Longing For Childhood Friends

I woke up this morning very lonely. Although when I had that feeling I was snuggled closely to Andy and my kitty, Anubis, was settled on top of me purring away. But nonetheless, I felt lonely. Images of my childhood friends from Roosevelt, NJ haunted my dreams last night and I awoke longing to see them and have long conversations with them. Long and deep conversations with them. Sure, we had conversations when we were kids. I remember some of the talks got to a deeper level though many were everyday conversations. It didn’t matter because simply my friend’s company and my ability to be with them and talk about anything was so important to me. But now, I envision heart-felt connected conversations with them as adults as if I inhibited my childhood existence with my adult mind. I long to talk to Peri and Elan and Dawn and Kirsten and Nathalie. I long to stroll down the streets of my hometown to one of my friend’s houses. To be able to walk into their home at any time unannounced.   To be able to hang out whenever and wherever. Because that is what you do when you are a kid in a small town. That is what you do with good friends who aren’t so busy with life and work and everything that is so planned these days.

Deep connections with friends are different as adults. If you are in a couple relationship and are lucky—like me—you have deep meaningful connection and conversations with your spouse. I am grateful that I have that. And yet I want and need more. I want the connection to girlfriends with whom I can connect without having to schedule days in advance to meet, or schedule weeks in a advance to get coffee together, or schedule even for just a phone call! Spontaneity is difficult. The complexity of everyday commitments gets in the way of relationships. Perhaps this is the reality of adulthood. Perhaps this is the reality of these times in general so therefore also true for kids. We are so busy. Our access to community is so structured.

I live in a small town again like when I was a child. However, I am on a dirt road not directly in the village so walking over to someone’s house is not so easily accomplished. And even if I was in town, could I just stop by someone’s place? I lived in New York City for many years and in a way I felt very connected though again, no one stopped by just to chat. I find that as I read books that take place in small towns—of course they are deeply romanticized stories of big families with gatherings of many generations and lots of friends—I feel deep longing. That is the essential word here. Longing. It is a simple word and yet it conveys an intense emotional feeling of needing to be seen and needed and wanted and connected to others. A yearning, and aching, a desire that I feel deep in my core of being. I itch to wander over to one of my childhood friend’s house and plop down on their couch and talk. I miss you.

XOXO Rachel

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A Nature Child Of The 60s In Small-Town USA

Although it is easy to wax poetically and over-romanticize one’s childhood while looking back decades, my childhood days really were glorious. I lived in a tiny town of about 1000 people located in one square mile of New Jersey, very much in farmland. Roosevelt is located in central Jersey where relatively large areas of undeveloped land remain and there are still farms left. Sure, there are tract housing developments near my hometown now that did not exist when I was a kid, but it is still a wooded borough surrounded by plenty of nature.

I got to thinking about my experience with nature as a child because of a book that I just read for my book club, Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. I have been in one book club or another for more than 20 years. This time I have rejoined a club that meets at the library in my new small-town—new in the sense that I have only been living here full time for about 5 years and part-time for only 20 years. A club member, Annie, who works in ecological education, suggested the book. She also happens, coincidentally, to be married to the son of Becky who I grew up with in my hometown of Roosevelt. Although it is possible that knowing Annie’s connection to my town primed me to recollect these nature experiences, the book on its own was remarkable in how much it elicited my memories of being a child of nature in the 60s.

One of the themes of the book is that children raised before the early 70s had a different relationship with nature than most children do now or during the intervening years. As I read the book I realized how lucky I was to roam the small streets and woods of my town and commune with nature. My whole perspective on life, in retrospect, was influenced by nature when I was a girl. To me, being in nature is paradise—heaven on earth. I assumed everyone felt that way and I am sure many do. But I actually did live in Paradise. Well, it was once.

Roosevelt was originally Jersey Homesteads and before that is was an area named Paradise. I have the map to prove it!  In winter I often sled down Paradise Hill, a steep paved road that was the only remaining nod to Roosevelt being Paradise. In the adjacent woods, if you dared, there was a path through the woods called “Steeple Chase” where you had to dodge trees as you speed down the slope. I think the first time I tasted Jack Daniel’s—just a sip—was on a cold evening as a teenager sledding on Paradise Hill. My mom grew up in the same town and during the early 50s, she sled there too (though I have no idea if she sipped whiskey).

So many of poignant childhood memories are outdoors somewhere in town. Near our school there were many great opportunities for outdoor exploration. In “the enclosure”, a tree and grassy square lined by hedges, friends and I played many different games including hide-and-seek. Even though that area was relatively manicured compared to the woods, I loved running around and under and sometimes climbing through the big trees or just lazing on the grass in the enclosure blowing blades of grass to create sounds.

I was devoted to the paths in town (I walked many paths outside of town too—see Walking Around A Lake). There was the formal path between the school and Tamara Drive where I even found wild asparagus growing. I can almost taste the raw thin sweet stalks to this day. I often walked along the path beside the creek that ran through town. The creek meandered and crossed roads at several locations including Tamara Drive, Rochdale Ave and an unpaved road that we simply called “the path”. I loved stopping on any of those overpasses to play with the creek. I’d place a leaf on the upstream side of the road so that I could watch it float under the road and pop out the other side. What quiet joy!

I wandered all the paths in town alone or with a friend or my brother any number of times just to explore. Or to use as a shortcut. That was a common word I used to describe the routes on paths I found between places in town. I took a shortcut through people’s backyards, front yards, or the woods—all ways imaginable including just about going through someone’s house—to get between my home and somewhere I wanted to go. I took shortcuts to school. I took shortcuts to my best friend Peri’s house that was across the street from my grandmother Coco’s house so therefore a shortcut to her place as well. And I took shortcuts to my great Aunt Ellie’s house. Most of the shortcuts were through the woods on hardly what you’d call a path in some places. They were more just routes through bramble and prickly bushes, some with blueberries or raspberries, or slimy rock lined routes with colorful moss.

Moss stands out prominently in my love of nature. Very close to my house, above the Pine Valley Swim Club, was a path into the woods where I made a secret hiding spot in a moss-covered embankment. I kept a metal box that held—I don’t know what—tucked under rocks and moss. I loved to go there and sit and think and smell the earth around me. I’ve apparently known forever that flora sights and scents are essential to my livelihood. Not that I didn’t like bugs. I really liked bugs a lot! Whether playing with lighting bugs by putting them into jars as lanterns, or pulling off the lighting part just when they flashed on and squishing them on my finger to imitate a diamond (gross), or collecting bugs as specimens for a science classification project, I definitely was one with bugs.

So now when I think of Coco’s and my great grandmother Hani mama’s vegetable garden and the sweetest peas imaginable from the brightest green pods possible or I remember the wonderful feeling of my hands pulling carrots from the earth or I envision dancing around Ellie’s cherry trees and gooseberry bushes and the baked goodies that we created with them, I recognize how much my childhood was chock ‘o block with good times in nature. And I recognize that those good times in nature have influenced what I consider good times now. I’ve been a flower gardener from the time we bought our home 20 years ago to today. Now that Andy built us a vegetable garden, we are also vegetable gardeners. I often dream of that wild asparagus in Roosevelt, so much so that I am considering planting some in our garden even though it needs lots of space and years to establish. And not surprising, one of the first things I did when bought our property was create paths (and a labyrinth—see Revealing the labyrinth on our land). I need only step outside to be surrounded by our 3 acres of woods to regain the calm and quiet joy that I have known since childhood.

Several years ago I rambled on about how nature soothes my soul to my life coach. From the clouds above (see Cloud Hopping) to the earth below and all the flora and fauna in between, I spoke of my sense of awe and love for nature. He paused and thought about what I said and then characterized me as deeply spiritual. I had a momentary confusion having been raised non-religious. Me spiritual? I never learned anything about religion so what does spiritual mean? I was unable to fully reconcile my feelings of transcendence when I commune with nature with what I think of as religion. But now I recognize that through nature I was first exposed to the sense that there is something more than me as an individual. In nature, as a child and now as an adult, I feel connected to all forms of life and I have a need to use my hands to connect with my evolution on earth. This isn’t a theological perspective but rather a personal spirituality perspective. Now I understand that to me nature is a perfect place to get replenished because it embodies love, beauty and peace. I will always be a nature child of the 60s.

XOXO Rachel

I First Learned to Bake with a Light Bulb

For many girls (and some boys) in the 60s and 70s, their first experience baking was under a light bulb. For some it was the light bulb of an Easy Bake Oven or, in my case, the light bulb of a Suzie Homemaker Oven. I remember being a bit envious of my friend Nathalie who had the Easy Bake Oven because it seemed so modern at the time compared to my oven that looked just like—well—an oven. The Easy Bake oven you push the cake through as if it is on a conveyor belt. Push it in on one side unbaked and when it is done, push it out the other side beautifully baked. Yes, it is a manual operation but the concept seemed so cool to me.

Nonetheless, I loved my Suzie Homemaker Oven. It came with little cake pans and little boxes of cake mix. You mixed up the batter by adding water, and then poured the batter in the pan. Then you just slid it into the oven, turned it on and the light bulb did the rest—very slowly. I remember that I used up the boxes that came with the oven fairly quickly. But figuring out how to make the right amount of batter—not too much and not too little—on your own was too difficult so I reverted to baking in the big-girl oven, my mom’s gas oven (see also Ode to baking chocolate chip cookies). Yes, I still played with the Suzie Homemaker Oven but I baked in the real kitchen.

I was reminded of my early mini-baking experiences when the Toys R Us Christmas catalog arrived in the mail last week. It was so much fun to comb through the catalog and see what is “hot” this year for kids. What caught my eye—besides the ride-able for kids miniature electric powered Kia Soul in green—was the Easy Bake Oven. It is now shaped like a microwave oven though you still slide the pan through it. And the Easy Bake Oven is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. I wonder if it still uses a light bulb. There were no Suzie Homemaker Ovens in sight.

The other items in the toy catalog that I would have loved to have as a little girl—hey, I would even consider getting one at my current age—are the amazing kitchen playsets. Listen to this description: Deluxe Kitchen with Realistic Sounds, Granite-Style Countertop & 38-piece Accessory Set. It has an oven, a microwave, bread-baskets (with bread) and condiments☺. And the fridge even has a front water and ice dispenser. That’s better equipped than my current kitchen. They offer it in pink and also in “Neutral” as they describe it that is shown with a little boy and girl playing together. Those sets make me want to go in my kitchen and play. Hey, that’s what I do whenever I bake! Let the holiday baking begin. This time without a light bulb!

XOXO Rachel

The Moment My Taste Buds Came Alive

I have always enjoyed food—and food is certainly a topic that fits into many of my memories of childhood. I indeed baked a lot as a little girl (see Ode to Baking Chocolate Chip Cookies) and I cooked many of our family’s meals. But I don’t think as a kid that I would have ever called myself a foodie (though the trendy term foodie probably didn’t exist then—maybe gourmand in that era?). Whatever you call it, I did not become one with food until I became an adult. Nonetheless, there are several events from my childhood that foretold that I would become a foodie. One in particular stands out as the moment my taste buds came alive.

The year was 1971 and I was 10 years old. This year was an important one for so many more reasons than my awakening to food. This was the year of many firsts: first learning some French, first reading and writing poems (see the photos of the index cards of my poems), first learning how to give back massages (I am still pretty good at that for a non-trained masseuse if I don’t say so myself), first really kissing a boy, and first riding a motorized mini-bike to name a few. This all transpired because it was the year that I went to a private “Free School” called Erehwon. Erehwon (nowhere spelled backwards) was located in a house in Princeton Junction, NJ where 50 or so children of all ages attended. The school was based on the famous Summerhill School in England,  an alternative open school where much of the learning was (and still is) experiential rather than entirely textbook trained.

Although there was some learning of traditional materials, for me the year was a year of learning about relationships and social rules and broadening of my mind culturally. I would have remained at Erehwon for more than just one year but financially the school couldn’t make it. I wonder how I would have fared academically if I had been schooled that way until high school. When I went back to my grammar school after one year and having only missed the traditional 5th grade, it was as if I had never left and I continued to excel.

The day in 1971 that remains vivid to me after all these years is our trip to BAM—Brooklyn Academy of Music. Well, to be honest, it isn’t really about the show at BAM. I can’t even remember what we watched (though I think it was dance). What I remember is the drive there. We were spread across a couple of station wagons and I got to sit all the way in the back—those days many station wagons had a row of seats facing backwards. From my perch, I waved to my friends in the other car of our caravan and tried to get strangers to wave back at me as well. And most of all I remember our pre-theatre meal in lower Manhattan at an Indian restaurant. Yes, BAM is in Brooklyn, but we took a detour via the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan for dinner before going over the Brooklyn Bridge to see the show.

I had never had Indian food before and I can almost conjure the experience of my first whiff of the aromatic surroundings in that restaurant. I remember the miraculous moment that I ate a piece of lamb in a creamy orange sauce (I am guessing now that I know Indian food that it was probably Lamb Korma). It was amazing! I didn’t know food could be so rich in depth in flavor and color and aroma. I was in a trance and that probably explains why the rest of the evening is barely observable in my memory. From that day on, I have been trying to recreate the experience of my taste buds dancing and singing and coming alive! I’ve had a lot of success finding divine eating moments in my life since then and I remember many of them. But none are as profound as the moment my taste buds came alive when I was just a sweet young girl coming alive to all the wonders of the world during 1971.

XOXO Rachel

Child of the 70s—Jingles on my mind

As a child I loved to sing jingles—you know, those little ditty songs from commercials. I did performances for my family all the time with one of my favorites being, “Use Ajax, bum bum, the blue dot cleanser, bum bubububum, it gets the dirt and lets things shine bubububububum.” Perfume commercials from the 70s were replete with jingles too. Cachet was the first perfume my mom gave me and boy do these jingles have staying power. You might even say that, “Windsong stays on my, Windsong stays on my mind.” (OK, that’s not Cachet but I don’t think its ad had a tune).

In fact that is one of the problems or perhaps beauties of jingles—depending on your perspective. They are so memorable that they come to me all the time—during the day, in my sleep and of course when I am watching TV and see a childhood brand that still advertises. I can’t help but break out into song. Just the other day, Andy broke out into “Cheeree O-Ee-Oh’s, Toastee O-Ee-Oh’s” when a box of Cheerios appeared on TV—though that is a more recent ad.

“We work hard, so you don’t haaave toooo (as the Scrubbing Bubbles fade into the distance as they go down the drain).” I really don’t have to work hard to dredge up these memories. In general memories associated with tunes are recalled more easily then words alone. The music serves as additional hooks to your memory. Therefore it isn’t surprising that jingles are used in advertising and that I remember them so well. But what is kind of cool to me is how they literally pop out of my mouth without warning and how much pleasure I get from singing them. They put me back into my child-like state of silliness. And who couldn’t use a little silliness in their life?

“Ready when you are and even when your not, it’s Betty Crocker ready-to-spread frost—ting. Smoooth and spreadable and what’s so incredible, its ready when you are and when you’re not.” So true, whether I am ready or not, these ditties flow from my lips. And lest you think I Googled the wording of these songs, think again. I am reciting these completely from memory. Sure I was tempted to check on the actual wording but decided not to. This is all pouring out of me in its pure memory state (so I suppose some of the words aren’t exact matches for the original advertisement).

“A sprinkle a day helps keep odor away, a sprinkle a day helps keep odor away. Have you had your sprinkle today?” Shower to Shower is a brand that I still have in my medicine chest and I sing that tune every time I pick up the bottle. And anytime I am cooking bacon—well—out spews the soulful blues tune, “I bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never ever let you forget you’re a man, ’cause I’m a woman, Enjoli.”

And speaking of cooking, “Shake and Bake, and wee heelped!” That isn’t a song, but I always say it with a very thick southern drawl, just like the commercial from my childhood. My brother and I were particular fans of that one and we encouraged mom to buy Shake and Bake because of the jingle (yes, advertising works). “Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken”. No additional lyrics, just a tune to accompany those words though my brother and I changed the words to something gross that I won’t mention here ☺.

“People who don’t need it drink it, folks not on a diet try it. Everybody likes it, Diet Rite Cola, everybody likes it, Diet Rite Cola, everybody likes it and you know why, ’cause it tastes so good, Diet Rite Cola!” I loved to sing that song with my childhood friend Dawn. In the ad there are different voices for each stanza so Dawn and I would go up or down in our voice to extremes.

Speaking of Dawn reminds me of Madge of Palmolive fame for soaking in dishwashing liquid—don’t worry it’s mild. “Chock Full of Nuts is a heavenly coffee, heavenly coffee, heavenly coffee, Chock Full of Nuts is a heavenly coffee, better tasting coffee, money can’t buy.” You really can’t buy the kind of fun I experience from just singing jingles.

What commercial jingles from your childhood do you remember?  Please share with us!

XOXO Rachel

Cloud hopping

Today is a perfect day for cloud hopping.  What, you ask, is that?  Well, I have a particular proclivity to daydream in the clouds.  I like to look up on a day when there are puffs of cotton ball clouds that dot the blue sky.  I imagine myself leaping from cloud to cloud, landing in a soft and springy embrace in the next cloud.  I might bound from a low cloud and vault up to a higher one, or take a long lead and jump a great distance between clouds that are far apart.  Mostly I hurdle like a dancer leaps, one leg stretched out in front of the other; a jeté.  Rarely do I jump with two feet together.  Sometimes I soar from cloud to cloud in one long stretch as if I were playing checkers and jumping over 10 pieces in one successive move.

My favorite days for cloud tripping are breezy days when the clouds are moving with a moderate to brisk pace so that I can vary which cloud I go to next based on what is floating nearest.  A few weeks ago, Andy and I were working in the garden on such a day and it took a great deal of restraint for me to focus on the gardening task at hand and not go cloud hopping.  I did manage to squeeze some jumps in when I took a break to lie down on the grass and stretch my back (the gardening work was intense!).

Flying is something that I have been doing since I was a little girl.  My first early experience was at night in my dreams.  Probably due to watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks, I began my treks in the sky on my four-post bed as a child.  In the movie, the children go on adventures on a magical brass bed with their caretaker (who is a witch).  I went on my own adventures as I flew my bed way above my New Jersey hometown.  Mainly I would just watch the goings on from above.  I still love to go up high into the sky and watch the world and I have had those floating dreams many, many times over the years beyond childhood.

Another media impact on my (you might say unusual, I say wonderful) flight behavior was the TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  As a little girl, I have a very distinct memory, one that seemed real even when I was old enough to know it wasn’t, of looking out my bedroom window into the sky and seeing Santa and his sled with Rudolph at the front.  I determined when I was a bit older that the angle of Santa’s flight that I saw was exactly what occurs in the very last frames of the animated special.  My lifelong fascination with the sky and memories of my night flight adventures are very dear to me.

Day skipping in the clouds, conducted while awake, is very calming to me and something I am happy to do anytime.  It’s a form of daydreaming so not surprisingly, the clouds can be very distracting, even as I sit here and write.  My desk is in front of a large window and I have a great view above our tree line of a piece of neighboring mountain and best of all, the sky.  I might be in the middle of a sentence when a cloud catches my eye and I decide to go on an adventure in my mind – and in the heavens.

But cloud hopping is also very useful and productive.  Because of the meditative quality of the experience, I often solve problems or just become more relaxed when I am way up there.  If something is upsetting me and I am lucky to have the right conditions in the sky, I do a little bouncing from puff to puff and whatever was bothering me becomes less important.  Or I suddenly have clarity and make a decision that is authentic, based on my gut knowledge of what is best for me.  Like the time just a few years ago when I was on a bus in Florida and the sky was particularly splendid in deep blues and puffy pristine clouds.  I realized during that 15-minute bus ride between the media conference and the hotel that I was done with my corporate gig.  I immediately began my serious plans to leave.  The clouds served me so well that day because now I am happy as a child, floating above the sky and doing my own creative work.