A group of women gathered in my writing studio on Wednesday morning (August 26, 2015) for the second session of the new writing season. During the first 20 minutes we each wrote notes for a "random autobiography." We want to share some of these with you here.
I remember the sense of victory when I finally managed to squeeze out a sound on a kazoo.
I remember a dream where my grandmother appeared, shortly after her death, and presented me with a huge piece of chocolate cake on a plate.
Before I had siblings, I had the cows in the barn. I'd make mud sandwiches for them, which they never ate.
I remember playing beneath my mother's ironing board as she listened to the McCarthy hearings.
I remember auditioning for the high school musical, so nervous I could hardly hold the sheet music. Luckily the director was my French teacher. She smiled at me, I took a breath, and I got a part in the show.
Summer vacations, school over for the year. My reward to myself was hours in my geologist aunt's jungle hammock, hidden from the world, reading science fiction.
The best present I ever got was my grandfather's collection of rocks and minerals, which he brought to me on one of their rare visits to our house. It wasn't even my birthday or Christmas.
I remember my grandmother's molasses cookies which I loved and which my grandfather ate every morning at breakfast. I'd never heard of such a thing.
I remember every library of my childhood.
I remember when my boots filled with the salty water from a wave pummeling in from the Sound at Orient Beach when I was 4 years old, and it made me so mad.
I remember looking at family photos with my dad just before he went to Hospicare.
I remember playing the part of Aunt Polly in the 9th grade musical, Tom Sawyer.
I remember sneaking out at night at Girl Scouts Camp and hiding from mean Mrs. Gillespie.
I remember eating a banana split for dinner.
I could never do a broad jump; just had no lift at all. One year at summer camp it cost my team, of which I was captain, the Decathlon. All we needed were a few more inches, but I just didn’t have them. And I just realized, after 50+ years of feeling responsible, that no one else did either.
I’ve never understood why we remember the things we do, and don't remember the things we don't.
Last week my grandchildren were visiting from suburban Maryland. One evening in the pouring rain the sky was an unearthly orange-green. I thought it wasn’t even worth telling my grandson to look. He’s a hyperactive 10 year-old, addicted to electronic devices. He wouldn’t care, and how sad that was to me. Just then he walked into the room and yelled, “Look at how beautiful the sky is! What’s that color?” Bad me.
Two trees of my childhood: the crabapple I climbed down to sneak out of my bedroom, and the weeping willow my parents had ripped from the earth because it dared to break our kitchen window during a hurricane.
Forty years of being in my pond, enveloped by cool water, birds complaining about my presence, dragonflies as my insect repellent, ripples reflecting sunlight on the grasses.
The old Rothschild Building was a very cool place to work — so many interesting people to meet. I remember taking the creaky old elevator to the second floor where they made the best egg and green olive sandwiches.
I remember Sunday morning polkas on the radio and dancing on my father's feet and singing in Polish.
I remember having a breakdown when I found my birth family after so many years.
I remember Summer Jam Music Festival in Watkins Glen
I remember developing a successful career at Cornell that lasted 25 years.
I remember my father calling my name as my mother died in his arms.
On cold winter nights I remember my Bubbe’s cabbage soup, seasoned with sour salt, thick with cabbage and meaty bones.
I remember my first jumbo-sized kosher hot dog at Jack & Marion's in Coolidge Corner.
I remember the first meeting of the Brookline High School Folk Music Club: Jim Kweskin was there, a tall scrawny man, years before his Jug Band albums became so popular.
I remember going to the Young People’s concerts on Saturday afternoons with my beloved Mema.
I remember the first time I put on tap shoes.
I remember that dreadful co-ed party in 10th grade when I called my dad and asked him to come get me and take me home.
I remember teaching my 4-year-old brother how to swear, and the taste of Ivory soap in my mouth when my mother found out what I had done.
I remember my first baby-sitting job for the Bernstein twins, both impish and adorable. Their father used to keep Playboy magazines in the bathroom.
I remember riding the indoor trike around in a circle, from the kitchen into the front hall, to the living room, and then the kitchen again.
I remember the safer swings at the park that were very uncomfortable compared to the old rigid hard-rubber ones.
I remember the way sounds carry across a lake in the early evening.
I remember the fun of swinging back and forth on the "rings" in gym, feeling so powerful, like a monkey swinging on vines in the forest.
I remember wondering why the doctor didn't mention to my mother, or to me, that I was a pregnant teenager.
I remember my husband saying my parents should move to New York so we could fill their final years with the presence of family, and how he would build an addition on our garage so taking care of them wouldn't be as much of a burden.
I remember all the times we opened our home to our children's friends, helping them stay in school or deal with undesirable home situations.
I remember waking up and hearing a voice inside my head saying "Don't Eat Meat" and I believed it was the voice of God. But I didn't listen.
A purple glass bauble hung at the entrance to my home for the last four years, and I liked it, until one day this past July when I decided I no longer liked it and I said to that bit of glass "Your days are numbered." When I returned from my early morning walk the glass bauble had fallen off its hook and shattered into dozens of pieces. How can I know if something is a coincidence of if I have super powers?
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THANK YOU to these contributors:
Anne Taft
Deirdre Silverman
Grace Celeste
Kathleen Jackson
Leslie Howe
Linda Pope
Nancy Osborn
Zee Zahava
