Drawings of my street, age 7 1977
The air smells like apples -- the candied kind, with nuts stuck to them. The kind you see at carnivals like the one that's going on at Holy Family, the Catholic school at the end of my street. From this spot on my porch I have a good view of the parade of people leaving the festival, marching in tight clusters down the sidewalk with armfuls of leftover cotton candy, popcorn, stuffed animals and bags of goldfish.
When they disappear around the corner, I close my eyes and make a wish that they'll all go home to do great things for the world. Because the world needs those kinds of people -- people who do great things, big things with their hearts, for the world.
I've come outside to work on my drawings on these cracked concrete steps because being here near the old tree trunks and under their leafy limbs makes me feel protected from the doom and gloom of the world. Like I belong somewhere. Like parents should make you feel.
I wish I could draw a picture that would show my parents what's going on inside my head so they would stop asking what's wrong with me -- why I'm so sad, so nervous all the time. But I would need mountains of paper and rivers of paint to draw that picture. So instead I'll draw simple pictures on letter-sized paper, like the ones my older sister Toni makes, with princesses and fashions and trees with red apples.
At quiet times like this I get a strong feeling that I have big things to do with my heart for the world, too. And I like the feeling of it. I rake the stair step below me with my fingers to clasp an orange heart-shaped leaf, which I know is a clue telling me yes, keep believing in such good things; you're on the right track.
There's this bush right beside my spot here on the steps that looks just like the apple trees my sister Toni draws. It's round and green and seems lit up with bright red berries. Mom must have known I wanted to eat those berries the first day we moved here since she made a point to tell me and Toni not to eat them. She instructed us very carefully and clearly, saying “Be sure to leave those berries alone. They're poisonous to people. They're only good for birds.” And of course that very second I wanted to be a bird so I could fly down and eat the bright berries right off of the bush.
I put down my paper and crayons to take a look at what makes for a poison berry. I think it's just good manners to take a closer peek at the things nature has put out there for you to see. So snap, snap, snap, the berries drop off easy, like they almost wanted to be plucked. The peanut-sized fruits look so bright and juicy in my hand, like three tiny red balloons without strings, just calling to be popped.
I toss two of them aside, their weighty round juiciness bouncing once in the grass then landing for good, full and still. I squish the third between my fingers, excited to see what human poison actually looks like. A filmy blob with clear juice and tiny seeds spurts out of the berry's small opening. It's not black or ugly like you'd expect poison to be, but see-through and maybe even clean, pure, like the birds who eat it.
I lick the mash of poison and seeds off my fingers to see if anything happens. Before I even swallow, a cramp forms tight around my stomach. I double over, peering suspiciously toward the bush. It crosses my mind that the beauty of the berries could have been a trick to attract kids like me who are dumb enough to take chances with poison.
I can't be too sure.
But then again nature wouldn't do anything to hurt me.
It couldn't.
I'm probably just experiencing that regular stomach ache that my Dad says I get when I worry too much. He says I worry about everything – calls me an emotional yo-yo. If I am one, I wonder who's holding the string.
“C'mon Jenna, pick yourself up by your bootstraps,” Dad said last time I was sulking with a stomach ache.
“You can't pick up your own self,” I reminded him quietly, “Only other people can pick you up.”
But my Dad didn't get the hint.
I shrink and turn sharply when Mom calls “Jen-naaaaa” from inside the house, my crayons and papers whipping off my lap, like I've been busted, like somehow she's heard everything I've been thinking all this time. When Mom calls me a second time, I collect up my papers and hold onto them too tight, nervous that they might blow off into a trail that will lead my Mom straight to me.
I don't want to answer my Mom, partly because I don't like to yell. It hurts my ears. But mostly because Mom doesn't need to deal with my troubles. As a social worker, she fixes people's problems at work all week as it is. It's not easy finding jobs for people with disabilities, she says. So I want to give her a break when she's home.
I jam my hand armpit-deep into the massive berry bush beside me, fishing for a strong branch that I can grab to pull my body deep inside it. After a short spell of flying branches, breaking twigs and shedding leaves, I come to rest in the middle of a safe capsule of green shrubbery. This spot somehow makes me feel sheltered in a bubble of good feeling. I feel like I belong in here.
“Jenna, come on out of there.”
My Mom is a twenty-seven year old small-framed, square-faced woman, still tanned and blond from the summer. I guess by now she knows where to find me when I don't answer her call.
“What's going on?” She likes to get right to the point with everything because she says anything else is a waste of time.
On her knees now, my Mom is bending down to find my eyes peering out at her from inside my leafy shield of armor. I hug my legs tight, ashamed of myself for hiding from my own Mom. I'm scared she'll remind me that I'm over-emotional, in other words, not normal.
Not normal.
I wish… I think to myself, letting tears stream down my cheeks. I wish I could just be normal. My falling teardrops form wide damp patches on each faded knee of my jeans.
“It looks like your senses are working overtime again, Jenna. What could you possibly be all that sad about?” She picks up one of my drawings and sees that I was drawing the beginnings of a tree. Her eyes are alive with a crystal blue tint that makes her appear innocent and harmless, just like the berry poison.
“Let's get you out of there.” Mom shoves her teased and sprayed hairdo straight towards me, way deep into the bushes' bulk. If Mom is risking her hairdo, I know she's serious about reaching me. But it seems like every time she really reaches me, she lets go again much too soon. I dig deeper into the center of the shrub, farther out of her grasp.
Mom's hair gets stuck on one of the limbs, making her have to back out and pinch leaves, twigs and berries from her tree-matted head. Still, she's determined to dive in again. Holding her breath as if she's plunging under water, she turns her left cheek to the bush in sidestroke fashion, closes her eyes, and extends her arms through the branches far enough to give a light encouraging tug to my elbow.
Her touch leaves a cool scent of lemon on my cotton sleeves, giving me that feeling like I've been loaned some part of me that's been missing for eons. A great surge of love tempts me to leap into her arms and hold steady in a spot right close to her heart. I want her to say “I've got you” while I cry rivers for the relief of actually belonging somewhere in the world.
The neighbors' keys jingle outside their door, making Mom spring away from the bush, quickly dusting herself off.
“She's just stopped sucking her thumb and now she's hiding in a bush. Kids!” she announces to our neighbor, red-faced. And even though I'm hidden deep inside this great big bush, I still feel the need to disappear.
My body slumps when Mom withdraws back into the house, the screen door snapping shut tight behind her. I was really holding out for that embrace. Instead I'm holding my breath again, trying hard to swallow down the tears of regret. For embarrassing my Mom. For letting myself get my hopes up for love. For being born in a world that doesn't understand me.
I stretch out from under the bush, dust myself off, and slide back into my preferred spot at the top porch step. It's where I can feel the tree branches hang over me, sheltering me from the sky that's falling inside my head. I know one thing for sure. Trees definitely know how you feel. I think that's why trees are here on earth -- to give every person the chance to experience the feeling of quiet kindness at least once in their life.
It helps to sit still and think about what I'm going to do about life; knowing I can't go on giving everything I have just to make it through each day. I pick up my paper and crayons and finish my picture of the bright yellow oak trees on my street. In the picture, the trees are emptying their branches. Their leaves have covered up all of the roads that might lead to bad places. And there's a special golden road that I pretend will take me far away from here, to a place that feels safe and good to me always.
I guess the carnival is over for the day because the sidewalk below my house has already cleared of people.
Setting my box of crayons on top of my drawing will keep it from blowing away while I walk down eleven concrete steps to the sidewalk. I like looking up at the leaves spinning off the granddaddy oak tree in the silent sweet air. They take their time circling above me, floating in and out of the rays of sunshine that poke through the tree branches.
It makes me remember the feeling I had last fall. The feeling was a one of freedom -- like being lifted away from my heavy feelings, a weightless escape into the swirl of smells and colors that could only mean the end of summer.
Mom says the seasons come and go in cycles. On cloudy days, she says, “Oh well, the sunshine will come find us.” I guess the sunshine will come find me. I just wonder how long I'll have to wait.
