"Maggie May" Used to Echo In Our Family Basement

I stood in the basement of my childhood home. A couple of boxes of old Math Textbooks were all that was left. The circa 70's finished basement with its tiled floors and brown paneled walls complete with the must have built in bar was barren-much like my heart felt at that moment. Every last scrap of life built up year after year, milestone after milestone have been removed. God, it was like shoveling more dirt on the grave burying it for good. Stab. Man, it hit me in the heart how easily it all was tossed, cleared out. Wiped away like a dry eraser board went the tangible memories. My eyes started to burn and fill with my salty tears, first slowly and then in a rush. Damn. My siblings hauled it all out in no time at all and it felt, disrespectful. It felt like there was no moment to say, I don't know.... What would I want to say? It just felt so cold, callus, hardened how quickly our lives, remnants of our life became dust to sweep away on the cold basement floor.

I used to roller skate to Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" on the cold basement floor when it was gray concrete. My sister and her best friend's Barbie apartment complex was down there that they made piece by piece with every little miniature piece of furniture. In our teen years, my sister and I claimed the basement as our apartment. So, from childhood playground to sacred living space where the reverberating echoes of giggly laughter and serious conversations dissipated into the ether.

Deeper in the basement, the unfinished section where the oil burner was and my father's workbench stood loaded with old computers, typewriters that produced high school book reports, my mother's old Singer sewing machine that gave her such grief with the temperamental tension, tools, tools and more tools, coffee cans filled with nails and more old books....cleared away. Just like that, gone.

I remember the one and only time my father got mad at me. I was watching him work with a hot glue gun and a soldering iron at his workbench He was always fixing things himself. I was fascinated by it. He warned me not to touch it. What did I do? I touched it. I remember a good blister on my finger from it. This was the only time I can remember my father spanking me, one firm swat to the hiny.

My mother passed away in 2006 and my father, at 85 just last month. My sister, brother and I are moving swiftly in clearing the house readying it for sale. There is no time to process; there is no time to ease into the idea of saying good-bye to our childhood home; there is no time to digest that my father is not on this earth any longer. When I do have time to process it, I feel a punch in the gut pain.

I stood there in the basement, and I opened one of the math books. There was his beautiful swirly handwriting of his name and the name of his college. It must have been what he used to learn to be a math teacher at college. His large perfect cursive were the windows to his soul. Handwriting is full of personality and my father's large, precise, fancy script handwriting matched his fun, zesty and yet, attention to detail personality to a tee. I found among the boxed books my mother's nursing licenses, first her Licensed Practical Nurse and then, her Registered Nurse.  Damn. These were hard earned, something I didn't really appreciate until now. We were tossing it out. I kept those.

I know memories are not in things; they are in your heart and mind forever, but yeah, no. Memories are in one's life's work, the day to day planners with personal notes to oneself, a favorite shirt, a favorite mug, plate, bowl, the pens one wrote with, the music listened to, the books read, ...Memories are tangible.

My family house is now empty. I guess this is my ode to my family house. It wasn't always peaceful in that house, and as a matter of fact, there was quite a lot of pain and heart ache in that house. Yet, it was my house, the one I grew up in. I just didn't want it all dismissed so ...easily, irreverently. I respect the life lessons learned there and at the root of it all, love won the day. Love carried us all through, especially in my father's last dying days where us siblings who were distant and detached for so many years, finally got it together and found each other again when facing the foreignness of death.

So, I guess, now that I wrote this and gave my house its due, I can release all the physical tangible memories, ones that I didn't keep to the universe. I picture me holding a pearly white dove and tossing it upward watching its wings spread and flap toward the sky.

I feel peace like the sweet exhale you express when you clap close a favorite bedtime story leaving you feeling sleepy and satisfied as you kiss a child a good night's sleep.

Even A Lady Bares Her Teeth....Lizzie and, Yes, I Can Bare Teeth too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jTITjkN664
Lizzie's Refusal of Mr. Darcy's Proposal is not as civilized as her refusal to Mr. Collins...Let's just say she kind of let's it all out...


Look at Elizabeth Bennet how she snarls and spews venomous words as her temper roils up to the boiling point at Mr. Darcy’s clueless rampage of insults. She bares her teeth and literally is heaving afterward like a wild dog after a fight.

I felt like that this morning when my buttons were pushed just the right way on top of the numerous stresses of today’s world have mounted so high, that I, a well controlled, empathetic, schooled in the art of counseling, yes, I lost my temper. I am trying to forgive myself for I am the adult, like Lizzie, was trained to be a lady, to comport myself in the most acceptable manner, and yet, the adult, the supposedly mature one, the intelligent, thoughtful, loving and considerate adult yelled and threw a plate into the sink shattering a casserole pan that had been lying there innocently; it had never done anything to me. I even hesitated before throwing that lunch plate in the sink; I actually thought a mere second before doing so that I really should not do this action, but man, I wanted to throw it hard with everything I got, and did. I regretted it afterward. You can’t take it back. You can’t play rewind.  But I guess I needed to release bottled up emotions that have been stuffed down and repressed and denied for too long.  Was that how Lizzie felt?

I spoke with my family afterward and we all calmly talked about what happened, what's happening in our lives, what we all are facing, going through, and how we all feel about it all.  The air is clear, but I still have to forgive myself for losing "control."  It's not okay, really.  But it happened and I am human and need to forgive myself.  I have a punching bag downstairs I could have wailed on, but anyway....

 I thought of the scene in the rain where Elizabeth Bennet lets it all out on Mr. Darcy like an angry mother wolf. Perhaps, Elizabeth had many stresses in her life too that had been piled up inside her. Actually, there is no perhaps, she does have many worries on her mind.  They have Mr. Collins threatening their homestead, the pressure of being a female and needing to marry well, and she prays to God that she can marry for love…which her friend Charlotte pointed out is a luxury which Charlotte, at 27, couldn't do.  Lizzie refused Mr. Collin's marriage proposal and may feel a bit guilty for she could have surely saved her family from poverty if she sealed that union, but she didn't, couldn't.  Elizabeth is like the second mother of the household and is fiercely protective of her sisters, Jane’s heart breaking breaks her own.  She loves all of her younger sisters and says good night to all of them as if she was the eldest, which she is not. She sees that they are all tucked in safe and secure in their beds.  Perhaps that moment in the rain, when Mr. Darcy makes Elizabeth all too painfully aware of her lower birth, her families’ ridiculousness at times, and her sister's supposed apathy toward Mr. Bingley, Lizzie combusted.

I can’t excuse my outburst, but I think on occasion, it is a relieving thing to do as long as no one gets hurt. The world today has made it so difficult with finances dwindling amidst a more and more expensive technological world, jobs that are fewer and fewer, and the loss of the carefree feeling of security…obligation and duty forces our stagnation. Writing, painting, and exercising are far better outlets for combating the stresses of the world, but letting it out in a verbal tempest is sometimes unavoidable and necessary.

Hey, Mr. Darcy heard Elizabeth’s every word, and used the form of letter writing to rebuke her accusations and maybe, in someway, her snarling refusal of his proposal moved them forward in their relationship.

The same could be true in my household. After “losing it” on the kitchen sink, my family talked about many things. We opened a door to further discussion and understanding of each other. We all have our own pressures; talking about it and respecting what each other is going through is what came out of my snarling tempest.

I'm done panting and heaving...time to get outside and get some fresh air...painting later.  Sir William Rosemont has color!!!