ERRR or Hmmm or OM or Why?

Today has been a roller coaster of emotions and dispositions. Ever wake up and just think "errr" and your loved one speaks and you reply nicely (or you think you are replying nicely) but you are thinking "errrr".

Walk in your place of work and say "Dang'd I hate this place". The theme pretty much carries thru the morning into the lunch hour. That is when my work day ends - @ lunch time. (Thank you Oblabla)

On my way home from work today I had a bubble of a memory come up. It always amazes me when this happens so effortlessly but if I TRY to recall something I have to really dig. Anyway this bubble ~ it was summer, it was dry and dusty and I was not happy being where I was. (seems to be a thread in my life) I was about 5 or 6 years old in a day care before day cares were really day "care", because they didn't really care they just fenced you in a yard, made you take a nap and offer you a cold drink out of the machine if you remembered to bring your 10 cents.

It was 1960 maybe 1961. My nephew was about a toddler and his sister was a baby. I know this because we were separated due to ages. Their mother (my sister) was working two jobs and my mother was working one 40 hour a week job and we were all fatherless. So thus we were in day "care".

What amazed me was the precursor to the memory that was on its way. On my drive home I was wanting something cold to drink on this hot afternoon and I thought of a "coke" (we call all sodas or pops cokes here) Almost instantly I could feel the sweaty, clammy packed little room filled with what seemed like hundreds of kids aged 5-10, but I hope that was my small person eye. The "care" giver of this group was standing at the "coke" machine (imagine a cold drink machine in the 60's) and he was asking each of us what we wanted. I remember feeling fairly confident because I knew I had my dime, and my hand was up and he yelled, "what do you want?" and I asked for the strawberry cold drink. Things go pretty bad instantly, while I cant remember details I remember laughter, feeling very fat and ugly instantly, and him saying the strawberry was all gone, choose another. But I felt humiliated and couldn't think of something different so I got nothing at all even though I was so thirsty.

This memory led me to think deeper into that day "care" and that summer. I spent many a time walking over to the fence and trying to get my nephew's attention. Some how I felt like I needed to keep my eye on him over there. He always seemed perfectly content playing in a dusty dirt "yard" with other rug rats and sometimes he would toddle over to me and do what ever toddlers do and I would be comfortable to go explore in the big yard a little more, aimlessly and friendless. Assuming my niece was comfortable in the "infants" room inside, well at least it was air conditioned.

One of those afternoons when my mother came to get me (here I don't remember why my niece and nephew didn't go with us) My heart was so happy. So many times a day I would think inside my head really loud "PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME AND GO TO WORK". But no word was said except on Saturdays, when she would remind me that it was cartoon day and my reply was always, "My favorite cause you don't have to go to work". Anyway, I was skipping holding my mother's hand, and walked right into a cable that was attached to a telephone pole and busted my lip bad! I think I even bruised my tooth and gum. Inside my head I thought, "how could I have not seen that!" but again no words out loud, and my mother dabbed my mouth, told me it was going to be ok, stop crying, "straighten your face up" we have to catch the bus home.

My sister, the mother of my niece and nephew, she worked at a bank about 3 or 4 blocks from this day "care". So she was often the one to take us there in the mornings. We would all get put in our fenced area and I would feel so unhappy and wish I could be as happy as my nephew and niece seemed to be in their place in life. My mother would come for the afternoon pick up and some strange relief would come over me that every thing was going to be ok for the rest of the day.

One day not to long after we had been dropped off, it was still a summer cool morning. I was swinging, just swinging alone, when another girl my age spoke to me in a friendly manner. We sorta played together, she seemed so comfortable in this place too. I cant say how long we played but I can tell you that I remember going in and out of a big play house together many times. We were apparently playing "house", or "mommies", or something. The play house had some sort of a play kitchen with a window over a sink because my minds eye can remember looking out that window over the sink thinking, "I can see the toddlers from here, I like this". My new "friend" was the leader in this friendship and she told me I had to go do something for her and bring it back. That is really the way I remember it. She sent me on some kind of "errand" for her and stated that I must do it. Inside my head I thought, "I don't want to. I was doing something else you go do it", but silently I walked out the door of the play house got to the swings and heard this terrible crash and screaming and crying.

The entire area was in an explosion of screams and crying and yelling. When I looked around the play house was gone, the fence was gone, the bushes were gone. Adults were running and grabbing children's hands and dragging them to the toddler side of the fenced yard.

Next moment I remember is knowing that a car had run a stop sign and come through the play ground, hit the house, ran over and drug my "friend" along way before stopping. She was dead. Just like that she was dead and torn up into a bloody mess and I was sitting and holding my nephew. Neither of us "spoke". We were fairly accustom to chaos, but this was death of a peer.

My sister showed up very very very quickly, crying and screaming. She gathered us up and took us home. I remember trying to tell her how close I had come to being hit too, I wanted to tell her she was my "friend". Even though the words came out of my mouth this time, no one listened. She reminded me that that girl was dead now because some drunk had run through the stop sign. I tried again to tell her how close I had come to being dead too, but no acknowledgement that I had said anything.

We never went back to that day "care". I don't know what the two single mothers did with us three the rest of the summer. I do remember being glad that I didn't have to go back, and I do remember playing with that little girl seconds before she was run over and drug to a mutilating death. She was a little girl like me, and she had played in the house with me and I left the house to do something I didnt want to do and she got killed and I didnt.

Now that was a memory. It bubbles up occassionally thru the last 45 years. Still no one listens to me about that story but I know how it was and I know that it still makes me so sad.

By the time I was home for the day I had forgotten all of that till I sat to write here tonight. I think I see what turn my blogging journal wants to take. My threads I see so clearly and my screaming internal words and the quiet of my mouth..

Then what exactly happens to change the tune? Putting some real words between another and myself. Sharing with Lauren some words that make me smile.