The Wish I Coulds by Tasha Halpert

Posted on July 27, 2015 by pujakins

I’m not sure why I was so uncoordinated as a child. Perhaps it was because I was tall for my age and my physical development had run ahead of my ability to manage it. I was fine riding a tricycle. Then came a two wheeled bike. Over and over again I fell off. It didn’t help that my bicycle seat was loose and kept wobbling, and that the sidewalks where I had to ride were bumpy. Once on the way to a friend’s I fell off and hurt my knee. A kind person stopped his car and brought me home. My parents thanked him, then after he left they scolded me for accepting a ride from a stranger. Perhaps they were right to do so, however I thought the man seemed nice, and I was scraped up and bloody and my knee was painful.

Even as an adult I had problems riding a bike. I’ve never known why it was so difficult for me when most people seem to have no problem doing that. I rode it to keep my children company until I finally twisted my front wheel, making my bike inoperable. I was secretly relieved. Skating too was difficult. I wanted to be able to glide over the ice, yet I had to be content with a few simple turns around the rink before my ankles became to painful to continue.

There are other things I always wanted to be able to do and never could, like run fast, or hit a tennis ball with accuracy. I had tennis lessons to no avail. The sailing lessons I took one year were a disaster. No one wanted me to crew with them because I kept getting my directions mixed up. School sports were a torment because I was so uncoordinated. It was difficult always being chosen last for any team regardless of the game being played. The people who were good at sports were always the popular one. In some respects my childhood was one long “wish I could.”

My hand-eye coordination seems lacking. Drawing presents another obstacle. I can draw what I might be looking at, and I enjoy sketching, but drawing from my imagination presents a problem. No matter how hard I try I can’t seem to transfer what I might envision to paper just the way I see it. And then when I manage to come up with something I like, try as I may I cannot reproduce what I have drawn so that it looks even remotely the same.

Do I sound like I am complaining? Perhaps I am. However, it is also true that there has been compensation for what I have I lacked. In my solitary childhood I read avidly and thus developed a large vocabulary. My vivid imagination helped me to write stories and poems and still does. Spending time outdoors by myself I learned to love nature and nature comforted me. Perhaps most important of all I developed compassion for those who are limited or unable to do as they wish. There are still things I wish I could do, however I recognize that they are not nearly as important as the things I can do, and for these I am grateful.

Celebrating Birthdays by Tasha Halpert

Posted on June 28, 2015 by pujakins

Celebrating Birthdays

When I was little I looked forward to my birthday. Rarely there was a party with friends, more often it was celebrated quietly within the family. This was probably just as well. I clearly remember the embarrassment I suffered at my twelfth birthday party. There were two small nude statues displayed on our living room bookcase. They were by my mother who was an artist and sculptor. These created a small sensation among my invited classmates who pointed and giggled, looking at me strangely. To me they were simply statues.

My dear parents were more sophisticated than my friends’ parents. My mother played in a civic symphony; my father was in a local theater group. They didn’t talk about sports, discuss politics, or participate in the kinds of activities my classmates’ parents did. My days were spent either by myself or with adults. I welcomed the idea of growing up. Every birthday was a step in that direction.

My husband Stephen celebrates his birthday the day before the 4th of July, and we celebrate our anniversary the day afterward. This makes for a grand celebration for us, taking place over all three days. We will have enjoyed doing this now for thirty five years of marriage. Born so close to the birthday of the USA, and being an independent person himself, Stephen feels connected to the celebration of independence that it signifies.

For myself I enjoy celebrations of all kinds. Birthdays are a wonderful opportunity for this. Over the years making up for all the parties I never had, we have enjoyed commemorating both his and my birthdays with friends. I also enjoy sending cards and even making telephone calls to sing happy birthday to special people on their day. The internet provides wonderful animated cards that cost little or nothing. Sadly some people either can’t or do not wish to open them. It always makes me happy when they do.

The birthday of our country is an important one to celebrate. Despite our faults we have been generous and supportive to many. While our growing pains have sometimes been severe, we have in the long run achieved much as we have grown. By European standards we are a very young country. There are churches all over Europe that are over a thousand years old. Nothing in this country even comes close to that. Being a young country, like any other gawky adolescent we could perhaps be excused for some of our clumsiest actions.

Whether one is a person or a country, it is impossible to grow without making mistakes. The important things is to learn from one’s mistakes, and also to be forgiving of whatever stumbles have been made in the process. The acknowledgement of oneself as a person who lives and thrives makes a statement concerning oneself. To have a birthday is to have survived another year of ups and downs, of trials and triumphs, and of defeats and victories. This alone is a cause for celebration.

Lilac Time by Tasha Halpert

Posted on May 26, 2015 by pujakins

Thinking about lilacs I remembered hearing a song with the words “Lilac Time” featured prominently in it. Looking it up on the Internet I found the full title Jeannine, I dream of Lilac Time, as well as an old recording of it to listen to. It brought back memories of my hearing it as a young child. What fun it was to listen again, courtesy of the Internet and whoever was kind enough to resurrect it. Seeing lilac,s like hearing the song, brings back a host of memories.

Stephen and I were driving to an appointment when I saw a lot of lilacs by the side of the road. They were so lovely I had to stop the car to look. What was even more wonderful was the fact that there were a several different varieties of lilacs in this particular collection. What I really wanted to do was get out of the car and pick some. However, I resisted the temptation and drove on before their lure grew too strong for my will power.

I have many memories involving lilacs that go back to my childhood. There was a cluster of bushes in the back yard of the home where I grew up. There was a lattice fence in the midst of them. This helped to form an enclosed space on one side where I played house. There I made mud pies using water I would scrounge from the house and berries from bushes nearby. I also mixed up other concoctions to feed my doll family.

I kept my doll sized dishes, pots and pans and other implements on shelves made from boards stuck into the branches of the lilac bushes. These usually collapsed when it was windy. For some reason that escapes me now I didn’t mind too much; I’d just pick them up and rearrange things as best I could. I even wrote recipe booklets of my efforts, though the pages became illegible when they got soaked in rain.

There were a great many different kinds of lilac bushes next door, growing at the end of my great aunt Alice’s back yard. Her father had been a horticulturalist and most likely chose the various different varieties so that they would bloom for longer as well as present different colors in display. Some were double, some had an incredibly sweet smell. All of them were lovely. I used to pick them and bring them home for my mother to put into vases.

Each year I worried that there wouldn’t be any lilacs still blooming to honor veterans on Memorial Day. My family always went to the parade in Beverly Farms where there was a square dedicated to my father’s father who died in World War One. The children who marched at the end of it used to carry lilacs to throw in the water when the parade ended at West Beach as the band played “For those who perished on the sea. Seeing the lilacs as they bloom now I greet them with joy and with gratitude for their beauty both today and in my memory.