During our Christmas vacations, we always would have Sportsnight practices. Practices that we held at various and sundry schools and churches to get ready for our yearly competitions between the class years. It was a very important thing to us to be the champions. To work hard within our class and vanquish the other years. From Freshman year in 1975, we made our mark as a very competitive class. We had the Freshman Candyland as our theme and came very close to beating the Seniors. We came in second in the whole event. I remember traveling to Sportsnight practice and being the only person on the J train, because it was above ground on the bridge and the train stopped on the Brooklyn bridge and the snow was everywhere. The bridge was swaying and I declare, we were ready to fall into the water. It would have been the conductor the engineer and me on that day. We were the only brave or stupid souls braving the mounds of snow, into Brooklyn. Sportsnight was always the end of January, sometime. Always an excursion for us Queens people to travel there. Our family never had a car that could brave the elements and there was always a story of safety being taken into question and the craziness of my family supporting my scholastic adventure. I do appreciate them for that. The first Sportsnight, when we nearly won the crown. I was flying like a kite on the way home. Dad said let's go the opposite way and see if we can make some time going on the BQE instead of going on the Belt. {What did I know about those things?} Sure DAD, lets. Me and him and Mom traveled around the turn and were under the Fort Hamilton overpass and CABOOM, we hit the first pothole and the lights on the dashboard went bright and then dark. UH OH! We are stuck, it is dark and the snow is up to our kazoo. If we stay in the car, someone will come and hit us. If we get out of the car we have no where to go but up the trestle. We can do it, Dad said. We can? I was still in my volleyball shorts and a coat. We mountain climbed up the trestle to the street above and walked to the subway and took it home. What an adventure it was.
Chapter One – The voyage- The voyage- It was going to be a long summer before my adventure into the unknown. I had won the general excellence medal and no bells or whistles had accompanied this as I had hoped. More responsibility, more children in the home, more conflicts to deflect; still, there was something to look past. It was all a blur when S. Lucy asked me if I would like to take an adventure and travel into the far reaches of outer space and go to school. She may as well have said that. Bay Ridge? Brooklyn? Verrazano Bridge? That was just about as far from home as I could imagine at that ripe old age of 14.
We will leave this decision completely up to you, they said. Would you do something like that and leave your home and go 2 hours everyday both ways for High School? I would, I will. Tony Boy screamed and cried, when we told them. “She’s leaving us.” He said, at 3 years old. I am not leaving Tony, yes you are you are going to that bridge place. No, I am not I will be home everyday. He was more right than I knew. Now, we had the summer to brag and talk about Jayne’s upcoming adventure into the deep! The clear blue sea was the distance that seemed to be between me and the bridge.
The talk of the family, advice was flowing about the subway and how to stay away from strangers and derelicts and bums. I couldn’t imagine what they were talking about at all. I remember trying to picture the masses of people getting into the train like they talked about and I had nothing to compare it to. Stay by the door, follow the groups of people and they will know where the door is so that you can get in and get a seat. You should be able to get a seat because you are going from the first stop on the train to the last stop on the train so, everyday you should have a seat. People will bump and the train lights will go out and all sorts of advice was flowing from people who heard that I was headed for such an adventure.
Somebody should have said that is stupid. Nobody said that in those days, no distance was long enough to send children for the cause of integration. What is integration? What is busing? What is a child? What is the purpose? Are we integrated yet?
I did believe in integration and I believed in all of the civil rights that they told us that we were fighting for and integrating for. What they netted, all toll? I am not sure.
Anyway, S. Lucy had gone to the school and she painted it as a magical and beautiful place and when I visited, I could see myself there. S.Lucy gave me a vision, outside of my life. I don’t know if that was a gift or a nightmare. Some of both, I suppose.
The first day in the subway after the testdrive. I walked down the stairs and there were lights and arrows and people, who all seemed to know where they were going. I was dressed in my new, new uniform and floundering through the seas of people, in a dreamlike state. I was absolutely unsure where I was going. All I knew was the F train to 4th Ave and the RR to the last stop. That seemed easy enough. Darkness. Every window had lines and levels of darkness passing by, darted with signs of street names that I had never seen before. After a while, they would become as familiar as the faces at home. Not now, now they were darts and images of the dark and unfamiliar. Blackness and grayness and lights and shadows, mixed with signs of street names. All of a sudden light started coming through the windows and I remember the feeling of complete horror at the sight of the sun, the first time, after being underground for over an hour. Am I in the wrong place? How come I don’t remember this? Should I get off? Where am I? Finally the place that I was looking for, 4th Avenue. Whew! This is right. I looked around and everybody still knew where they were going. I forgot. I had done this once with mom, but she talks the whole trip. I didn’t remember anything and nothing looked familiar except the sign 4th Avenue. Where is the RR train? Where is the RR train? I probably would have layed right down there and had a temper tantrum, if I were anyone else but me. I was exhausted and I had all of my books and there were only the sight of over 100 steps to go down to anything and everybody was going that way. Don’t ask and never talk to strangers, of course.
I couldn’t count the steps there that day, I was too tired. It was 8 oclock and I was due at school at 8:45. I could not imagine making it to school in that time. Of course, the thrill of a new school was still ahead and I believe that that was the only thing that kept me from barfing. What was I in for? This? Everyday? It was an adventure and you are on a mission. That was the plan, I suppose? Down, down,down,down… it was 10 after 8 when I got to the RR train platform. It was a small dark platform way under ground. More darkness. More signs and trains and klikety klack. Finally 99th st and the last stop. I may have fallen asleep. There was a sigh that there really was such a thing as 95th st . exit. 7 blocks more. I do remember this part, because it was above ground. I climbed upstairs and started walking. How do the streets go, down here I think it was the 95 st exit and I was going to.
Everyday, no matter what I did my knee socks would be around my feet, by the time I got to the deli. I pulled them up when I was coming up the steps into the sunlight and then when I got to the corner of the deli, they would be around my shoes. I would put all my books down and look inside for the time on the clock and pull up my socks. If they came down between there and class, it was too bad. I was not putting my books down again for something so silly. Dad said every book home every day. Every book home everyday! What a beautiful place! It was like a fairy land. The hedges were always impeccable, later on they would be Ju’s tissue when she sneezed everyday. I couldn’t imagine how fond of the hedges we would become. Then the view of the Bridge. My favorite place in the entire world. It was worth the trip. One look at that immense and beautiful structure, with the sun shining in my eyes made it worth every moment of darkness. I was scared of the people, for sure. But the bridge was just beautiful and peaceful and protective even. I loved it. I looked around at the new class. Nobody looked at me funny. Nobody made fun of my socks. I felt somewhat safe. This was going to be home for a while.
I cannot pen the intimacies of umbilically challenged 49 year old with her mother. I can just note the general theme.
--- I really think that Eve herself gave those Hansts,Bowen,Christie women their knowledge of child development. I don't agree with their tactics, most times, but it is a preservative to our culture to have had them in the world. I do respect the years of experience and the methods of passing those maternal observations to their children. They are like God's secure safe of mothering. Other families may have something like it, but if you learn the combination and can get past the hard exterior there is, seemingly, an infinite wealth of child rearing experience.
I hated them, growing up. I hated all of my business being fodder for the family table. Do you know what she did this week? Do you know what she said to me? Everybody knew everything. All my business? What business. When I was sassy, how I cut myself and almost cut myself... No privacy inside the home and none with the extended family. I didn't realize that I was the eldest grand, the guineapig. Now, I miss the sense of extended family that I ran with diligence to get away from. Now, that I am trying to weave the maternal knowledge into my own potential maternal/child experts, I miss the contributions.
This time, my mom and I observed the connection of nursing and the nursing hormones with the child development. If grief and pain is passed on to the children, what is passed when we work outside of the home and are passing those anxieties to our children? We spoke about that among the other spiritual observations on how God uses pastured Mothers in the world around us. Is our job passe'? Does God want us to hermit ourselves and just pray for the kareening world around us? He plugs Mommies into the kareening world to slow the pace of disaster and inhumaneness and spotlight the importance of the little things that delight. The sparkle and gleam in the baby's eyes when they are full of baby milk. The importance of what you sensitize them to, in their early days. The baby that learns early not to bite mommy, has human sensitivities. The greater distance between mommy and her baby is a recipe for hardening of our souls. What do we want in the next generation? Life-giving practices or life-taking practices? Can a woman forget her own son? Yes they may, But God never forgets.
