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| RHODA'S MEMOIR, RHODA: HER FIRST NINETY YEARS IS NOW AVAILABLE AT: www.Amazon.com | ||||
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| Singing to the moon. . . A Twelve-Year-Old Girl's Seminal Experience Of Revolt | ||
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Chicago
in July, 1930, was hot and sticky, with the humidity matching thermometer readings
of one hundred degrees. The heat was palpable, pressing down on your head as soon
as you walked outside, and tar on the street melted. My mother suffered from severe
migraine headaches and psoriasis, and the heat added to her misery. She decided
to take my sister, Fay, twenty-one, and me, twelve, to a cousin's cottage at Fox
River Lake. Fay was a kindergarten teacher, and school was over for both of us.
I couldn't wait to get out of the city, and went to sleep dreaming of swimming endlessly
in cool water...
The cottage was located on a small lake, with a wooden dock extending into the water, a rowboat tied up to the dock. My friend Bessie and her parents had a cottage directly across the lake, and Bessie and I had already planned to get together during the two weeks I was going to be at our cousin's cottage... I had been told repeatedly that I was NOT to take the boat out without special permission, even though I knew how to row. I had been rowing in the Douglas Park lagoon hundreds of times, but they were adamant in their refusal... However, one afternoon there had been a spectacular thunderstorm in the morning and the wind had whipped up the lake into high menacing waves. Fay had gone to the small town nearby to pick up supplies, and I, bored, stood on the dock, looking at the water. There was the rowboat, bobbing crazily at the end of its rope, and the waves, slapping at the dock, splashing up on the wooden planks. The wind whistled in my hair, whispering in my ears, challenging me to "take the boat, take the boat!" I stood there, looking over the gray lake, remembering the oft-repeated admonition to "NEVER take the boat out without permission!" But suddenly I turned, dashed up the path to the cabin, jumped over the creaking second step, into the room where the oars to the boat rested against the wall. Glancing into the bedroom, I saw my mother, on her back, a cloth over her eyes, breathing rhythmically in a peaceful sleep. I shouldered the oars, tiptoed out of the house, and closed the screen door with a gentle pop. I walked down to the shore with a rising sense of elation as I stepped into the rocking boat and fit the oars into their locks. Pulling away from the dock, using all the strength in my thin arms, I leaned way back, feeling the oars slicing into the waves. At times I would rise slightly from my seat, my sandalled feet gripping the floor of the boat, a sense of power surging through me. It was late afternoon, and the wind was abating somewhat as I beached the boat on the opposite shore. ...I played with Bessie until nine o'clock, and then I started back. The full moon shone on a glassily quiet lake, and I was in high spirits as I rowed confidently across. Singing all the way, I was full of an exalted joy, feeling strong and free. "I am one with the universe," I sang. "Oh, moon, I am part of you and you are part of me." |
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www.Amazon.com, www.Booksmith.com, Black Oak Books, Berkeley, Book Passage, Marin, and Capitola Book Cafe, CA |
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CONTACT INFORMATION Email: rhoda@rhodabook.com |