July 28, 2005

�Perhaps Things Could Have Seemed Different, If Only��

I was a �Latch-Key Kid� long before it became a term of opprobrium. It was certainly not infrequent in those post WW2 days.

I was an only child, who in many ways lived a grownup�s life. I thought nothing of traveling all the way across town (Louisville), alone by bus, often necessitating a transfer from one bus line to another to reach my destination. It was perfectly safe.

We did not live in poverty. We had the necessities of life. But we lived frugally, and had very little more than the basics. An example is that I can recall my mother separating the �plys� of Kleenex to make a box go twice as far. But we did have Kleenex.

I don�t recall my mother being a happy person. On the other hand, she wasn�t greatly unhappy either. She just took life in bite size pieces; with resignation, under a shadow of joyless melancholy. She was not a complainer, but not a rejoicer either. She was in a miserable marriage, with a husband who was absent (on business?) for days at a time. He sent her household money with little to spare, and I suppose that was about all she had. I had my needs met. But I had no idea how modest they were until later in life.

On a major outing, I was quite content to be treated to a ten-cent paper doll or coloring book, or a small bag of roasted cashews and a milkshake. These could all be purchased at the same Woolworth�s, Kresge�s, or Newberry�s five and dime store. I don�t remember having �treats� around the house�such as chips, candy, ice cream or cookies. The exception would be when the �Donaldson Man� (neighborhood bakery delivery) would occasionally drop off some oatmeal cookies, or the ice-cream man would walk or drive by on his one wheeled bike-wagon, blowing his whistle while handle bar bells jingled loudly. A Popsicle was a nickel. A fudgesickle, dreamsickle or chocolate stick might be a dime. Later on, a �drumstick� was the piece d'resistance of a child�s world.

I remember these as very normal days,except for one thing. My whole childhood had a pallor of sadness�a melancholy shading, which I struggle against to this day.

This summer I have read (electronically) several books, two of which hauntingly took me back to those feelings�those auras of my childhood. Not to the circumstances, but to the emotional atmosphere. And they have made me search. I am not sure for what. Sort of like my own personal archeological dig into unearthed feelings resuscitated by the words of others.

The two books, �The Glass Castle"* and �Follow the River�, are very diverse. The first, is a modern day memoir, the second a historical novel loosely based on a true story. The first is a N.Y. Times bestseller, and the second, a classic. Both stories are of women who, against all odds and almost unbelievable hardship and destitution, took charge of their lives, conquered their emotions, and rose above their circumstances to triumph over them. In both of these stories, the destitution became so severe at some point as to find them eating inedible objects. They were both subject to extreme cold without proper protection.

Beyond my comprehension, these women would take each circumstance and transform it into an adventure. They had an ability to rally�to turn �life into a lark�... that is amazing to me.

A few days after reading these remarkable stories, I sat thinking about how my own mother would approach her less-than-perfect circumstances. They were nothing even closely akin to what I had just read, but I was left with a spirit of heaviness. Whereupon, I silently heard my mind say, �She never turned anything into a lark.� I was startled by that phrase coming into my mind from years gone by. �A lark.� How many kids today would know the meaning of that word?

Dictionary. Com offers this definition for �lark.�

1. A carefree or spirited adventure.

2. A harmless prank.

intr.v. larked, lark�ing, larks

To engage in spirited fun or merry pranks

I know that one of the most debilitating thoughts a person can entertain is �if only��

But I wonder how my childhood would have seemed, if only I had been taught to �think of it as a lark!� I am intrinsically a realist. A pragmatist. That bodes me well in most circumstances. I think it is patterned into my DNA.

But to be able to fling caution to the wind�to look at a less than perfect circumstance in life and see it as an adventure�to �turn it into a lark�� that�s the stuff that dreams are made of.

Two Closing Thoughts:

You surely have figured out by now that I �go all around a bush� to illustrate a point. That the topic I seem to start out with, is not necessarily what I am going to end up emphasizing. This essay emerged from a single phrase: �Turn it to a lark.�

* �The Glass Castle� is a �must read� for any of you who have had contact with, or lived among the underprivileged in the U.S. today. Notably, the underprivileged of the Appalachian mountain people, N.Y. City, or the southwestern desert areas. It is a story you will not forget. And it takes place all around us, everywhere.

Text � copyright 2003 - 2008 The Homespun Philosopher

This site designed by

2008