A group of women gathered in my writing studio on Tuesday morning (August 25, 2015) for the first session of the new writing season. During the first 20 minutes we each wrote notes for a "random autobiography." After going around the circle, reading these out loud, some of us decided we'd like to share them more widely. So here they are . . . .
We lived with my grandparents in a railroad apartment until I was two. The reason given was that Mom couldn't boil an egg, let alone be trusted to prepare baby formula.
One summer our extended family stayed at a bungalow colony in the Catskills. There was a parade for the 4th of July and my mother dressed me up as an Indian maiden. One of my aunts kept calling me Princess Potch in Tushie. All day people patted me on the behind but I couldn't figure out why.
I won a Lindy Hop competition, dancing with an older girl who I didn't know before she asked me to be her partner. The whole experience was thrilling. The prize was a bag of pretzels.
In junior high school I played the tuba in music class, except I never actually managed to squeeze a single note out of the instrument, and the band director was so fed up with me he ordered me stay away, to go to the library instead. The school librarian said I was the best volunteer helper they ever had. The band director gave me an "A" for the class.
When I was 14 a counselor at camp called me a hippie and I thought he was being mean about my big hips. But later, when he explained himself, I was flattered.
I remember standing on the back porch with a monarch butterfly poised on the tip of my finger, opening and closing, drying off, readying for flight.
I remember when the elevator doors opened and we were getting off, and the kids getting in said, "Did you guys hear about Princess Diana?"
I remember when mine was the only bedroom on the first floor and how lonely i felt at bedtime.
I remember the first lines from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: "Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912."
I remember when my parents let me go on vacation to Maine with my high school boyfriend, and how when we got there we went grocery shopping and he bought new shampoo and said that way he would always remember the smell of the trip.
I remember being surprised by a lemon shark gliding 10 feet beneath us as we snorkeled and how we froze and how all the brightly colored fish scattered so quickly.
I remember how my baby brother called flies "yies" and would say, "Go away, yie!" and how I still find myself thinking the same thing — "Go away, yie!" when there's one bothering me.
In the mornings sometimes I sit and chat, luxuriating in relaxed togetherness time with my parents, friends, cousins, sister, lover — whoever is there in the living room. I love connections with people.
When I was very young, maybe 5, I had my father promise that once the Grassroots Festival office moved out of our basement he would fix it up for me as a dance studio. I subsequently forgot about that agreement, only to remember it years later and not mind.
I have one sister and we share a middle name.
I am part of a clan of strong women, my six female cousins are really my six other sisters.
As a child I always figured I'd be in federal prison by the age I am now, 26, because my mother was.
I love salad. Lettuce. Vinegar. Give me a pickle or some sauerkraut any time of day and I'll be happy. You will find a bag of almonds in my purse, backpack, drum case, coat pocket. I love to cook.
It's really no secret that I love shoes. I remember sitting Indian-style (or, now, the more politically correct criss-cross-applesauce) on the floor of my grandmother's closet, completely enveloped by shoes. Glory be to the highest!!
I remember the endless days of summer on the farm in Mecklenburg: the cool, soft carpet of grass under my feet, riding bikes pell mell up and down the lone road in front of our house, unfurling the butterfly blanket with a snap and lying out in the sun, dripping with Bain de Soleil, reading Rich Man, Poor Man.
I remember when embroidered gauze shirts from House of Shalimar were all the rage.
I remember one of the first stories I wrote about a cat who travelled the world and all she saw and did and everyone she met along the way. I sandwiched the written pages between construction paper and bound them together with yarn. I wish I still had that small bundle.
I remember putting Vaseline in my hacked-up hair; I wanted it to look like Keith Richards's. It was weeks before that Vaseline washed out. My mother ranted over ruined pillowcases.
For some strange reason I love to feed people.
I love to read and can tune out just about any noise and focus on a book.
I love dead people, they know more than we do.
I think about my mother every day.
I have learned to have boundaries with people but I'm still open.
I am struggling with grief every day.
I have always loved dogs more than people
I remember the 1960s — dances like the boogaloo and the twist; graduating from college; participating in the Civil Rights Movement and the Peace Movement; having an illegal abortion.
I remember sitting with my mother, in the summer, on our front lawn and no mosquitoes bit us.
I remember standing next to the singer Odetta at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
I remember my first car, a two-door red Corvair that was my college graduation present from my parents.
My first apartment in New York — June of 1968 taught me how to live in small spaces.
I remember being robbed at gunpoint on the first day of 1979 in my feminist bookstore in New York City, and closing the store and going home.
I remember holding my mother’s hand when she died.
I remember sand between my toes as small waves slipped past; writing my name — the "S" backwards — in indelible ink on the bed sheet at hated nap time; a pair of blue corduroy pants with an elastic waist — when they got too short my striped socks showed.
At 5 I picked a Holstein cow from the herd, pretending that she could/would be my 4-H project.
I remember the smell of baking oatmeal bread coming in through the open school windows.
I had two toddlers when we lived at the Hasbrouck apartments. There was no insulation in the walls; frost on the inside of the windows; wet squeaky toys on the bathroom floor.
I remember my first bike ride on the dirt road in front of my grandmother’s house.
I remember when I knew Darryl liked me, he pushed me off my bike! — age 8.
I remember my first adult bike — a heavy 12-speed Royce Union.
I remember fixing flats, adjusting brakes, and oiling chains.
Yesterday I wore an old sock on my hand, used the orange cleaning fluid to clean the chain on my Trek hybrid, the bike that I’ve ridden for the last 15 years.
Just yesterday my husband and I were in the bike shop regaling the mechanic with bike stories. As customers began to line up behind us we knew it was time to calm down and come down off the mountain of memories.
I remember most of the places where we pitched our tent and spent the night on our 3048 mile ride across the USA. I relive and remember details from that trip as I try to fall asleep on sleepless nights.
I buy an alarm clock only if it has an excellent snooze button.
I like numbers divisible by 3 because they are usually the most curvaceous.
I could swim underwater before I could walk on the ground.
I hope I'm a lot like my sister and will keep a sense of humor even if, someday, I can barely get from my bed to my wheelchair, which will soon be the scope of her mobile reality.
I reason with insects, politely asking them to go away. If they won't, I escort them elsewhere or smash them, if they're especially irritating.
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THANK YOU to these contributors:
Leah Rose Grady Sayvetz
Linda Keeler
Marty Blue Waters
Paula Culver
Sara Robbins
Sue Perlgut
Sue Norvell
Summer Killian
Zee Zahava
