I’m six. Like almost every other day after school, I’m at the park across the street, sitting in the painted metal train by the swings. Boys line up in front of me, each waiting for a chance to finally beat me at arm wrestling. I know I will keep winning. And I do.
I’m eight. My picture is in the local newspaper. I’m on a high pedestal between two lower pedestals. On either side of me are girls who wear skintight leotards similar to mine. We’re each holding up colored ribbons that reflect the day’s events. Three of mine are blue. I helped our gymnastics team win against the reigning champions in a nearby town by earning first place all-around and on bars and vault.
I’m eleven. My best friend got a haircut and all the boys smile and turn to keep looking at her as we walk down the hall. In class she passes me a note, each page containing alternate alphabet symbols she and I made up and memorized, for just this purpose. The teacher gathers the note up before I have a chance to read it. Ready to expose our secrets in front of the class, he turns it one way, then another, unable to decipher her message. I stifle a giggle.
I'm twelve. I'm at home alone, waiting for my parent's to get off work, as usual. I flop down onto my mom's bed and listen to the recording of myself singing "The Sun'll Come out Tomorrow" I've just taped. I sound awful. I set the recorder back on her dresser, turn on the radio and dance around to "Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto". I am the only thing moving in a still world.
I’m fourteen. My dad’s yelling into the phone about Where the hell am I! and Look how I’ve upset my mom, again! I hold the receiver away from my ear and roll my eyes. When I finally hang up I go back outside to the park behind my friend’s house. We swing back and forth seeing who can jump from the highest point.
I’m fifteen. I’m embarrassed that my teammates are commenting on the smell of cigarette smoke in my hair. I haven’t enjoyed the last few competitions and practice always reminds me that I’m not as good as other girls. I decide this is my last day of gymnastics.
I’m sixteen. I drop into the driver’s seat of my parents' red Yugo, destination Little Caesar’s. My friends and I can already taste cheesy bread sticks. With a May wind lifting my hair as I navigate busy suburban streets, I finally feel carefree and popular, until fifth period bell rings.
I’m seventeen. At one in the afternoon, while all my friends are still in school, I sit alone in the back of a café, with the other smokers. I open the corner of a raw sugar packet, pour brown crystals in a thin stream into the foam of my daily Latte. Once I’ve slowly eaten the now caramel-like creation, I reach for Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull. His story makes no sense to me, but I feel calmer in his words. After a few chapters I open a spiral notebook and attempt to extract my own wisdom.
I’m twenty-five. I’m on break, visiting with one of my regulars. He asks (again) why I don’t go back to college. He tells me I’m too smart to be a waitress. “I like it,” I answer honestly, leaving out the rest of the truth: I’m not good enough to get a better job.
I’m twenty-seven. With me in the hospital room is my husband, my mom and dad, two doulas, our midwife and a couple of nameless nurses. We’re all waiting for my first child to be born. He arrives at 7:30 in the morning. While he nurses I look over at my mom and dad. They stand beside us, tears shining in both of their eyes.
I’m thirty-three. It’s after library story time. My friend and her kids are over to play and hang out. She and I sit at the dining room table, while our boys race between living room and bedroom. Through my friend’s compliments I’m reminded that my home is beautiful, with its natural wood, southern sunlight and arched doorways. It belongs to a version of me I’ve barely met.
I’m thirty-five. My younger son nurses to sleep in my lap while I sing his favorite bedtime prayer. His brother is sound asleep in the next bed. On tiptoes I walk out into the living room and lower my tired frame onto the couch. In one slow breath I release the day’s chaos and retain its wonder. I notice the now-tall tomato plant I started from seed when we moved to Texas a few months ago, its leaves and fruit painted in the shadows of evening and lamplight. For the first time in years, I am home.
I’m thirty-seven. My mom and I are at the Baha’i Center, a few blocks from our new house, setting up for opening day of Soul Miners, the children’s theater company she and I have started together. My boys wander from room to room trying to ask Grandma and me questions, but we send them back to the kids' room to play. We know that if this is going to work we have to keep handing our efforts over to God. Minutes before the front door is to open, she and I sit together in the Prayer Room, heads lowered, eyes closed. We wonder if we’ve done enough. We have.
I’m forty. It’s July 23rd. I watch the workmen lower my mom’s casket into the ground. The sky is perfect, laced with clouds like little girls draw above square houses with giant gardens full of red flowers. I see people milling around, saying what needs saying, in quieter voices than other days.
I’m forty-two. I ride my bike up Anderson St., grateful for a cool, sunny afternoon. On my way to the café I notice a late summer breeze carrying full branches back and forth. I hear a lawn mower in the distance and smell fresh grass clippings. It reminds me of being five years old. For a moment I’m at my grandparents' old house, in their tiny town in the Illinois cornfields, standing on the front lawn, watching as my grandpa, dad and uncles silently swing golf clubs at a little white ball. It looks boring and doesn’t make sense to me. I run back inside to find my cousins to see who wants to play hide-and-seek.
~ This post, Ages, is the first in a series. My blogger friend at Hanging Out and Hanging In invited me to join her in an A to Z blogging challenge for the month of September, Sundays off.
Take a moment, please, to read some other entries in the A to Z challenge:
Accomplishment - Hanging Out and Hanging In
Apples and Acceptance - In Between Chapters
Abandonment - Musings on Life
Awe - Pathway to Purpose
Abundance and Attitude! - Squeezing the Fruit