Skydweller's Musings

 Pamela (aka Sky­d­weller) is an ana­lyst (dubbed by her hus­band as a Quan­ti­ta­tively Tran­scen­dent Pul­chri­tudi­nous Infor­mat­ics Execu­tor) and writer. Her inter­ests and hob­bies include busi­ness, research, analy­sis, real estate con­sult­ing, mar­ket­ing, psy­chol­ogy, process improve­ment, read­ing, writ­ing, and sculpt­ing. Read more from this author

I think per­haps those of you who have had the oppor­tu­nity (or dif­fi­culty) of hav­ing moved around a lot through child­hood may have a more inti­mate sense the expe­ri­ences I will relay here. The rest can cer­tainly imag­ine if not directly iden­tify. When you move at age 2, then at 4, change schools at 6, 8, then 9… And then you move again… And change schools again, well, it’s sort of like chang­ing lives. You rebuild with each new neigh­bor­hood, each new school has a per­son­al­ity and a cul­ture to inte­grate into. You tweak and adjust, and some of us remake our­selves lit­tle by little…

Through the years, no mat­ter what changes, where, and why, the con­nec­tion to cer­tain peo­ple — I call them the peo­ple of my heart — occurs. Each move, each change was like a death for me. At ages 6 and 7, I had Sammy and Sondra.

Sammy who had a fort, who loved to cap­ture and study but­ter­flies and bugs. She had a but­ter­fly net! Sammy who wor­ried about my weight and wanted me to lose it to be healthier.

And at 7 there was Son­dra. My first skinny dip. My first jump on a tram­po­line. Son­dra and I went to the same church day camp and made the pretty mul­ti­col­ored lay­ered sand jars. Son­dra who loaned me books about bed­knobs and broom­sticks and about sci­en­tific bub­bles that enabled you to swim and breathe indef­i­nitely under­wa­ter. Son­dra who was allowed to ride her bike on the side­walk next to North Florida Regional Hos­pi­tal in Gainesville and we rode to her dad’s office together (Mom was hor­ri­fied). Son­dra who was the first friend I stayed overnight with and who patiently talked me down from the 3am ter­rors of home­sick­ness and a home (although won­der­fully pleas­ant and com­fort­able) envi­ron­ment so dif­fer­ent from that of all my seven years prior. I made it through that night thanks to her kindness.

Sure, there were other kids in our class, but Sam and Son­dra were my heart and I knew they would always be with me.

At 8, another new school. Pub­lic school. A boy who threat­ened to beat me up. A girl who offered to hold him so I could hit him (I couldn’t and wouldn’t).

No more Sammy and Son­dra, well, not very often. Not the same. No copse of trees per­fect for play­ing house where we’d lose all sense of time. No sparkly (quartz) diamond-like stones in the sandbox.

At home, though, there was still my neigh­bor: Nicole. Nicole who had neat trin­kets to trade, who raced me to see who could read the lat­est Nancy Drew book the fastest. Who could make a mean mud pie. Who went with me to Dis­ney World.

At 9, another new school — a pri­vate school orig­i­nally built as a way to allow par­ents to keep their kids from attend­ing newly seg­re­gated schools — a new town, a new kind of neigh­bor­hood, coun­try, rural. Now it was Sharlecia who befriended me and vice versa. Stay­ing at this school from age 9 until age 14 allowed us time to forge a strong bond. We moved from child­hood into the teenage years together, shar­ing hopes and fears and build­ing our friend­ship as time moved on. To this day, we have man­aged to keep in touch, a thread I carry with me across the years where if you were to exam­ine it you would see that it is some­times rope, some­times wire, some­times gos­samer, some­times frayed then retied.

10th grade brought me to a pub­lic school for the first time since I was 8. I was ter­ri­fied. I went from a rural pri­vate school of 100 kids TOTAL from preschool to 12th grade (there were 7 in my class in 9th grade) to a grad­u­at­ing class of 2000 students.

While I rev­eled in the edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties — Honor soci­ety! Advanced Place­ment! Band! Cho­rus! Brain Bowl! — I was alone again. Sammy, Son­dra, and Nicole were in essence gone. Sharlecia was closer in prox­im­ity but worlds away in expe­ri­ences and social surroundings.

I was done. I was not going to develop that close­ness and rich­ness again just to have it torn from me. Some kids han­dle this beau­ti­fully. I qui­etly did not. I ached for my friends and at that young age had not the vision to see joy could be found again in oth­ers. I did not iden­tify with those around me, they seemed loud. Rau­cous. Scary. Peo­ple did drugs and smoked cig­a­rettes — and drank. Hor­rors!

Oh, but then came music.

The great healer. The wings of flight. I have no idea why I signed up for Jazz Band, but I had played the piano since I was five, so why the heck not. They already had a key­boardist. He was good! He could play the music with lit­tle prac­tice using these neat things called chords. I thought sure he’d resent another “key­boardist” in his realm, espe­cially an inex­pe­ri­enced one. And hav­ing always been a “fat” kid, I was pre­pared for avoid­ance, rejec­tion, pos­si­bly scorn. He wouldn’t want to be near me lest some­one infer the wrong thing. Well. Wrong. He was sweet, and kind. Not fuzzy wuzzy huggy buggy close, just nice. And he helped me under­stand how chords worked so that I could play well with the band. I could play the piano or the Fender key­board, and what a rush it was to be able to knock out those chords! He was sweet and a lit­tle flighty. Cute, of course, after all he played the key­board! So we got along well and I liked him ok, but it was a later friend­ship with his best friend that fur­ther endeared me to him and led me to place him closer to the most spe­cial places in my heart…

First the drum­mer stole my heart.

I think because he was so awful then so apolo­getic. We were in the same sci­ence class (loved Mr. Becker — great teacher) and some­how this guy got around to call­ing me “Bertha” in ref­er­ence to my weight of course. Why, the cir­cum­stances, etc… well, those have long left me, but the agony, the embar­rass­ment, the shame: the desire to leave this school and wish I could have a tutor was at one of its strongest lev­els that day. I was hor­ri­fied and so hurt. Well, “Bertha” turned out to be in Jazz Band with the evil git and as a result of our com­mon goals as musi­cians and mutual respect for each oth­ers’ tal­ent and con­tri­bu­tion to the band, the injury was over­come as well as it could have been. He apol­o­gized beau­ti­fully and sen­si­tively. We ended up being very good friends, he’d have me over to his house, we’d com­pare writ­ing, etc., and the sting quelled over time.

And then… Here’s That Rainy Day.

Here’s That Rainy Day (click to hear it)

When you’re used to play­ing notes rather than chords, Here’s That Rainy Day is more com­fort­able to a clas­si­cally trained pianist than a chordist (IMO). Appar­ently the band direc­tor thought so too, so I was put on it along with an alto sax player. And here’s where I encoun­tered my first angel. He would laugh and think me ridicu­lous, but you can trust me on this one.

The oppor­tu­nity to get to per­form this piece with him on alto sax was one of the hap­pi­est times for me. I prac­ticed hard, he had the tone and feel­ing of it from his very toes as did I, and we nailed it. Over time, as I got to know this human angel (I pretty much thought he was a nor­mal guy at that time), my per­spec­tive on the pos­si­bil­i­ties of encoun­ter­ing humans of the high­est nature even where I stood grew tenfold.

I moved a lit­tle away from that old pro­found sense of loss toward a new hope. He was loyal, he was GOOD. He had friends and loved and respected them. He loved and respected his fam­ily. He had enough wild­ness to drive way too fast with the help of his best friend the afore­men­tioned chordist, but there’s no doubt his soul vibrated with sheer good­ness and joy. He was one of those peo­ple about whom it is cred­i­ble to say that to know him at all is to love him, and we did. I did. and I do. He was like a big benev­o­lent brother but since he wasn’t really a brother.… well, a lot of us had a crush on him or a pas­sion for him in one way or another.

I was begin­ning to be happy.

I had good teach­ers for the most part. I was exposed to good music. I had my drum­mer friend and my alto sax angel, who played triv­ial pur­suit with me (and our close-knit group) until 4am, who bought me my first birth­day present ever from a boy — a pearl bead neck­lace that I have and trea­sure to this day, he allowed me to be his date to Grad Nite at Dis­ney World. He shared his writ­ing with me. He wrote of war and its ter­ror and sad­ness; he was com­pelling but never mor­bid. He wanted to go to the Air Force Acad­emy, which I con­sid­ered a high ideal and some­what glamorous.

Mean­while, I belonged to sev­eral clubs. I skipped lunch every day to spend an hour with a friend at the library and grew to greatly appre­ci­ate his humor, intel­li­gence, and com­pany. My junior year was the best expe­ri­ence ever nearly through the end of the school year…

When we lost the house. And moved from Florida to California.

In today’s eco­nomic cli­mate and the cur­rent expe­ri­ences so many peo­ple are hav­ing with los­ing their homes, fil­ing bank­ruptcy, and so on, I think the present expe­ri­ence reduces the iden­di­fi­ca­tion with that keenly felt stigma of los­ing one’s home in the mid eight­ies. The eco­nomic dis­rup­tion in the Sav­ings and Loan indus­try in the mid eight­ies directly impacted our fam­ily in that promises made for my Dad’s retire­ment after 25 years as Pres­i­dent of a suc­cess­ful multi-million-dollar sav­ings and loan insti­tu­tion sim­ply fell through the rab­bit hole never to return. The north­east­ern behe­moth S&L with whom the board from Dad’s insti­tu­tion decided to merge (despite his vehe­ment objec­tion) dec­i­mated the insti­tu­tion, its employ­ees, and their retire­ment, and left us home­less and wandering.

Cal­i­for­nia offered poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties, so off we went. We drove from Mid Florida across I-10, then up through Nevada into Tahoe and Reno, then up to Sacra­mento and over the hills to Eureka, Dad’s idea of the new mecca. Not. It was wet, rainy, foggy, and there were white spray painted out­lines of peo­ple on the streets and side­walks to rep­re­sent the after­math of a nuclear holo­caust. This on the heels of read­ing Alas, Baby­lon (thanks a lot, Mrs. McGraw) in 11th grade was dis­turb­ing to me.

We zipped south in a hurry, spend­ing days in places like Santa Rosa, Ven­tura, Mis­sion Viejo, and finally San Clemente. Senior year was fast approach­ing, and my plans were to return to my home — not my house — but my home: the place I knew, the peo­ple who knew me, the cul­ture and envi­ron­ment I had worked hard to adapt to and loved. I was to stay with my grand­mother to get through my senior year, return­ing to my clubs, my library friend, my evil git drum­mer friend, and my alto sax play­ing angel.

By the end of the sum­mer of 2005, it was clear that my leav­ing my fam­ily to return to Florida would be trau­matic for them, and it was trou­bling to me as well. I enrolled at San Clemente High School. Upon enroll­ment, I learned I was sev­eral credit hours ahead and had many oppor­tu­ni­ties for elec­tives. I did not feel qual­i­fied for the instru­men­tal pro­grams, but hav­ing had the expe­ri­ence of singing in cho­rus and church choir along with encour­age­ment from the guid­ance coun­selor, I was enrolled in a group called the Madri­gals. It sounded neat — a small group and an oppor­tu­nity to sing “real” music, not too much Pop. I was ner­vous and knew what­ever hap­pened I’d have to work hard to mea­sure up because after all, this was South­ern Cal­i­for­nia — the tal­ent pool must be enor­mous! And it was.

Enter the great­est angel I have ever encoun­tered on this earth. Renee Lacouague Bondi.

I didn’t know that Madri­gals was an audi­tion group — not a clue. Why on earth did that guy (guid­ance coun­selor) put me in an audition-only group? I was new! And the oth­ers in the class said they had been promised their spots. I would have to trans­fer out, surely, because they were full.

Well, it turns out the teacher — Renee Lacouague — was new, too. And 28! But inse­cure? No. Ner­vous? Scared? I’m sure! But she knew what she was about and she knew what she had to do. She audi­tioned every one of us — we had to sing, sight read, and talk to her. And some­how, I made the cut. I was a “Mad.”

Renee worked us like crazy, and I ate up every minute of it. If we screwed up and she got really frus­trated, she’d flail her arms and say “God Bless Amer­ica!” and boy we’d straighten up. When she was pleased, she did a lit­tle wig­gly happy dance.

Pri­vately, I was dec­i­mated, demor­al­ized, incred­i­bly lonely, def­i­nitely a square peg, but I had a rope and it was called Madri­gals. Well, maybe the rope was Renee. I could sight read. I could sing. When I could sing, when I could join my voice with the other voices, I could con­nect. This was my only con­nec­tion. Oth­er­wise, I had shut down, and it would be years before I began to come back to “me.”

The weak side of my psy­che, per­son­al­ity, what­ever you want to call it was not going to expose itself to more loss. I was done. I don’t think it was because I couldn’t take any­more — I think peo­ple can han­dle a lot more than they think they can — but I just refused to endure any more.

Despite the dis­con­nect, the social envi­ron­ment was still often painful. Some of the girls snick­ered at me openly. There were infer­ences that I got in the group because I was a trans­fer, that I took some­one else’s right­ful spot, that oth­ers who didn’t get in were much bet­ter, bet­ter trained, bet­ter nat­ural tal­ent. That I got in because I was a senior.

I think I would have believed this auto­mat­i­cally had it not been for the iron clad integrity of the direc­tor. I trusted her, and I believed I was selected because I had a vital piece of what she needed to mold us into a highly suc­cess­ful group. And she did. We per­formed for var­i­ous clubs and fes­ti­vals, achieved high and even supe­rior rat­ings, we worked, we felt her love and gave it back, and it was good.

Over the years of con­nect­ing and being sev­ered, in the back of my mind there was always a sense that it was not a true sev­er­ing. Some­how these peo­ple I loved and carry with me to this day would be close to me again. When I heard about the book The Five Peo­ple You Meet In Heaven (I haven’t ready it yet), the title kind of cemented the idea that even if I do not recon­nect to them in this life, per­haps I will have them near me again after tran­si­tion­ing from this world if noth­ing else.

After all these years, I still ache for all those men­tioned and my love for them is tremendous.

Espe­cially for that vibrant young woman who had lifted me and so many oth­ers up, whom I had seen sit by a big stone fire­place play­ing gui­tar and singing “My Father’s Eyes,” who teared up when work­ing with us on “Merry Christ­mas, Dar­ling” because our loved ones some­times aren’t with us on the hol­i­days, and indeli­bly planted in my brain is that lit­tle brunette head bounc­ing up try­ing to see through the audi­tion room win­dow when she and Mike drove up to Fuller­ton to sup­port me when audi­tion­ing for the Music Edu­ca­tion program.

I spent a year at Cal State Fuller­ton (Renee’s alma mater) and stud­ied Music Edu­ca­tion before the fam­ily once again picked up and moved to Tennessee.

You Can’t Go Back…

My mind is very fuzzy on the details, but shortly after mov­ing to Ten­nessee some­one qui­etly and care­fully told me that my beloved, teacher had been hurt. That she was par­a­lyzed. That she had fallen out of bed alone and snapped her neck but by a mir­a­cle had been found even though she could only whisper.

This was a mis­take! Not pos­si­ble. There was new tech­nol­ogy, new ways of fus­ing the spine. She’d be ok.

What­ever agony she was bear­ing, and it surely was ter­ri­ble, we who loved her with such great respect, grat­i­tude, pas­sion, joy, we who were sup­ported by the mer­ri­ment and good­ness of her exis­tence, we… I can­not describe to you the depth of the ache: for her, for Mike, her famiy, for all of us who have felt so con­nected to her. I can­not fathom what the pain, the days, the frus­tra­tion, the myr­iad of details that so many of us can take for granted that require such huge effort for her has done and does to her and to Mike.

Not long ago, I learned that my alto sax angel, only two years older than me, had a stroke. He sur­vived, but he is changed.

Sam, Nicole, and Sharlecia have had their own tri­als and much has changed.

Why?

Once I real­ized Renee was not going to return to her fomer phys­i­cal self, for years I ratio­nal­ized the sit­u­a­tion in won­der­ing if some­times peo­ple reach an ulti­mate of good­ness, effec­tive­ness, and/or con­tri­bu­tion to human­ity and the Pow­ers that Be choose to take them from us or change that person’s vehi­cle of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and deliv­ery for the next height of spir­i­tual strength and inspiration.

I won­der this about my Rainy Day friend as well

Of all those over all the years I have loved and hold deep in my heart, it is the thought that sep­a­rately we will all strive to grow and be forces for good, and per­haps we will given the gift of recon­nect­ing to revel in our growth and joy again some­day that helps me rec­on­cile and move forward.

And that Renee will be with us and do her lit­tle wig­gly happy dance once again.

And my Rainy Day angel will play sax with me once again

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