Nancy Merrill Photography is hosting a photo challenge:
The theme this week is: Ready, set, action! A photo or two that features movement of any kind.
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Back in the 1990s my very active son showcased movements of every kind…all day. Every day. When he was 3 ½, I showed him how to dribble a basketball. And he was hooked.
Channeling all that energy into basketball conveniently coincided with the emergence of the 1992 Olympic Men’s Basketball Dream Team. And then, more specifically Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. My son would dribble & shoot for hours and hours with the Dream Team in our driveway. His imagination was active too.
He played basketball all the way through high school and grew to be 6’3″ tall.
In the (35mm) photos below, at the age of 7, he gives his father a workout.
A few years ago…for a brief 3 months, we rented a very small condo across the street from a stretch of Hampton Beach in NH.
It was a temporary home while we waited for our new condo to be finished…after downsizing from almost 37 years in a 3 bedroom house. In the interim, we stored most of our belongings and essentially moved twice. First to this rental! It was a stressful time of uncertainty, planning, paperwork, scheduling, packing, unpacking, working…oh and hosting Christmas with 3 more adults and a sweet baby.
However, this cozy oasis on the coast proved to be just that…an oasis in the midst of life’s chaos. Breakfast watching the sun rise. The stunning late afternoon light as the day ended. From dark to light and back again.
The view from any window had been more than enough to calm and restore my rattled self during that mini-chapter of life.
Flash Fiction Challenge: September 13, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes pasta. It can be spagetti, macaroni and cheese, or any variety. It can be a meal or a work of art. Go where the prompt leads.
They whisper, but she hears.
Crouching in the hall shadows. Hidden.
Disappearing. Like before.
“Lunch time!” the nice man calls.
The little girl and little boy are at school.
She perches on the edge of her chair.
Her very own place at their table.
“Honey…” the nice lady begins.
“We’re so sorry…”
Looking down.
“You can’t stay here anymore.”
The girl freezes. Stares. Forkful of spaghetti suspended.
Fingers clench into a fist snapping the fork upright.
Steaming tomato sauce spatters.
Drips down her hand.
Red spreading. Staining.
Everywhere.
Did you know that summer squash is 94% water?
Even though it (and its cousin the zucchini) overtake local gardens by the end of the summer, I still enjoy these summer vegetables over and over. Sliced, chopped, steamed, roasted…and in a cheese casserole if so inspired.
One day the light was right and the cut squash cooperated…
…from summer
to winter…
One February morning, I raised the shade and found this…
I never worried about it when I was younger. I fell all the time as a kid. Off my bike. Off my skateboard. Running and jumping.
I’ve got the shiny scars to prove it. On my chin. Forehead. Wrist. Knees. Falling down: bruises, scrapes and sometimes stitches. But that was it. Within days (or less) I was back to my normal fearless self, good as new. Or at least it felt like it.
The bouncing back of youth. I took it for granted. I was only really scared once: I tripped and fell while carrying a half gallon glass bottle of milk…rushing up the front cement stairs at dusk. That fall – onto broken glass – led to an emergency room visit…and thank god you didn’t cut your artery, you could have bled to death…That popped my eyes open on the ER bed. I’ve got 2 scars on my right hand & wrist from those stitches. I was 11.
Decades later, it’s all about so much more. The consequences are now totally different.
The television commercial showcasing “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” is not really funny at all. Perhaps it only amuses a younger audience. I used to laugh too. But now I think, There but for the grace of God…
Both my Oma and Opa fell in their condo – the same day – and couldn’t get up; eventually crawling to reach a phone. Back before cell phones. They were forced to call my mother – closest geographically and their only child – effectively ending a 5 year simmering I’m-not-talking-to-them feud. Not quite worth the silver lining. They went from hospital to nursing home.
Within the next 10 years, my mother slipped and fell down the garage stairs, breaking her hip; triggering a decline in her health and functioning. My mother-in-law fell in the nursing home she was living in; broke her hip and then decided never to walk again. My father slipped and fell down an icy driveway, shattering his hand in multiple places. Their stories are not unique.
Now here I am in my “golden years” living in an “over-55” condo development. All the units are one level “garden style” type. We moved here for many reasons, but the biggest reason we chose this particular living arrangement? To reduce the risk of falling. No stairs to climb in our unit.
No guarantees though – stairs or no stairs. One of our new neighbors recently fell in the bathroom and will be immobile for many months. One fall and your life takes a different path. One you wouldn’t have chosen voluntarily. A few stitches or ice packs is not going to fix you anymore.
Of course not everyone “of a certain age” carries the same risk (and catastrophic falls can happen at any age); but it increases as time goes on. Falling can mean the end of having control over where you go, how you get there, what you do. Your world gets smaller and smaller. And often more painful.
But I wonder if worrying about it and being carefulshrink your world as well? Where’s the fine line between sensible precautions and obsessive worry? There has to be a balance.
Recent condo association board meetings have had agendas full of “how to decrease liability.” Irate owners shouting We need speed bumps because people drive too fast. Someone will get hit, fall down and we’ll be liable. Others: Get rid of the speed bumps because people are tripping over them and falling and we’ll get sued. Or fix the sidewalk before someone falls…and we’ll get sued.
They are afraid. And not just about lawsuits. I’m convinced it’s not all anger…really. It’s fear. It’s about what can happen when you fall. It’s fear masquerading as anger – on both sides.
In the backs of our minds, it’s there. I know I can’t be the only one, as I am on the younger side of the demographic here.
On this dreary rainy day, it is time for a flower!
This is a closeup of a type of rose plant given to me a few years ago. Taken on a sunny day in July. My mystery flower! I’m just guessing it’s a rose.
Much to my astonishment I have kept it alive during our move to a rental and then to a condo. Hardy if nothing else. I wish I had not lost the directions on care and feeding…which also included its name. It likes lots of sun. That much I remember.
In my lifetime, this is the day everything changed.
We are being attacked!
I heard my coworker yelling as she ran down the hall past my office. I worked in a hospital at the time and yelling in the halls was unusual. And disturbing. Planes are hitting buildings in New York City!
It has become one of those awful “where were you?” moments. The horrific alteration of reality that gets seared in memory.
Must call family. Must connect. My daughter – a college sophomore on the east coast. My son in the 8th grade. My husband at home. My parents called him. My siblings. My friend in DC. My friend in NYC. The need to wrap oneself around loved ones as we watched the horror, the fires, the smoke, the pain unfold on television – over and over and over and over. Hope draining away as the hours dragged on.
Emails flew through cyberspace. Are you okay? Are you okay? My good friend who lived close to NYC frantic to help in some way. A doctor, she made ready to go to Ground Zero. But there was nobody to save. Was on call for helping at hospitals but no living to care for…she wrote to me.
Such profound loss.
Since then life has been divided: Before 9/11 and After 9/11.
A whole generation of children are now growing up under the cloud of what happened that bright sunny day in 2001. Its aftermath. Its fallout.
My heart breaks, still, for those thousands of innocents who died that day. And for their families. And for the first responders. And their families.
Soon after that day in 2001, the nation was called upon to light candles together in remembrance and solidarity. It was a time of unspeakable tragedy and for a brief time…there was unity. We stood on our small deck with a candle. A moment of silence.
I drove to work a few days later and saw a big American flag newly attached to the top of a huge crane – at the construction site for the hospital’s addition project. Similar to the ones at the WTC.
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As a child, I hid under my school desk. Practice drills. Crouched low with head down. In case we were attacked. Then we weren’t. And life went on much as before.
That won’t work anymore.
This morning, the news networks held a moment of silence at 8:46 am to mark when the first plane hit.
Flash Fiction Challenge: September 6, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about an epic workplace. It can be real or imagined. Go where the prompt leads.
“I’m doing my works!”
The little girl demonstrates.
Carefully pouring water from cup to bowl.
The silent visitor watches in surprise.
She’s never seen such a grand school.
Small wooden tables and chairs. A low matching sink.
Sun pouring in on many bright, happy faces.
The little boy calls out “Me too. Look at my works!”
Red cubes stacked high.
A place for important work. For all.
Pouring. Sorting. Counting. Writing.
Girls and boys. Older helping younger.
Just like her.
The teacher, sitting on the big rug, smiles. Please join us for circle time. Welcome to Greenwood Montessori school.
Today I went to school. I brought my lunch. I wore my coolest dress because it was 90° Boy it was HOT. (grade 5)
Today I went to school. I brought my lunch. After school I did my homework…Then I played Army…We watched TV. (grade 5)
Today I went to school. It wasn’t my day. I brought my lunch… (grade 5)
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When September rolls around, traditions click into place. Even irrelevant outdated ones – when entrenched in childhood, they still rise to the surface years later. Like the cream floating on milk in those half gallon bottles delivered by the milkman when I was 9.
But I digress.
More like whoops it’s past Labor Day, now I have to stop wearing white shoes. Which, again, is no longer relevant. I don’t even own white shoes.
Labor Day. My childhood diaries mark its significance. Labor Day meant getting ready for school, the beginning of school and the end of summer. And my white footwear was shoved to the back of the closet until the following Memorial Day. Which was fine with me, as I preferred my Keds.
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I put dividers in my notebooks…Maddy came over and helped me organize my notebooks…(grade 6)
Today I went to school…I began to understand the Math…(grade 6)
Today I went to school. We had Math. Then Science…After lunch & Social Studies we had gym. We played keep-away football…(grade 6)
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September = shopping trips for school clothes. Sensible dresses, skirts, shoes. One year: dresses with attached poor boy tops. And then just poor boy tops. A CPO jacket. Penny loafers. Or – after much begging and cajoling – a bra. My my. And finally, after more begging – stockings and a garter belt. This was years before girls could wear pants to school. A new pocketbook – at some point – with my own saved-up money. Bought at a discount store with a girlfriend. One year a madras style. One year with fringe. If possible, with zippers.
School…
I attended 5 public schools from Kindergarten through 12th grade. There was always a wariness mixed with excitement before each school year started. Who would my teachers be? But mostly – who would the other girls in my class be? Would Diane be back to mock me and make me feel small? Damned if she didn’t follow me from school to school until we moved in my 6th grade year. Decades before bullying became a news headline, it was – of course – still rampant.
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…Wore stockings to school. Had a terrible lunch – meatball hero. (grade 7)
Today I went to school…Came home and washed dishes, made salad & whip ‘n chill. (grade 7)
…My hair turned out great.* It stayed in all day. Even when it rained. (grade 7)
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*Dippity-Do – another back-to-school must have. That stuff (plus pink plastic curlers) was magic for curling straight hair.
September = shopping for school supplies. I loved this part. Wandering the aisles at Valley Fair. The 1960’s version of Walmart plus Woolworth’s plus creaky wooden floors. Everything was in there – 45’s and pocketbooks and stockings and Wrangler dungarees and cheap cosmetics…and in September…a whole aisle of paper. All kinds. Notebook paper. Lined and unlined. Graph paper. Pads of paper. Yellow pads. White pads. Packs of pens and pencils hanging from hooks on display. Bic pens. Flair pens. Yellow pencils. Colored pencils. Blue three-ring binders. Black and white composition books. Smooth, blank and full of potential. Pink erasers. Notebook dividers. Pencil cases. Rulers. Protractors. When I discovered cartridge pens – with the little ink cartridges and calligraphy tips built right in: Jackpot Fancy.
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Tried on dresses so Grammy could shorten some. (grade 8)
Went to school. Hot out…After school I went to Westwood. Got a new pocketbook – has a chain handle. (grade 8)
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I usually got a hair cut. So did my sisters and brother.
Haircut. New dress. New shoes. Lunch. Notebooks and schedule. Ready to go.
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Today I went to school. Today was the opening of the high school for all students. I really felt crowded today. The lunch was good…. (grade 9)
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As I got older, September also marked changes in my after-school life.
Grammar school: Chores. Playing army with my brother. Or building a fort with my friend Kathleen. Riding my bike. Playing kickball in the street.
High school: Chores and babysitting my siblings. Lots of babysitting my siblings. Listening to records & AM radio. Talking on the phone, shopping or baking with my girlfriends. At their houses. At Wendy’s it was snickerdoodles. At Vikki’s it was fudge. Or maybe we just ate her mother’s fudge, because she was such an amazing baker. Vikki and I used to joke that we would widen our doors for each other when we got older. Forecasting the obesity that never materialized.
…back to September and another tradition…
First Day of School Picture
8th grade
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Went to school…We had to write an imaginary story in English about what we would do with a super power. I picked invisibility. The lunch here is so much better than last year…On the way home the bus broke down & we had to change busses to get home…(grade 9)
Backyards are often places where families gather. Children run, jump, play, swim and learn about their outdoor world. For many, a backyard is where bare feet first touch blades of grass – or – where a squirrel is first spotted racing up a tree…
And in these vintage 35mm photos…
A backyard is for reading library books in a hammock with daddy.
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And a backyard is where little brother and big sister cool off and share a sprinkler on a hot summer day.
one letter UP ~ diary 2.0 