The ritual post-Thanksgiving writing exercise required that Sister Linda’s third grade class detail the holiday events.
Ramblings while on a slow suburban death.
Category: Religion
(St. Francis Xavier church, home of my first confession)
Father Guetzloe ushered five of us into his tiny little room where his gowns and sacred chalice were kept. We lined up and waited our turn, although I did not know what we were doing. Perhaps there was instruction that I missed, which was entirely possible since I spent many days in first grade just concentrating on the blinds that covered our giant classroom windows.
Somewhere between Dublin and Tokyo, Morning Star School in San Francisco began beating its own cultural drum.
Remember those old posters about footprints in the sand? I hated it back then, and I have equal contempt for those postcard images on Facebook.
We used to celebrate the Japanese observation of Girl’s Day (Hina Matsuri) at home by putting up an old wooden doll display and eating special omanju (rice cakes). My mother treated this day with such delicacy, and we were never to jump around the doll display or behave in our usual rambunctious manner that might cause the dolls to topple. My sister and I were seasoned at house destruction, setting crayons to wall covering with ease or sliding down three long flights of stairs in our brownstone flat while riding a child’s bathtub, ending our trip by crashing into the front door.
Childless and in the suburbs, or don’t spare the speculum!
Published by Anna Pirhana on March 14, 2014If there is one thing I have learned while living in the suburbs, it is that people will find 101 uses for an empty uterus.