The Plums of Childhood
Chapter Four
Have I said enough already about my birth? Well, let me get on to something totally related: sure. I am trying a new tactic. Instead of typing inside the wicked little AD box, with its psychotic editor (and I mean this in the most respectful of ways), I am typing as a document now, which I will paste. Problems will arise anyway, as they do with the poems. Blankety-blank happens, by which of course, I don't refer to a baby blankie, but one COULD read it that way, and thus stay with the theme here.
As you recall, I was born at 7:46 pm, and dang it if I don't always tend to look at a watch, stove clock, regular clock, sundial, or the stars, and it's not 7:46! You think I'm joking. But no. Surely you've noticed that there is not a joking bone in my body or brain (hold it, do brains have bones?) Similarly, I always tend to look at the watch (etc.) when it is 20 til 10. Note I don't say nine-forty. That would be COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY different. This circumstance, the latter, began in high school, after a friend told me she was born at 10:10, and always tends to look at the watch, etc. at that time. Immediately, I co-opted her fetish, and began noticing 20 til 10's. I am thinking that since I always notice the exact minute of my birth, this means only one thing, ok, two: secondly (yes, we'll go backwards; recall how I entered the world), that I had a friend as weird as I, and first, that 20 til 10 has GOT to be the time of my death.
Going with this exacting scientific reasoning, needing no proof whatever, I try as hard as I can to be busy, away from timing devices, between 9:30 and 10:00, a.m. or p.m. You know, being off riding a bike, shoveling snow, taking a shower, performing brain surgery. It never works. I always seem to be finished or not begun with those things between 9:30 and 10:00.
There is a possible explanation. I neither ride a bike, shovel, shower, nor perform surgery. Ok, that's not quite true . I recently tried to tweak my brain with a very long Q-tip made for cleaning tape heads. I trolled around in there, hoping to fix something, the way I have my daughter pound on my back when it hurts, and she accidentally manages to hit acupressure points. But I have failed with my brain, and feel that attempting surgery on another's, even with something as innocuous as a foot-long Q-tip, might land me in some sort of trouble, despite my best intentions. Lawsuits today are SO frivolous.
But anyway, it is now occurring to me that maybe if I did these activities all at once, it would work. I wouldn't notice the time. But then, wouldn't I be tempting fate? Have you ever showered while shoveling snow? Or ridden a bike in the bathtub? When was the last time you stitched gray matter while washing your pits? No, it just wouldn't work. I have not mentioned the reason for trying these activities. Who wants to “live in the present,” when it concerns death? Living in the present is a concept we all strive for: very twenty-first century. Stop and smell the roses and all that (usually I just get thorns in my nose). No, where death is concerned, we want to be taken by surprise; it's not like, say, giddily taking wedding vows, or eating your daughter's giant chocolate Easter Bunny in one sitting (or in my case, all her chocolate Hanukah gelt), or mall-crawling with a new credit card. It's death, for heaven's sakes!
At that time, you want to live in the past and the future. I know some people who claim to do this, and my goal in life is to learn to do it too, but only at 20 of 10. The rest of the time I'll stick with the present, thorns and all. (Perhaps Thorns and All would be a better title for the memoir, but it's probably already been taken. There are only so many combinations of words in the mother tongue, only so many permutations and combinations). (I don't remember the exact meaning of that phrase, but it sounds good) Maybe an infinite number of possibilities, – but people steal combinations, as you know, without a thought, without guilt, without copyright fees. Which of course are due me, even if the phrase is nesting in my neurons.
When you think about it, and here I resume the memoir (have you ever read Ellen DeGeneres' book My Point: and I Do Have One....?), because death-talk is birth talk. We all know we begin to die the moment of birth (or I guess, conception) (or maybe before, when our parents were conceived, or rather, Adam and Eve were formed). I recently read that sex and death are related. I had never thought about it. Although with some of my experiences, I've wished I were dead, and/or have been accused of being so (but that is another story, a better one, of course, but I'd have to change the “rating” here and may lose readers, which are abundantly numbering about, say, four, at this time. Actually, I need to change it now, having said the “s” word).
It's true : once organisms stopped self-replicating (and I don't know why this perfect system fell by the wayside), organisms needed an “other” to continue “living,” well, sort of living, -- continuing the gene pool in some fashion. My daughter is not me, but she's like me (don't tell her, whatever you do; she will come at me tonight at 20 til ten, armed with an arsenal of angry Q-tips). So being born is about dying. This cheering thought probably did not come to me until after I took a breath and looked around. If you could see the drapes and sterile furniture in that hospital, you'd understand. Who was the interior designer in that ghastly place? What was he/she thinking? Had he/she not seen any tv at all? (Oh yes, reality shows had not been invented yet; we had only unreality shows).
Nowadays, they make birthing rooms in hospitals more home-like, colorful, tasteful, welcoming. But back then, nobody gave a baby-poop. So the minute you were born, looked around, and noticed the awful décor, this is the moment you sense your mortality. Because the only escape is to go back into the womb (and your mother reverts to a two year old, screaming No! No! (not knowing that it would be better than having to raise a kid), or checking out of both hospital and world. Believe me, furnishings can be THIS depressing. I know this like I know the back of my hand (a phrase I've never understood; we've never been even properly introduced). (I've never even understood which is the front and which is the back.) (Life is so confusing!)
But where we actually left off was with my parents' immediate aging once they became Responsible Citizens, meaning they had a loud, messy, smelly, totally helpless lump of flesh to nurture from then until the day of their own 20 til 10's. I wonder if they felt regret in having had such a good time the previous July 4th (I'm just certain that was the date). Hopefully, any and all parties public and private were so good, tsuch hat they did not feel regret. Still, they, like all parents, were clueless and suddenly scared to death, or rather Scared to Life (another alternate title, most likely...yeah, this has got to be a religious book title...). I've just noticed that scared and sacred contain the same letters. This is the kind of pointless synchronicity, or rather, stupid attention to detail, that has plagued me forever. If it paid money, I'd be very wealthy. I wouldn't have to publish a memoir and become a billionaire (which surely will happen. Won't it?)
It could also read red sac, which now has me ruminating on placentas, which, while pertinent to birth, I think I'll not elaborate upon. The reason is that I have seen one, and not ever recovered. I was always the school class winner at scrambling letters to make words. And yet, strangely, I have never learned how to scramble an egg to my husband's satisfaction. This has a lot to due with our impending divorce, but I see I've gotten a little ahead of myself here again, which is always a confusing circumstance. Both of us are moving backwards, as you know, and the self that's ahead is always bumping in the one behind, threatening both of us with concussions and worse. Thus far, this has not happened at 20 til 10, but I fully expect that it could. It might not be such a bad way to go. At least I'd have company.
