Posted on by Anelemc · 1 Comment

Good Morning

“Good Morning”, a greeting of two words, holds the potential to influence whether a day will begin on an upbeat wave or in dourness.  These words are easy to say with little strain on the vocal chords but often neglected at the start of each day.

Did you utter, “Good Morning”, first thing, upon awakening to your children, parents, lover, roommate or spouse today?  Did your dog or cat hear these words with an affectionate pat? If you live alone, did you bother to say it to yourself while brushing your teeth?

Then again, did you wake up and immediately rehashed the arguments from the night before or greeted a family member with comments on bad breath, sleeping habits, ill-fitting pajamas or did you kick your dog or cat out of the your way en route to the bathroom?  The following might occur if your negative greeting was the start of another’s’ day:

The recipient of the rehashed argument, emotionally reacting, may get into a fit of road rage on the drive to work and face serious consequences.

The family member subjected to criticism of bad breath or whatnot may be a teacher at a public school- imagine the damage he/she inflicted on a student’s self-esteem who did not do their homework correctly?

The dog or cat kicked out of your way to the bathroom may be in a corner whimpering from an injury you caused.

Imagine if “Good Morning” greeted the recipient of the rehashed argument instead of harsh words and unresolved hurts. A pleasant drive listening to great tunes might have ensued replacing the possible road rage incident. This may also have led to a pleasant “Good Morning” greeting at co-workers once arriving at work. In turn, “Good Morning” would have a way of twinkling down and paying it forward as co-workers in turn may pass along the greeting, setting the tone of another’s workday.

“Good Morning” to the family member who is a teacher might absolve the student and possibly garner special attention during study time for help with homework. The dog or cat instead of sustaining an injury could be sleeping on its favourite chair awaiting your return home.

I live alone with two dogs (Tobias and Pi Patel) and make it a point to start the day, no matter how bad I have slept or who wronged me the day before with “Good Morning”. In fact, we have a morning routine that starts with doggie yoga, stretching, petting and singing. What a wonderful way to begin each day and it carries forward unto the morning walk with the dogs, where neighbours are greeted with those two words and into my morning jog where “Good Morning” springs forth to pedestrians and other joggers along the park path. Of course, not all greetings are reciprocated. When it is, I am acknowledged, what a feeling -I exist on the face of this earth! Moreover, when it is not I still feel good for saying it and recognizing another’s existence and placement.

Posted on by Anelemc

They Come Up Sometimes

Baby Bottle from the hospital

Crying, wrinkled and 6 lbs, I entered the world at 11:48pm within the delivery room at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital on January 11, 1964. As I emerged headfirst into a sterile fluorescent lit room, who can speculate if the forced expulsion from a warm human swim tank was the motive behind the crying? On the other hand, did hunger pangs, craving for food, stimulate the response? My steadfast rejection of mom’s humongous milk-filled breast confirmed that food was not the reason for the tears. I wanted nothing to do with food and after hours of coaxing and belly rubs, I gave in to the bottle.

Mom’s strict pregnancy diet, administered by Dr. Katz, resulted in little weight gain and assuming this affected the fetus, my eating habits became cemented in the womb. I emerged with an eating disorder while mom returned easily to her pre-pregnancy weight of 125 lbs.

I refused to eat during the formative years of 1-7 and inherited the label of “fussy eater”.  Processed food was gaining preference and Lipton Tea with Pep milk (condense milk in a can) and spoonfuls of Domino sugar were my staples. In the morning, in the afternoon, Lipton Tea was the main course but not before bed. By then the sugar highs of the day had worn off and sleep was eminent. Mom could not get me to eat. Breakfast was the biggest battle, as I abhorred the usual milk and cereal course, unless it was loaded with mounds of white sugar. This battle I won continuously until Mom started to think.

“Elenita, turn off the TV and eat your cereal.”

“Where’s the sugar?”

“We don’t have any left.”

“I can’t eat it then.”

“Bubie, come here I have something very important to tell you. You’re old enough to know   this and it’s important to know.”

“Sure mommy, what is it? Did J***y do something again? I saw her do it. She did it on purpose too.”

“Oh no Elenita, this is about the worms.”

“In the backyard?”

“No, in the stomach.”

“What?!!!!”

“Little one, did you know that you have worms in your stomach?”

“Really?”

“Oh yes hunny. Did you ever wonder why your stomach growls? It’s the worms and when your stomach growls it’s them telling you that they are hungry.”

“Mommy, is that true?”

“Oh yes. And you know what happens if you don’t feed them?”

“No, what happens?”

“Well if you don’t feed them they eventually crawl up your stomach to your throat and choke you!”

My eating disorder miraculously disappeared. Food was no longer a problem. Forget refined sugar. I ate my Kellogg’s cereal and milk without it as if it were caviar and crackers.

I grew older and my tastes became refined. Chef Boyardee, Spam, Vienna sausages, pizza, hot dogs, bologna, made its way into my mouth while broccoli, spinach, lettuce, peas and just about any vegetable, made its way behind the radiators. Going to the bathroom with a mouthful of food to spit into the toilet was so cliché, a typical thing to do and not worth the trouble of concealment. I had to make a statement and disposing of the unwanted food in this manner was my “dirty little secret” which worked well, until the rotten, decomposed ordour, with the flock of roaches underneath, led to discovery, by mom.

T o say Mom was amused would be inappropriate. She was perplexed and unsure what the crime warranted in terms of punishment. The brown belt would have been severe. While Mom thought through the options, she also sought relief by informing everyone in the immediate family of my crimes against vegetables. Of course, she didn’t realize the family’s laughter and ridicule for a month would be sufficient punishment in itself. Eventually the need to punish faded but the memory of the food behind the radiator was a constant source of laughter especially around Thanksgiving when food was the focal point.

Posted on by Anelemc

Father’s Day June 18, 2000-excerpt

I last heard my Dad’s voice when he visited my eldest sibling to say goodbye to his grandchild on the way to the airport en route to Jamaica. I was twelve at the time and my niece was his first grandchild.

The irony of Dad’s solitary return to Jamaica was that he had left Jamaica as a married man with a wife and kids. He arrived in America in 1953 with three children, to reunite with his wife, my mom, who had travelled previously to secure lodgings for the family. The family settled in Washington Heights, NYC, because Dad found a job as a Super in a large apartment complex. My parents saved money and eventually bought a three family brick house in Park Slope, Brooklyn purposely avoiding the West Indian community on Eastern Parkway.

I became his fourth child on January 11, 1964 and his place as a nuisance in our six person fragmented family became apparent as I began to dissect the relationships amongst adults.  During my formative years, his contributions to my development were few and not substantial as his focus was on concealing his taste for Fleischman’s Whisky.

Dad lived in the finished basement while Mom, the siblings and me, lived on the first floor, 5-room apartment. When she was at home, mom ruled the first floor with a semi iron fist while Dad was a nod in passing. ‘Yes we know you’re here, not to our liking, but we have no choice but to greet you with a nod and an occasional grunt’.  He worked as a plumber, repairing pipes and whatnot of buildings in the area and I’m not sure, if he was self-employed or company employed. He left in the morning, came home, ate, went to bed only to repeat the routine the following day. 

Our father/daughter bonding took place at five o clock, Monday through Friday over a shot of Fleishman’s whisky, Dad’s method of relaxing at the end of the day and for me, nothing better to do.  With the whisky filled to the rim and holding our shot glasses (thumbs and forefingers), our glasses met in an unspoken toast and consumed in one take. Our ritual afforded a drink and nothing else.  The burning of the throat ceased some time ago along with the grimacing. As a dog that desperately waits for its masters’ approval, I too waited for the nod that approved of my emptied glass.  Whisky was much better than Ovaltine chocolate milk in the mindset of a seven-year old trying to connect with her father through any means possible.

My siblings were the recipients of Dad’s verbal and controlling abuse in Jamaica-West Indies-not Jamaica, Queens. I was born in Brooklyn, New York in America and for eleven years, Dad the semen donor, was a figure without much substance; he took up space without any useful purpose.

 Mom, my mom, sought refuge from the husband by way of her 9-5 job and Saturdays where outings with the “girls” (aka her sister) was spent at Roseland for ballroom dancing and socializing. Those Saturday nights would find me clinging to her high-heeled choice of the evening,  begging for her to stay home instead of leaving me in the babysitting hands of my brother and sister who took great pleasure in torturing and teasing me while watching Creature Feature horror films. The oldest sister was always out on a date with a boyfriend who eventually became her husband.

Posted on by Anelemc · 2 Comments

A Dog in Honduras

At one time, I was a good-looking dog, that is before I came to live in Tela Vieja. Right now, I’m living quite well under a shack behind a hotel with sand for my bed and cool breezes at night.

I arrived here, young and skinny with a toned body. My face was handsome until the fight with the pit bull over territory. He bit off my left ear and left a bloody stump, which the sand flies feasted on for days. However, the right one looks okay and my teeth are sound.

 Before I came here, I lived with a man whom I called “Jefe”. Along with his wife and son, we lived on someone else’s property in a small wooden one-room house. It had a tin roof, dirt floor and a door to close at night. The kitchen was out back, andconsisted of a pit with a spoke for cooking and a concrete slab for a table.

The son was small and frail with grayish skin that resembled a fish. He might not have been well because he stayed in bed most of the time and when he did come out, the wife put him in a hammock by the palm trees. He could not walk or maybe he did not know how. I was not sure but maybe we could have played together.

The wife was not nice to me. She worked all day, cleaning and taking care of the son. Her body was hunched over and she had deep lines running through her face, which did not add to her looks. She never missed a chance to hit me with the broom whenever I sneaked into the house for shade or in search of food scraps. I usually ran and hid in the weeds which  made her angry.

I loved Jefe!   I knew what he thougt and what he was going to do because it was easy to read him. “¿Perro, que estas hacienda?”,  he would sing or say to me with sluryy words. He was a happy man who worked hard in the fields returning home covered in dirt. He was stocky and round with brown hair and an unshaven face topped off with a black hat and a feather sticking out on one side. He had the widest brown eyes that smiled at me when I pleased him.

Jefe loved to play games of paper with other men. They would sit around the concrete slab out behind the house and throw paper at each other. The paper had funny drawings on it and every time Jefe played with them, green paper that was kept in his pocket ended up on the table. If Jefe gave away many green papers during the game, we went hungry. During the last game , I think he finally made the connection with giving away the green but it was too late.

For two weeks, the family did not have enough food. Jefe would say, “¿What do I do now?” to the air and the son cried endlessly, “I’m hungry. When are we going to eat?” The wife walked around talking to herself and pulling out strands of her hair. She beat me senseless when I got in her way.

At the end of the first week, Jefe had to steal mangoes from the neighbour’s year. The wife screamed at him for embarrassing her and he spent the rest of the day with his head hung low with shame. I had a hard time trying to eat those mangoes due to their shape and my mouth but my stomach was knotty and hurt from hunger.

The end of the second week Jefe broke down and stole a bag of rice from the Mercado. He stared at me and I swore he said, “Meat would go nice with the rice. ¿Como cocinar?” Later I heard him ask the wife, “Should I season it first?” In addition, she was too quick with her instructions on seasoning ‘tough meat’.

At that point, I knew there was no choice but to take my chance on the streets. I made my way down to the hotels near the beach. I figured food was not far from where humans playbecause humans and garbage were inseparable.

My life is now on the streets and I cannot complain. I hunt for food in the morning and at night; the dumpsters behind the hotels are packed with discarded meats and moldy bread. Weekends are wonderful because the city people rush to the beach with their picnic baskets. They invade the area for leisure and pleasure and I can smell the food in their baskets. Sometimes its arroz con frijoles (rice and beans) sometimes pan de coco o (coconut bread) and on rare occasions pork or steak. My stomach growls and I salivate at the aromas.

When they leave on Sundays, the discarded food, which they call garbage, stays behind. I have to fight with the local perros to get at the food. First, I chase away from the food, down the beach, then run back and grab it before the others get it. The others are the turkey vultures and they are vicious but I can outsmart them most of the time.

Posted on by Anelemc

Family

Webster defines family as:

1: Persons of common ancestry 2: Group living together 3: parents and children 4: group of related individuals

At the age of seven, I defined family as:

 1:The Walton’s 2: The Brady Bunch 3: The Jefferson’s 4: Good Times

However, my family did not look or act like TV families. We did not grow up on a mountainous range but on a concrete, brick and brownstone block in Park Slope, Brooklyn before it was super chic to live here. Had no idea the suburbs existed with family rooms and dens and a “deluxe apartment in the sky” that came with a Doorman did not thrive in the “ghetto”.  Eventually, I came to understand the difference between “the ghetto” and “the projects”. None. Like peanut butter cups with chocolate or M&M’s with the candy coating- one does not exist without the other.  

Family defined by me as an adult is a group of fragmented, mentally ill, alcoholics (some) and sexually frustrated (most) peoples strewn together not by choice but as Webster further defines- forced to co-exist with some civility and respect. Describes my family nicely although respect is optional and civility must be enforced at times. I will  include the word ‘dysfunctional’ which,  translates to, “Severely messed up”and/or “Non-repairable”. Mí familía would not rate on the top ten lists, composed by a good psychologist, as the family most damaged and/or fragmented. We are the product of our roots, which started as seedlings and shaped by environments and genetic components. What we longed to become, we did not.  

My family serves as a marker, a validation of non-existence within the group, for my position as the youngest placed me in the “seen and not heard” category. Number four is ‘the loneliest number’.

Posted on by Anelemc · 2 Comments

Father’s Day June 18, 2000-excerpt

Today I called the “semen donor” in Jamaica. The one usually referred to as, my “mother’s husband”, “that man”, “what’s his name again?” Yes, Mr. Noel Emanuel Walsh and the terms of endearment used to acknowledge an emotional void absentee father. Mom loved to irritate me by occasionally responding to those terms of endearment with, “You mean your father? “, overly emphasizing “father”.

In contradiction to my usually controlled, reserved way of getting things done, the placing of the call in itself was a spontaneous, spur of the moment decision. With the ringing of the phone line and the connection established, mi Alma (my soul) pulsated through bouts of hurt, happiness, pain and joy fused and twisted like a Twizzle licorice stick.

William, my eleven-year old half-brother, answered the phone with his Jamaican accented voice. Although my half-brother had yet to meet me, I have known him for years through bits of gossip on the semen donor. I knew what school he was attending, how he lived on the land, his features and his mother’s menopausal pregnancy by way of my cousin Joyce. Mom and Joyce would hold quiet conversations about Noel E. that included William and the hush tones fueled my curiosity through the years. Did he look like us, how was his personality? We’d have to meet eventually although I figured, the meeting would occur after my father’s death.

When my brother answered the phone, I asked to speak with Mr. Walsh and after politely asking me to hold he placed the phone down and called him. I heard his slippers shuffling towards the phone. “Hello” he answered in a voice strained with age. “I’m your youngest daughter, Elena. Do you remember who I am?” “Of course I know who you are”, he replied and the guard rail around mi Alma cracked and the residue of past wounds were comforted by recognition from a long absent father made everything okay. We spoke for an hour and made plans to meet during my travel to Jamaica within the coming week. I was an emotional mess at the end of the call and questioned what had the most effect: the shock of reaching out to Dad on Father’s Day or he remembering who I was.

“He remembers me,” I cried to mom.
“Why shouldn’t he?” she said.
“We’ve set plans to meet when I arrive in Jamaica”.
“You made plans to meet?” mom questioned.
“I’m going to see my Dad”, I cried.