TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 60

[Tobie Shapiro]

November 15, 200000000006


Dear All of Ya,

	I got a few letters about Life Stories 
59, in which my brother and I battle his little 
tiny erection.  Evidently it stirred some 
memories in some of you.  No matter how well our 
parents educate us as to the workings of the 
body, we wind up being ignorant of some things. 
Meyshe worried that he had breast cancer when 
there was the hardening behind the nipple that 
happens in so many adolescent boys.  I had all 
the facts about sex outlined and explained to me 
but I didn't know that there was any enjoyment, 
or desire involved in it.  I thought if you 
wanted a baby, you would just have to go through 
this embarrassing ritual where the man, you know, 
stuck his, you know, in your . . . I can't say 
it.  My mother didn't know a thing about sex 
until she was in college, and she figured it out 
from her texts in pre-med.  Before that, she 
thought the sperm crawled across the sheets. 
Honest.  A brilliant young woman.  And I've tried 
to tell my kids everything, but I know they've 
been blind-sided by some of the facts of life. 
Imagine my surprise when Meyshe leaped into my 
bed at 2:30 in the morning, when he was about 12 
and asked if he had breast cancer.  And my 
darling Feyna was molested by a female classmate. 
How would I have prepared her for that?  I kept 
my eyes on the boys, but I just didn't think it 
would be a girl.  All our plans to be perfect 
parents.  It is to laugh.


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All about the weather

	One of the big differences between life 
on the east coast and life in San Francisco or 
Berkeley is the weather.  Weather is temperate on 
the west coast.  And that means it's intemperate 
on the east.  We have all sorts of weather out 
west.  What we don't have is dangerous weather. 
We don't by and large get thunder and lightning. 
We don't get blizzards.  We don't get hurricanes 
and we don't get tornadoes.  Yes, we get 
earthquakes, but that isn't weather.  It's in a 
category all its own.  Hurricanes swept through 
Silver Spring, Maryland, during the season, and 
nearly every season there would be torrential 
rain and wind blowing rooves off of houses, and 
doors off their hinges.  One year, Hurricane 
Hazel came by and knocked our whole house around. 
I was only seven years old, but I listened with 
all the adults to the radio warning everyone to 
get indoors and protect their windows, secure 
things that might be blown away, and have their 
flashlights handy.  To me, it was big excitement. 
To the adults who had to raise me and pretend 
they knew how to navigate the storm, it was 
serious business.  It is taking care of others 
that makes us grow up.  When we are responsible 
for others' welfare, we have to behave ourselves, 
not trip up, not goof off, not let go of the 
reins.  But I was a kid, a little kid, and had no 
responsibilities  but personal hygiene.  I had to 
listen to the adults who appeared to know what 
they were doing.  Of course, now that I'm grown, 
I see this was a masquerade.  No one really knows 
what he or she is doing.  We just fake it the 
best we can while our knees shake.

	Before Hurricane Hazel came on through, 
we got the edge of the storm, and it was merely 
windy, dark and a little rainy.  At this point I 
remember my mother sending me down the block to 
the hardware store, probably to get candles.  She 
gave me a five dollar bill and sent me on my way. 
I remember squatting on the curb and looking at 
the five dollar bill as it blew away.  I had to 
return for more money.  I had no inkling of what 
a five dollar bill meant.  I knew I should feel 
bad about this.  But it was letting my mother 
down that hurt me.  She gave me another five 
dollar bill, and made me promise to keep it in my 
coat pocket, not to take it out to stare at it or 
play with it.  Just use it to pay the proprietor 
of the hardware store.  She gave me a piece of 
paper with a list on it of the things I was 
supposed to get and I was to hand this to the 
owner.  I rushed between the apartment buildings, 
down the walkway with the trees planted every 
twenty feet, and I came out on Grubb Road where 
the hardware store was.  I went in and stood 
there, a miniscule dot among the important grown 
ups.  But I was noticed standing there with my 
note and the five dollar bill.  The proprietor 
went about gathering the things on the list, put 
them in a bag with the change and told me to 
hurry home, because the storm was coming soon.

	By the time I got back, the wind was 
howling and the trees bending.  The rain started 
to come down.  My mother took the bag and went 
off somewhere else in the house, while I took up 
my post at the front window, a big picture window 
that looked out onto our front yard, the hill and 
walkway, the two young trees standing on either 
side, the apartment complex across the street, 
the grey and ominous sky.

	I sat on the couch looking outside as if 
it were theater, and I watched the gathering of 
the storm.  Pretty soon, ganglions of branches 
were tumbling down the street, and the rain was 
pelting the window.  The streets were deserted. 
The wind grew meaner.  A lone dog ran between the 
apartment houses, whining.  Then, as I watched, 
one of the trees in the front yard bending to the 
wind, suddenly snapped in two, the upper part of 
the tree lying hurt on the ground, connected by a 
piece of raw wood to the lower trunk.  This image 
has stuck in my mind all my life, how a tree 
could be weaker than the wind.  Then from behind 
me, my mother scooped me up and took me away from 
the window.  The electricity went out a few hours 
later.  It seemed to me that the house was filled 
with people, and  my mother was cooking in a 
chafing dish.  To me, this was all high drama, an 
enticing bit of spicy life.  To my mother it was 
hell come home, trying to feed her family in the 
dark by candle light, over a package of sterno in 
a copper pan with a covered lid.  And then the 
washing up also by candle light, while the kids 
ran around teasing each other and screaming with 
ire and delight.  Certainly none of the men 
helped.  Their job was as the children's, to be 
taken care of, fed and cleaned up after.  This is 
one of the reasons I've always thought it easier 
to be a man than a woman.  We are in constant 
servitude, setting our own needs aside to take 
care of everyone else, even the ones who are 
plenty big enough to take care of themselves.  I 
went back to the front window with one of the 
flashlights and shone it on the broken tree in 
the yard.  There it was, still cracked open, 
shivering in the wind and rain, blown from side 
to side.  In the night, I slept with the sounds 
of the hurricane all around me.  A San Franciscan 
at heart.  None of this could possibly be real.


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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net