I meant to send out my Christmas cards just after Thanksgiving, but as way leads to way, I still have not bought any. The effort seems overwhelming. Still, I must get them and send them out so that I get some in return. It has been programmed into me. I was conditioned by elementary school.
In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, we were instructed to bring in an old shoe box that we would decorate. We spent pleasant afternoon hours cutting tissue and crepe papers to cover our boxes and cutting out red hearts to glue on as decoration. The smell of the old paste and the roughness of those papers stays with me still. Once they were decorated, they were neatly lined up on shelves, slits cut into the tops awaiting the arrival of Valentine's.
We were poor kids and all of the cards we got were from the same company. They were brightly colored and came in big, crisp, transparent bags full of lots of smaller cards and four big ones. They had the usual, "Be Mine, Valentine" messages so that all we needed to do was scrawl the names into the To: and From: lines.
In retrospect, the whole exercise can be seen as a lesson in cruelty. Some boxes would fill and others would not. Susan was not only the smartest but the prettiest girl in our class. You had to get your card in early or else leave it on top because it would be stuffed full. Poor Bebe, who was not quite right, scarcely got a card. I, of course, always gave her one, but not a big one. Those were saved for the special people, usually Susan, Sherri, and my two best friends.
The horrible part came Valentine's Day when full of those little hard sugar candies, those tiny pastel hearts with red messages written on them (and god knows we only ate them through a sugar addiction for they were horrible tasting things even to a child), jerking and twitching with insulin spasms, we were allowed to open our Valentine's boxes. There and then, the hierarchy that would rule us for years to come was set. Susan, who was later promoted to a higher grade, sat among her riches in her pretty dress and pigtails, prim and proper, not looking this way or that but carefully considering each and every Valentine as if it were her favorite. And there sat forlorn little Bebe (who was later put into a special school with kids from the short bus) with nothing to do, turning her head to see the other kids before settling her gaze in her lap. And the rest of us fell somewhere in between. I got a share of the big Valentine's, mostly from my buddies and some of the girls I didn't really like, but I never got one from Susan, and I never found out who did.
So when birthdays and Christmases roll around now, I am always a little saddened when most of the cards I get come from car dealerships and bars. Bradley's in Palm Beach sends me a free drink card every year on my birthday and a Ford dealership never forgets me at Christmas. I think it is solely my elementary school experience that makes me yearn for a mantle filled with holiday wishes, something to make me seem popular, something to maintain my position in the hierarchy. Maybe I'm afraid I'll get shipped off on the short bus.
To wit, I will get my cards today. And for you, my friends, here is my first card of the season. Happy Holidays from Cafe Selavy.
Happy Holidays to you as well Cafe Selavy.
ReplyDeleteYes ... yes to those memories, the Valentine boxes! The smell of dittos and paste. Don't get me started on the kiln in Mrs. Stein's art room!
Okay here is a poem about my childhood sweetheart. .
Scott Voorhies even before you made me a device to view the solar eclipse and not go blind, I loved you
You are out hunting for food.
I am picking dandelions for making soap.
I rub the plush heads between my palms and sniff
to test my work. I am six
but almost seven.
You are already eight.
The boys in my house are darker.
Your stringy, gold hair reminds me
of the tassels on my Grossmama's pillows,
the shiny yarn we love
to run our fingers through.
Sometimes
I would like to lick the blue water from your eyes
but cooking with poisonous berries is dangerous.
When you come home to our camp of white rocks,
do you feel that strange thing between us
like when we try rubbing two magnets together?
Or that fuzzstuff we see coming up
from the street in summer when it's hot?
I am seven
but want to kiss your thin, very red lips.
You crushed the firefly and tried to write my name
on the front steps with its dead light. I felt sad
but didn't want you to know
your new planet face glowing brighter than the streetlamp.
A great story. We had nothing as elaborate in Catholic school. God forbid we should do anything that might even pass as enjoyable!
ReplyDeleteWhat I like the best about the story is that expression, "the short bus."
We didn't have busing - I guess because it was a parochial school, but that phrase really resonates with me - "the short bus."
If we had buses, I'd have been on one, or waving at the kids who were.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteWonderful poem privileges that fellow. Makes me wonder if there are any women from my past writing poems to me.
Nikon,
No, you don't want to be on the short bus.
Ah but you see ... the poem IS for you and yes, all those wild, stick horse riding boys.
ReplyDelete:)
All this brings back memories of mine. We did the same shoe box/mail box Valentine thing and I remember the bigger cards and all the little cards.
ReplyDeleteI love your recall. And your honesty.
My insurance company always remembers me during the holidays, thank goodness. And their card gets displayed. Some years it is a lonely card on the mantle.