Sometimes when writers (although I hardly consider myself one at this point) cannot figure out what to write they write to themselves. I am not having trouble coming up with topics but I read in another blog where someone did this for themselves and it was extremely cathartic. I like big words if you couldn’t tell. Not big in the sense that they are long, big in the sense that they are robust and have deep meaning. Anyway, it is a neat exercise and if you want to know what is going on in your life, write a letter to yourself.
Dear Tiffany,
Or can I call you Tiff? Most people call you Tiff, probably because you look nothing like a Tiffany. A Tiffany stereotypically reminds people of a cheerleader, or a girlie girl. Hardly your forte. I remember when you were a little girl you were miserable unless you were in your Walter Payton jersey (which you cut the sleeves off of otherwise it would have been worth hundreds of dollars) and ripped jeans. You couldn’t understand why your brother got to run around without his shirt on when it was hot outside. I shit you not, your very first car, technically, was a little red corvette convertible. You used to peddle your little butt off. You loved Cowboy boots and helping your Dad on the farm. So much about you has changed. I am writing because sometimes I think you forget how far you have come.
The house you were born in was on a family farm. Your sister, (she’s something) used to hide you in the cupboards and at Christmas would drag you around in a pillowcase pretending you were presents and she was Santa. She drowned a bunch of kittens (not intentionally, she thought they were thirsty) but knew enough to blame that on you, which in turn caused you to get the beating of a lifetime. Today, your Dad would be in jail for that. She also made you stay all up all night waiting for the Easter bunny. He never came from the direction she said he would, but miraculously he had showed up. She was not terribly nice to you. She forgets how you used to slide down the stairs on your butt to the bottom where there was a window and you could see her school bus pull away while she sat eating her oatmeal. And every single time, your Mom would run down the driveway in her robe trying to stop it. And I know that you remember the time your little brother climbed up on the kitchen chair, which swiveled, and fell down knocking out all of his front teeth. It looked like someone had been murdered. You used to run away a lot too when you got mad. You would go to the top of the hill behind the house with your duffle of God knows what and wait for someone to come and get you. No one ever did. But it always got cold.
You probably don’t remember moving into your Grandma and Grandpa Buckmans house in town. But I know you remember having to share a room with Dee Dee until she got big enough to have her own. And every single night she would make you play tug-o-war across one another’s beds, and you always had to use your pj’s, making them almost impossible to wear because they were so stretched out. You never won. But you never quit trying.
One of your favorite memories of that house was when your Mom and Dad hosted 4th of July for your Mom’s side of the family, which is huge. The Mangieri’s. I am not sure how many actually showed up but there were so many cousins. There was a fishing tournament, a little pool for the kids, a bocce tournament. It was the most fun ever had at your house I think. You found $200 alongside the fence that “apparently” fell out of Uncle Joe’s pocket during bocce. Uncle Nunk pinched your cheeks so hard they hurt for weeks.
A not so favorite memory of that house was one Christmas when your Dad was hanging up Christmas lights and would go through the painstaking task of laying them all out to see which bulbs were out or if they were any good. It was a Saturday night before church. You walked through the living room and stepped on a strand breaking several of them. Your father karate chopped your leg, how he didn’t break it I don’t know, but sent you flying across the room as he was screaming. Your mom made you go to Church anyway and I think you cried for three days. He sure had a temper. One night during 8mm family video night the projector quit working and he threw it against the wall, shattering it in pieces…needless to say you never watched home movies again.
You did a lot with your mom’s side of the family. Every major family event was held at the Harbor Lights, it was a supper club in Galesburg. It was the first barstool you ever sat at and the place that served you your first kitty cocktail. Pretty sure it was when you fell in love with Maraschino Cherries, and bars. You absolutely loved that place. There has been nothing like it since it closed. Where it used to be is now a car wash…sad really.
It was in this house that you heard your mom say the” F” word for the first time. Over brownies…still not totally sure what caused it, but she asked you to join in, telling you that it would make you feel better and to never let your Grandma Rosie know she was saying it. It was also in this house when your mom told you to sit down, she had some horrible news. A Beatle had died. He had been shot. You had no idea who in their right mind would shoot a beetle, I mean just step on it. But you let your mom cry and told her it would be okay. It was quite some time before you realized it was John Lennon.
You found out you had arthritis at 7…you didn’t quite understand but you spent countless hours and days at clinics and hospitals and having tests. To this day you still feel like your brother and sister resented you for that because of all the time it took your mom and dad away from them. You also used to get serious bloody noses. Like hemorrhaging bloody noses…buckets of blood. You had to have several transfusions in your lifetime. You almost died during one of them because the Dr. who was on call was drunk and while trying to put tubes down your throat, almost killed you. The story is your Dad went in and punched him in the face and pulled the tubes out…No one has ever told me different so I am pretty sure that is a true story. The very last time you had your nose cauterized to stop the bleeding, which was a pain you can describe to NO ONE, the Doctor (who you still hate) cauterized it so much that it actually burnt your entire nose black. You refused to go to school and I don’t think you talked to your Mom for a long time. You about bled to death when you had your tonsils out. All and all kid, you were not a very healthy youngster.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
