Tag Archives: family

Dream: Drowning trailer

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For unknown reasons, we decided to move. The trailer we were pulling was white with yellow trim, just like the one I grew up in, but the inside was unfamiliar. We pulled it along on what seemed like a dangerous journey through various types of countrysides. I did not know where we were going or why.

Dad’s driving seemed erratic in some way, and when we were near water we would drive over and even on the underside of cliffs, but without incident. I was remarking mentally how miraculous it was that he could do that without the vehicle and the trailer falling in when we found ourselves off the road and floating in water, a narrow, dark channel in an industrial area or town.

I didn’t know how I could get across the cold, dark, dirty water, but somehow did. I was desperate to rescue some things, mostly photos in a couple of different places and my clarinet. I saved a box or something, but what I really wanted was to get the metal suitcase of photos. When I come back out from setting the box down, the trailer had sunk in the water, but was rising again like a body. I pushed everyone to save it on my behalf. My brother then managed to pull it onto a concrete pad, but it came back too far and hit something like a tank. I waited for an explosion that didn’t come but I was torn between trying to save my photos and the fear of being caught in a fireball. Then a truck next door tried to back across the alley and down but also hit a gas pump or tank before I could scream in warning. I waited for the explosion but, again, nothing happened. There was the silence of anticipation.

My portrait

I found this portrait on my computer the other day. An online acquaintance drew it in 1998 based on a scan of a portrait photo taken of my brother and me in the late 1980s or 1990s at a Sears store in San Antonio, Texas. The original photo is from a different era in my life, and the artist has never met me face to face. It’s a wonderful work, and for many years I displayed it on my Web site. I removed it primarily because I thought it might appear that I am claiming I look like that now. (I don’t.)

portrait
diane-virgil portrait

From the perspective of 2006, I don’t recognized the woman in the portrait. It is not simply that she is younger, fresher, more innocent, less jaded than I am. It is not that she looks a little shyer, a little more hesitant, a little less confident. It is all that, but it is also more, more than I can probably see or sense. What strikes me most, beyond her reserve, is how happy she seems; her smile is calm, warm, open, and genuine.

I do not think I have ever felt that way as an adult. At the time, I worked at a job that was tedious, meaningless, and draining in an environment that was difficult and without intellect, heart, or spirit. I tried repeatedly to escape, but each failed attempt reminded me that no one elsewhere wanted me and that my chances were small and stagnant. No one could see my potential, nor could I persuade anyone of it. My apartment was small, poorly maintained, and neglected, and was neither a refuge or a home except in the most basic sense. I was not in love and had long ago given up on the idea that I ever would be, or could be.I was existing, not living, and was miserable in that existence.

I do not see any of that in the portrait. I see someone who was, or who has become, a stranger to the person I am today. I could wish I still had her youth and freshness and especially of the openness and optimism that still lurk in her eyes, underneath the guardedness.

But they are gone, and I do not think that they will return.

Gratitude

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I’m thankful for my:

  • wonderful parents, even if I didn’t appreciate them at the time. The older I get and the more I see, the more I appreciate them.
  • brother and his family. We complement each other well.
  • extended family. They help me keep much in perspective.
  • inspirations and everyone who has taught me something, from teachers and professors to family and friends, even some non-friends.
  • job. It’s not ideal, but it fuels most of my habits, like shelter, food, and books.
  • shelter. Moving has brought me to life, and I need to keep up that momentum.
  • health. I have my problems, some typical, some a little unusual, but none very serious.
  • freedom. Love it and guard it for few have so much, and it’s so easily compromised.
  • books and poetry. As the song says, they protect me.

Happy Thanksgiving. May we gain more in all things than we lose.

You can’t fool Mother Nature

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Like many of their generation (1913, 1919), my parents were fascinated by technology and its lifestyle benefits. No, they weren’t early adopters of an Amiga, Commodore, or even IBM Selectric. They were, however, in thrall to time-saving conveniences and inexpensive fabrications, for example, oleo (margarine) and what they called “store-bought” cookies.

As products of the Great Depression who had grown up poor and who had laboured hard, they must have felt that it was a marvel of life in the 20th century to be able to walk into a store and walk out minutes later with such things as cakes and cookies — without ever turning on an oven, let alone measuring, mixing, and timing. And if commercials promised that margarine is better for you and tastes just as good, and is inexpensive, too, there’s no reason to revert to something as old-fashioned as butter. From their perspective, the love affair with food that kept for weeks or even months and with modern innovations like margarine makes perfect sense.

And so I, like most children of parents my age and later generations, grew up on a diet heavy in trans fatty acids, which we now know raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and reduces high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.

My company recently sent our executive directors, executive chefs, pastry chefs, and dining services directors to the Culinary Institute of America for a series focusing on techniques of healthy cooking that have been inspired by international cuisine (using olive oil, rich in anti-oxidant properties, is an obvious example). The idea is to prepare simple, delicious, nutrient-rich meals.

I imagine these are not unlike what a friend served over Christmas — all fresh, no pre-packaged foods, simple ingredients, simple recipes. As my mother would have said, “Good and good for you.”

According to Weight Watchers, you should never eat food out of a box. They don’t mean this literally, as their own meals come in a box, but the point is that prepared food is often junk food. I used to live on foods out of a box. Now I’m finding that food out of a box (except for Annie’s Organic Macaroni and Cheese) is losing its appeal. Instead of eating cold lunch meat packaged in plastic, I’d rather cook Organic Valley brown eggs. Instead of grazing on junk food that doesn’t satisfy, I’d rather bake butternut squash. Instead of chowing on cookies steeped in preservatives, I’d rather take the time to make my own. And instead of dining on big brand soups filled with tasteless vegetables, I’d rather enjoy organic soups rich in flavour.

I’m not sure what prompted this change in me, given how I’ve eaten all my life. It’s not a result of health concerns. Perhaps it’s a growing sense that simple is better, and there’s satisfaction in cutting up a squash once in a while. And in knowing what you’re putting into your body.

I may be headed in the opposite direction from my mother — not having worked hard, I find that occasionally cooking on a very small scale for now can be fulfilling. And that making cookies is more fun than buying them — and when I think about it, they taste much better when I control the ingredients and their quality, for example, whole wheat pastry flour.

The assistant vice president of food and beverage likes to say that food is medicine. He’s right. A simple meal, prepared from simple ingredients and shared with friends and family, may be the perfect antidote to the stresses of our overly complicated, rushed lives.

And certainly more satisfying to the stomach and soul than a trans fatty acid-laden muffin gulped on the run.

The ad slogan for Promise margarine used to be, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” the premise being that Mother Nature couldn’t tell Promise and her own butter apart.

Why would we want to try to? In the end, as we’ve learned more about the health and wellness benefits of simple, natural, organic food, Mother Nature can’t and won’t be fooled.

Memories of South Shore Plaza, Hamburg, New York

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While I was lightly napping today (February 13, 2005), I had recurring thoughts of a field overgrown with weeds next to pavement. Then I thought of a store with an outside display, possibly of baked goods, and an unmanned cash register. In my mind, I started walking up a hill that I knew well. As in all my dreams, it all seemed surreal.

I’ve had this dream thought before, and it surely relates to the South Shore Plaza across from the trailer park where I grew up. Rte. 20 was on one side; Rogers Rd. was on another. A third side bordered an overgrown area next to a house’s backyard, while the back parking lot/delivery area faced an overgrown area that buffered the plaza from modern apartment buildings. (Even Hamburg was becoming 70s urbanised.)

It seems odd that I would have some deep emotional attachment to a piece of suburban blight like South Shore Plaza. I’m not sure when it opened — probably in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Most likely, my parents went to the grand opening. The plaza was anchored by three major stores: a grocery store (Loblaw, A&P, perhaps some others later I don’t remember); Hens & Kelly, a somewhat upscale department store that gave out Green Stamps and where I got my ears pierced; and a discount chain store (Neisner, Big N, K-mart, perhaps others).

Among the other stores were a Your Host restaurant (diner-style chain, with counters and tables), Carvel Ice Cream (the chain is still around!), Edie Adams’ Cut & Curl salon, a drugstore whose name I’ve forgotten, and other specialised stores.

The plaza was catty cornered and downhill from the trailer park, so we did a lot of shopping there. The first grocery store had a tiled lobby area with gumball and toy machines; I remember seeing the elderly Mrs. Clarke and her chihuahua Tiny there one evening as she waited for her family. Apparently, Tiny was a one-woman dog and didn’t even like Mrs. Clarke’s daughter and son-in-law, with whom she lived. But Tiny was always happy to see me; whenever we visited them, on Abbott Rd. off Rte. 20, he would spend the evening blissfully cuddling with me. When Tiny died, Mrs. Clarke told everyone that I was the only other person he had ever loved.

The plaza was across the Bethlehem Management Club on Rogers Rd. (now privately owned as Brierwood Country Club). On July 4, we, along with many others, would arrive at the plaza parking lot to watch the club’s fireworks from our car (later, our van). It was one of those traditions that children look forward to and teenagers disdain. (I do think I always looked forward to it to a lessening degree as a change in routine.)

Within 10 years or perhaps less, the plaza was already in decline. The local economy, built on Bethlehem Steel and Ford Motor Company, was poor, and the energy/fuel crisis of the early 1970s was probably a factor. Even Hens & Kelly, which I think was sold, eventually closed, with the once-upscale space being taken over by a discount warehouse-type store.The anchor stores kept closing and then re-opening months or even years later under another brand, only to close again. Then the smaller specialty stores became things like a dollar store and a secondhand bookstore. Everyone in Hamburg who still had jobs and money was flocking to the new, more respectable malls in other suburbs like Cheektowaga. The death blow came when a mall with all the popular chain stores opened in Hamburg itself.

I have an aerial photo from 1995 showing the plaza. The last time I saw it was in 1999, after a class reunion. It had fallen into disrepair, and there was not much left aside from a couple of random stores and a bar at the upper end. It would be a wonderful thing now just to tear it down, to rip out the massive parking lot, and to let it revert to a field and then woods, or, more likely, to make it into a housing development.

What I remember best about the plaza was a courtyard between Hens & Kelly and the next store up. It was simply raised ground with plantings, where you could sit on the cement and relax. I’m not sure why I liked it so much; it was usually shady (there may have been an overhang), quiet, and used mainly by people cutting through to the back parking lot. My childish mind found it different, even mysterious — an odd oasis connecting the very different front and back of the plaza and that still evokes a pleasant, even interesting feelings.

In my half-awake state, I think I realised why my early memories of the plaza mean so much to me. It was my town square, the center of my community, a destination, a change in routine, where we went to see and buy things and where we would run into Mrs. Clarke and Tiny or one of my dad’s Ford coworkers, where my mother would go faithfully to Edie Adams’ Cut & Curl for her monthly perm — all within walking distance, if we were so inclined, or a hop in the van away. That the plaza was in its prime and served as this center for only a few years and that it is now a blight and has been one for 35 years doesn’t matter; the memories, the good feelings, and the sense of timelessness I felt in that courtyard do.

Link added March 17, 2006: Hens and Kelly in Wikipedia

Tweet added March 6, 2023:

Vistas of dreams, 14 August 1999

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This is from 14 August 1999. My dad was still alive. (He died 28 July 2001.)

I grew up in a trailer park. I didn’t mind because I had some advantages people with houses and yards didn’t have, mainly because of where our particular trailer was situated, at the corner of a woods and a field.

Amsdell Road
woods
woods | field
woods | trailer 56
woods | trailer
woods | trailer
woods | trailer
woods | trailer
woods | trailer
woods | trailer
clearing with circular track behind tree line |______________ | grassy area and ditch
Route 20

When my parents moved to the trailer park, they had a smaller trailer in a different location, but my arrival necessitated a larger trailer in a different spot (already, I was powerful). 🙂 They ended up on the end of the row, with woods behind them and field next to them.

The woods hadn’t always been woods; I have a postcard from the 1950s that shows the park from an aerial perspective, and it was just a few scattered shrubs that must have sprouted — pretty bare and desolate looking, especially in black and white. The man who owned the land was always trying to sell it with no luck; the woods probably grew up on their own since activity wasn’t stopping them. By the last time I’d seen them, in 1987, they were close to maturing into a real forest (a tiny one). The trees were finally getting tall and the underbrush that is typical of young, developing woods was starting to clear out a little. A lesson in ecology — the stages of a forest.

My father planted a row of lilac bushes along the property line between the trailer and the woods. He was always disappointed that they never bloomed. Too shady, perhaps?

He put up several bird feeders behind the trailer, so you could see them from my parents’ bedroom window. We had every kind of bird, from titmice, nuthatches, chickadees, and cardinals to woodpeckers. I could hear whippoorwills every now and then at night (although, to this day, I’ve never seen one). He says he saw a great horned owl on the light pole behind the trailer once. Occasionally, we saw deer stroll out past his garden or poking their noses out from the underbrush. And rabbits. It was always a thrill to see a rabbit. It was a long time before I saw rabbits in Chicago.

In the field there were a couple of areas that had been dug out and were swampy. My father is a strange man in some ways. (I of course do not take after him in this respect. 🙂 He used to look around for what he could find, and one day he found a wild rosebush growing in one of these areas. He dug it up and tied it to a trellis. In June, I’d go out early in the morning and smell them, and take one or two for a little glass on my dresser.

I used to go out into the field or into clearings at the edge of the woods and picnic or read or play. Alone. I wasn’t supposed to go into the woods — the man who owned them didn’t want kids in there — and my parents were afraid I’d get into trouble, but eventually he told my dad once I was a good kid and he didn’t mind me. I still didn’t, because I was slightly afraid of who was hanging out in there (kids drinking, plus the owner’s daughter rode through on her horse with her dog, and the dog — a German shepherd — was pretty territorial). And, there was at one point a man who used to follow me when I was 14 or so, and I really didn’t want him to get me alone. Every now and then I’d try to explore, but I’d come to the boundaries too soon, or I would get disoriented about how far I’d gone and where I was.

My dad left the trailer park in 1987, to move to Pennsylvania to be nearer family since he was starting to have a series of heart attacks and strokes. Before he left, it was sold by the man who had owned it ever since I could remember and whom I had always thought of as middle-aged, but of course he, like my dad, had grown old. The new owner decided that the field was going to waste, so he put in plumbing, wiring, and more trailers. It was not the same. I saw it only once, when there weren’t that many trailers, but it was a sad thing, like losing a part of myself or what makes me myself.

I haven’t been back there since my dad left. A friend emailed me and told me that part of the woods on the corner had been cleared for a funeral home with parking lot. I have no idea how big it may be or how far it may extend, but I wondered if now, if you looked out our back window, you’d see a parking lot and a funeral home . . . I try not to let this bother me. It is all out of my hands, and the world goes on with or without me. And it’s the memories that count. Although losing greenwood to a funeral home seems cruel . . .

I have had recurring dreams about being in woods that go on forever, or open onto breathtaking vistas where I could live forever. They hurt. It’s like something that is so beautiful, so desirable that it causes pain.

One dream was a little different. I found the funeral home in the middle of a deep forest (not on a corner) and, although there were windows, it felt deserted, but it also felt like I was being watched. I wanted in for some reason — maybe just to see if it was real. It was white and blocky looking, more like a factory/warehouse building. I thought it was really a crematory. It was very out of place in both appearance and in feeling. It was a little like the impression left by a movie like Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The pace is off, the lighting is off, the whole feel is off somehow. It’s not real. Even in the context of a dream, it didn’t feel real.

Today, I dreamed that I did go back. Some of the details are fuzzy now, but the trailers in the field were gone, and the funeral home was irrelevant. The woods were like the woods of my other dreams — infinite, lush, mature, with hills, valleys, and streams — everything I could want. In my dream I somehow began to think that this is the way they always were and I didn’t know because the bad things (the funeral home, the trailers) hadn’t been there to reveal what was really there. Not very logical, necessarily, but in a strange way . . .

What was strangest of all was the view out the living room and kitchen windows, where the field had been, where the trailers had been, and where, going west, had been a line of trees before a lot and then the highway — where the evening star would rise, where my parents had once seen the aurora borealis. All over was now shining waters, and in the middle, a bridge — a bridge that connected to something at right angles at the further end, but to nothing — not even land — at the closer end. It was a huge, enclosed, iron bridge like I think I’ve seen in Buffalo, but somehow beautiful despite being industrial in design.

My vantage point was on an elevation looking over all this, as though I was no longer quite where I had been. And the geography had changed a little, too, because the water was where that treeline had been, and that didn’t seem to make sense to me. It made sense that here was a giant lake or ocean, but not that it expanded in that direction. Why had we never seen it before? Did someone remove the treeline and there it was all along? But how did it end up being where the field had been, too?

It was surreal and gorgeous. And disorienting.

I woke up. That was disorienting, too . . .

“Sleigh Ride”

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Last night I fell asleep while watching a British sitcom (I’d gotten less than 4 hours of sleep the night before and was sick with fatigue). When I woke up, snow was coming down, and the local PBS station was showing Ed Sullivan Christmas shows, like they did last year. Johnny Mathis was standing up in a thick white sweater singing “Sleigh Ride” (all the verses!). There was something about the combination of the snow outside, my candles that are a substitute for a fireplace, and the simplicity of the song and the presentation of it that evoked what the holidays felt like when I was a kid — the simplicity and the anticipation that comes closer to an ideal of Christmas than adults will let Christmas be.

Sears Maid of Honor timer and memories

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Sears, Roebuck and Co. Maid of Honor timer
Vintage Sears, Roebuck and Co. Maid of Honor timer

One of my favourite possessions is my mother’s Sears Maid of Honor kitchen timer. It’s a wheel that rotates on a pedestal. The numbers are in a Delft-like blue along the sides. The brand name is on the top (and includes Roebuck). You turn the wheel on the pedestal to align the time desired to the pointer. It’s fairly heavy for its size because it has a real bell. If you wind it to 60, it will ring long enough that you can’t miss it. I don’t know how old it is, but I would guess it dates from the 1950s.

I love it because of the vintage design and look. In the 1950s, it may have looked ultramodern, but today it looks classic. I love the color of the numbers and hash marks. I love the fluted rim of the top. Mostly, though, I love it because it was my mother’s, because I remember it perched in the front row of our glass-fronted west kitchen cabinet, until she took it out to time a cake or cookies or perhaps while she was making “Daisy’s fudge” for which she was admired among her friends and family.

Lately it is also a reminder of something my mother always told me — that I don’t take care of my things. One day after I moved to The Flamingo, I left my sacred Sears Maid of Honor timer on the kitchen counter, on top of a coffee can, thinking I would put it away in a few minutes. Then I fell sound asleep. Sure enough, a short time later, I was awakened by a loud crash; my young, inquisitive, and strong cat had knocked the timer to the floor, breaking some pieces off the pedestal. I glued the larger pieces I could find back on, and it works, but it’s not the same. My mother would not have allowed it to be broken through laziness.

For awhile, I looked online for information about the Sears Maid of Honor timer, but couldn’t find any. I gave up and didn’t look again for months. Then one day, probably while tired and bored, I looked again through google.com — and found one in excellent condition for sale. So I bought it. It came complete with the box! It’s brown with built-up dirt, but here’s the copy from the top and sides:

Maid of Honor portable household TIMER
60 minute interval
Alarm clock ring
Winds when you set it
Handsome plastic case
Color: White [stamped]
No. 4658
Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Simpsons-Sears Ltd. Made in U.S.A.

ACCURATE TIMING FOR:
* Cooking and baking
* Baby formulae
* Sun lamp treatments
* Home permanents
* Telephone Calls
* Bleaching

[Cartoon of woman in bikini under sun lamp]
Long alarm rings to remind you that time’s up. Sturdy, heat-resistant plastic case with rubber feet to protect polished surfaces. Modern design . . . fluted rim for firm grip . . . large numerals and extra wide minute intervals for accurate setting.

To set timer
Turn the top clockwise, passing stationary pointer on base. Rotate beyond 6 to activate the timing mechanism. Then timer may be set at any minute interval. The alarm ring gradually increases as you turn the top. It rings for 2 seconds when turned just past 6 minutes, for 14 seconds when moved to 60 minutes. For the longest possible ring, turn to 60 before setting. Timer may be reset forward or back during operation. Never turn past 0 as this damages the movement.

I have other timers that I use for baking and for waking me after one-hour naps. I even have an electronic digital timer I used at work for timing client-related jobs. While they are as functional as the Sears Maid of Honor timer (both of which are now safely and permanently stowed away), especially the multi-function electronic one, none is as interesting. They look like something you could get anywhere — because you could. The Sears Maid of Honor timer is unique.

At one time it wasn’t, of course. It appears that Sears Maid of Honor was once a popular line of modestly priced (knowing my parents) household gadgets, presumably designed for young brides.

Like most people, my parents had a lot of mass-produced items, some of which I saved because they hold some special memories or reminders of the security of my home. For example, I have a small, iridescence-coated glass, part of a set, that I used for cut roses from the wild rosebush that my dad salvaged from a low-lying area and planted against a trellis. No large, fancy, overbred rose will ever be as beautiful to me as those small, scented, wild blooms floating in the rainbow glass on my dresser. It’s not the object that matters, but the feelings associated with it. It’s good to have both.

Some of this attachment to objects may come from having grown up in a lower income bracket and having parents who grew up poor during the Great Depression. Our financial situation (or at least my dad’s perception of it) seems to have improved by the time I was a teenager, when he was working more hours at the Ford stamping plant to save for retirement. Until then, however, we did not buy a lot of durable goods unless necessary, nor would my dad throw out anything that could be useful. I suppose that’s part of why my mother used the same old Sears Maid of Honor timer for the duration of her married life (and life).

I sometimes wonder if today’s kids will feel the same way about the things they grew up with. Some women may feel an attachment to a favourite doll or stuffed animal, while men may hang onto and even add to their Hot Wheels collections. But do affluent kids who have so much love their things? It’s hard for me to imagine a lifelong emotional attachment to a mass-produced plastic toy or a modern kitchen timer. Will it someday look vintage? Will it evoke memories of a mother laboring for hours over fudge she wants to be perfect because it’s the one thing for which she is renowned in her small circle, for which she has received countless compliments and comments like, “Mine never turns out as well as yours, Daisy!”?

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the annual Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago. There’s a booth featuring carved wooden frogs and other toys. The frogs have ridged backs and come with a wooden stick. When you run the stick down the ridges, it produces frog-like croaking. The larger the frog, the deeper the croak. They’re charming toys — the kind I see as a precious keepsake in 20 or 30 years. I noticed the little boy next to me found them uninteresting — probably a child used to electronic beeps and flashing lights. His father, however, was sampling the sounds of all the frog sizes nearly obsessively and desperately trying to interest the boy in them. When I turned to look at him, I was surprised to find he was a young man — not the 40-something like myself I expected. He was enchanted with the frogs and hoping his son would be, too.

Twenty years from now, will the son remember that trip to the Christkindlmarket? Will he remember the brisk air, the flushed faces, the buzz of the crowd, the booths with their handmade wares, and the quaint croaking frogs?

I do hope so.

Blue moon

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Around 9:30 p.m. on the night of the blue moon, July 31, 2004, I walked to the lakefront via the 57th Street underpass to visit the moon as it reflected silvered sunlight across Lake Michigan. The moon was directly in front of me, casting a straight beam. As I walked north along the grass and rocks, the moon and its beam followed me evenly in a line.

An odd thought occurred to me: If the weather were clear in Pennsylvania, the moon might at that moment be shining on the grave of my father, where he has lain for exactly three years. I felt comforted by the thought that the moon was shining its full benevolence first on him and my mother (1983), then on me.

It was not silent, beyond the wet sound of the waves’ movements. There was the boom and thunder of fireworks, and I remembered that it was Chicago’s Venetian Night, when the Grant Park Orchestra plays, boats parade, and fireworks signal the end of the revels.

It was now past 10 o’clock, so I said farewell to the moon with a promise to look for it again. After coming out of the 55th Street underpass, I sat on a bench as though I were tired. Soon, a stream of partygoers began emerging from the tunnel. I realized they had clustered on the north side of Promontory Point to watch the fireworks while I was on the south part, watching the stillness of the moon and the boats crossing its trail of white light.

The crowd on one side; me on the other.

The way it has been and will be.

But the moon is mine. Maybe it is where I came from.

Childhood terrors

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I don’t know what the current thinking is about the origins of childhood fears. Are they innate? Learned? A combination?

In fiction, children often fear the dark. Yet this is where we are conceived. At an advanced stage of their development, what do fetuses perceive? Darkness? Muted light? Is there any way to know for sure based on what we know if their vision development? Why do children fear the dark? Or is that a convenience of fiction, a plot point? What are children afraid of?

I don’t remember being afraid of the dark, but I did insist on a night light. This may have led to a deeper, stronger, more persistent terror, which I remember well although I can no longer recreate the feelings and mood it generated. (I have tried, because I thought it might bring back the child in me, if only for a moment.)

I was petrified not so much of the dark, but of being watched in the dark. I grew up in a trailer and had a very small bedroom; in fact, I had a cot-sized bed because even a twin bed wouldn’t fit in the room. The closet, with sliding track doors, was across from the bed at about an arm’s length. There was a circle cut out of the wooden door and covered with metal that served as a finger hole with which to slide the door over. It was perfectly ordinary by day. In the dim glow of the child’s night light (long since lost, although it was a favourite possession), it became an eye, watching me, a monstrous eye, making me shrink into the bedclothes in terror. I don’t know how many nights I spent petrified of that eye and not knowing what it might do if I did not remain vigilant against it. I also do not know why being watched would cause such panic — there was little enough to see. It was as though being seen were dangerous.

Soon, another, similar terror developed. There was a window over my bed covered by a curtain. It was probably more than eight feet off the ground from outside. When I went to bed, I would make sure the two halves of the curtain overlapped so that no one could see in. Still, as I lay in bed, a fear, then a horror would rise in me that someone — human or supernatural being — was peering through the opening at the bottom of the hanging curtains. This, too, set off what seemed like endless moments of sleepless, choked panic. Sometimes I genuinely thought I could see or sense someone there, but the few times I had the courage to look, there was of course not only nothing and no one there, but no sign that anyone could be.

I may have told my parents once or twice of my convictions about the closet monster’s eye and then the window voyeur I suspected but of course they couldn’t see what I knew was watching me and probably thought only that I was too imaginative and sensitive.

There were woods behind the trailer, and I was sure that this is where whoever was watching me lurked until I went to bed and was defenseless. I could not explain how they got high enough to look down through the crack, nor did I wonder why I was so afraid to be seen, a young child in flannel pajamas with nothing to hide.

Later, due to some vandalism (theft of car gas tank caps, etc.), a streetlight was installed next to the trailer, almost outside my bedroom. I was older by then, yet a remnant of the terror lingered and grew into a vague idea that the thin walls of my home were no protection against the persistent evil that wanted in for reasons I couldn’t understand. The light gave whatever this was better ability to see.

The bathroom was next to my bedroom and a higher, smaller window in the shower wall. When I was older, about 14 or so, my head came up to this window, so I could see out while I was showering. I don’t know why, but I always took showers at night — perhaps so as not to waste daylight hours that could better be spent outdoors. In the back of my mind, but not very far back, I thought about how this meant that anyone out there in the dark woods or the dark field (that I loved so much during the day) could see into this lighted window — how they could see me. Despite my age, the same childhood feeling of being watched and threatened in some way persisted. For no reason I could explain, showers became terrifying experiences as much as relaxing ones.

I should note that, at some point during my adolescence, I did learn that I had a stalker — an adult male who watched me, especially at night. At the time, though, I didn’t know this, so I wasn’t afraid of him specifically.

Today, I live on the 12th floor of an old Beaux-Arts apartment building in Chicago, nowhere near fields or woods where lurk my childhood nemeses. My apartment faces east (Lake Shore Drive, Promontory Point, Lake Michigan) and north (apartment buildings, park, Lake Michigan). I leave the mini-blinds up all the time because Hodge (my cat) would chew on them if he could reach them. Now, anyone looking up at the right angle or across from the other buildings might be able to see in, although not well because of the distance. I am no longer bothered by this. I am no longer a child or a teenager surrounded by monsters — or juvenile delinquents and bullies. Those fears and threats, real or imagined, are gone. I am an adult, a condition that seems to ease certain types of terror. I am afraid of less than ever before, and my fears are of a more mundane variety — unemployment, loss, depression, health problems. They are not shadowy and imperceptible; they are easily defined and understood, and many share them. And — my bathroom has no windows.

Still, I miss those irrational childhood terrors. I miss the window in my mind that was open to them, the window through which imagination peered and crept. I miss the ability to feel without thinking, an ability that today lives only in some dreams, a few dreams untouched by the mind’s internal censor, which even in dreams all too often corrects the imagination. “This isn’t a real adventure and escape — you could never run that fast.” “You are not a man.” “You would never say anything like that.” “That is not where you grew up. It’s nothing like it.”

Only in rare moments of deep sleep does the censor rest enough to permit terror in. And in those few moments where anything is possible — I truly live.