How things we hate shape our being & things we love shape our thighs Part 1

It Okay Lydia you would not be the first person to claim I forced them to eat cookies because of my charming personality. I am not really worried about you ballooning to 400 pounds. If the 4 kids didn't get you there I am guessing a few cookies will not hurt. I will gladly take responsibility. In deference to the pain caused by forcing you to eat cookies I felt it only fitting that I should punish myself by eating a vanilla zinger for breakfast. And I have and it was good. On to things I hated growing up.

Early School Memories
I started school at 4, the year before they made the 5 year old rules. I have always been the youngest in class both a blessing and a curse. My first school was St. Catherines. A private Catholic School Across from St Catherines church on Central in Phoenix AZ. Back when South Phoenix was a small town and had not yet been inundated with gangs and illegal activity. When there were acres and acres of flower gardens and orange groves as far as the I could see. When I lived there it was a great place to live. Haven't been to the old neighborhood in 20 years but I hear it is being reshaped again into upscale housing for the young and clueless with credit. What I remember most about St. Catherines was the chocolate buns they served for breakfast every morning. Fresh hot out of the oven and they were heavenly. Have never since tasted a Chocolate Bar as good as those nuns made. We went across the street to church on a daily basis. Anointed ourselves in holy water and said prayers to the God that ruled that beautiful Haunting Place. It was huge and I was so small, you could feel God in that church. This started a love of huge old ornate churches that has never failed me since. And also started a deep spiritual connection that I still feel today. On my birthday that year my father brought a pinata to the school and operated it so we could play. My father was a master Pinata Handler causing it to swoop and swerve. Much to the amusement of the troop of little girls in their uniforms on a cool October day. I can picture vividly the Ghosts of my childhood prancing across the asphalt waiting impatiently with lots of giggling and awe for our turn to swing the bat. I love Pinatas. For years I had an award I won at that school though I don't remember what skill I mastered to achieve it. It was a small plastic stand up plaque with a silver plastic virgin Mary set in blue velveteen. I can remember having it until I was 12 and then it became lost in my life somewhere. This school taught me how to read and gave me my most treasured lifelong joy and for that I thank them and of course for the chocolate donuts.

Then came the divorce, talk about something I hated that changed my life. I had to leave behind my pony which was cruel in the extreme but I had to leave behind my ducks Pato and Petunia as well as bunnies and chickens and the best ever backyard for catching Horny Toads. Well, and my Dad.

I was picked up from school very early in the year because I had not yet had my birthday. They took me home My Grandparents had the car loaded and my father was standing on the driveway. He hugged me very tight and told me goodbye, I didn't have the emotional capacity to understand what was going on and it was so sudden, I was shuffled into the car where I cried for most of the long car trip to California so that we could live with my grandparents. One of the things that I have learned in Life is that Fathers may come and Go but Grandma always stays the same. It is a comforting lesson.

School during this time is a blur, very different that St Catherines, It was a modern public school. The only two incidents I remember are watching a moon walk hushed and amazed with the rest of the class even in first grade we understood that history was in the making and what a phenomenal feat this was. The other is the teacher trying to teach us how to skip. I just didn't understand. Learned it later with ease but that teacher just totally confused me and skipping was not something I could manage.

We stayed in Pittsburg outside of San Francisco for a year It was a pleasant way to pass a divorce. We went from seeing our mother everyday to seeing her on nights and weekends. I would like to say we missed her but to be honest We had Grandma all day to ourselves and a huge house and cable TV and a swimming pool, pool table and a host of children my age scattered down the block of nice houses with cool toys. It was one of those last bastion neighborhoods. Upper Middle Class Circular Drive Ways with the occasional column not pretentious just stately and well designed. And did I mention that Grandma was a superb cook known for getting up in the morning and picking fresh apricots to make Apricot cobbler for breakfast. And there were strawberries and she could knit and crochet and was an excellent seamstress and hair Dresser.
She was an amazing woman, Very modern, Married 4 times, 2 of them died, Smoked 2 packs of camels unfiltered a day (which killed her in the end). At times she seemed very brittle, tall and very skinny all her life, I fear that for most of it she wasn't very happy. I think she was a perfect martyr on the cross of womanhood. I miss her terribly. The only place I see her now is in my dreams.

A year later we moved back to Phoenix, there was an attempted reconciliation. The house was not the same. My baby brothers room had been turned into a psychedelic black light room with all sorts fuzzy wall posters and pin ups of playboy centerfolds. I am guessing my father enjoyed his year off more than we did. But the Black Light was cool and I was almost 7 so I was beginning to understand cool. My mother insisted that she needed to go to work, my rather old fashioned father was not to keen on the idea. I don't remember really expecting them to stay together I don't think I expected anything anymore I became an observer who watched for the signs of the next great happening. I still exist in this capacity always watching life rarely fully participating and even when participating I am calculating the odds of various possibilities which shift through my brain. Very little of my life is unplanned or spontaneous, I plan for all contingencies so that I will never be caught by surprise again the way I was when they split up. Sometimes it is not really living.