Hello everyone. I'm so excited to be back online. Life is good despite the other problems. I've recently been working on a piece that I hold close to my heart. Please read the first chapter and tell me what you think. Thanks guys!!
OVER THE RAINBOW
CHAPTER 1
I’ll ask you for your patience just a moment as you read and I set the scene.
It’s the spring of 1985, a television is blaring from the living room. Outside the sky is blue and cloudless, the air humid, yet the temperature somewhat cool; typical weather for Louisiana. The windows are fogged with a thin mist of sweat because of the almost uncomfortable heat from the gas stove. A cast iron pot is full of a bubbling green liquid giving off an acidic vinegar smell, and my mother turns the wooden spoon inside the pot with no regards to how tired her arms are. Then there’s me resting quietly on the couch. My attention fully focused on the blaring television.
One thing I can agree on as I look back at this day from my childhood, no matter how much aggravation my mother caused me as a child and later as a teenager, she was very patient with me when it came to watching my favorite movie The Wizard of Oz. One would have to have some measure of patience especially when I watched it over and over and over. Ok so you get the point moving on….
What intrigued me so much about that movie? I ask myself that today and now I realize it, but at the age of five it didn’t matter. To my mother it was quiet normal for a five year old to be smitten by the colorful and magical landscapes and the delightful singing and dancing. She herself as a child, as she told me before, also loved the movie even though at the time of her childhood it was still in black and white.
Just when you think life is the same everywhere. Just when you think people live the same, deal with the same problems, and suffer the same, you can always turn on the television and pop into the recorder The Wizard of Oz. It allows your mind to slip away from Kansas, or in this case Louisiana, and leave your troubles behind. Some where there is a place where your cares and sorrows don’t matter. Some where there is a place that you’re loved by everyone and hated by no one. All of my life I’ve longed to find that place. Why? Let’s return to the spring of 1985 and I’ll make an attempt at showing you.
As my mother filled the jars with the peppered jelly mixture, Dorothy met the scarecrow. While they sang together Oh I wish I had a brain, I sang right along. Let me pause here to mention that when I sang back then—wait a minute even when I sing today—I do it with much passion, and what really makes things worse I do it very, very, very loud and very, very off key. My mother smoothed her apron and positioned herself right besides the couch. When I looked up at her face I noticed her warm admiring smile. Like most mothers she adored her children. Even though it was 1985, my mother still dressed like Alice from The Brady Bunch back in the seventies. My father worked all day and her job was tending house much like Alice’s job. Her plump face was slightly red and her hair was finally loosing its tight curl from her permanent she received last month. When she smiled her front teeth protruded through her thin lips.
“You musn’t sing so loud. I have to tend to the stove and you’re breaking my concentration. And while you’re lowering your voice, lower that tv.”
“Ok mom. When you gonna be finished with that stupid, stinky smellin peppered jelly?” I said.
“Don’t go pokin fun at my food. Cover your nose if you don’t like the smell. One more thing, take the curtains down from the front door window, and put em in the dirty clothes pile so momma can wash it. There dreadfully dusty.”
As I took the curtains down, I noticed something fascinating; the curtains were held up with a metal golden rod. It made me think of Glenda’s wand that she waved after her bubble popped. At that moment I was transformed into Glenda, and was suddenly over the rainbow. I danced around the living room waving my wand, and picturing myself with long blond hair and an elaborate pink dress that flared all around my legs. When my mother glanced over, her face lost her admiring smile. She pulled her glasses down on her nose a notch, and watched me for a few minutes. When I realized my mother’s peculiar stare, the golden wand or rather the curtain rod fell from my hand, and bounced on the floor before settling.
“What?” I said.
“What are you doing with my curtain rod?”
“Nuthing mom. I was just pretending to be Glenda.”
Pause. Stop the action. What’s so weird about pretending to be Glenda? What kid wouldn’t want magical powers and tend the munchkins and fly over mountains appearing and disappearing from out of a pink bubble? I’m guessing my mother felt it very disconcerting. She had raised two children before me with some failure. I was her last chance. I was the one who would be normal; the one who would finish school and tend to her and my father when they got older. In any case resume action. Play.
“Stop that right now. You’re a boy. Little boys don’t play with wands. Little boys don’t dance around the living room. And little boys ain’t suppose to pretend they are good witches from the North. You understand me Jason Anthony Barnes?
“Yes mom.”
At the time I didn’t take much offense to what my mother said. I only realized that day in March that girls were different from boys not just by what’s between their legs but by their roles. Until that day I wasn’t aware of the fact that boys had different roles from girls. From that day onward I was never permitted to play with dolls or to dress up in my mother’s pumps. Well not with her being aware of it anyway. My mother was more conservative that she professed being. She raised us as strict Catholics with tough morals. One thing she failed to understand was that it wasn’t my fault. I had no idea what I was, but I knew for a fact that I wasn’t supposed to be a boy. And all in all it wasn’t my fault either. It was my family’s.
Pick up your jaw from the table. I am not blaming anyone in particular especially not my mother. Sit back and relax while I take you over the rainbow—or transatlantic—should I say. I’ll show why I am the way I am.
OVER THE RAINBOW
CHAPTER 1
I’ll ask you for your patience just a moment as you read and I set the scene.
It’s the spring of 1985, a television is blaring from the living room. Outside the sky is blue and cloudless, the air humid, yet the temperature somewhat cool; typical weather for Louisiana. The windows are fogged with a thin mist of sweat because of the almost uncomfortable heat from the gas stove. A cast iron pot is full of a bubbling green liquid giving off an acidic vinegar smell, and my mother turns the wooden spoon inside the pot with no regards to how tired her arms are. Then there’s me resting quietly on the couch. My attention fully focused on the blaring television.
One thing I can agree on as I look back at this day from my childhood, no matter how much aggravation my mother caused me as a child and later as a teenager, she was very patient with me when it came to watching my favorite movie The Wizard of Oz. One would have to have some measure of patience especially when I watched it over and over and over. Ok so you get the point moving on….
What intrigued me so much about that movie? I ask myself that today and now I realize it, but at the age of five it didn’t matter. To my mother it was quiet normal for a five year old to be smitten by the colorful and magical landscapes and the delightful singing and dancing. She herself as a child, as she told me before, also loved the movie even though at the time of her childhood it was still in black and white.
Just when you think life is the same everywhere. Just when you think people live the same, deal with the same problems, and suffer the same, you can always turn on the television and pop into the recorder The Wizard of Oz. It allows your mind to slip away from Kansas, or in this case Louisiana, and leave your troubles behind. Some where there is a place where your cares and sorrows don’t matter. Some where there is a place that you’re loved by everyone and hated by no one. All of my life I’ve longed to find that place. Why? Let’s return to the spring of 1985 and I’ll make an attempt at showing you.
As my mother filled the jars with the peppered jelly mixture, Dorothy met the scarecrow. While they sang together Oh I wish I had a brain, I sang right along. Let me pause here to mention that when I sang back then—wait a minute even when I sing today—I do it with much passion, and what really makes things worse I do it very, very, very loud and very, very off key. My mother smoothed her apron and positioned herself right besides the couch. When I looked up at her face I noticed her warm admiring smile. Like most mothers she adored her children. Even though it was 1985, my mother still dressed like Alice from The Brady Bunch back in the seventies. My father worked all day and her job was tending house much like Alice’s job. Her plump face was slightly red and her hair was finally loosing its tight curl from her permanent she received last month. When she smiled her front teeth protruded through her thin lips.
“You musn’t sing so loud. I have to tend to the stove and you’re breaking my concentration. And while you’re lowering your voice, lower that tv.”
“Ok mom. When you gonna be finished with that stupid, stinky smellin peppered jelly?” I said.
“Don’t go pokin fun at my food. Cover your nose if you don’t like the smell. One more thing, take the curtains down from the front door window, and put em in the dirty clothes pile so momma can wash it. There dreadfully dusty.”
As I took the curtains down, I noticed something fascinating; the curtains were held up with a metal golden rod. It made me think of Glenda’s wand that she waved after her bubble popped. At that moment I was transformed into Glenda, and was suddenly over the rainbow. I danced around the living room waving my wand, and picturing myself with long blond hair and an elaborate pink dress that flared all around my legs. When my mother glanced over, her face lost her admiring smile. She pulled her glasses down on her nose a notch, and watched me for a few minutes. When I realized my mother’s peculiar stare, the golden wand or rather the curtain rod fell from my hand, and bounced on the floor before settling.
“What?” I said.
“What are you doing with my curtain rod?”
“Nuthing mom. I was just pretending to be Glenda.”
Pause. Stop the action. What’s so weird about pretending to be Glenda? What kid wouldn’t want magical powers and tend the munchkins and fly over mountains appearing and disappearing from out of a pink bubble? I’m guessing my mother felt it very disconcerting. She had raised two children before me with some failure. I was her last chance. I was the one who would be normal; the one who would finish school and tend to her and my father when they got older. In any case resume action. Play.
“Stop that right now. You’re a boy. Little boys don’t play with wands. Little boys don’t dance around the living room. And little boys ain’t suppose to pretend they are good witches from the North. You understand me Jason Anthony Barnes?
“Yes mom.”
At the time I didn’t take much offense to what my mother said. I only realized that day in March that girls were different from boys not just by what’s between their legs but by their roles. Until that day I wasn’t aware of the fact that boys had different roles from girls. From that day onward I was never permitted to play with dolls or to dress up in my mother’s pumps. Well not with her being aware of it anyway. My mother was more conservative that she professed being. She raised us as strict Catholics with tough morals. One thing she failed to understand was that it wasn’t my fault. I had no idea what I was, but I knew for a fact that I wasn’t supposed to be a boy. And all in all it wasn’t my fault either. It was my family’s.
Pick up your jaw from the table. I am not blaming anyone in particular especially not my mother. Sit back and relax while I take you over the rainbow—or transatlantic—should I say. I’ll show why I am the way I am.