Florida Through My Years - Part 1: 1969

We flew to visit my grandparents who had just moved to Hallandale

from Watertown where they were old.  

My grandfather had gray skin,

my grandmother had a broken knee.

I was 6.

We left from Boston before the sun came up,

flying,

my first trip on a big plane.

It was Christmas vacation,

but I went to a Jewish day school,

so it was just vacation.

My grandmother always sent tote bags for presents.

She thought these made good presents.

They were plastic

and smelled good

and new

and each one had a decoration that was different

but they were all still tote bags.

I packed one for the plane

with Malibu Barbie and her wardrobe,

a gold dress

a pair of plastic pink high heels

and an ugly dress someone knit

left over from my sister’s Nurse Julia Barbie doll.

I didn’t love Barbie

as much as I had when I got her

since I’d painted Barbie’s nipples with brownish nail polish

and cut her hair

in preparation for our trip.

I sat in the window seat, Barbie sat on the windowsill

looking out at the clouds.

I colored and we ate our meal,

and my mother put the metal spoons and butter knives and plastic dishes

into her bag

and asked the stewardess for a deck of cards

which we didn’t play with,

that joined the utensils in her tote bag.

We walked down the metal steps of the plane

into Florida warmth,

breezes and bright sun

in our drab wool.

My grandmother was there

in her summer clothes

and a tan,

and the ride to their home was short.

My grandparents’ new apartment was on the second floor

of a building with only two floors.

The stairs to get there were outside,

like a motel.

All their furniture from Watertown was there

and a few new things

like the round glass kitchen table

with small chairs with white vinyl cushions

that were too cold to sit on in shorts.

I saw their beds and their armchairs

and the round table with the drawer

that held my grandmother’s sewing needles and thread

and the TV clicker.

My grandmother had emptied out a drawer

for each of us

in a long bureau

for our clothes.

I sat on the floor, opened the drawer at the bottom,

And pushed all my clothes inside.

My grandmother offered oranges and grapefruit

cut up in a bowl.

My parents sat and visited

and it was warm outside

where I wanted to be

at the pool

I could see from the screened in porch.

No one else seemed to want to go.

Instead they sat in chairs in the living room and talked

about the plane ride and

knees

and fruit.

In a half hour we'll go to the pool. You just ate,

she said,

even though I only had a piece of rye bread

with soft butter.

I opened my newly filled bottom drawer

to find my bathing suit

and ran to change

in the fanciest

and biggest bathroom I’d ever seen.

This one had a door that hid in the wall

and slid closed,

and a closet inside it with another door that closed the same way

where all of my grandmother’s clothes were,

so I could get dressed in private,

and when I opened the closet door

I was right there looking at myself in the huge mirror.

There was a light switch that turned on a million lightbulbs around the mirror

and another one for a red bulb over my head that made the room warm

and another for a fan that was loud.

The countertop near the sink was filled with lotions and lipsticks

and powder

and the floor was soft with shite carpet.

I changed into my suit

in the private closet,

ta-dah! I presented myself in the mirror.

I arrived back in the living room where no one had moved.

I stood there on the rug, in my yellow suit, waiting for a volunteer

to take me to the pool.

Grandma did.

I called her Lulu.

She got into her bathing suit

and covered it with a housedress

with big faded flowers on it,

made me put on

No-Name suntan lotion

and gave me a tote bag to put Barbie and my towel in.

She walked me down the stairs

and led me out the door to the pool.

We laid our towels on two long chairs

she told me were called shez longs,

tucking the ends in under the plastic slats so they wouldn’t blow away,

and I put on the bathing cap she made me wear.

It was hers,

and had rubber daisies on it that flapped in the breeze

and snapped under the chin,

and I felt silly.

We walked together to the edge of the pool.

My grandmother was cautious,

her knee newly mended.

a line of scar across her kneecap

like she'd drawn it on herself with a red pen.

She held the railing,

and I left her there on the steps

and slithered into the water

like a seal at the aquarium.

I crawled and dog paddled,

I plunged myself to the bottom of the pool

to sit and have a tea party,

then sprang to the surface for air,

Then dove in like a duck

To show off my handstand.

Show me how you really swim, she said.

I did. I was.

Flutter kick.  Backstroke. Handstand.

I stayed in the pool as long as I could

before she told me to come out.

Your lips are blue. Your fingers are like prunes.

Too much sun.
The tropical sun is much stronger.

I didn’t know what a tropical sun was

and if it was a different one that the one at home.

But I came out to lie down on my towel

and let the drips dry.

The bright orange from the sun

burned through my eyelids

and I saw patterns in my eyes

like the kaleidoscope in my room at home.

I listened.

The birds cackled and nagged,

old people walked past our chairs

and my grandmother told them

we were visiting from Maine

where it was so cold, they all knew.

Aren’t you lucky to have your family visit, they said.

I am, she said.

We headed back into the apartment

so my grandmother could make supper.

She sprinkled paprika on to pale pieces of chicken,

and then

took a sharp comb to my wet hair

and made a part with the end

and tugged my hair

into painful pigtails.

I went back to the moviestar bathroom

to change.

Then we had dinner,

long dinner.

Long dinner where no one talked to me

and I didn’t listen to their conversation

and I didn't eat pale chicken.

I left the table for the bathroom

where I knew I could stay

and no one would come look for me.

I slid the door closed,

lit the mirror,

sang Petula Clark from the closet to imaginary people.

I looked in all the drawers,

took a little Dixie cup Lulu kept stacked near the sink and mixed in

lotion and red nail polish and shampoo and toothpaste and mouthwash and foot powder

and stirred it with a stick my grandmother used for

something to do with her nails.  

(She called it an orange stick even though it wasn’t.)

Pink paste that smelled like minty flowers.

Then I threw it away in the wastebasket, hiding it under tissues.

I arrived back at the dining room table where no one had moved.

There was jello mold for dessert. Green.

With pineapple in it.

My parents slept in the new sofa that turned into a bed in the living room.

My brother got to sleep on the screened porch off the living room that overlooked the pool.

He could listen to the tree frogs and

not have any rules.

I slept on a small cot my grandmother borrowed

and placed in their room.

I had a windowsill next to me

for Barbie.

I slept alongside my grandfather whose eyelids had little bumps near his stubby lashes.

and flipped inside out while he slept.

Our vacation days were all mostly

the same.

Every morning I ate a Lender’s bagel in a hurry,

just wanting to go to the pool.

I sat in the small kitchen

in my bathingsuit

my thighs stuck to the cold vinyl chair

while my grandmother stood at the counter

and drank coffee from her percolator,

and pool time went by.

She said I couldn’t go to the pool without a grownup.

I waited for her to do whatever was keeping her from taking me,

talking to friends on the phone,

in the kitchen in one of the vinyl chairs,

twisting and untwisting the long phone cord,

drumming her painted red nails on the glass tabletop.

She dilly dallied,

taking a bite of toast,

looking into kitchen cabinets for things she talked to herself about.

She kept the kitchen door open

so her friends could stop by.

Mrs. Warshauer from next door,

Nettie Meyers from a few doors down,

Esther Levine who gave me a necklace and who painted.

They were all new friends she’d made in Florida,

they were all old and looked alike.

My father was somewhere,

my mother was elsewhere,

and I waited.

Every lunchtime, I wasn’t allowed

to go to the pool.

No pool in the middle of the day

because of the Tropical Sun.

That’s when we went to the fruit stand for bags of oranges and

grapefruit to send home,

or when we’d rest indoors in the dullness,

or we went to Nettie Meyer’s country club

for air conditioned lunch

or we went to Aunt Sara and Uncle Sam’s apartment

in a highrise with a balcony I wasn’t allowed on,

that looked down on a beach they never went to,

with a pool they didn’t swim in,

and sat inside

on their white furniture.

Some days my grandfather helped me wait out the no pool time.

He taught me how to play shuffleboard,

and he’d play Go Fish with me

and War which went on for longer than either of us could stand,

and he took me for a walk down the street in the heat

past other apartment buildings

where other people’s grandparents lived,

to the mall

for a cone of orange sherbet.

In the late afternoon,

finally,

my grandmother

would take me back to the pool.

I’d put on my damp suit

and she'd take her knitting

and sit with the other women under

the awning by the pool.

They all knit together and talked

and my grandmother knit

on small needles

with sequins.

She could knit without looking,

my lifeguard in a housedress,

and I went back in the pool

until my lips turned blue.

At the end of the vacation

we flew back home

in our drab clothes,

me with my tote bag filled with shells

Lulu had bought for me a the shell store

by the airport,

and some dead seahorses,

with their perfect horse heads

and spiral tails,

stiff like dried out raisins,

closed up in a sandwich bag,

and Barbie with her bad haircut 

looking out the window.

Afterthought

Oh just go on in,
she said,
a woman I didn't know
coming up behind me
with a spring bouquet in her arms
gathered in bountiful pink tissue paper
while I stood at the door
holding a plant I'd picked up at the greenhouse,
foil to match the one blossom
hanging onto its stem
just barely.
I'd been ringing the doorbell
that made no sound
and had knocked
but no one came to the door
even though I heard voices behind it.

She always leaves the door unlocked,
the woman told me,
the woman who was more comfortable
going into her house
than I,
who knew how,
and I was a stranger
even though we'd grown up together
and had been close once.

I tried the door handle
and the door stayed shut.
Push hard, the woman said. It sticks.
And we were suddenly in
surrounded by people the woman knew
and I didn't.

Happy birthday, I said
to her
as she made her way toward me
through the crowded
small room,
adorned with a cardboard crown and bright pink feather boa,

Thanks
she said,
let me tell you
who everyone is.
Two Elizabeths
and  a Joan
and maybe a Bob or a Tom
all close enough to kiss,
and a man and his wife
and a woman from next door
and her daughter
and others,
while I awkwardly held the plant
waiting for her to take it
but her hands were full with
a glass of wine
and a platter of long
irregularly shaped
breadsticks.

They're wrapped in bacon
she said.
I took one
and ate it quickly
and she went somewhere
away from me.

And you are,
they asked,
her sister.
Her sister!
I didn't know she had a sister!
Wait, said the woman who'd followed me in.
You're her sister?
Ha! And I was telling you how to open the door!

I made my way
to the next room
where I found a low table
filled with flowers and plants
all in foil and boxes
like they'd shown up for an audition
for best adequate gift to give
at a birthday party where
gifts were not necessary.

I moved next to the quiet kitchen
where various half drunk bottles of wine
had been opened
and left on the counter
and took one of the remaining few plastic cups
and poured myself a cup of red.

I went back in to the crowd
and peered between people
at the food table.
I waited for a space to open
and took a crinkle cut carrot
and a tortilla chip
and hoped someone would talk to me.
and hoped no one would talk to me.

I waited for her to come back to me
and say hello
and put her arm around me
and welcome me.
I thought she was just going to put things aside
and come back.
I thought we'd have a moment
since I'd come from elsewhere
and hadn't seen her for so long.
Instead, I listened to a woman
talk about how she sings tenor
in a group in town.
I listened as a man now retired
told me what he'd done for work.
I stood next to a woman who said she was surprised
she'd been invited
since she hadn't known the birthday girl for long.
(I wanted to tell her
I'd been invited by way of a green sticky note
sent to me a few days earlier,
as an attachment in an email,
but knew this woman didn't need to hear,
and I didn't want to cry.)

I think I'm gonna go
I told her
as she passed by
with a plate of small round potatoes
topped with sour cream.
We haven't had cake
she told me.
Wait for cake.
I waited for people I didn't know
to light candles
on my own sister's cake
in her home.
I watched them carry the cake to her
and listened as they sang,
and couldn't join in
since my throat squeezed shut
when I tried.

She saw me get ready to go
and thanked me for coming.
Thank you for inviting me.
I closed the door behind me,
got back into my car
and cried.

In the wings

I watched
like a Rear Window neighbor
watching the apartment building next door,
after hearing a noise
that startled me
enough that I'd consider calling for help,
except that the noise
came from birds in my yard
in anguished cries.
It came from
two blue jays
shrieking,
hovering
like hummingbirds,
wings moving
like someone drowning,
frantically flapping
over a branch
high in the tree
calling a cry
I hadn't heard before
that clearly meant
go away you bastards!

A cardinal
stood on a branch below,
looking up at the action,
passive,
like it was on TV,
like a prim
and judging
neighbor
who is nosy
and not helpful,
while two crows
took turns
rushing toward the jays.
While one barged in
past them
into the darkness of the pine,
the other suddenly appeared
from within,
ignored the helpless jays,
the panicked beating of their wings
and their anxious pleas
and flew off
with a small creature
in its mouth.

I saw.
It was the color of saffron.
It looked like a smoked mussel
I'd served the night before to guests,
but I knew
it was their baby.
The helpless jays,
the usual schoolyard bullies
when they come to the feeder
near the rhododendrons
and push the chickadees away
and flick aside the seeds
they don't care for
in search of the shelled sunflower seeds,
were losing their babies
one by one
to two invaders
who never fed at bird feeders,

I imagined myself going outside,
but couldn't imagine what I could do to
change
the course of nature.
Wave my arms and yell at the scene
twenty feet above my head?
The cardinal just watched
and later told anyone who would listen
about his neighbors
and the noise
and how
they deserved it.

The man in her neighborhood

He lives around the corner from my mother
and he walks every day
from his house,
up past her house,
and down the road on the other side,
then back up that road
and past my mother's
and back to his house again,
and back and forth
and back and forth
at a purposeful pace
for an old man,
who must think his speed will hide his age.

He wears a baseball cap
with no team on it,
and he keeps his arms straight
when he walks
quickly without smiling.

There are no cars
where he lives and walks,
just an every so often UPS truck
or the mail carrier,
yet he wears a blaze orange vest,
maybe to show his neighbors
he is there
if they're looking out the window.

Although I've been there when he's walked,
and I've said hello or smiled,
he's spoken to me only once in return
as I was walking the dog
past him.
Not to say hello,
but to reprimand me.
"You should be on the other side of the road, you know,"
he said,
even though there are no cars going past
where he lives and walks.

He has a reputation
in the neighborhood.
He cut down tall trees once.
Or maybe he planted trees that were too tall,
I don't know.
Whichever it was,
the neighbors were unhappy.
The neighbors still talk.

I've walked down the road where I think he lives
alone.
His house was once cared for.
It looks like a long ago stage set where
they forgot to put away a few pieces of the scenery
after the the play closed.
The blinds are closed
even though his house overlooks the water.
He leaves his garage door open
and it's mostly empty
except for an old red and white cooler,
an old Maine license plate hanging on the wall,
and a Weber grill off kilter
in the corner.
He leaves his recycling bin up high
on the ledge near the driveway
so he doesn't have to bend, I imagine,
when he brings it to the curb.

Today I went to the grocery store
to buy fruit and coffee and milk
and he was there
alone in the greeting card aisle
wearing a basesball cap
and a light jacket.
I saw him and I slowed down.
I could have pictured him buying fruit
or coffee or milk.
But never a card.
Who did this solitary man
have
to buy a card for?
I guessed at best a half hearted get well or deepest sympathies one,
Or for a swell great nephew for some occasion or other.

Instead, he reached up to the top row
and took down a bright pink oversized card
with a dancing dog
and balloons and stars,
and the words Happy Birthday, Sweet Little Princess!
He held it with both hands.

I will look for him tomorrow.

The Lenders

Outside I watch them peek out from the stone walls,
posing for passerby storybook illustrators
who will capture their sweet and eager faces,
their valiant determination to avoid the evil hawks and the swift, silent owls,
their caution as our dog pokes her nose into their homes they've built and decorated
with birch bark tabletops and mirrors of mica,
bluets in a vase made from an acorn shell,
dinner served on bottle cap plates.

Outside I hear them cheep and yip when the blue jays spot them
as they're working up courage to leap like trapeze artists
from the rhododendron to the bird feeder.
When the dog's chain brings her to a threatening nearness.
I cheer for their getaway into the tree trunk,
or into the wood stack.
Yet this month,
they dart on cartoon speed legs
through the small crack by the garage door
into our house.

The Borrowers' sense of pleasure leaves me
as I realize
I am sharing our kitchen with rodents.
The dog's kibble is eaten from her bowl,
but not by the dog.
The scritching of her nails on the kitchen floor as I imagine her playing with her stuffed toys,
willing them to life,
gives me the sense that we are safe,
and then I realize with horror movie clarity,
the dog is not inside.

What are we catching today? asks the hardware man
who has rung up my annual poisons
for ants and voles.
Munitions.
The sticky ones, the house of horror get in can't get out ones, the snapping ones,
the poison buffet of cheese and raisins and peanut butter in a tantalizing array on each spring and wire.

I still imagine telling their sweet cute stories,
sharing their photo album memories through the year,
Their thanksgiving feast of jack-o-lantern's guts on the fence,
their peekaboo game as they watch me through the carved triangular eyeballs
while jamming seeds into their cheeks,
Their Independence Day celebrations with their picnic blankets laid out beside my strawberry patch, waiting for the sun to set on the evening before I've thought to harvest,
their kind deadheading of my tulips just as they prepare to open.

A memoir, perhaps,
because inside, under the sink,
the barbs and cauldrons and scaffolds are there
aimed
at their small, dimly lit entrance to our cleaning cabinet,
where their nighttime wild rumpus
will end.