DANCING SOMEWHERE

I used to sit in the bay window in the living room of the house I grew up in and look out over the fields of green and gold.  If it was summertime, I could see my Dad and uncles on bright red tractors, slowly and methodically moving down one row and back up the next, baling hay. My younger sister and I used to keep our turtles on the sill of this window in glass terrarium bowls, or if we were feeling really fancy, in an aquarium. Turtles we begged for continuously on our weekly trips to Woolworth’s in Ithaca. I have no idea how many turtles we went through, because, of course, they always died.  If I close my eyes I can still smell those turtles, an earthy, sour and totally distinct smell.  I loved to curl up on that long, broad sill and daydream about life outside that window.  I don’t recall ever reading there, though, which strikes me as odd because, in retrospect, it seems like the perfect reading nook for a girl of nine.
I preferred to do my reading in the bathtub, sans water, under the bright, warm, penetrating gaze of the heat lamp, which was considered the utmost in luxury back in the ’70’s.  I would drag my pillows, blanket and books into the bathroom, make a nest in the tub, and snuggle into whatever book I was reading at the time, probably one of the Nancy Drew’s or The Wind in the Willows.  There are several family photos of me in that pink tub and it became just another of my peculiarities that my family chuckled over.

Now, I prefer to snuggle up in my plush queen-size bed to read, but I wonder how I would feel if I dragged my pillows, blankets and books into the bathroom and made a nest in my deep, claw-footed tub and hunkered down to read?  Would that girl of nine or ten come and pay me a visit? She pokes her head out occasionally, like the turtles of way back when, but then disappears just when I’ve caught a glimpse.  She went on the lam, not long after afternoons spent gazing out of the bay window or evenings spent reading in the bathtub.  She evaporated a little at a time, bit by bit, piece by piece until she was but a wisp on the wind floating out over those fields of green and gold.  Somehow, I feel that she is my Pied Piper; if I can just call her back to me, then all those scattered dreams will follow suit, weaving and wending their way back to my heart, where they belong.

WORK IT

When I was 11, my best friend K. said she’d give me $5 to wear underwear on my head to a play we were going to at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca with her family. Her house was my home away from home--the hippie freewheeling home that offered up heavenly smells of fresh-baked yeasty breads on Saturday mornings and the pungent, earthy smells of homegrown on Saturday nights.  I loved her house and wished that my house of silent dinners and unsung songs could be more like hers.  She, of course, longed for the routine and structure that my house offered, which I found to be oh-so-boring. It didn’t take me long to figure out things to do to counteract life in Dullsville; things like wearing underwear on my head out in public. It was a brave move, I tell you, but I was more than up for the challenge.
While the underwear themselves were quite ordinary (plain old white briefs if I remember correctly) they became something extraordinary once that waistband snapped over my head.  My head was suddenly festooned...I pulled and tugged at the panties (I still refer to girls underwear as panties; the only other time that the word “panties” seems appropriate to me is in “don’t get yer panties in a wad”). I pulled them down like a beret, I twisted them up like a turban. Ultimately I just let them lie, looking like, well, a pair of white briefs on my head. K’s parents shook their heads; they were no strangers to my kooky ways and they loved me nevertheless. To their credit, they never acted embarrassed to be seen with me. I paired my new headdress with a tube-top maxi dress and off we went.
I actually felt regal in my flowing gown and crown of ivory.  I sashayed into the theatre as if I owned the place. I mean, if your going to wear underwear on your head in public you need to own it, there’s just no way around it. I do remember feeling a bit exposed under the bright lights of the lobby, but I stayed in character and held my head high. There were double-takes and giggles as we made our way to our seats, K. hanging back and trying to hide behind her Dad.
“Pay up, sister,” I whispered to her once we were in the safety of the darkened theatre. We both burst out laughing and I tore the panties off my head and tossed them to her Mom. “I hope these are clean,” she said, winking at me and stuffing them into her macrame bag.
Just last week my daughter said something about wouldn’t it be funny if someone wore underwear on their head? I said, “You know...” and told her the story. Her eyes got wide and she exclaimed “Mom!” before collapsing on the floor in a fit of giggles. “You’re weird, Mom!” she laughed, and then after a thoughtful pause, “but in a good way...”

That was like getting paid all over again, 38 years later.  I hope to teach her how much fun life can be when you can allow yourself to be kooky unfettered by what others may or may not think. I hope she grows up to be weird in a good way, too. In fact, I think I have an old pair of white briefs that I may need to hand down...

DELICATE SHARPNESS 11/15/11

It was 4 years ago today that my Dad died, at home in Mecklenburg, facing the window that he had sat in front of for as long as I can remember.  I sat on his lap as a child, in front of this window, as he read to me.  I couldn’t tell you what we read, but I remember the thrill of being that close to him, of feeling the strength and security of his arms around me, the comfort of nuzzling my face into his plaid, button down shirt that smelled of clover and hay.  I savored those moments for all they were worth, for my Dad was not an affectionately demonstrative man.
I remember kneeling in front of him, at his desk by that window, my head in his lap.  Pliers in hand, he made little fanfare of yanking out whichever baby tooth happened to be dangling from my gums at the time.
This was his spot; his desk, his chair by the window. It was where you could find him after a long day in the fields, baling hay or cultivating this or that, his clothes dusty, his work boots left on the mat in the laundry room.  I loved to slip into those boots and clomp around house, but only when he wasn’t looking.  They were soft and oily, the color of freshly roasted coffee beans.
It was at this window that the hospital bed was set up 4 years ago.  It was so strange to see a bed there instead of his desk and chair as they were what had always been there. Just the simple act of moving that desk and that chair from that spot made everything else seem skewed and off balance, a gesture that truly indicated that nothing would ever be as it was before. Everything would forever be changed; nothing could ever put things back in their proper place regardless of how many attempts were made to rearrange things and circumstances.
I remember the snowstorm that evening as I drove pell-mell from Ithaca back to our Mecklenburg home with my oldest sister in my father’s new van.  We had left the house about an hour earlier to pick up my daughter from daycare and I was just getting her out of the car seat when I got the call. A few flurries dusted my eyelashes and I was startled by their delicate sharpness.  By the time we got to Meck the snow was falling in sheets and I couldn’t see regardless of whether I used my high or low beams. It was as if we were driving into a tunnel of snow and I was hypnotized by the rhythmic slapping of the windshield wipers. We felt as if Dad were making it snow and it seemed right and beautiful although we couldn’t have told you why.
A few weeks later I was alone in my car, driving back downtown from the mall.  Looking out over the hills and land that my Dad had loved so (he said that although he had travelled the world there was no place as beautiful as right here) I began to sob, feeling the grief that engulfed me so completely then, and now tends to ebb and flow. I felt so lost, so confused, so angry, so everything.  My relationship with my Dad had been complicated; a source of mystery and conflict for both of us, I think.  And only recently have I been able to know that on the other side of that intense conflict lay the presence of love; a deep and soothing balm of love that had always been there.  Suddenly a car merged in front of me, it’s license plate simply said “Asa.”   Dad was letting me know that he was okay, that I was okay, that we were okay.   My Dad.  Asa.

TATTOO YOU

I got my first tattoo in a dingy trailer at the Trumansburg Fair sometime in the ’70’s. The exact year escapes me as do a lot of details from that era.  Memories swirl about like the fog of smoke that was my constant companion during that time.  I had to have been 14, maybe 15.  Nevertheless, the fair was the place to be for high-schoolers of my ilk and the massive bleachers provided the perfect hideout for clandestine meet-ups of the drug-induced variety.  The whole aura of the fair was very rock ‘n roll back then, and I was easily transported into another realm as I crossed through the gates and into the fairgrounds.  Bright lights illuminated the surface but failed to cut through to the seedy underbelly, which was right up my dark alley.  I began, then, to realize that it’s not so much where you are, but what can be born out of where you are. Yeah, I was still in Trumansburg, NY (literally a stone’s throw from Podunk, if you catch my drift...) but this T-burg was nowhere that I had ever visited before. It had been transformed into what I could then have only imagined Las Vegas to be. All glittery and flashing and loud, thumping music and high-pitched carnival music and sharp smells and bizarre, magnetic characters. Sinewy carnies with faded tattoos and dangling cigarettes called out to me every few steps, trying to seduce me into their stalls to try my hand at winning life-size fuscia llamas, dangling from ropes as if they had just been hung. 

“C’mon little darlin’,” they taunted. “I won’t bite...”

“Forget it then!” I’d holler with a backward glance over my shoulder, watching the cigarettes drop from their lips.  Sexual energy crackled like the grease from the fried dough booth.  I wanted nothing to do with the boys from my high school, with their smooth skin and part-time jobs stocking shelves at the P & C. These circus guys who didn’t give a shit and thought nothing of turning up a bottle of Jack Daniels and wiping their mouths on their grease-stained sleeves while undressing you with their eyes all the while pulling this lever and that and clicking bars into place so that the little kids wouldn’t fall out--these were the guys for me!  Again, the guys who reminded me the most of Keith Richards. Which brings me to my tattoo.

I decided that I would profess my love for Keith by getting a commemorative tattoo of the Stones logo--the famous lips and tongue painted by Andy Warhol. The same logo that adorned the walls of my room, the same logo that my older sisters had attempted to paint on the back wall of their closet, the same logo that I had on countless t-shirts and memorabilia.  I didn’t realize that this was what I’d decided to do until I found myself standing in front of the tattoo “parlor” at the fair on that muggy night in late July. With enough Mad Dog 20/20 under my belt to push me over the edge of doubt, I declared my intention to my older, just as wild, sister. I just happened to have a keychain with said logo dangling from my macrame purse to show the “artist” who was intensely adorning another girl who looked like, she too, had consumed her fair share of Boone’s Farm. He was fat and sweating profusely through his threadbare once white tank top. His prominent ass-crack greeted me from the too small stool he swallowed up. The air smelled sharp and sour; a thin film of dirt covered the counters and I don’t remember whether or not he wore gloves.  I tend to think not.  My sister, wild as she was, tried to talk me out of it. “You’re gonna be an old lady with boobs down to here with a tongue stretched down like some disgusting frog's tongue!” she pleaded.   

“It’s going to go here,” I said, pulling down my tube top and pointing to the very crest of my right breast, just before it swelled. “Not right on my boob!”

I fumbled with my key chain and had finally loosed it from my purse when the tattoo guy stood up and, thankfully, hiked up his trousers (Mick says “trousers”, you know...).  The girl grabbed the edge of the counter and pulled herself up, wobbling a bit. She gazed adoringly at the new vine wrapped around her ankle.  “Gotta keep it slathered for the 1st five days,” the tattoo guy said, grabbing a jar of Vaseline and scooping out a big glob with his index finger. He gently rubbed it over her angry-looking ankle.  “After that just keep it dry as best you can till it scabs over and then you’re good to go.”  

She handed him a $20 bill and limped down the rusty aluminum steps.

“Does it hurt to walk?” I called after her, my nerves kicking in.  My voice was drowned out by the tinkling of the merry-go-round and she didn’t answer me. I looked at the guy. “Does it hurt her to walk?” I asked him.

“Nah,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “She’s just favoring it. She’ll baby it for awhile and then forget all about it. Now, what can I do you for?” he asked, moving stacks of drawings in plastic sheets until he unearthed an overflowing ashtray.

“Well,” I said, thrusting the keychain at him. “I want to get this, here,” pointing to my right breast. Well, just above my right breast... 

A small smile threatened the corners of his mouth. “You do, do ya?” he said, handing me back the keychain. “I can do this one in my sleep.”

“Really?” I said. “So how many have you done?”  I noticed that my sister was gone. She had apparently slipped back into the night to pursue her own adventures. I suddenly wished she were there.

“Too many to count,” he said, waving his hand as if he were shooing away flies. Come to think of it, I think he was shooing away flies...

I reached into my purse and found my Camel Lights and, yes, Rolling Stones flip-top lighter. I needed a cigarette.

“Have a seat right here,” he said, gesturing to the metal chair in front of me. “And I have just the thing for this, uh, occasion...”  He fumbled through a pile of cassettes before holding one up in victory. He inserted it into the portable player and made a big show of pushing the play button.  Mick’s sultry voice echoed in the small space; “Please allow me to introduce myself...” he drawled.

“And if I’m not mistaken,” the tattoo guy continued, drawing back a stained curtain that hid a small bookshelf, “I think you could use a swallow of this.” He pointed to a bottle of Jose Cuervo. 

A tiny worm, protectively curled around itself, floated on the bottom.  “Now you’re talking!” I cried, hiding my nervousness. And it just so happened that Jose and I were already great friends. He produced a couple of Dixie cups and poured us each a glug. “Bottoms up!” I sang as we toasted and tossed back the fiery liquid.  He plopped down on the stool, which groaned under his weight, and he rolled back and forth across the counter, gathering up little pots of ink. I sang the “hoo-hoo’s” in “Sympathy for the Devil”; my favorite part, and swayed back and forth.  I wondered what my sister was doing. 

“Alright, so what size are we going for here?” he asked, reaching for my tube top. My hands flew up and stopped him. I pulled down the top ever so slightly, exposing the top of my already well-endowed chest.  

“You know,” I said as casually as I could. “About the size of a quarter, I guess.” I made a circle with my fingers to illustrate the point.

“Okey doke,” he said. “So, have you ever gotten a tattoo before?”

“Nope,” I said. “This is my first one!”

“Any questions before we get started?” he asked. “It’ll prick a little but won’t really hurt and it shouldn’t take long a’tall cause it’s small. It’ll run you $20.”

“Okay,” I said, fumbling for another cigarette. “Can I smoke while you’re doing it? And if I need to take a break can you?”

“Yup and yup,” he said. “Ready?”  

 “Ready,” I said. The tequila had begun to work it’s magic, unfurling it’s warmth throughout my body and I felt calmly excited.

He tore open an alcohol packet and wiped the cold square around my exposed flesh in a circular motion. He picked up what looked like a medieval dentists drill and dipped the end in dark ink. The motor whirred to life as Mick sneered “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name...”

The tip of the drill met my skin and a cloud of ink spread out like a fan. He dabbed at it with a wadded up paper towel and kept on drawing and dabbing. I watched in fascination and growing apprehension, wondering how this mess was going to even remotely look like my keychain. It was surprisingly painless. There was an obvious sharp pinch that was quickly followed by a sting, not unlike the feeling of having skinned a knee. Tolerable pain, obviously helped by my liquid medicinals. We didn’t talk while he worked; I didn’t want to distract him and I was lulled into a sort of trance in which I watched what he was doing as if he were doing it to someone else. Each time he dabbed I could see the picture taking shape and I grew more and more excited. I chain-smoked, tilting my head up and twisting my lips as I exhaled as not to blow smoke in his face. This was actually fun, I thought. I wondered if he needed an assistant. In what seemed like just a few minutes, he was done. He cleaned off his work with another alcohol wipe and sat back to look. “Now that,” he exclaimed, “is one good looking tongue!” 

I looked down at my chest. There is was, in all it’s glory. A perfectly rendered depiction of my beloved’s logo. I was thrilled and jumped up to hug him, almost knocking him over.

“Whoa, now,” he jumped back. “Don’t go moving quickly on me like that. I get startled real easy and you don’t want to startle me!” He wiped off his hands and held out his arms.

“Thank you!” I cried. “I love it!” We hugged. 

“How about one for the road,?” he winked at me, reaching for the tequila.  He poured us each another generous glug. I chugged it down in three gulps and felt my eyes water. How I loved that burn!

He gave me the Vaseline spiel and applied a thin gauze over the tattoo to protect it from rubbing on my clothes. I gingerly pulled up my top, smoothed my hair and slipped him a $20 and a $10. I’ve always been a good tipper.

Holding my head high, I slung my purse over my shoulder and made my way back into the bright lights to meet my fate.  And my mortified mother. But that’s another story...