Growing up (haibun)

From my Tournesol dans un jardin blog 

© Tournesol dans un jardin
© Tournesol dans un jardin ’14

 

Our host at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has given us the Prompt “wings” and gave us a few quotes from Khalil Gibran in Sand and Foam.  However, when I think of wings there are several meanings that come to mind.  This morning I saw a haiku by MarkM Redfearn for this prompt.  I did not know it was an offering to this prompt at the time, but his haiku inspired me to write something about children, war and wings at “Do not weep for me” But after reading several times our host’s prompt I am reminded of two situations.

I like how our host describes how amazing it would be to fly and visit the world, look down at our planet from above. That would be so cool!  As children we believe that some humans can actually fly. My son certainly did believe in Superman when he was only two and a half. I was almost nine months pregnant with his little sister and I had gone into the house for a moment to check something on the stove. We lived in the country and my son had been playing in the sandbox when I had gone in. When I came out to join him in the backyard, my neighbor came rushing to me out of breath. My son had climbed the metal tower for the television antennae and was on the roof of my neighbour’s house.  He was singing the intro song of the show “Superman”.  I called up to him and told him to wait for mommy to join him, but my tummy was too big to manage the climb. Another neighbour’s teenager went up for me.  My son believed he could fly…Dear Lord, I was so grateful he had not jumped!

it’s a bird

it’s a plane

it’s superman

So when we talk about flying, that story always comes to mind.

My mother and I are very very close.  Growing up I always felt connected and even after I married (still young at 19) that bond was still very strong.  In fact, I remember at 22, we had moved about a thirty minute drive from her and I experienced separation anxiety for a year. Well, not like a child, but I had developed pain in my shoulder for a long time and a rheumatologist had told me to figure out what had changed in my life in the past few months and that that was the root of my pain.  I was quite insulted of his insinuation that it was psychosomatic but he was right. The pain went away on its own several months later.

Growing up as a teenager, I had never really rebelled or given my mother a difficult time like many teenagers naturally do. My parents had divorced when I was a teen and I felt even closer to my mother, wanting to protect her and take care of her.  It was when my own marriage ended, 24 years later, I moved 6 hours away from home to start a new life and a new career.  That was the first time I had actually cut the umbilical cord…really!  Indeed, at 40 something, I was finally spreading my own wings and becoming an independent woman.   I was definitely a late bloomer but better late than never, right?  I could not help but choose a photo of a dove to represent my moving on with my life.  In this case we are talking about separating from my mother, Colombe (which means dove)

Dove Flying in Sky

growing pains

sever symbiosis

spread your wings

© Tournesol

Submittted for: Carpe Diem#540, Wings

Posted by Cheryl-Lynn Roberts, 2014/08/16

Why did we want to grow up so fast?

165401_379170882187237_1147079981_n There is a cute image on Facebook with a child sitting on a tree branch and the inscription reads “Do you remember the time when we couldn’t wait to grow up? Hmm, what the hell were we thinking?” Yeah, I know eh? That just put me smack back into my youth…remembering…

It was so cool still believing in Santa Clause! It sure was nice thinking so many people in the world were nice…well, except for the people your mother may have warned you to be careful with…like strangers in cars…

Yeah, like the guy who stopped his car and opened his trunk asking my sister (8) and I (6 at the time) to help him with his spare tire. Now how weird is that?!!! My sister always being the helpful good samaritan did not hesitate to climb right into that trunk and I still remember backing away, tight lipped and a bit irritated that she was being so darn NICE…again! I did not want to help this weird old man (old is relative since at 6 anyone over 20 is OLD!).

So there my sister was in the trunk of the car, pulling and tugging at that spare tire until Mr. Riel, our friend and town taxi driver, drives right up next to the car and yells out nonchantally with a little smile…”Hey, kids, your mom was worried because you still have not come home from school.” And into the taxi we climbed; I remember feeling relieved and when we got home, our mother explained there had been complaints that a suspicious car was parked near our elementary school for the past week or so…and he wanted to steal kids and do who knows what with…{I had not clue what “who knows what” was but it felt REAL scary}.

Phew!! Were we ever saved in the nick of time!!

But we were still young and innocent…I still thought babies came from being blessed in a church in Holy Matrimony and that only promiscuous (bad girls) women had to do that other yucky thing to get a baby.

I still believed that there WAS a prince charming for me when I grew up EVEN though I did NOT look like Marilyn Monroe…but I sure daydreamed I was this curvy, sexy, platinum blonde woman with shoulder length hair and driving a fire truck RED convertible (Cadillac 1958). I kid you not!! That was my dream at 6!!…

I believed that good things happened to good people and that was that! That my grandmother would live forever and so would her dog, Princess. That my mom would look young and beautiful forever (now she looked like Bette Davis…for real!).

My heroes then were Marilyn Monroe, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Elvis. As I grew up my first celebrity crush was Sidney Poitier, Stevie Wonder and John Lennon; and then admired Marie Curie and Mother Teresa …I believed those cute messages the Beatles wrote to their fans and cried and screamed when I saw the Rolling Stones AND Brian Jones.{Yes, I AM that old!} Boy life was simple then!

Of course as I age, I have to admit that slowly but surely I am eliminating things in my mind and life and not sweating the small stuff as much…so I guess by the time I hit 90 I may be as naive and free spirited as a young child. Amen to that and to innocence:)me as a child

© Cheryl-Lynn Roberts, April 21, 2013