Written August 18, 2018

I Lived in civilization with a big C, cheek to Levittown, butt to Hicksville, jowl to Westbury. Our P.O. was Levittown, water Hicksville, school district East Meadow and I graduated from W.T.Clarke HS in Westbury. Part of my lifelong identity crisis, there are many other contributions to that particular neurosis, but having to say "I live in East Meadow, but my P.O. Levittown" was the start of an emotional snowball. I've just never fit in, always a toe or foot in different camps never solidly definable never relaxing comfortably in a label or group/posse/clique. Jewish but no real Yiddishkite ie formal education, special memories of rites and rituals , New York Suburban kid, Jewish, but far from it. Living in suburbia without really being in the true middle class suburban family dynamics with those rites and rituals. Best educated "class" during the height of the top education formula churning out the new Collage bound generation. I missed that boat because they missed my learning disabilities, word retrieval problems and finally my inability to pay for a higher education. I opted for an ill advised early marriage to get out of my home dynamic, from the frying pan etc.
       Medium height 5'3", Zoftig (dee groyss broost) gleaned from a Yiddish phrase book. now I look at old pictures and ask where was this fat girl, why did they nag and call me fat with a beautiful face, etc.yes,( in the time of Twiggy) with my nondescript brown hair, blue/green eyes, finally even teeth that I tortured for hours on end with my thumbs instead of braces. good skin and breasts that ensured my perpetual embarresment and a great deal of wardrobe adjustments and disappointments.
     My well to do grandparents seemed to be Hollywood stars to me. Elegant, refined, respectable. they went to Shule, my grandfather a president of their Men's club, starched and ironed white shirts, sheets laundered at the Chinese laundry. Matching everything, cloth napkins and table cloths for each meal and of course dairy and fleish. Civilized, Wall to Wall carpeted, not to mention the Steinway and Sons Mother Grand, quiet and orderly. You knew where you stood. True my Grandmother was a cold formidable woman but she took care of you with competency and just enough of a flourish that you thought she might just care a little. She was kind in a no nonsense pan faced thin lipped way. Underneath was a deeply fragile smart ambitious woman. She was a tartar and a great judge of character.
    At home as I've said before was chaos, in every way. I saw/lived with my clean well clipped, brushed, bathed, clean foot/hands in my Grandparents home and then was untended/disheveled in my mother's house. My Uncle  was four years older than me, he lived in that beautiful orderly well taken care of world. Beautifully prepared wholesome food at every meal, clean pressed clothing no holes in socks or underthings, pajamas robe socks slippers. Take your shoes off, wash your hands before you come up your ---- is on the table. Snacks with a glass of milk in a clean glass on a pretty plate on a clean place mat. He didn't roam the streets, my Grandparents knew where he was playing ball or riding his bike, they could fetch him in a moment. I roamed free range, by 4 or 5 I was walking all over the different neighborhoods at large without any supervision. If I was hungry (before the kitchen extension and backdoor) I'd call up the steps from the (w)rec(k) room. After the renovation I tapped the back screen door and a sandwich was thrust at me, or quietly foraging my self for a hunk of Velveeta, or a tablespoon of peanut butter. I'd eat on the front or back stoop. I spent a lot of time in the three out side seasons contemplating the world lying in the grass in my or others back yards, watching the bugs that buzzed walked or flew. Listening to the bird calls watching their soap opera lives, cataloging the different plants and eventually learning their names by looking them up in the Encyclopedia.
    Summer program at my elementary school I'd walk the three plus miles on Newbridge road all by myself, skinny little me while the traffic roared by. When I figured out how to get to Salsbury Park Drive through the neighborhood behind me, I went that way as well. Cutting through my backyard where they eventually put a sump was a great but spooky shortcut. That was the farmers old property and I'd miss that farmhouse everyday. Knocking on the doors of my friends to see who was available to play, being Jim Bowie and rescuing my backyard friend Missy as I climbed trees often in my genuine Coonskin cap. Unfettered wild mostly alone, avoiding being in the house underfoot under scrutiny, under siege. I could tell the time by the sun, when to begin the trek home dragging my scuffed summer Mary Janes or most often barefoot. my hair nearly shorn when I was a little older but wild and unkempt, standing every which way. No doubt filthy bedraggled big eyed and sad. I look at the photos of the past centuries the stern somber faces captured for all time, and I, either in black and white and later color stare out with the same mien. I see the silent plea behind those eyes no body else does.
    Reading, once I figured out how to, was my salvation. When i read books about the settlers, the farmers and people close to the land I felt it right down to my marrow. Whatever my DNA says, in my past lives I was of the earth too. My foot that's in the practical no nonsense McGuiver get "er done by the seat of my pants and the ever present "throw back" (my mothers words) self wars with the refined how am I supposed to be self. I think I wrote before about my friend who told me "you're a schlepper, you should be a pointer". Yup that's me. Yet, I long for the big old wood floored wide porches home with the kitchen gardens and flower gardens, the wide open windows and the sound of  nature in my ears. A roaring fire in the winter while stitching away on a quilt. The scent of dinner drifting on a breeze and my breads and pies cooling on a sill. Yes, the romantic side of me longing for a place where I am at long last at home in a home I can only yearn for. A childhood that I can mold and bend and fill up the emptiness the void. A place my children and grandloves can all come to, memories rich in lore and love. It exists only in my imagination, the place I default to when the void begins to yawn up through me. My secret world is cozy homey warm and loving. It's far from the madding crowd. I know it's rhythms I stand with both feet planted firmly and it's not a dream...