Read Online Head in the Sand ... and other unpopular positions by Linda M Au - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Linda M Au
Ads: Link
thinking about the concrete floor on which I was
standing at the time. You see, I had this way of ending up in the
hospital every single summer with stitches in my head. Would this
be the day for the summer of 1974?
Apparently not, as I next found myself
calmly and safely staring up at the canopy roof, lying flat on the
hard concrete, with no pain and with colors where they should be.
Someone behind me in the long line must have caught me as I fell
backwards. Someone else was telling everyone that I was coming
around, and I managed to sit up on my own. Kind of.
The next thing I remember was lying flat on
my back again, this time in a smaller, cooler room, on a small cot.
My mother was next to me—I could hear her voice. When I opened my
eyes fully and focused them, I gazed upon the gorgeous face of what
had to be Mark Spitz. He was tan, with sleek black hair, wearing
only a small bathing suit, and had a whistle around his neck, and
he was hovering just a few inches from my face, peering into my
eyes with curiosity and concern.
“ Are you all right?” he
breathed, taking my hand in his and expressing genuine care even
through his perfect eyebrows and thick black mustache. “I’m the
pool manager. You fainted.”
I sighed. Of course I fainted. And I felt as
if I might faint again! If this was what womanhood was like, no
wonder they kept giving us pamphlets about it in school to prepare
us. No one could have prepared me for this, not even my mother and
her medical charts. Especially not the medical charts.
I batted my eyelashes a
few times and let “Mark” help me sit up on the cot, my mother still
hovering nearby like a traffic helicopter at rush hour. Mother, don’t you have a
fifteen-minute-adult-swim to get to?
And, just as I was about to breathe my
heartfelt thanks to Mark and bat my eyelashes some more, my
mother—helpful to a fault—blurted out behind him: “She’ll be fine.
She just got her first period today, and she must have felt a
little lightheaded.”
And with those simple words, my foray into
womanhood ended and I was pushed back into childhood for a little
while longer. Mark Spitz was going to have to wait.
O Sing of Spring! (a poem written in
adulthood)
The song is sung
That Spring has sprung . . .
And yet I have my doubt.
I’ll hold my tongue
While Spring is young
While others sing and shout.
As bells are rung
And streamers hung
I sit alone and pout.
And I, high-strung,
My arms outflung,
Would rather not sit out.
Why fill a lung
With air that’s wrung
With pollen that’ll sprout?
The vines that clung
Their arms among
The sidewalk’s stony grout
Have long since brung
Their curls hamstrung
While reaching up and out.
And farmer’s dung
On pitchfork swung
Leaves odors all about.
And bees that stung!
And cows’ bluetongue!
Well . . . I’m just not that devout.
-----
And so I’ll spout
That Spring’s a lout
And leave your Spring unsung.
Dead Ringer
I was minding my own business, spending a glorious
weekend with girlfriends from high school at a lovely cottage in
Maryland, when an ominous thing happened. I felt a pinch at the
base of one of the fingers of my left hand—a sharp little pain any
time I bent a finger. One glance at my hand, one twist of my
wedding ring revealed a split in the gold—all the way through the
ring—and the angled edge of the metal caused by the rift was now
pinching my finger. The thing looked like someone had snipped it
with a pair of scissors.
My wedding ring was broken.
I was dumbfounded that the gold could just, well,
break. Especially without my catching it on anything or hooking it
on a knob or a handle or something. Did I just not know my own
strength?
Despite the fact that my husband and I had brought
six children from our previous marriages into our own marriage ten
years earlier, and had therefore been ridiculously frugal about the
money we spent getting
standing at the time. You see, I had this way of ending up in the
hospital every single summer with stitches in my head. Would this
be the day for the summer of 1974?
Apparently not, as I next found myself
calmly and safely staring up at the canopy roof, lying flat on the
hard concrete, with no pain and with colors where they should be.
Someone behind me in the long line must have caught me as I fell
backwards. Someone else was telling everyone that I was coming
around, and I managed to sit up on my own. Kind of.
The next thing I remember was lying flat on
my back again, this time in a smaller, cooler room, on a small cot.
My mother was next to me—I could hear her voice. When I opened my
eyes fully and focused them, I gazed upon the gorgeous face of what
had to be Mark Spitz. He was tan, with sleek black hair, wearing
only a small bathing suit, and had a whistle around his neck, and
he was hovering just a few inches from my face, peering into my
eyes with curiosity and concern.
“ Are you all right?” he
breathed, taking my hand in his and expressing genuine care even
through his perfect eyebrows and thick black mustache. “I’m the
pool manager. You fainted.”
I sighed. Of course I fainted. And I felt as
if I might faint again! If this was what womanhood was like, no
wonder they kept giving us pamphlets about it in school to prepare
us. No one could have prepared me for this, not even my mother and
her medical charts. Especially not the medical charts.
I batted my eyelashes a
few times and let “Mark” help me sit up on the cot, my mother still
hovering nearby like a traffic helicopter at rush hour. Mother, don’t you have a
fifteen-minute-adult-swim to get to?
And, just as I was about to breathe my
heartfelt thanks to Mark and bat my eyelashes some more, my
mother—helpful to a fault—blurted out behind him: “She’ll be fine.
She just got her first period today, and she must have felt a
little lightheaded.”
And with those simple words, my foray into
womanhood ended and I was pushed back into childhood for a little
while longer. Mark Spitz was going to have to wait.
O Sing of Spring! (a poem written in
adulthood)
The song is sung
That Spring has sprung . . .
And yet I have my doubt.
I’ll hold my tongue
While Spring is young
While others sing and shout.
As bells are rung
And streamers hung
I sit alone and pout.
And I, high-strung,
My arms outflung,
Would rather not sit out.
Why fill a lung
With air that’s wrung
With pollen that’ll sprout?
The vines that clung
Their arms among
The sidewalk’s stony grout
Have long since brung
Their curls hamstrung
While reaching up and out.
And farmer’s dung
On pitchfork swung
Leaves odors all about.
And bees that stung!
And cows’ bluetongue!
Well . . . I’m just not that devout.
-----
And so I’ll spout
That Spring’s a lout
And leave your Spring unsung.
Dead Ringer
I was minding my own business, spending a glorious
weekend with girlfriends from high school at a lovely cottage in
Maryland, when an ominous thing happened. I felt a pinch at the
base of one of the fingers of my left hand—a sharp little pain any
time I bent a finger. One glance at my hand, one twist of my
wedding ring revealed a split in the gold—all the way through the
ring—and the angled edge of the metal caused by the rift was now
pinching my finger. The thing looked like someone had snipped it
with a pair of scissors.
My wedding ring was broken.
I was dumbfounded that the gold could just, well,
break. Especially without my catching it on anything or hooking it
on a knob or a handle or something. Did I just not know my own
strength?
Despite the fact that my husband and I had brought
six children from our previous marriages into our own marriage ten
years earlier, and had therefore been ridiculously frugal about the
money we spent getting
Similar Books
