{"id":521,"date":"2012-06-29T14:14:14","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T18:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=521"},"modified":"2012-06-29T14:14:14","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T18:14:14","slug":"love-imagined-scenes-from-a-1950s-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=521","title":{"rendered":"Love Imagined: scenes from a 1950’s childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing Exercise:\u00a0 write for ten minutes.\u00a0 Write about your childhood.\u00a0 What did your home, your neighborhood look like?\u00a0 What games did you play?\u00a0 Take it deeper.\u00a0 What\u00a0 made you feel ashamed when you were in grade school?\u00a0 When could you identify and understand shame<\/em>?<\/p>\n

EXCERPT DRAFT FROM LOVE IMAGINED:<\/p>\n

My fifties childhood wasn\u2019t unusual.\u00a0 Yes, there were only three of us in my grade school whose parents were divorced, but that made us special, not weird, that made us friends.<\/p>\n

Yes, I had experienced common childhood trauma.\u00a0 Not wanting to go to kindergarten.\u00a0 Scared of the teachers.\u00a0 Afraid to to tell the teacher or the librarian I had to pee.<\/p>\n

But, I didn\u2019t know I wasn\u2019t white, not even sure if I knew I was poor, but being poor didn\u2019t ostracize me, didn\u2019t keep the neighborhood children away from me.<\/p>\n

Kids liked coming to our home-it was lived in.\u00a0 We were allowed to play hard. The carpet was worn, the furniture second hand. Plastic didn\u2019t cover our used davenport.\u00a0 Mom\u2019s sewing machine was always in the dining room and pins and needles and patterns were always on the dining room Duncan Phyfe table.\u00a0 We had a television and a hi-fi.\u00a0 The neighbor lady whose husband worked for Wonder Bread supplied us with Hostess Cupcakes and Twinkies.\u00a0 On summer afternoons we set up a card table in the living room and shuffled Maj Jong tiles (you could hear the shuffling of tiles a block away) or played Canasta or Sorry or Monopoloy.\u00a0 We had a second hand upright piano on our front porch that we all took turns pounding on, \u201cHere we go up a row to a birthday party.\u201d\u00a0 We played with our Barbies (mine was fake) our Tiny Tears, our Ginny dolls.\u00a0 We dressed my baby brother in our baby doll girl clothes.\u00a0 In the winter we had a skating rink in our back yard, in the summer we had a sandbox that covered one-fourth of the back yard, an enclosed playhouse that took up another fourth.\u00a0 We had a stone fireplace to roast hot dogs and marshmallows.\u00a0 In the front yard we played Captain May I<\/em> and Red Rover Red Rover<\/em>.\u00a0 We played baseball in the street, only to be kept in when they, once-a-year tarred our street, being caught ever so often with oily tar on our tennis shoes, shoes we didn\u2019t usually have to take off when entering our home.<\/p>\n

In second grade my writer\u2019s voice appeared from nowhere.\u00a0 We were taught early to be charitable, even though nobody probably knew we were the receivers of charity, of turkeys at Thanksgiving and blonde blue-eyed dolls from the Salvation Army at Christmas.\u00a0 I wrote my first poem in second grade:\u00a0 save your nickels and dimes, Channel 2 needs you, bring your money to school!\u00a0 <\/em>My teacher paraded me in front of each elementary school class where I recited my lines and solicited money for a cause.<\/p>\n

Later, in high school, when the Church solicited money from our neighbors, asking to help the poor family who needed a new roof on their house, or was it to pay the mortgage?\u00a0 The good Christians gave generously, but that money was never given to my mother, and shame burdened my mother until the day she died.\u00a0 Shame isn\u2019t an isolated incident, shame sneaks up on you, says you\u2019re not worth shit, says it over and over and over again-even if you\u2019re not listening.\u00a0 Even if it takes a lifetime to name it.<\/p>\n

Sherry Lee<\/p>\n

June 29, 2012<\/p>\n

\n

\"Grade<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing Exercise:\u00a0 write for ten minutes.\u00a0 Write about your childhood.\u00a0 What did your home, your neighborhood look like?\u00a0 What games did you play?\u00a0 Take it deeper.\u00a0 What\u00a0 made you feel ashamed when you were in grade school?\u00a0 When could you identify and understand shame? EXCERPT DRAFT FROM LOVE IMAGINED: My …<\/p>\n

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