belated sunday scribblings

what i remember.

what i remember?

a big red apartment building
with scary stairs and train tracks
running behind.

the smell of gas
coming off strong on my dad's clothes
when he came home from the garage.

pigeons being mistaken
for butterflies
and toasters catching on fire.

sesame street
and the friendly giant.
its bixby and me, we live in a tree...
inside out
and cbc educational television.

creamed peas on toast
(which i hated)

****************************
moving to the country.

a house with red shingles,
a blue tree house with real windows,
hanging from my knees from a tree.

meeting R at her birthday party
at her grandmother's house
and the beginning of our bond.

crying everytime my dad shaved
his moustache off and
running behind the house to hide.

the smell of the house when my mom
spent a day cleaning...the curtains off
the windows, everything so bright,
the scent of pine-sol and windex,
another world on tv
with rachel and mac being my favorites.

eating goulash
(which i hated)
and telling the fishman no one was home
when he drove in the driveway
for fear of having to eat mackeral,
ugh.

****************************
starting school,
being anxious,
being worried, being scared,
feeling sad and alone and different.
peanut butter sandwiches.
jealousy that everyone else still got to stay home
with mom but me...

thunder and lightning at school
at recess
and the pandemonium of everyone
rushing for the door at once,
yelling
and crushing
and getting my arm caught in the
steel door,
crying
and calling my mom to come
get me
but she couldn't.

always pretending to skip
in the playground,
without a skipping rope,
all by myself.

reading archie comics
during grade one
and getting in trouble.

my mom telling my dad
that if he didn't stop drinking
she was going to leave him,
neither of them knowing
to this day
that i was sitting on the stairs
in the muted colored light
that came through my favorite
stained glass window
hyperventilating
and
anticipating
the divorce
that would never happen.

"our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final
today, me and little J-O-E will be
going away"
******************************

my dad quit drinking
(he never drank much anyway,
only on the weekends)

vacations in the big blue van
with orange flowered curtains.

anxiety lessening as i got older,
still a loner for a long time,
relying on myself for amusement...
eventually becoming somewhat more
adept
at social skills...