junction……..All Aboard!!

 DJunction

My noggin has been working overtime and that is not a bad thing unless, of course, I blow a mind-fuse or my Motherboard.

Oh no, there’s that “M” word again!
 
Mother, the person who contributed to my existence on this troubled earth we live in and the foundation of my writings. I find it difficult to get through a day without tripping over some reminder of the woman who dabbled in selective motherhood.

On top of it all, those darn skeletons have been creeping out of the closet for the last day, or two, after being locked away for the last 3 years since…. “the crash”.

Yes, the big one….that dreaded Blue Screen of Death!

It happened shortly after Mom died as I went into my office to finalize the revisions on my book. Fired up my Dell and it fired right back with a series of messages that my hard drive was Done, Kaput, Finito!

Guess what I had neglected to do?

              imagesCAK73EN9

 

Yes, guilty as charged for not having backed-up all my data. There was no fix, no rescue, no Geek Squad; my work, photographs, my book…..gone. Fortunately, thanks to my participation in a local writer’s group, I did have hard copy on most of the book, just not the latest updates added after Mom’s death.

Hey….I never said I was perfect!

I regarded this as an omen, a reason to step away from what had been so important to me and packed my book away, shoving the skeletons to the back of the closet in the process. Somehow I thought that my mother’s passing relieved me of having to share her story, and mine, that closure had finally come to pass now that the hurtful progressions of the past had come to an end.

The very day my mother died, my husband turned to me and said “You’re free now”.  Indeed I was, or so I thought.  No more endless nights of screaming and attempted escapes out the door; no more diapers, laundry, ducking from hurled food across the table.  No more rushing to get her ready for day care so I could work or making the 50 mile trip back home each day to pick her up again.  Ahhhh….I really was….free!

Until the skeletons picked the closet lock and made a break for it, causing the anger set in once again, and I started thinking.  After all, you need a license for a dog, a license to get married, well, there should be a similar requirement where a child is concerned. Think about it.
 

I make a good point, do I not?


Consider the red tape adoptive parents have to wade through in order to bring a child into their lives. Agencies mandate months of exhaustive investigations in an effort to assure that the adoptive child goes into a stable, productive and safe environment.

Giving birth does not give every woman the necessary credentials that guarantee her of being a responsible mother. Let’s face it, having a child is a learning process unto itself apart from the help and assistance of relatives, friends and books. Some women are exemplary mothers from day one, others cannot separate themselves from the baggage of their past to responsibly provide for the child they bring into the world.  

Understand that I remember because I choose to do so unlike my mother who made the conscious decision to forget long before Alzheimer’s disease started its assault on her brain.

How do you forget your only child, any child, for that matter? Sure, everyone has their moments of parental ignorance, deliberate or otherwise and, raising children, at times, can be an on-going test of wills and a losing battle of patience versus demands. But, where I was concerned, I was a good kid.

Honestly, I was!

Okay, my defenses are kicking-up here, as usual. It always happens when I delve too deeply into my painful family history. There’s no graceful way around it for I’m totally committed to sharing what must be said in the hopes of reaching out to some other kindred spirit who, like me, grew up, and has become a survivor, in spite of fractured parental units.

Survivora person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks.

  • Continues to function – Yes, for the most part. 
  • Prosper In this economy? 
  • OppositionDealing with remarks like “That’s in the past; why do you want to dwell on it?”
  • HardshipAlways feeling like damaged goods.  Does that qualify?
  • Setbacks Nightmares, flashbacks, old family photos that trigger bad memories and cause that chill to slide up the back of your neck.  Sound familiar? 

Anyone, anyone?

I know you’re out there….talk to me.






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That twisted circle of life….here we go again!

How addictive is this?  Blogging, I mean.

First, that little voice lurking inside your head keeps telling you that “you’ll have nothing of interest to write about, so why bother?” then, thanks to a friend who has taken the blog-plunge before you, it grabs hold of you with a power all its own and….voila`!

So much of what is shared on blogs revolves around topics similar to events taking place in each of our lives; no matter what age-stage we’re presently stumbling through, the same principles apply.  One of my favorite web logs is written by the sister of a good friend; a young mother with a small tribe of children who shares her quest for sanity with intense humor and wisdom.  Here I sit, more than 30 years after experiencing the same “toddler turmoil” and this could be me writing her same words.

30 years ago, there was no internet, no “mommy groups” or “play dates”, just good old Dr. Spock which I carried around like a bible with the page on “Toddler Troubleshooting” permanently bookmarked. 

Okay, there wasn’t any such page, I made it up.  Sue me. 
Just a test to see if you were paying attention.

My point is that everything stays the same, it just wears different disguises as we find our way down that bumpy road of child-rearing.  I only wish that the ability to share, to vent, laugh and cry, as I raised my three children, had been looking back at me through a computer screen all those years ago. 

                                                               

I only wish that I could do it all again. 


Yes….really, I do!

Thank you…….Narragansett Number 7!

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