Author: lgmwriting

Mystery

1

This is a difficult idea to express; however, I’m going to take my time and at least try to explain.

I grew up in the 1950s–yes, I’m a baby-boomer–and 1(I lived on a dead end street; 2)nobody on our street had extra money for toys, games, and amusements.

Furthermore, our mothers were all at home and every mother had the same ideas on child-rearing. We had to be outside playing except when we were at school,rain was falling, or one of us was ill. Even in the snow we threw snowballs at each other.

Combining all of these factors will bring the reader to a conclusion; the bunch of kids I grew up with were thrown onto our own resources to pass away the hours out of doors. Because of this we were exposed to the natural world. We didn’t look at the world through a window, then turn back to playing video games. My mother–all the mothers on Shady Avenue Ext.–would be shocked at the way in which children are raised today.

What am I driving at? I do not mean to preach. But having few toys and being outside so much, we noticed things. Odd things in nature, for example. There was a weed called plantain that grew in the strips of land between the sidewalk and the street. From a three or four leaf base a stalk grew that had easily detachable seeds. We moved up and down the street like a little tribe of hunters and gatherers, collecting seeds. Our mothers gave us cleaned out mayonnaise jars in which we stored the seeds. The seeds were the center of our games of “store,” “farmers,” and “playing house.”

This is only one example of what our world was like then. Where does the mystery come in? I don’t like to use psychobabble terms but none of our mothers were “helicopter mothers.” We were free to roam as long as we didn’t cross Beechwwood Boulevard. So if you are free to roam, imagine things, and make things up, the mystery of the natural world becomes accessable. This leads to a deeper and more profound sense of the Other World.

I’ve been going through my books. The area in the house that’s devoted to my bookshelves has looked–to me, anyhow–dusty, books jammed in at odd angles. So I’m doing a huge reorganization of all the shelves.

In going through this heap of books I’ve found photos, worn out paperbacks that are slowly disintegrating, a huge envelope full of poetry that I wrote in the 70s–and it is so embarrassing that I only read one poem and bundled the fat envelope away, on a bottom shelf. It’s obvious that I hadn’t found my “writer’s voice” yet.

I forgot that I had been going through a phase of wanting to learn more about Pittsburgh history; I have a small collection of books about that. They were all interesting but for some reason that only my heart knows, I put them on a shelf that’s hard to see. I’m enjoying living in the present. I remember an interesting fact that I learned from one of those books; where we lived, on Shady Ave. Ext., was one of the oldest parts of Pittsburgh. When my friends and I would play in the spooky cemetery that’s next to a gloomy church nearby, we didn’t know that this place was the oldest church and churchyard to be established. And of course Brown’s Hill Road led straight to the Monongahela.

It’s a known fact that we can live in a place and not see or notice many aspects of it.

I’ll start out my Pittsburgh Experiences Series with this story that I read while going through my “learning about Pittsburgh” phase. In Philadelphia, life was refined and like the cities in Europe, had the best culturally. (Not all of life was “refined” there, obviously. But there were “nice” places to live,” “good restaurants,” and music.)

If a man met a woman in Philadelphia and wanted to marry her, it was assumed by the girl’s parents that the couple would reside in Philadelphia. But there’s a story about a man meeting a woman and wanting to “take her to Pittsburgh.” Shock and outrage on the part of the parents. Just traveling through our still heavily-wooded state was at best, a nightmare. No roads–maybe a few paths to follow–the trip would take days, maybe weeks. Then once arriving, this sheltered young girl would find a city in constant turmoil, public drinking, fighting, brothels. Called the “Doorway to the West” because ambitious men going west, tough fortune-hunters, trappers and more would use Pittsburgh as a base of operations and a place to buy guns, ammunition, foodstuffs–it was “diametrically opposed” to refined, relatively clean Philadelphia. In the story I read, the young lady found that she liked the release from stuffy society and her grateful, happy husband built her the biggest house in Pittsburgh at that time.

Our mailing address isn’t in Rohrsburg; it’s in Orangeville PA. The post office in Orangeville is tiny and never crowded.

The “postmistress” for a long time was Jenna, somebody I grew to like a lot. Whenever I went there she was nice and friendly and had this sort of aura for which I couldn’t find a name. It was something good; it felt warm.

I figured out what it was about Jenna that I liked. Whenever I had a complicated post office errand to do, like sending a heavy envelope to a friend, and certain forms had to be filled in she’d say: Now, just do as I say. Put the name of the person you’re mailing to on that line; fill in their address. OK? Now. put your signature there. OK? And she would go on like that in a soothing way. Not that mailing something is that big of a deal. However, once I asked her if she had kids. Yes, she did have several children.

“You sound like a mother, a mother who is good to her children, and who helps them when they don’t know how to do something.”

Jenna liked that. She told me that nobody ever told her she sounded like a good mother, and she was very happy.

When you drive north from Philadelphia to come to this place where we live now, you have to go through the Lehigh Tunnel. Before the tunnel everything looks like suburban Philadelphia. When you come out the other side you’re in a different place. Even the sky and air are different. This is how I fell in love with Rohrsburg.

I’ve met a lot of people here. I’ve not become very close to most of them but that’s not the way things are done. Most people here work too hard for survival’s sake to go to parties and have lunches out and then go shopping.

This area has always been economically depressed; it’s worse now than ever. So the young people are leaving their homes to get jobs.

However, this is just a very short introduction to a series of portraits of some people I’ve grown to love while living here.

The Kile family owns a small farm which is just down the road from us. All through the spring, summer, and autumn they sell what they grow–corn, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, beets, rabbits, and more. We always buy our eggs there.

Doris Kile is the ruling matriarch of the Kile family. You don’t meet people like her in cities or even towns like Bloomsburg. Physically small but unbelievably tough, she never gets sick, drives herself unmercifully, gets up in the summer at 3 AM to pick corn. All she sells is delicious. Here’s how our relationship with the Kile family began. Peter began stopping there to get eggs and see what the produce looked like. And Peter being Peter, he started chatting with Doris and soon they were friends. Doris’ husband, Alan, is a grumpy old man who hates almost everybody and walks around with a scowl on his face. I was afraid of him. Peter kept urging me to stop there and make friends with a nice neighbor. In matters such as these Peter’s usually right. So now Doris and I are friends. I have a special story about Doris which I will leave for another time.

Three stories related to the Kile family:

1) Bill Kile, their son, is our accountant and his wife, Ella, alters clothing for me. Believe it or not, she only charges $2 to hem dresses and jeans. They are all very devout Christians and live their faith. They never try to convert us and I am sure we are the first Jewish people they’ve ever met.

2) One day I went into Doris’ kitchen and found her and one of her grand daughters playing a card game. I noticed that Doris’ hands were dirty and I was quite surprised until I looked again. Doris had been growing things so long that dirt had embedded itself into the pores of her skin.

3) When we would go away, Doris and Alan would come over and take care of our dog Homer. Homer grew to love them and they loved him. Now, I mentioned that Alan Kile is a grouch. One day I stopped at their place to get eggs and Alan was standing there, frowning at me. I said to Alan that I was Leslie Mastroianni and didn’t he know me? No, he didn’t recognize me. So then I said–Homer’s my dog. Remember him? Alan began to smile at me and after that we all became friends. When Alan was in a nursing home for a hip replacement, I visited him and brought him the Sunday paper and chewing gum. He thought that was funny.

3. What Am I Like Now With Regards to Solitude?

I left that time with a feeling of being solid. When I met Peter, practically the first thing I told him was that I needed solitude with which to function and I don’t like being put on a leash. He welcomed that because he was like me. He wanted to love and have a partner but he needed that partner to understand him. Just like myself.

As time passed I grew to rely on my brain to send me good thoughts IF I RESPECTED IT. That meant giving it time and space to sort out the universe and what it meant. Through the years Peter and I have been members of different groups of friends–most married couples experience that. But all those people have divorced. split off someplace and gone, as if they never existed. Now, at this point in our lives, living in a rural area, we have all the solitude we need and we don’t like spending a lot of time with others. That sounds awful but the truth is that after sorting out all of our experiences we have peace. Sometimes I feel actually physically connected to this house and land. I become unbelievably homesick if I’m away for more than two nights.

At this time, now that I’ve figured out some basic things about myself, I like being who I’ve become. The major part of this, the part where everything springs from, is that I now trust my brain to make decisions after pondering issues. Pondering is the correct word. It isn’t serious, conscious thinking. I can drive myself crazy like that, and I have done this on many occasions. But there’s peace because again–I already stated this–I can trust what’s going on just beneath the surface of consciousness. My writing is the best example of this. My writing writes itself with little conscious help from me.

End of Peace and Love Series.

2. What Solitude Meant To Me

After a chaotic period of time in my early life, when things got so bad that my mother kicked me out of the house, I finally got set on my feet again. A family friend found me a job and I found, by myself, a little and perfect place for me to live—just me, nobody else.

When I started out there I was numb from misery. I couldn’t feel much except a sense of self-loathing. I was smart, pretty, and nice–at least I thought so. How does a young woman like me end up like this? It felt like a tragedy; what would become of me? I didn’t even give my mother my telephone number for weeks.

It was the writings of DH Lawrence that helped me turn myself in a new direction. He wrote poems, essays, and parts of novels devoted to the joys of being alone, just yourself. I pondered this. What had the world dealt me so far? Let’s not even get involved in that. What I needed to do was look within for strength and comfort, not to the outside world.

Then came the good days of long wanderings through Oakland, spending weekend time in the big library, listening to the kind of music I loved. I wasn’t interested in classical music at the time. I had one Gordon Lightfoot album that I must have played every day at least once a day. I think it was Cold On The Shoulder. It seemed as if every song on that album had something just for me. The good days included making peace with my body, no small feat because just about every woman I know hates her body. How did I do this? I boycotted the big department stores and only wore men’s clothing. I looked quite odd indeed but at least I knew I WAS odd and my clothes reflected who I was.

More “good days” included buying food I liked and eating it with dignity. In the beginning I bought all kinds of weird foods, unable to think, one day starving myself and never wanting to eat again, the next day making up for yesterday with overeating. No focus, not feeling anything…

There were good times other than these but the most important detail in this story is that I knew, although I was hurting, that I was growing. I knew what I was doing was good. I used to say to myself that I was building a new structure or a new platform on which to live. And it turned out that I was right. I emerged from that span of 18 months with new energy; and I met my husband soon after.

1. What Solitude Is.

If you’re talking about peace and love, you usually think about the people you loved or a time of peace and harmony in a group. But there is such a thing as self-love.

You’re not a good American if you like to enjoy your own company. Remember the commercial “Be Sociable and Have A Pepsi?” Everywhere I looked, from early age and onward, everything, all of life, was centered around being in a group, mixing well with others, a sense of belonging.

The truth is that the most intelligent and creative people we’ve known about spent a lot of time alone, enjoying the quiet, letting their minds ponder serious questions. I always liked being alone, starting in childhood. I loved living on our block with people all around me, but when Arlene and Naomi went away for two weeks to camp, I contentedly read books and played by myself. I’ve always been this way.

My desire–let’s say my mania–for being sociable reached its peak in adolescence. Being part of a couple, having a group of friends, that was everything.

When I look back, I’m always amazed at the amount of information my mother passed on to me, a lot of it relating to the adults in the family. When my Aunt Esther got married, was raped on her honeymoon, came home pregnant, then the poor baby dying after only living a month…this all took place when I was 10 years old and I knew the whole story of it culminating in a nasty divorce, then my aunt remarrying. Why did my mother do this? Trusting me with the horrible details? I don’t know. But what does this have to do with solitude?

My mother started telling me about her hero, DH Lawrence, when I was about 15 and gave me Sons and Lovers to read. We discussed this book, also others. Her passion for his writing got transferred to me; and he wrote a lot about what he had gained from spending time by himself

I Love You Lennie/I Love Jackie too

Because a big part of my life was devoted to studying music, my curiosity about famous musicians drove me to reading and exploring about them. We had a few classical albums in our house; one of them was Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. I remember stretching myself out on the living room floor, listening to this glorious composition. Sadly, I can’t remember what orchestra recorded it. However, around this time–I was 10 years old and not dumbing down yet–I watched a concert on television. It was the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein, who also played the rigorous piano part.

I was “blissed out.” Never could I have dreamed that this handsome man could 1) conduct the orchestra and 2) play the piano part without sheet music. Leonard Bernstein was emotional about music (of course) and threw himself into whatever he conducted and, in this case, played. Sheer magic and I’ve always worshiped his talent. Now, with you tube, I can watch him playing and conducting anything. It’s still a thrill.

Also, in that same year, John Kennedy was elected president–and here comes this fascinating blue-eyed man with a cool accent who had gone to Harvard and said that Robert Frost was his favorite poet. Frost was made Poet Laureate. But his wife–she was born to be a queen. Her posture was perfect and she never slumped over; so refined and graceful; her new, modern clothing; but, lastly, when she went on a trip to Europe everybody loved her, even more than her famous husband. Why? She spoke fluent French and Spanish!! Brains and beauty.

A far reach for that ten year old who was me.

It was obvious that the hospital people who took care of Peter for that month viewed him as “special” because they were all worried that, with his arm, he wouldn’t be able to handle the colostomy situation. It amused me, I couldn’t help it.

One day the two surgeons called me aside.

“Mrs. Mastroianni, with your husband’s disability, he may have problems handling his situation.”

I laughed. “You are both very sweet men and you’ve been so great about everything. But did you ever find out what Peter does for a living? He’s a sculptor and mold-maker.”

The two doctors just stared at each other. I told them to relax and treat him like any other patient.

There was another situation that presented itself. With the type of surgery that Peter had, it was normal to send a medical person of some kind to come to the home and change the dressing. But at this point, our insurance was exhausted and would not cover this. I just said, OK, teach me how to do it. It can’t be all that bad. And it wasn’t bad at all. Fortunately I have a strong stomach and I don’t get queasy handling messy stuff.

So twice a day I changed the dressing that covered the wound. Believe it or not, it was educational. I saw how the body heals itself, and nothing bad happened. Everything was fine. In fact, Peter and Michael were able to go on a camping trip only not across the U.S. and back. We had a family meeting and it was decided that the two of them would plan the trip in three years from then. Michael would be 16 and could help with the driving.

So the two of them, after Peter got his strength back, strapped our canoe onto the truck and took off for a week’s camping trip in the Endless Mountain area of PA.

Part II. Everyone Pulls Together and We Survive

The first thing I had to do was to sit down with Michael and tell him that he wouldn’t be going on the trip that summer. My 13-year-old son’s answer:
“I don’t feel bad for myself, Mom. I’m just sorry that Dad is so sick. He was looking forward to the trip, too.”

Once I heard that I felt as if I could face anything.

I had already told Carroll, my wonderful supervisor at Williams and Wilkins, about what happened and, being his beautiful self, told me not to even think about coming back to work until Peter was stabilized. But the funny thing was that I wanted to keep up at work because I liked everyone there and it was comforting. It was only 20 hours a week, anyway. Also, I was taking a night class at West Chester University only one night a week. Then I told my professor about all of this and I was urged to take my time, not to worry for the present. Another angelic man.

I bought the biggest Get Well card I could find and walked up and down State Street in Media, telling all of Peter’s friends about this and everybody signed and wished a “speedy recovery.” One friend, a baker who sold muffins and pastries, cried when I told her that the two wouldn’t be going away that summer. Everyone in town knew about the special trip.

Next task: Peter’s clients and friends. Now, Peter told me not to let Michael come to the hospital while he was still hooked up to all these machines. He thought Michael would be traumatized. He also didn’t want his friends and clients to come. However, a few very close friends bypassed this ruling and walked in anyway. It all turned out OK and everybody got a big laugh out of it.

Finally, Peter was hospitalized for a month. This extended over Memorial Day weekend and Peter needed me to be with him. He was taking morphine and it was making him have terrible nightmares. So what would I do about Michael? Some very good friends–parents of a school friend of Michael’s–had him at their home for the whole weekend. Of course, I had my son on my mind but he seemed to be doing OK. Michael’s nerves are strong. The father of the school friend came over and mowed our lawn!

When I wasn’t at Williams and Wilkins or at night school I was at the hospital. It was most important to me that I got home when Michael did. It wasn’t hard to keep his spirits up, as is obvious. But we stuck close to each other. I decided, as a kind of therapy for myself, to learn to play a new sonatina–a new piano piece–when the day ended. So I chose a piece from a piano book and while Michael was falling asleep I would be playing it. This sonatina has a name but I always call it “The Colostomy Sonatina.”
Part III. I Learn About Wound Care and Other Lovely Things.