A Journey

Chapter 1

She was at the mirror this morning going through the beauty rituals she had repeated every day for how many years now? For over forty years."Wow!" she thought. "That’s scary!!!"
Looking into the mirror at herself, the person looking back wasn’t all that bad looking and not so old. Brown eyes, good eyebrows, full lips, medium complexion, no big wrinkles yet, and she still had all her teeth and she was petite. As a matter of fact, maybe she could pass for 45 on a real good day... in a dark room… in candle light.

Smiling, she reached for her new shade of lipstick called Forever Pink, and watched it as it rolled off the edge of the counter at her feet and without hesitation, she reached with her toes, picked it up and brought it to her hand in a flash... something she had done for years just for the fun of it, and these days it was a blessing because some mornings her spine felt like it was soldered together at the tail bone and for some crazy reason if anything was going to be dropped it was going to be in the morning when her back was hurting. While trying to reach for a burned out light bulb when she was in her early thirties, she fell off the chair she had been standing on, and so was left with a pain that sometimes acted up. "Other than this, I’m still in great shape, but I hate stairs and standing for too long", she mused almost in a twilight zone of thoughts as she continued making herself pretty. "Time is a great teacher but she sure is sneaky."
 
Putting on her makeup in the morning was her time to let her mind wander where it wanted to. A full 20 minutes would go by in a flash and she was ready to go and face whatever life had in store for her.

Her mother had given her permission to wear a little makeup in order to cover the acne that had plagued her since her first pimple showed up on the tip of her nose, just in time for her twelfth birthday party.
She remembered it well. It was held at her aunt’s house. She had never had a birthday party, probably because our house was too small. Mom had given her one of those do it yourself home permanents; the kind that smelled so bad and burned the scalp so much you thought it would melt every hair on your head. All she could remember of that day was how big and sore her nose was, how frizzy the perm turned out, and how no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t hide the acne on her forehead because the hair was too curly, and how crampy she was because she had just started her monthly period a day before and had a horrible cold to boot. "I guess I can laugh about it now but God!!! Just how much fun can a kid take on one day. "Poor kid" she thought. I’m glad you made it through in one piece."
The party must have been a success in spite of this, and full of fun, because she had a picture of a gang of smiling rambunctious faces huddled together almost filling up her aunt’s living room with her very own smiling face in the back corner of the room saying cheese for the camera.
"I don’t remember one single thing about that day except how I felt", she whispered to the brunette in the mirror.
 
"Where did the years go?" Trying to ignore the white at the temples she could still see the silver at the hairline defying the color she was using, to stop the hand of time that was turning her into an old lady before she was ready to be one. "Its been only three weeks since my last visit to the hairdresser. Maybe I should just let the silver shine rather than cover it up And then a little voice inside her, whispered in her heart to keep the red,
"I like this copper color… and the spiky hairdo. You can be a grandma still without having to pull out the rocking chair and sit by the window knitting and getting fat on cookies and cakes and gravy, complaining all day about life like so many grandmas do. Life is to enjoy and have fun. It doesn’t have to be lived with frowns and sacrifices and long faces.", it said so matter of factly.

"You’re right! I mean I’m right. I’ll grow old gracefully all the way into my nineties, but nothing says I have to look it." and adding a little more blush to her cheeks she put away her beauty tools till tomorrow.

******

"Live and enjoy the day" I told myself this morning as I fluffed my hair into the usual spiky do and smiled as I thought of how far I had come from the little girl who had spent so many hours singing to herself in the backyard on the swing Dad had built from an old rope and extra lumber he had salvaged. I have changed and yet I know that deep inside myself I still carry the "me" I was, right here in my heart, even now after all this time.

"This might not be as hard as I thought it was going to be. I’ll start writing and see where it goes."

******
 

Memories I have still and so vivid they are.
I can still feel, see and taste of green summers past with blue skies and cotton clouds and buttercups and warm summer breezes tousling my hair while swinging on that little rope with the grey piece of wood that had a notch taken off each end of it, and with eyes closed I can still hear the buzzing of bees and crick crick cricks of the grasshoppers at my feet. I loved the feel of the grass on my toes as I pushed the swing even higher. I wished I could soar through the sky to a place that I knew was somewhere out there. A place where everything was wonderful and full of love and hugs and peace, because deep inside I was so unhappy. I had a yearning that I couldn’t understand, like a memory I couldn’t touch. I just knew there was something not quite right in my life but when I sang to myself in a quiet place at the top of my voice, I was so happy. It was as if sitting on that swing I could fly and fly and be me totally. I was free.
 
******

She spent most of the afternoons singing all her favorite songs. She had a beautiful voice. That’s what mom and dad said and her aunts and uncles and the people that were their friends. She knew so many songs. "The radio is on all the time and so sometimes I can even hear the songs from here and sing along with Patti Page or Rosemary Clooney or even Maria Albergetty", she thought, "I love it here in the backyard." The songs come out of her one after the other, till sometimes her throat hurts and she can’t sing anymore because she just can’t squeeze out another note. "I feel so good when I am singing to myself. Why is it so hard for me to feel good about singing when they make me do it?"
"Just one more song, one more. We are so proud of you... so proud of all of you kids."
She remembered her mom and dad saying this to her and her brothers after another round of family get togethers, where she and her brothers would always find themselves entertainment for friends and or relatives.

Letting the swing slowly come to a stop, she dug her bare feet in the grass and wondered if it would ever end.

There were days she really didn’t feel like singing .Nights when she would be tucked in bed listening to the voices in the living room... guitars, laughter, music... shaking with apprehension, trying to squeeze her eyes tightly so she could fall asleep faster, and them maybe they wouldn’t be able to wake her up, and then they’d make one of the others sing for them. How long it would take before she would be dragged out of bed, given a glass of water and asked to sing a song for daddy and mommy and their friends…"Just one… well maybe two…", then she would be taken off the kitchen table and put back to bed with... "That was a good girl, you can go to sleep now." They loved you. "We are so proud…" and she would fall asleep with so much anger and resentment inside because she didn’t feel like singing and then she would feel so guilty if she tried to refuse. She was supposed to listen and do what they wanted her to even if she didn’t feel
like it, because she was supposed to. It didn’t matter if she didn’t want to sing. Nobody cared that she was shy and didn’t feel like it.

How does a little bird feel when she is in a cage for all to see when they want to? Much like she did in those moments. From the time she could stand up by herself, she was singing and drawing and talking and feeling and soaking in all of the good feelings, along with the bad in a murky soup of experiences like a sponge, where it would lock itself deep inside her, till she could pretend that everything was alright.
Life was like a great big stage with spotlights and she felt like they were on her most of the time and she didn’t like it. She was to feel this way for a long time to come, in a play she wanted no part in, but it just wouldn’t go away and so again tonight the little girl finally fell asleep to the sound of clinking glasses and laughter and guitars that were eventually drowned out by the roar of the locomotive as its lights wound their way across the walls and ceiling of the little bedroom she shared with little brothers, and under her pillow and blankets finally there was peace.