In the timeline of my life, 6, 7 were both eventful years.
In 1984, the year that I turned 6, there were several trends in popular toys. One was a series of dolls (and later: books, movies, and other tie ins) called Strawberry Shortcake. The other girls my age were collecting these small dolls, and I desperately wanted to start my own collection. My mother (at least as long as I have known her) has very strict (almost superstitious) guidelines. They included that no stuffed (or otherwise) rendition of animals is allowed to wear clothes (which meant any stuffed animals I had had to remain "naked,"), children are never to be referred to as kids, deviled eggs must be called stuffed eggs, and no one can call their dolls after the names of food.
Finally, after my repeated requested, I was given a small Strawberry Shortcake doll with the previous agreement to change her name. So officially, I did name her Nancy (after the current US President's wife), though, between you and me, away from mother I delighted in calling her Strawberry Shortcake. She remained the extent of my collection. Alas, though I was intrigued by Blueberry Muffin, no child of my mother was going to have a doll with blue hair.
I remained enamored with the idea of Strawberry Shortcake so on my 6th birthday, that's exactly what we ate. Luckily, my birthday is in the month of May when strawberries are often in season. This tradition has continued. I have eaten Strawberry Shortcake on at least 90% of my birthdays since I turned 6.
6 was a momentous year in that we didn't just move, we lived in three different countries. Though I loved my friends in the US, I don't remember being distressed by moving or worrying I wouldn't see them again. That autumn, we moved to Liverpool, England for three months. We rented a home there while my father attended the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
To the delight of my siblings and me, the home we rented had a yard that included a small pond and a few apple trees. The apple trees produced apples, and my older brother "invented" a contraption to use to pick them which included a can on a stick to catch the apple once you severed it from its branch.
In Liverpool, I joined Girl's Brigade and happily marched in a parade with the other girls in our unit. I joined the children's choir and sang in the Christmas program at church in early December before we moved to Brussels, Belgium.
Before we moved, I had somehow learned about the tradition of Christmas crackers, which are small decorated to tubes that pull apart with a popping noise and contained small, cheap surprises. I was anxious to try this English tradition, and worried that moving might take away my only possibility of trying Christmas crackers.
The house we rented in Brussels was a row house, with all the houses on that street sharing walls. This house was exciting because for the first time in my life, I was given a bedroom all to myself. It was a small room, but it also had a skylight! I had never lived in a room with a skylight. I really enjoyed gazing up at clouds and stars in my room and loved how the skylight formed a rectangle of sunlight on the floor sometimes.
The row house wasn't wide, but was very tall, with a long spiral staircase going down the middle of the home. I remember there were light switches on a timer as you went up the stairs, so you needed to climb stairs fast enough to make it to the next level to flick the next switch on your journey. As I recall, one "stop" only had a bathroom "in the wall," so to speak.
We'd never lived in a home of this design before. Mother often asked us to carry up laundry from the lowest level to our rooms. As children, we were lazy, I mean, we were all about efficiency, so we invented contraptions with the unlikely title of "Up and Down Things."
The basic design was a cardboard box on a long, long string, though we varied the decor, both inside and out. My sister and I each had one outfitted with internal seats so that dolls and other toys could take adventure rides. I put a couple windows in mine, so my dolls could enjoy the sights on their trips.
The Christmas of 1984 is the first Christmas that I first remember participating in giving gifts to others. I had saved my allowance and bought my mother a purple violet the week before Christmas and faithfully both tended it and hid it, anticipating her delight on Christmas morning. As a special bonus, last that day we had Christmas dinner in Brussels that year with a family who had purchased crackers for the occasion, so my dream of Christmas crackers did come true after all.
My parents have often mentioned that that is the year my siblings and I mostly asked for craft materials rather than toys. We couldn't imagine anything better than more markers, more glue, and stronger string to continue improving and creating "Up and Down Things." My parents have always been strict about what we children watched on television, but in Brussels, we saw an episode of a children' show called, "Blue Peter." On the program, we learned how to make shadow puppets, so we created several, wrote scripts, and put on shadow shows.
In March, I had to start sharing the quiet sanctuary of my room with my new sister, Lydia. She was the 4th child in our family.
In Brussels, my siblings and I attended a Catholic elementary school named St. Ann's, so in addition to learning French, we also learned Catholic blessings and to also make the sign of the cross as part of the ending of every prayer. At St. Ann's, I met my friend, Sophie who I got to invite to my home to celebrate my birthday that May.
For some reason in Brussels at that time, autograph books were popular. I had one then which I had Sophie sign. I kept it into my 20s, and keep hoping I will somehow come across it in a box, but so far it eludes me. At age 7, we were confident that we would stay in touch and that one day I would return to visit her.
In June, we moved again, this time to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. I remember going through customs. My sisters and I accompanied my mother behind a curtain where I remember being confused why she was "patted down" by an airline employee. The employee then turned to my sisters and me and, for once, my mother's fierceness came in handy. Mom protested the idea, and we children were not searched.
The last step of our journey involved my family of six squeezing into a four-seater plane with a pilot. My dad sat in front, holding my 5 year old sister. The pilot grabbed a pillow which we put between the 2 back seats. That pillow was my seat, with my mom holding baby Lydia in on seat and my brother in the other seat. Dad often joked later in my life that we could never go back to Africa as our family could no longer fit in one four-seater plane.
I don't remember being apprehensive or scared in Africa. In a way, I remember my years before I turned 10 to be the happiest of my life. I am tall so I reached puberty at age 10.
However, in my years in a Africa, I was still a child. If I wanted to put on my swim suit to enjoy the rain at age 7, no one looked at my strangely that I noticed. I wish I had realized how freeing it was at the time to live in a child's body. I could just wear what I wanted then, without looking in the mirror and wondering if my outfit could be misinterpreted as sending a message to men. Those were the last years of a shirt truly being just a shirt.
In Africa, we did care for our baby sister on evenings and weekends, but I didn't fully appreciate how much the African nanny and African cook we hired there made my life easier. Baby Lydia spent so much time with her nanny that, when we returned to the USA in 1987, we had to teach her English.
In Africa, I had time to read and dream. We made more shadow puppets and used them for plays on family birthdays.
In musing on my own 6 7 journey, I think what I miss most about those years is I didn't realize that love and family approval could end. I wasn't the favorite of my parents, but at least I usually passed under the radar.
When we moved back to the USA, and Mother decided to give birth to three more siblings, I discovered I wasn't a very adequate substitute as cook and nanny. At age 10, I didn't do well trying to replace the two grown women mother preferred as helpers.
At 6 and 7, I didn't know my parents' love could end, and that, once I lost their approval, there is nothing I have been able to do to recapture it. When I look back on my childhood, what I miss most is that feeling of not yet having become a disappointment. At 6 and 7, somehow I didn't even know it was possible to become one.
At 47 now, childhood seems like a shadow play, the stories sometimes almost waver on the wall at night. I cannot grasp the players of my past which fade away with morning light. I accept who I have become, but never see a spiral staircase without an irresistible urge to craft a new "Up and Down Thing."
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therealljidol - The Wheelhouse- Christmas Edition
