There and Back Again

There are spaces in between that beckon me; places that you have to squeeze into and bear the weight of to go into. In between sleeping and waking is one of those spaces and I traversed between the two this morning. Starting with Second grade, I went to St. Thomas the Apostle School on West 44th St. in Minneapolis, and then I went to Southwest High School, most of the time, walking. So, I walked from 40th and Sheridan through Linden Hills day in, day out, and as I walked I sorted out my life. The chaos at home, the confusing and conflicting things I was learning at school. Wondering why kids are so mean to each other.

St. Thomas School is now called Carondelet School, a fancy name to match the now yuppie children who attend. When I went to school there we were all just middle class folk, some more succinctly middle than others. This Catholic school is at the top of the hill and around the corner of what is the heart of Linden Hills. It has changed and not changed. Like me, like life, changed and not changed.

But this morning for some ungodly reason, I forced myself back, testing my memory. I tried to recreate the place of the past, piece by piece, store by store, so I can go back, looking for what? Where the flower shop is, a flower shop was, I’d stop in sometimes on my way home from school and buy my mom a carnation, the roses were too expensive. I’d hope it’d cheer her up.

Next to the hardware store was Hawkinson’s Grocery Store, a small family run store. My friend Mary's mom had a credit account there, and we could buy snacks after school and charge it to her mom, we grew fond of Pepperidge Farm cookies, by the box; we’d buy M & M’s by the pound. Across the street from the flower shop was a bakery, the windows steamed and the aroma heavenly on a cold winter’s day. Sometimes my sister and I would have some coin, enough to buy a glazed donut to eat as we walked up the hill. On that same corner is now Twigg’s Home & Garden, when I was growing up, no one had “art” in their yard, maybe a bird bath.

Where Creative Kidstuff is, (very cool toys) was, for a short while a shop called Accessories Unlimited. And it was, scarves, handbags, jewelry, and a hip young woman named Marcia owned the store. We became friends. She’d let me hang out with her after school, she called my mom, so she knew where I was and who she was, and then every so often after school I’d help her sort jewelry, or run across the street to Hawkinson’s and get us each an apple or a single sized serving of ice cream that came with it's own wooden "spoon" (stick). She’d give me jewelry. We were friends until she got married and closed the shop. I was invited to her wedding, but I had the chicken pox and couldn’t go, and then I never saw her again.

What happens with these childhood memories, is that they become faded, and I wonder if they were real or not. When I see the actual places, I can sometimes remember, but these memories are so laden with emotion that they just take me to a place that resides barely within my consciousness. I think of Marcia, now, and think that I must still be missing her. Her shop was a safe place for me, her words kind, then it was no more. I had no one to help me make sense of her importance in my life, so the memories retain a strange hold and detachment at the same time.

Where the Great Harvest Bakery now resides, was a dairy store. I’d wait in the car out front, parked on Upton Avenue, and watch the long strides my dad would take, as he ran in for milk, when we’d run out before dinner. He’d smile, his blue eyes kind and hand me a package of M & M’s and it seemed that all was well with the world. Next to the dairy store was an antique store that held old musty stuff and mysteries. A couple of us kids would have to be brave to go into that place, the door bells ringing as we opened the door, an older woman who might be crabby, would look our way, glasses down on her nose. “We just want to look around” we’d say. And she’d let us, amused, I imagine.

There are no markers for exploring this inner world. Developmental Psychology makes no mention of our inner journeys and Jung’s or Freud’s dream work only refers vaguely to the lived reality of the spaces between waking and dreaming, past and present. Perhaps it is a dangerous journey or a journey better left untaken. Like the child I was, chastised for daydreaming, for going away, being brought back into the classroom by a harsh voice, being brought back to the brightly lit classroom, being taught about the miracles that Jesus performed, in the past, in a land far far away; as if this information would give me all I’d need to know in a vast and complex world. Some story about loaves and fishes, and in my small child’s mind, I thought if I only believed hard enough, I too might make miracles happen.

I wonder if I’m doing some sort of trance work, evening venturing into these places in between, or if I’m just sulking and mucking about in these half remembered places, wasting time. I picture myself, small, little steps over pavement, back and forth. Looking into the window of Bayer's Hardware Store, at the fancy glass pieces, hoping to save up and buy something pretty for my mom. At 85, my mom just moved into a new condo, and she has a decorative plate, set up on a brass plate holder, on her buffet in her dining room; blue pattern on white, it says, “A Good Mother Makes a Happy Home.” I bought it for her as a child, at the hardware store, still there, same place.