Go Play Elsewhere
My mother, in her eighties, does not have a very good memory of late but the things she recalls from the past are crystal clear and, by my own experience as a reference point for them, very accurate.
So, when I told her I was writing about the myriad of odd occurrences I've had in my life, and those of the apartment we lived in until I was 11, she raised an occurrence that I had completely forgotten about but, upon hearing it, it had come rushing back to me so clearly.
It wasn't going to be one of the tales I told but may truly be one of the oddest.
The apartment was complex of 8 buildings lettered A through H. Our building, F, formed a corner, a perfect right angle, with building E and the resulting square yard they created was the only flat, grassy area around the complex. It was perfect size for waffle ball and so it became our field by default. Hitting the wall above the first story was a home run and I can still, with clarity, recall the three times someone hit a plastic ball on top of the third story roof. I remember these more for the fact that it was out only ball on two of the occasions and ended our game. . .
As you might expect, we were kids and we were loud. The result, with the noise bouncing off the brick facades of the large buildings was, I am sure, rattling to those who's windows faced the grassy diamond.
The management of the complex, due I am sure to the complaints of the noise, eventually built a play area on a grassy lot behind the buildings but it was habit to play on this field and we returned to it often. I mean, the buildings DID make for the perfect diamond shade and the height of the walls made for a true "stadium feel". And some summer nights people actually watched us from itheir windows.
Eventually we took to the new play area but it was an adjustment.
So I must have been eight or nine at most at the time this happened.
Very few people complained to us when we played or shooed us away but there was an elderly woman who lived in the very first apartment in F building on the ground floor. I never knew her name nor can I or my mother recall it now but I will refer to her as Mrs. Smith for the purpose of the story.
Mrs. Smith's living room window overlooked the outfield, left field to be precise, and in the summer, when the heat set in, the window was usually open. These were the old wind-out windows, not the sliding kind with a screen.
Once we had been given the new play area and were not supposed to disturb the neighbors by playing on our old field, she made a habit of yelling at us out her window. Aways the same three words and nothing more:
"Go play elsewhere."
She wouldn't come outside or to the front door ( as I believe she used a walker), but instead would just wait for one of us to be close enough to the window to shout it at us as loud as she was able which was, not very loud. That lucky kid then had to relay the message to the rest of the group and we would, of course, pick up and go around the back.
There were times when she wasn't home for weeks at a time though. Maybe visiting family or in the hospital. Those times we fell back into the habit of playing on the diamond again. We did this because one of the kids had a parent who worked in the office of the complex and she had been told it was mostly Mrs Adams who had done the complaining about us being there. So if she wasn't home, we went right back.
So, it must have been a few months since we had played on the old diamond field at all and, for some reason, perhaps the new field had too many small kids on the new swingset, we decided to play a quick game on the diamond between buildings.
It was getting dark earlier then, nearer to Autumn, and as the game was winding down, I was put out in left field. . .Nearest to Mrs Smiths windows.
Later in the inning, as it was almost too dark to see anymore, I had my back to the window but heard Mrs Smith, as usual, calling out to me. . .
"Go Play Elsewhere."
We must have woken her, I thought, because she had not said a word for the hour or so that we had been there up to this point.
Well the game was ending anyway and I told everyone we needed to go. With that, I went inside the building and into our apartment. Soon after, when I was having dinner, mom asked about the game and I told her it had been fine but how mean old Mrs Smith had told us to go play elsewhere as always.
"What?" she asked, her face puzzled.
"She told us to go play elsewhere." I repeated, probably doing a bad impression of her voice.
"Nicolas."
I looked up mid bite and met her eyes.
"Who told you to go away?"
"Mrs Smith — out of her window like she always does. I was the one who was out there and heard her." I said, the last of my Spaghetti O's heaped on my spoon.
She sat down across from me, seeming confused.
"Honey," she said, "Don't lie to me."
"I'm not mom!" I protested unable to understand why she thought I was.
"Look," she said, " you all know that you're not supposed to play there anymore, so don't. And I don't know who yelled at you to be quiet but it wasn't Mrs. Smith. Honey, the poor soul passed away a week ago. There's no one in her apartment."
I do not remember what my reaction to that was. I don't think I had any notion of it being odd or strange and I wasn't going to push it with my mother, to whom lying was the worst offense I could commit. I DO recall now that, though we barely played on the grass diamond afterwards, I refused to play left field when we did. :)
Was it Mrs. Smith? Was it my own self consciousness about us playing there when we were not supposed to? ( I always protested it, knowing it was against the rules, but was often overruled by the Lord of the Flies majority) was it someone else a floor above who probably heard Mrs Smith call out a dozen times or more over the previous summers?
I cannot say. I am amazed that my mother remembered after all these years and though it had slipped my own set of memories, it came back as soon as she mentioned Mrs. Smith.
Eventually an old man moved into Mrs Smith's old apartment and I had a year long battle with him which I will tell you about some other time. It wasn't supernatural in any way, but it was a war of stubborn pre teen and old man attrition. . . lol
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Monday, October 29, 2018
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Nostalgia #1
Hello Everyone!!
I know I missed my usual posting on Friday. I am less than two weeks away from my train trip across the country to visit my mom and I just couldn't fit in a post before the weekend with all the encroaching deadlines.
Instead, today I am going to put up the first post of a series I have been thinking about for some time, which will be called, simply, "Nostalgia".
It's been inspired by my childhood days and experiences, of course.
While I have already detailed a good bit of the inspiration that came thru those years, all of which are part of my creative life now, there remains a lot that I do not often talk about. Maybe because they are smaller events that seem less important or just negative things I would rather just leave behind but as I get older i realize that they all have played their part. All need to be honored for how they've shaped me. And some are just little pieces, glimpses and fragments of the whole that I never want to lose. . .
As you might expect, a trip home is fraught with memories, old patterns and sights and sounds. Being in the house/yard/woods/neighborhood where so much of who I am was formed is both a joy and also a melancholy time
So at random times, often between Fridays, I will post little bits and bobs of those days. I'll try to warn you when it is going to deal with the dark times, not that there were that many, This will, I suppose, be a selfish record of things I never want to forget and many that I have never before written down.
Nostalgia #1
My Winter Olympics
In the years between 10 and 16 I really only had two friends who I played with on a regular basis. I'll talk about them another time. One of them still lives down the street from my mother and seeing him each year is a chance to revisit some of those good times we shared from the past.
But much of my time then, even with two good friends, was spent alone.
In truth, it was preferred. There were so many ideas. games, stories in my head that I knew no-one else would understand or add anything to if I tried to include them.
One of those exploits was my love of the winter olympics. I could not get enough of the wonder of nations from all over the world coming together and competing in events that were so wonderfully strange to me. Luge, bobsled, biathlon, speed skating, etc We all knew about ice hockey and downhill skiing of course. I was 10 the year the olympics were held in Lake Placid, NY. The US hockey team's "Miracle on Ice" is, of course, the prevalent memory of those games for most of us in this country. But what the entire olympic spectacle inspired was a series of years, snow days permitting, where I recreated the Olympics in my back yard. I won't go into too much detail but it was one of those things that I just had to do alone.
What I remember most of about it to this day is that I took an entire day as the snow fell to make small, paper flags of all the countries for my "luge" event. I drew them with markers I think. I had an old encyclopedia that had all the flags of the world (one of my favorite things to look at as a child!) and I meticulously tried to do them justice with my paper and markers. Then they got wrapped around craft sticks. I made medals out gold and silver foil. I was ready.
The "luge" was just on an old red flyer wood sled. The "track" was hardly dangerous or Olympian by any standards. . . a gently sloping hill, maybe 60 or 70 yards in total length from the back porch of our home, down across a concrete lot and then a final dip down a hill past the neighbors house.
Instead of timing the sled runs for speed, I was trying to see how far I could get the sled to go.
The last ten yards or so the sled would slow to a crawl, the weight of my body the only thing pushing it forward until it came to a crunching stop in the snow.
The little flag representing the country I had just pretended to be representing would be stuck in the ground where the front of the sled ended up. Then I'd get up off the sled, haul it back up the gentle slope and do it all over again. Dozens upon dozens of times. With the exception of a rare misstep out of the "starting gate" most of the trips ended up in a very small area, within two feet of each other. Mere inches separating the best from the worst of the runs.
I can still recall, vividly, the feeling of the falling snow in my face as I went along and the internal "broadcast" of the announcers that I ad libbed in silence.
I made dozens of runs and, as the track iced over, it DID become little faster and more fun.
When it ended, I would go inside have a medal ceremony and return the next day for "ice" hockey or biathlon (FYI, plastic bb's are NOT going to be accurate in 20mph whipping, winter winds!) and some events, downhill skiing and speed skating, I had an old Atari Game system to play those out on when it got too dark outside.
The feeling I get when I think of those days is both precious and bittersweet.
I played so many games like that and I'll talk about them more in future Nostalgia posts. I just preferred those solo hours.
I still do in many ways.
When I created the "My Antarctica" photo series a few years back, those memories of cherished events and a few stark turning points from childhood were the impetus for a number of the images.
Most of those, I have never shown, including this one below which was inspired by those childhood Winter Olympics. . .
And while there were many bad moments as well, I never hesitate to say that, given the offer, I would not hesitate to forfeit up a year of my life to go back and live one day in that time (minus the negatives of school, family arguments etc) :)
When I go home, I try. A little at least. So much of it has changed, especially the outdoor landscape. But I still find that if I am very quiet and open. . . it comes back to me.
Thank you for reading!
nicolas
I know I missed my usual posting on Friday. I am less than two weeks away from my train trip across the country to visit my mom and I just couldn't fit in a post before the weekend with all the encroaching deadlines.
Instead, today I am going to put up the first post of a series I have been thinking about for some time, which will be called, simply, "Nostalgia".
It's been inspired by my childhood days and experiences, of course.
While I have already detailed a good bit of the inspiration that came thru those years, all of which are part of my creative life now, there remains a lot that I do not often talk about. Maybe because they are smaller events that seem less important or just negative things I would rather just leave behind but as I get older i realize that they all have played their part. All need to be honored for how they've shaped me. And some are just little pieces, glimpses and fragments of the whole that I never want to lose. . .
As you might expect, a trip home is fraught with memories, old patterns and sights and sounds. Being in the house/yard/woods/neighborhood where so much of who I am was formed is both a joy and also a melancholy time
So at random times, often between Fridays, I will post little bits and bobs of those days. I'll try to warn you when it is going to deal with the dark times, not that there were that many, This will, I suppose, be a selfish record of things I never want to forget and many that I have never before written down.
Nostalgia #1
My Winter Olympics
In the years between 10 and 16 I really only had two friends who I played with on a regular basis. I'll talk about them another time. One of them still lives down the street from my mother and seeing him each year is a chance to revisit some of those good times we shared from the past.
But much of my time then, even with two good friends, was spent alone.
In truth, it was preferred. There were so many ideas. games, stories in my head that I knew no-one else would understand or add anything to if I tried to include them.
One of those exploits was my love of the winter olympics. I could not get enough of the wonder of nations from all over the world coming together and competing in events that were so wonderfully strange to me. Luge, bobsled, biathlon, speed skating, etc We all knew about ice hockey and downhill skiing of course. I was 10 the year the olympics were held in Lake Placid, NY. The US hockey team's "Miracle on Ice" is, of course, the prevalent memory of those games for most of us in this country. But what the entire olympic spectacle inspired was a series of years, snow days permitting, where I recreated the Olympics in my back yard. I won't go into too much detail but it was one of those things that I just had to do alone.
What I remember most of about it to this day is that I took an entire day as the snow fell to make small, paper flags of all the countries for my "luge" event. I drew them with markers I think. I had an old encyclopedia that had all the flags of the world (one of my favorite things to look at as a child!) and I meticulously tried to do them justice with my paper and markers. Then they got wrapped around craft sticks. I made medals out gold and silver foil. I was ready.
The "luge" was just on an old red flyer wood sled. The "track" was hardly dangerous or Olympian by any standards. . . a gently sloping hill, maybe 60 or 70 yards in total length from the back porch of our home, down across a concrete lot and then a final dip down a hill past the neighbors house.
Instead of timing the sled runs for speed, I was trying to see how far I could get the sled to go.
The last ten yards or so the sled would slow to a crawl, the weight of my body the only thing pushing it forward until it came to a crunching stop in the snow.
The little flag representing the country I had just pretended to be representing would be stuck in the ground where the front of the sled ended up. Then I'd get up off the sled, haul it back up the gentle slope and do it all over again. Dozens upon dozens of times. With the exception of a rare misstep out of the "starting gate" most of the trips ended up in a very small area, within two feet of each other. Mere inches separating the best from the worst of the runs.
I can still recall, vividly, the feeling of the falling snow in my face as I went along and the internal "broadcast" of the announcers that I ad libbed in silence.
I made dozens of runs and, as the track iced over, it DID become little faster and more fun.
When it ended, I would go inside have a medal ceremony and return the next day for "ice" hockey or biathlon (FYI, plastic bb's are NOT going to be accurate in 20mph whipping, winter winds!) and some events, downhill skiing and speed skating, I had an old Atari Game system to play those out on when it got too dark outside.
The feeling I get when I think of those days is both precious and bittersweet.
I played so many games like that and I'll talk about them more in future Nostalgia posts. I just preferred those solo hours.
I still do in many ways.
When I created the "My Antarctica" photo series a few years back, those memories of cherished events and a few stark turning points from childhood were the impetus for a number of the images.
Most of those, I have never shown, including this one below which was inspired by those childhood Winter Olympics. . .
And while there were many bad moments as well, I never hesitate to say that, given the offer, I would not hesitate to forfeit up a year of my life to go back and live one day in that time (minus the negatives of school, family arguments etc) :)
When I go home, I try. A little at least. So much of it has changed, especially the outdoor landscape. But I still find that if I am very quiet and open. . . it comes back to me.
Thank you for reading!
nicolas
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Musings from a Timeless Journey #2
Another little tale from my recent cross-country train trip home.
Well—this sort of thing doesn't happen every day. . .
When I was a child, my mother and I would go every Saturday to a newsstand in a neighborhood close to ours. Some of you may not know or remember the phenomenon that was a true newsstand. That's where you went for local and national newspapers, all your magazines, tobacco, the candy counter, little toys and games and, my only cares as it related to that time period, weekly comics and Topps baseball/football/hockey trading cards.
So, every week we would get in the car and go and I would comb the comic racks for the newest Richie Rich or Archie comics. Then at the counter, whatever sports season it was, I got a couple of packs of the trading cards. In later years I branched out into a few superhero comics and the assorted horror comics too.
Those Saturday morning runs, followed by the endless hours reading and flipping cards with friends over the weekend, they remain such bright spots in my memories.
The second day I was home on my recent trip, my mother said "You know that newsstand we used to go to? It's still there."
Wait, what? A newsstand still running in this day and age?
And she told me it was still owned by the same man who we'd see there each week almost 40 years ago.
"OK, sooooo why are we still sitting here talking?"
Within minutes we were on our way.
Now, the entire area looks so different. So much so that I hardly remembered it at all. We drove down the street slowly and exchanged comments like:
"Oh that's where the old deli used to be"
"Remember the little theater that was there?"
"I think that used to be Rupp's Hockey store."
"Remember the old lady with the librarian glasses and too much perfume that hugged you every time I took you in that clothing store?"
Oh do I. . .I smelled like that gardenia perfume all day Saturday back then.
The old store facades are gone, re-plastered to make them more "modern" — but that must have been in the 90's because they look rather dated now. lol
We found a place to park out front and walked in.
(Enter the sound of the Dr Who tardis here)
Inside, it is the same place. I immediately recognized the man behind the counter and he, in turn, recognized my mother and then, me as well. I was distracted. Something was pulling at me, asking to be noticed but, before I could focus on what it might be, the man spoke
"You were this tall last time I saw you!" he said, holding his hand halfway up his chest.
We laughed and I said we'd come to revel a bit in those old days. Did he have any comics? Or baseball cards?
"Sure sure" right where they always were. Do you remember?"
Of course I did.
I found my way thru the mass of toys hanging from the ceiling and past the assorted t-shirts and racks of cards and books. There! Just as he said. I walked up to the comic racks and I immediately knew what it was that was pulling at me. just a few minutes earlier.
Everything in the store. Save for the daily local paper and the Times, was old — sorry, vintage.
The comics were from the same era of my childhood. Not some of them. ALL of them. Maybe a few Buffy's from the 90's or Transformers form the early oughts. I felt a little dizzy. Could this be? I took my time and went thru them thoroughly, selected a few and then I walked back up to the counter where the Topps sports cards had always been. There were packs of cards, Baseball, football and hockey, just as always, but they too were vintage! Unopened and intact. 25 to 30 year old pink bubblegum slabs still inside them. I quickly dated them by the notices on the pack like, Win a Trip to see your team at Spring Training 1987. Complete details inside.
Whoa! What?
Everything was the same. The shoppe is a jumble of toys, games, little gifts, sports memorabilia and the assorted magazines comics and miscellaneous. My mother said even the regular magazines were from years past.
Now, I am assuming the candy and snacks were not so old but. . . .
I grabbed a handful of comics and cards and went to the counter. I think I was still trying to process it.
"I can't believe you have these." I said, pushing the stack of cards across the counter.
"Takes you back huh?"
"I'll say. I am so glad we came up here today."
"Me too. Always good to see folks from the old neighborhood. Not many of us left these days"
We spoke of the changes and laughed about small details lost to time. He told us that he'd just signed another one year lease so he'll be there if I go home again next year.
We drove home and I opened some of the cards and saved some for my old childhood friend who still lives near my mother. That night I leafed thru the comics and tried to imagine what the odds were that any store would have such items after so many years.
I also wondered if anyone else appreciated the absolute magic of that shoppe. The portal it presents to another time and place. I half expected to walk out the door and be back in the 80's!
I couldn't have dreamed up a more fitting experience to have on this trip. Much of the time spent home is invested in nostalgia and requires memories and imagination. THIS was like an immersive experience and one I am sure that I will carry for some time to come.
Well—this sort of thing doesn't happen every day. . .
When I was a child, my mother and I would go every Saturday to a newsstand in a neighborhood close to ours. Some of you may not know or remember the phenomenon that was a true newsstand. That's where you went for local and national newspapers, all your magazines, tobacco, the candy counter, little toys and games and, my only cares as it related to that time period, weekly comics and Topps baseball/football/hockey trading cards.
So, every week we would get in the car and go and I would comb the comic racks for the newest Richie Rich or Archie comics. Then at the counter, whatever sports season it was, I got a couple of packs of the trading cards. In later years I branched out into a few superhero comics and the assorted horror comics too.
Those Saturday morning runs, followed by the endless hours reading and flipping cards with friends over the weekend, they remain such bright spots in my memories.
The second day I was home on my recent trip, my mother said "You know that newsstand we used to go to? It's still there."
Wait, what? A newsstand still running in this day and age?
And she told me it was still owned by the same man who we'd see there each week almost 40 years ago.
"OK, sooooo why are we still sitting here talking?"
Within minutes we were on our way.
Now, the entire area looks so different. So much so that I hardly remembered it at all. We drove down the street slowly and exchanged comments like:
"Oh that's where the old deli used to be"
"Remember the little theater that was there?"
"I think that used to be Rupp's Hockey store."
"Remember the old lady with the librarian glasses and too much perfume that hugged you every time I took you in that clothing store?"
Oh do I. . .I smelled like that gardenia perfume all day Saturday back then.
The old store facades are gone, re-plastered to make them more "modern" — but that must have been in the 90's because they look rather dated now. lol
We found a place to park out front and walked in.
(Enter the sound of the Dr Who tardis here)
Inside, it is the same place. I immediately recognized the man behind the counter and he, in turn, recognized my mother and then, me as well. I was distracted. Something was pulling at me, asking to be noticed but, before I could focus on what it might be, the man spoke
"You were this tall last time I saw you!" he said, holding his hand halfway up his chest.
We laughed and I said we'd come to revel a bit in those old days. Did he have any comics? Or baseball cards?
"Sure sure" right where they always were. Do you remember?"
Of course I did.
I found my way thru the mass of toys hanging from the ceiling and past the assorted t-shirts and racks of cards and books. There! Just as he said. I walked up to the comic racks and I immediately knew what it was that was pulling at me. just a few minutes earlier.
Everything in the store. Save for the daily local paper and the Times, was old — sorry, vintage.
The comics were from the same era of my childhood. Not some of them. ALL of them. Maybe a few Buffy's from the 90's or Transformers form the early oughts. I felt a little dizzy. Could this be? I took my time and went thru them thoroughly, selected a few and then I walked back up to the counter where the Topps sports cards had always been. There were packs of cards, Baseball, football and hockey, just as always, but they too were vintage! Unopened and intact. 25 to 30 year old pink bubblegum slabs still inside them. I quickly dated them by the notices on the pack like, Win a Trip to see your team at Spring Training 1987. Complete details inside.
Whoa! What?
Everything was the same. The shoppe is a jumble of toys, games, little gifts, sports memorabilia and the assorted magazines comics and miscellaneous. My mother said even the regular magazines were from years past.
Now, I am assuming the candy and snacks were not so old but. . . .
I grabbed a handful of comics and cards and went to the counter. I think I was still trying to process it.
"I can't believe you have these." I said, pushing the stack of cards across the counter.
"Takes you back huh?"
"I'll say. I am so glad we came up here today."
"Me too. Always good to see folks from the old neighborhood. Not many of us left these days"
We spoke of the changes and laughed about small details lost to time. He told us that he'd just signed another one year lease so he'll be there if I go home again next year.
We drove home and I opened some of the cards and saved some for my old childhood friend who still lives near my mother. That night I leafed thru the comics and tried to imagine what the odds were that any store would have such items after so many years.
I also wondered if anyone else appreciated the absolute magic of that shoppe. The portal it presents to another time and place. I half expected to walk out the door and be back in the 80's!
I couldn't have dreamed up a more fitting experience to have on this trip. Much of the time spent home is invested in nostalgia and requires memories and imagination. THIS was like an immersive experience and one I am sure that I will carry for some time to come.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Musings from a Timeless Journey #1
Hi All!!!
I am back from my cross country trip to visit Mom and my childhood home.
I'll be doing my best to get caught up with you all and your lovely blogs as soon as I get caught up here with shipping and get back on track.
Instead on inundating you with a long post about my trip, I think I will share the experiences in brief, short-short story versions in the coming weeks. It will be a writing exercise for me. Trying to tell the story is one or two pages, no more than 500 words per story.
Little vignettes of past and present all tangled into one.
I hope you'll enjoy them!
nicolas
<>oOo<> <>oOo<> <>oOo<>
"The Farmhouse"
“Good morning”
I am back from my cross country trip to visit Mom and my childhood home.
I'll be doing my best to get caught up with you all and your lovely blogs as soon as I get caught up here with shipping and get back on track.
Instead on inundating you with a long post about my trip, I think I will share the experiences in brief, short-short story versions in the coming weeks. It will be a writing exercise for me. Trying to tell the story is one or two pages, no more than 500 words per story.
Little vignettes of past and present all tangled into one.
I hope you'll enjoy them!
nicolas
<>oOo<> <>oOo<> <>oOo<>
"The Farmhouse"
Driving towards the comic book store which thrives in the now nearly-vacant mall, I'll be passing the old farmhouse I so fondly remember from the year I was enrolled in a scholars program. Only two students from each middle school were chosen to attend the year long program and I was lucky enough to be one of them from our small, neighborhood school.
The program consisted of only three classes, every Wednesday, with each class almost two hours long.
Creative English
Science
Ancient Art History
This is one of my favorite memories of those difficult “tween years”.
My classmate Paul and I were first to be picked up on the bus each Wednesday before dawn. The next stop to pick up a student was a full 15 minutes later along a stretch of the old river road where several smaller houses sat framing this grand, three story farmhouse.
During the winter months we’d arrive at the farmhouse still cloaked in winter darkness and the radiant glow that emanated from the first floor windows of the farmhouse cast a palpable warmth across the snow covered yard. A warmth that always managed to touch me as I sat on the bus staring at that beautiful old house. I still love and covet farm houses like that to this day,
Julie, the girl who we were picking up there, I’d come to learn was wicked smart though we barely talked beyond the weekly “Good morning” as she got on the bus. Since the scholar classes were divided into three groups of fifteen students each, and Julie was not in my group, we only really saw each other on the bus and at lunch.
The year of “Good Mornings” passed, and I went on to high school and life beyond but the impact of those classes and the creative support I received from the teachers, remains with me to this day.
And, of course, the farmhouse.
I knew as I drove out towards the mall last week that I’d be passing by it along that same river road.
It’s still there but the years have taken their toll. Most of the houses that were once situated nearby are completely gone and the farmhouse itself has fallen into a state of general disrepair, like many things do across decades of time.
I drove by slowly, conflicting feelings turned inside, saddened at the state of the farmhouse but also glad that it was still there at all because so few things from those formative years are.
I thought of Julie, Paul, and all the other kids who’s names are now as lost to time as the houses that once stood around that farmhouse.
I wondered if the classes, and the opportunities that they afforded, are remembered as fondly by any of the others. And I wondered what happened to the farmhouse thru all these years.
And though it’s not the pre-dawn chill of a long-past winter day, I allowed the words to come anyway.
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Small Magic - Nostalgia
My dear blog friend Andrea, at Falling Ladies, has begun a monthly collection of stories and experiences of what she has termed as "Small Magic". You can find this month's post by Andrea by clicking HERE
And the original "Finding Small Magic" Post on her Falling Ladies blog is HERE:
I hope you will take a moment and check them out, add your own (even just a link to a picture or a sentence or two is PLENTY! It need not be as wordy as I tend to be. :)
<>oOo<> <>oOo<> <>oOo<>
If you've been following my blog or visiting my shoppes on Etsy over the years, you probably are aware that i am a huge fan, and a fierce protector, of the notion of nostalgia. While my childhood was far from perfect and we all tend to gloss over some of the not-so-great aspects of our lives, I think many people have a tendency to drift, for one reason or another, back to the past. Especially as we get older.
For some it's childhood, for others it's college or the early years of their own children's lives. But it seems that, in one way or another, we all tend to find those spaces in the past where we can safely dwell for whatever personal reasons.
Now, when that nostalgia revolves around childhood. . . well, many adults seem to leave it completely behind or, at the very least, rarely speak about it in and among their adult lives. You may see signs of it in someone's doll collection or Teddy bear Hug. Or in the way they interact with their own children during playtime or in creative endeavors.
I never let go of that past and I am thankful, every day, that I didn't lose sight of it.
To be completely honest, most of my life I lived with a foot in two worlds. That of the adult world around me and that of the world of my imagination and childhood. The struggle to maintain both led to a lot of frustration and misunderstandings among friends and family who could not see that I just was not cut out for the "adult" world. I needed every spare hour for my imagination and it was a very solitary pursuit for the most part. I made bad decisions. I tried to reconcile the two worlds in so many ways but, in the end, I always felt that the magical/childhood part of me was suffocating in the adult world.
Then, after an accumulative series of events, I decided that it was time for a leap of faith. I was going to have to open myself up to the possibilities and ask for guidance as I threw myself and my world completely into the pot. All or nothing. Sink or swim. Betting on childhood, imagination and nostalgia over the adult world I had come to loathe. Now, don't get me wrong, please, there are people who thrive in the adult world and I am ever so grateful for them because someone has to keep our world running. . . it just couldn't be me anymore.
I could tell you a dozen stories of what now seem like moments and instances when "angels" appeared, all within months, to be my guiding lights along the way. I also met Sofie who, without fail, has been the only person I have known in my adult life who didn't ask me to balance the two worlds or question my draw to the past, even though hers was a different experience. Despite that, she reveled in my memories , stories and dreams and explored them WITH me. With complete acceptance. We made the break together. And we changed our entire lives from top to bottom to suit the new life we wanted to have. We didn't expect that the world would accommodate our dreams without being willing to change along with it.
Around that same time as I was in the midst of creating what would become the building blocks of the reclusive, creative world we dwell in now, and of the work you see here that I create, the ghosts of Christmas past came to call. I stumbled upon something that I have held to as being a source of inspiration and light ever since.
During a random internet search laced with nostalgic ideas I found that, not far from where I grew up, there was man in his late 60's who had created a website for the history of little Christmas Putz Houses. Those glittery, magical, cardboard houses many of us remember form under our family trees in childhood. The history of them is fascinating but what I was taken by was that this man, and his love for these houses, was a clear channel to and from his childhood. That he REVERED that time and those memories and that he had found a way to keep it close and invest himself within his passion for it so late in life.
It was a deeply appreciated thread for me to reach out and hold to.
And the first thing I read from that web site was this:
<> <> <>
"There is but a very brief window in early childhood for many of us, a period of time that lasts from birth until we are cast from the nest and into school. A time when all about the world is new and good. A time when we are open. A time when we take things in so deeply that they will form us ever after. So we imprint upon the Christmas of that time, and what that was is what it will be for us always.
I think that is what collecting is all about, especially for those who collect for LOVE and not for sterile speculation.
This is true of most of the toys and trappings of the holidays.
Artifacts.
Actual tangible contact with our own past.
It is true that we forget nothing. The power that an object unseen in decades can have to transport us in mind and spirit back to a specific period or moment of our lives - to unlock long-closed doors in the mansion of our memory - is the true value that it has. We can hold such an object in our hands and know those times were real and welcome back whole parts of who we were into who we are - and let the inner child in each of us out once again to play - to live as part of us and and help us see again through our own "Magic Window"
You will find that those old objects will take you back in time, but NEVER listen to those sad fools who say that you are "living in the past." We are what we are because of our pasts. Would that we could live in the past at will or at least visit from time to time. But we can bring those things forward, to live within us as we face the uncertainty of the present and the future.
Those pasts informed everything that we know so never be ashamed of your nostalgia . . .it was, and is, your reverence for the life you had, the path that you have traveled. -T.H. "Papa Ted" Althof
<> <> <>
Sadly, as a second wake-up call, I soon discovered that Ted Althof was dying, having been diagnosed with cancer just as I was diving in to his website in 2009. I'd never really put ityself in mortality's shoes before that. I always had time. Lots of time I thought. Angels, and small magic, really do come in many, many complex forms.
What I am left to say is this: I wouldn't dream of asking anyone to be anything other than what and who they are. BUT if this holiday/yule/solstice season you find yourself feeling silly for daydreaming of the best of your memories as a child, or your best memories WITH a child, please embrace it fully instead. We can't actually go back, I know, but allow yourself that time, that place and those memories to come back in a quiet hour. Indulge them fully. I can't say they'll lead you to a life path like mine but they WILL fill you with a bit of small magic and wonder again. And you might just find that today does not have to be so far from that wonderful memory of yesterday.
Have a wonderful and magical season wherever you are and find that SMALL MAGIC always and in all ways!
And a special thank you to all of you for coming along on MY nostalgic road-trip, offering your kind words, support and patronage as I built this world I thrive in now.
And a special thank you to all of you for coming along on MY nostalgic road-trip, offering your kind words, support and patronage as I built this world I thrive in now.
nicolas
PS:
If you are interested in Christmas Putz houses and their history, there is an archive of the original Papa Ted's Place website, maintained by fans and friends of Mr Althof after he passed in 2012. They kept it just as it was with only a note stating his passing as an addition. It's a relic of a site. Not slick and "squarespaced". . . but that only adds to it's charm and beauty I think. Great old photos, collections, stories, memories.
The site is here: Papa Ted's
Sunday, July 10, 2016
The Landscape of Imagination
I mentioned that I had begun reading "The Natural World of Winnie the Pooh: A Walk thru the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood" by Kathryn Aalto
It's a wonderful peek into the world of Winnie the Pooh's creator, A.A. Milne and the landscape, childhood memories and characters (his own son, Christopher Robin, and his stuffed animals that became the characters) that bring to life the Pooh books we all know.
I want to share a passage with you and then, a realization it opened for me.
In recent years, there has been concern that the very nature of childhood has changed. People have begun questioning if there has already been a "last generation" to play outside. In "Last Child in the Woods", author Richard Louv writes about the modern disconnection between children and nature and the importance of providing children some autonomy in the natural world. "Whatever shape nature takes, it offers each child an older, larger world separate from parents. Nature can frighten a child too and this fright serves a purpose, too. In Nature a child finds freedom, fantasy and privacy, a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace."
When we are young, tramping through forests also leaves footprints on paths well into our adulthoods.
Throughout the writing of this book, for example, I heard laments from grandparents and parents about the diminishing range our children are now allowed to wander. Milne's childhood and his stories are touchstones of a paradise lost, of a bygone time that many - writers, psychologists, parents - believe is important in the development of a child. with these rising concerns over the nature of childhood itself, Milne's books offer a reminder about the importance of freedom in nature.
And that took me into thinking, as I so often do, about my own childhood.
I often say I grew up in a city, which I did. A large industrial eastern US steel town. One decaying under the weight of the loss of those mills and industry. And many of my childhood experiences and the process of "becoming" are tied to very city-like adventures. Riding streetcars by myself, exploring downtown and all the people and activity of a city. But I immediately recognized something that I now feel so eternally grateful for. That in the midst of the urban life, I was fortunate to have woods, dense tree covered hillsides, (under which old mines lay) on either side of the house that I spent much of my childhood in. Entire days were spent exploring, making tree-houses (even if many of them were just a board slung through the branches to sit upon), following birds and squirrels, digging, climbing and creating worlds apart from the ones of my family and their adulthood. Time to be whatever and whoever I dreamed of being.
Much of what I write about in the short stories I am working on came from those childhood experiences and the imagination that the time. A mix of city experiences like "pitching nickels" with school friends against buildings and walls downtown. And also the woodland adventures scouting from treetops and crossing imaginary bogs and quicksand pits. Hiding from trolls under large spruce trees. . .
But to choose, one or the other? It's not even a question. The woods were far far more important to my future self.
The freedom of nature.
A separate peace.
And there was much in the world around me to necessitate that peace, that break from the slip-slide into adulthood.
Even today, my conversations with my own mother, who never had such a childhood and who I used to think of as being so overprotective but who, in comparison to many parents today would have been seen as very permissive, tend to be fraught with her lamenting the daily decline of the world around her. The news blaring from her tv all day long. And me, with no tv at all, no social media feeds, no newspapers. . . still the dreamer and believer, and every day seeking a deeper connection to that childhood me instead of that adult "other".
Maybe part of the problem is that it's the adults who forget and who become so lost in the very ideal of their own adulthood and it's many pitfalls and traps, that childhood seems eons away. Like a distant dream nearly unattainable now.
Or maybe more and more adults are coming from a childhood that lacks that time in nature, that freedom, that ability to develop those skills of nature's teaching?
I am saddened by the way kids become more screen bound and less independently imaginative with each passing year. I see it in the small town I live in, one surrounded with woods, blackberry patches, out of the places all bordering an expansive estuary/coastline/bay. The computers at the library are always in use. . . while many, many great and inspiring books, graphic novels and natural resources are not.
People defend this modern age as just the changing of the times and I do not disagree. Change is a given. . . but that simplified view asks us to accept that all change is, or can be, good, and that all change has an equal exchange within it of what is lost and gained.
It does not.
Losing the natural world, the freedom to explore, the ability to develop self-taught skills and stir imagination from within. . . there is no substitution for those.
All this is to say I never gave those woods, that space I had growing up, it's due. I took it for granted as just being part of the landscape but see now, thru the eyes of Pooh's creator, how very important it truly was. My own little "Hundred Acre Wood".
I see how it just being there for me each and every day amid the grind, noise and weight of the city, and of impending adulthood, was more important than I could have ever known.
Thank you for reading,
nicolas
It's a wonderful peek into the world of Winnie the Pooh's creator, A.A. Milne and the landscape, childhood memories and characters (his own son, Christopher Robin, and his stuffed animals that became the characters) that bring to life the Pooh books we all know.
I want to share a passage with you and then, a realization it opened for me.
In recent years, there has been concern that the very nature of childhood has changed. People have begun questioning if there has already been a "last generation" to play outside. In "Last Child in the Woods", author Richard Louv writes about the modern disconnection between children and nature and the importance of providing children some autonomy in the natural world. "Whatever shape nature takes, it offers each child an older, larger world separate from parents. Nature can frighten a child too and this fright serves a purpose, too. In Nature a child finds freedom, fantasy and privacy, a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace."
When we are young, tramping through forests also leaves footprints on paths well into our adulthoods.
Throughout the writing of this book, for example, I heard laments from grandparents and parents about the diminishing range our children are now allowed to wander. Milne's childhood and his stories are touchstones of a paradise lost, of a bygone time that many - writers, psychologists, parents - believe is important in the development of a child. with these rising concerns over the nature of childhood itself, Milne's books offer a reminder about the importance of freedom in nature.
And that took me into thinking, as I so often do, about my own childhood.
I often say I grew up in a city, which I did. A large industrial eastern US steel town. One decaying under the weight of the loss of those mills and industry. And many of my childhood experiences and the process of "becoming" are tied to very city-like adventures. Riding streetcars by myself, exploring downtown and all the people and activity of a city. But I immediately recognized something that I now feel so eternally grateful for. That in the midst of the urban life, I was fortunate to have woods, dense tree covered hillsides, (under which old mines lay) on either side of the house that I spent much of my childhood in. Entire days were spent exploring, making tree-houses (even if many of them were just a board slung through the branches to sit upon), following birds and squirrels, digging, climbing and creating worlds apart from the ones of my family and their adulthood. Time to be whatever and whoever I dreamed of being.
Much of what I write about in the short stories I am working on came from those childhood experiences and the imagination that the time. A mix of city experiences like "pitching nickels" with school friends against buildings and walls downtown. And also the woodland adventures scouting from treetops and crossing imaginary bogs and quicksand pits. Hiding from trolls under large spruce trees. . .
But to choose, one or the other? It's not even a question. The woods were far far more important to my future self.
The freedom of nature.
A separate peace.
And there was much in the world around me to necessitate that peace, that break from the slip-slide into adulthood.
Even today, my conversations with my own mother, who never had such a childhood and who I used to think of as being so overprotective but who, in comparison to many parents today would have been seen as very permissive, tend to be fraught with her lamenting the daily decline of the world around her. The news blaring from her tv all day long. And me, with no tv at all, no social media feeds, no newspapers. . . still the dreamer and believer, and every day seeking a deeper connection to that childhood me instead of that adult "other".
Maybe part of the problem is that it's the adults who forget and who become so lost in the very ideal of their own adulthood and it's many pitfalls and traps, that childhood seems eons away. Like a distant dream nearly unattainable now.
Or maybe more and more adults are coming from a childhood that lacks that time in nature, that freedom, that ability to develop those skills of nature's teaching?
I am saddened by the way kids become more screen bound and less independently imaginative with each passing year. I see it in the small town I live in, one surrounded with woods, blackberry patches, out of the places all bordering an expansive estuary/coastline/bay. The computers at the library are always in use. . . while many, many great and inspiring books, graphic novels and natural resources are not.
People defend this modern age as just the changing of the times and I do not disagree. Change is a given. . . but that simplified view asks us to accept that all change is, or can be, good, and that all change has an equal exchange within it of what is lost and gained.
It does not.
Losing the natural world, the freedom to explore, the ability to develop self-taught skills and stir imagination from within. . . there is no substitution for those.
All this is to say I never gave those woods, that space I had growing up, it's due. I took it for granted as just being part of the landscape but see now, thru the eyes of Pooh's creator, how very important it truly was. My own little "Hundred Acre Wood".
I see how it just being there for me each and every day amid the grind, noise and weight of the city, and of impending adulthood, was more important than I could have ever known.
Thank you for reading,
nicolas
 |
| I imagined building little cottages like this in my own childhood woods/forest many times. |
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
The Origin of My Protectors
When I was a child, I had decided that almost any fear, any threat, any possible monster lurking in the darkness could be conquered by following a set of rules to invoke the protection of the something good and greater.
There was a late-night weekend show called Chiller Theater that aired throughout my childhood. It was a double feature (though for a few years it was a TRIPLE feature I believe!) of old classic and otherwise mostly B grade monster and occult films every Saturday night starting at 11:30pm.
The host of the show, Chilly Bill Cardille, was best known to the world for his role as the news reporter in the original "Night of the Living Dead". ( I also lived quite near the cemetery from that movie and had friends who lived directly across the street from it. . . such fodder for over-active, young imaginations!!!)
The whole production of Chiller Theater was a real camp-affair! In-studio skits between commercial breaks and films took place on a castle inspired set and included Cardille as well as a host of characters with names like like Terminal Stare, Georgette the Fudgemaker and Stefan the Castle Prankster.
But even with the levity of those breaks, the movies were often quite scary to me (as with all the classic Karloff, Lugosi, Price films!) So began the practice of pulling myself fully up on the reclining chair in the dim, flickering tv light and covering myself with one of my grandmother's hand crocheted afghans. In my mind, as long as all my extremities were covered completely, I was safe.
On occasion, like getting a snack in the kitchen during a commercial break, or in the heat of summer, I needed more active safety measures. What I concocted was a series of little internal "tests" which, if passed, allowed me the same measure of safety outside of the protective afghans.
These tests were things like; holding my breath through a commercial break, staring at a digital clock til it changed the minutes, having my snack and being back in my chair by the movie's return, and sometimes I just repeated certain phrases in my head when moving from one chair to a couch or to the kitchen or to my bedroom. Those are too silly to repeat here but they were all for the result of an invoked protection.
Basically, little, internal talismans and rituals.
And those old movies were really the least of my fears. There were even scarier "modern" horror shows like Night Gallery or Sixth Sense. My childhood bedroom, ages 4 thru 11 was a frightful place. Nightmares, pitch black darkness, strange things. . . too many to mention. But my grandparents house where I spent most of my time while my mother worked and where we lived from 11 yrs old onward was nothing of the sort. It was the epitome of the word "sanctuary". And, despite and/or due to the extraordinary circumstances of several life changing events that happened there thru the years of my childhood, my belief in the unseen and protective, grew and never wavered.
So it should be no wonder that upon reading and learning about the pantheon of ancient Egypt somewhere around the age of 11, I immediately took up the idea of amulets, protective symbols, animal deities and rituals! That's a love that continues to this day and never loses interest for me.
My crafty kid-self went mad for the little amulets and statues. I spent countless hours at the library researching anything I could find about the pyramids and ancient civilizations, one leading to another and so on. So there was that, coupled with my already strong belief in the unseen and "other" worlds of the fae and the such. All of it making a very strong impression that formed the foundation of so much in those early years
It's why, all these years later, after so many years of struggling so intensely to find my creative place in the world, I have come to create items like these:
Now, of course, between ancient deities and fairy inspired works, I feel like I am sending these little protective creations into the world for others to invest themselves in. I cannot imagine anything more pleasing than to be putting so much of my early self into what I do as an adult and sharing it.
It keeps those days and beginnings close and reminds me of them constantly. The good and the bad. But mostly good.
I often think of those days now, building blanket forts, cardboard space ships, tree-houses and crows nests, invoking protective measures in my internal world in countless ways. Childhood is, after all, a very uncertain and overwhelming place. I am so grateful to have had so many outlets then. . .
It's always interesting to follow the thread that runs from the very beginning of things. To see where the here and now came from and to understand, for myself at least, that the journey is a constant. So all of it matters. Especially those little details. . . especially now.
Thank for reading and for sharing in this journey, and this inner world, with me. :)
nicolas
PS: I find it very amusing that upon searching the internet for Chiller Theater, I came across a site that lists every weekly showing over 20+ years and the films that were played for each and every Saturday night from the beginning! Are you kidding me? Man I love the internet!
There was a late-night weekend show called Chiller Theater that aired throughout my childhood. It was a double feature (though for a few years it was a TRIPLE feature I believe!) of old classic and otherwise mostly B grade monster and occult films every Saturday night starting at 11:30pm.
The host of the show, Chilly Bill Cardille, was best known to the world for his role as the news reporter in the original "Night of the Living Dead". ( I also lived quite near the cemetery from that movie and had friends who lived directly across the street from it. . . such fodder for over-active, young imaginations!!!)
The whole production of Chiller Theater was a real camp-affair! In-studio skits between commercial breaks and films took place on a castle inspired set and included Cardille as well as a host of characters with names like like Terminal Stare, Georgette the Fudgemaker and Stefan the Castle Prankster.
But even with the levity of those breaks, the movies were often quite scary to me (as with all the classic Karloff, Lugosi, Price films!) So began the practice of pulling myself fully up on the reclining chair in the dim, flickering tv light and covering myself with one of my grandmother's hand crocheted afghans. In my mind, as long as all my extremities were covered completely, I was safe.
On occasion, like getting a snack in the kitchen during a commercial break, or in the heat of summer, I needed more active safety measures. What I concocted was a series of little internal "tests" which, if passed, allowed me the same measure of safety outside of the protective afghans.
These tests were things like; holding my breath through a commercial break, staring at a digital clock til it changed the minutes, having my snack and being back in my chair by the movie's return, and sometimes I just repeated certain phrases in my head when moving from one chair to a couch or to the kitchen or to my bedroom. Those are too silly to repeat here but they were all for the result of an invoked protection.
Basically, little, internal talismans and rituals.
And those old movies were really the least of my fears. There were even scarier "modern" horror shows like Night Gallery or Sixth Sense. My childhood bedroom, ages 4 thru 11 was a frightful place. Nightmares, pitch black darkness, strange things. . . too many to mention. But my grandparents house where I spent most of my time while my mother worked and where we lived from 11 yrs old onward was nothing of the sort. It was the epitome of the word "sanctuary". And, despite and/or due to the extraordinary circumstances of several life changing events that happened there thru the years of my childhood, my belief in the unseen and protective, grew and never wavered.
So it should be no wonder that upon reading and learning about the pantheon of ancient Egypt somewhere around the age of 11, I immediately took up the idea of amulets, protective symbols, animal deities and rituals! That's a love that continues to this day and never loses interest for me.
My crafty kid-self went mad for the little amulets and statues. I spent countless hours at the library researching anything I could find about the pyramids and ancient civilizations, one leading to another and so on. So there was that, coupled with my already strong belief in the unseen and "other" worlds of the fae and the such. All of it making a very strong impression that formed the foundation of so much in those early years
It's why, all these years later, after so many years of struggling so intensely to find my creative place in the world, I have come to create items like these:
Now, of course, between ancient deities and fairy inspired works, I feel like I am sending these little protective creations into the world for others to invest themselves in. I cannot imagine anything more pleasing than to be putting so much of my early self into what I do as an adult and sharing it.
It keeps those days and beginnings close and reminds me of them constantly. The good and the bad. But mostly good.
I often think of those days now, building blanket forts, cardboard space ships, tree-houses and crows nests, invoking protective measures in my internal world in countless ways. Childhood is, after all, a very uncertain and overwhelming place. I am so grateful to have had so many outlets then. . .
It's always interesting to follow the thread that runs from the very beginning of things. To see where the here and now came from and to understand, for myself at least, that the journey is a constant. So all of it matters. Especially those little details. . . especially now.
Thank for reading and for sharing in this journey, and this inner world, with me. :)
nicolas
PS: I find it very amusing that upon searching the internet for Chiller Theater, I came across a site that lists every weekly showing over 20+ years and the films that were played for each and every Saturday night from the beginning! Are you kidding me? Man I love the internet!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)