April 24, 2013

The New Time

Even when I was 30 years old and had only five of our eight children I often felt confused by what time of day, week, month or year we were currently enjoying. So I devised my own system for keeping track of time. Time revolved around events, benchmarks, accidents, stitches, explosions and even some quiet moments at the kitchen sink. For instances, Halloween is not remembered by the year but by the event. I Remember Halloween when I dressed as an apple and while they were sweeping up the floor of the cultural hall I tripped on the push broom and broke my tail bone. That was my last apple. Forever after I have dressed as a witch with the thought that I'm happier when I'm bewitching than being a bad apple.  Or the Halloween when Merrily, number four baby,  was just five weeks old and while I'm  nursing her Michael jumped out of the cupboard and broke his leg, which would have been tolerable but the day after Halloween Michael had eye surgery which might have been ok on its own, but he had a patch on his eye, tubes on his arms to keep him from rubbing his eye and a cast on his leg, and I had a brand new baby.  Was the child protection agency operating in 1968? Many Halloweens are noted as before the one when Michael broke his leg and the Halloweens after. 

It seems much of our life was measured before and after similar dramatic moments, such as Christmas of 1974. Our seventh little child came home from Stanford Hospital about December 12th, two days after she was born. I never liked long hospital stays. About a week later all of the children were home for the holidays, mom had taken leave and it was the usual joyful time with seven children under the age of 12 decking the halls with red and green paper and glue. We had just been the recipients of our first TV, an old second hand thing that sat on the floor of the play room. One morning in need of some peace on earth I allowed all of the little very, very busy elves to watch TV while I languished in the quiet of the back of the house indulging myself in some gentle and loving mother and daughter time. It became very still.  Curiosity overcame me and I wandered with our new Julia to the family room to see what had mesmerized everyone. I had little to no  experience watching television - can you blame me !!! Seven children and our first TV since we were married. When would a woman like that have time for TV, I ask.  There on the floor in zombie trances they sat listening to a sherif, surrounded by some big cowboy sons and their mother, accuse one of the boys of rape.  Well, that did it!!! I took one look at the scene of "The Big Valley" and  yelled, yes yelled, "This TV is ruining our lives." With that I dropped Julia on the floor, (carefully) and ran to the kitchen, grabbed the butcher knife, returned with haste and with a bit more composure, and in my quiet, stern, and threatening voice said something like "We are a creative family and this is obviously ruining our lives (and I'm thinking: and our morals) and we're getting rid of this TV and that's final."  I swooshed the butcher knife around, and if you can picture the children being mesmerized by "The Big Valley" they were frozen statutes by the sterling performance of their mother, who then took the knife, pulled the cord out of the wall with energy and with the strength of David who killed Goliath, cut the cord off and with a calm and reassuring smile that they were all loved, I said, "Now, let's go make a mess."May we all live to tell the story . . .remember the time !!!