Bellies

     A woman's belly is an amazing thing.    In our teens when we are boy crazy, we want our belly's to be flat and firm and our waists to be small.   We compare ourselves to every other girl we see to whether  they are smaller or larger than our own.   We long to have that special boy wrap his arm around us to feel that gentle curve that begins below our ribs to the beginnings of our hips.   Well, at least I did.   For me that is what I had going for me.  I had zip for breasts as they were small and rather flat.   My legs were short and not shapely as those of my friends.  But my waist could be worked with.
   
     I had weight issues growing up and there were times I was definitely chubby.   At those times my mom would put me on a diet which I found humiliating.   Take going to my Girl Scout meetings.  While my friends would have some cupcakes for snack time, I would be eating an apple.   Yum.  As a young teen I tried to squeeze into girlfriends size 25 Lee Jeans, not easy and not happening.  I was curvy before they made curvy jeans.   During my up and down weight days in the good times I did have a lovely flat belly.   Laying at the beach my belly lay flat if not dipping lower, my hip bones rising up on either side.  One had to be careful who viewed you if they were next to you as they could see what they were not suppose to see!   Those naughty little bikini's.


     How many movies have we watched that made us wonder what we might be doing wrong to not have that itty bitty waist?  In Gone With The Wind, Scarlett is having her corset tightened  to where she can barely breathe.   She wants to know what her waist measures to.  It is 19 inches and she is not happy.  I was happy at 22 inches, and that was sucking it in as much as possible.  I certainly wouldn't be able to hold that very long. 


      What surprised me was when I became pregnant at 22 and I was waiting for my belly to grow it didn't.  Not till I was in my fourth month did I have the beginnings of a round belly.  All the time I carried my first born I loved watching the transformation that took place before my eyes.   When my belly began to move in strange ways from kicks, elbows, and feet I was in awe of the show going on.  Tim and I would lay there in bed watching and wondering what this child was doing.   I who prided herself at having that flat belly had all but forgotten those days.   To feel the ripe roundness of this belly even in those last few weeks where I felt the need to hold it as my body reminded me with contractions in preparation of the birth to come.  My belly tightened with amazing strength and all I could do was breath.   I had this cute little stripe from my belly button to my pubic area exotically called Linea Nigra and not a stretch mark in sight.  


      After the birth I was so overcome with shock at taking care of my first babe that I forgot about my belly.  Two days later while getting out of the shower I looked in the mirror and saw this foreign belly that couldn't possibly be mine!   Jelly belly was there.   Soft, toneless and not flat.  It was like a deflated water filled balloon that went where it wanted.  I was forced to continue to wear maternity pants for a month.   My hips and waist had changed forever.   But my breasts who had been unimaginative had become full in ways I could never believe they would do.  They were beautiful and they honored me by giving my child free food.  Never a bottle to her lips except when we did leave her and then only breast milk did she drink.  Slowly I was able to wear normal clothes.   I somehow managed to actually lose all the weight I had gained with the pregnancy.    In time the buxom look deflated back to its former days.


     Having two more babies I was able to relive the dreamy days of the growing belly and the growing breasts.  After each birth I was able to get back to an acceptable size but after my third my belly began to decide to not firm up as in years gone by.   I had this unwanted gift of a soft roundness that did not want to lie flat and firm.  It was what I called the "Mommy Bellie".  After my third child bikini's were not an option.  Those bikini's went to the back of the drawer and at some point were put in the Goodwill bag.   Only a one-piece would be worn.  One with "Tummy Control".   I found that you could get panty hose with "Panty Control" so at least if I wore a skirt or dress that belly would behave.  


     When I had baby number four at 38 my whole body changed.  Losing that jelly belly was harder, the hips fought my plans of slimming down, and though I loved the cleavage I kept working on firming up my belly.  Lost cause.   Acceptance that my body loved being pregnant as it never failed me on carrying to term or in the process of birth (Though I carried every baby posterior which means that I had back labor.  I would never know what it would feel like to deliver the way most women do, and I bravely forfeited using drugs by choice except with the first birth).  


      Now at 51 I am still trying to understand my body.  The belly remains soft.  Sometimes it is flat, as in days following an illness.  I am reminded in my head of my Nan telling me to hold my stomach in and stand up straight and tall.   Yes, I do look better when I do that.  To the sides of my waist some strange lumpy bumps are starting to appear and disappear.  What is that?!   I can't do my normal crunches or ab exercises due to a neck problem this past year.  I can't wait till I am given the clear and can resume them.  I am still curvy but I am happy with that as I still have that definition of bust, waist and hip.  Larger than at age 22 but I really should have known that I couldn't go back to that size after four kids.   Those celebrity women pay others to create there svelte bodies.   The rest of us make choices of workouts or playtime and playtime with my kids while they were at home was first choice for me.  


     I will always be in awe of what my belly has done and I forgive it for not making it easy on me.   Through cramps, pregnancy, and beyond I still love feeling it and remembering the kicks, and undulating waves that entertained us.  I feel blessed that I still don't have stretch marks but if I did I would call them "War Wounds" and touch them with lotion as I would massage them.   It is a right of passage in a woman's life.   Our bodies a vessel that only we truly learn to know.  
     

Ouija

     Our fingers rested as lightly as we could on the teardrop shaped message reader as we concentrated our thoughts on the question we posed to the spirits who would answer us.   We sat opposite each other with the Ouija board between us,  one of us looking at it upside down and the other seeing the board spread before us.  Ever so slightly the message reader would start to slide.   As though testing the board or us into our belief that what it would say would be true.   With a sweep of movement the reader began to glide like an ice skater across the board swinging left and then right.  Our hearts would race and our excitement made us giggle nervously to see where the reader would stop as it would begin to spell out the answer.    The clear viewer allowed us to read the letter it would hesitantly hover over till it swooped to the next letter.  We would yell out the letter to whoever was not doing the board and they would write them down on a piece of paper as it spelled out the word or sentence.  It always told, that Ouija Board.

     This was a ritual that my friend Susan, her sister Pam and I would do often after we watched Dark Shadows on their TV many afternoons after school.   I can honestly say I must have spent most every weekday at their house waiting for our favorite show to come on at 3:30 during a time that we were loyal fans.  Susan's mom worked and Pam was in charge of  Susan, her brother David as well as me when I came over.    Pam was as good a friend to me as her sister was.   We loved Dark Shadows!   I think more so on a cloudy dark day, or a rainy one as it heightened our thrill for that half hour it was on.   The moment the show began with the eerie theme song we were glued to the TV.   Barnabas Collins, the Vampire looking to avenge the curse of Angelique for setting a bat on him which created his own personal hell of never dying.   Our crush on Quentin Collins and David Collins who was closer in age to us, the haunting music,  the dark gothic house, secrets, a cast of many that we eagerly felt we knew so well.  Then the music!  I painstakingly wrote the music out on paper of Josette's Theme so I could play it on the piano.  We would pretend try to talk like some of the characters and felt certain that the show was real.   The Ouija Board became our question and answer of what would happen in the next episode.  We put a lot of faith in it.   This became my beginning into the thrill of ghosts, vampires and all that could scare or raise the hair on the back of my neck.  We were quite upset when it went off the air.  The Ouija Board came out of my closet for sleepovers after that but it never felt like the days of Dark Shadows.   The belief in it had faded.

Nan

   

  It's Sunday, a day we often go on a drive somewhere.  I am in the middle of the backseat of our Ford station wagon, my Nan to my left and brother to my right.  Mom and Bill sit in the front seat.  I'm drowzy and slip sideways into my Nan's lap, laying with my head up.   The lap of contentment for me.   A soft warm lap to lay my head on.   I look up at her.   My eyes notice her soft face that has  powdered makeup on it.  Her cheeks with a dusting of pink  blush, her hazel eyes behind her glasses as she looks ahead out the front window.   She has a light grey cap of hair that frames her face with fluffy small gentle curls near her ears.  She pin curls them each night with clip pins that I often find beside her bed.  I lean my head back just enough to gaze out the car window.  The trees I see fly by while the sky stays steady.  Blue sky with little puff clouds.   I turn back on my side facing my Nan.   Her body warm and comforting as she lays an arm across my child body.   Gentle caresses on my back.   I close my eyes and feel as one with her breathing.   Her belly rises and falls and a quiet sigh she gives.  My thoughts say I love you so much Nan.  I curl closer feeling her ample breasts under her dress.  All so soft and safe.   I fall into a dreamy sleep.   How long are we driving I don't know as I slumber in her arms.   She never shifts me but holds me as on we go.   I am awaken by her voice, almost home Ellen.    I open my eyes and she is looking down at me.  Almost home...

Mom on the Zipline

Ellen at the end of the Zipline

Happy Valley Park

Jump Rope Rhyme Stories...Happy Valley Park

My mother told me
If I were goodie
That she would buy me
A rubber dolly.....

     My mom was the "Queen of Parties".    She seemed to come up with a party at the drop of a hat.    Growing up she planned out birthday theme parties for my brother and I.  A Cowboy theme with baled hay for decorations , Pin the Tail on the Donkey, with all of us looking like little buckaroos.   Dress-up parties where my girlfriends and I looked like miniature little ladies.   A few times I had Christmas parties where she would have a mini dinner party for my friends and myself.   This would include appetizers as well as her decorating the dining table in some way.   On my 10th birthday she said we would have it at   the Happy Valley Park which was just outside of Salinas on Highway 68 that goes to Monterey.   A venue party place that was designed just for kids.   I think all the girls from my class and other classes were invited.   My mom seemed to be preoccupied with my group of friends and concerned that I didn't have enough or that they be the right kinds of  friends.   Which was a challenge since I was a shy girl when it came to school and church but I was quite content with the friends I did have.   Needless to say it was going to be a big party with her planning it.

    Unlike today where there are places like "Pump It Up", "Rocktopia", or even the bowling alley (where my mother told me I was not allowed to go!), there was Happy Valley Park.   It had an indoor Party Room that they would set up for however many would be coming, but it was the outdoors that made this a kids heaven.    Circuitous of the property behind the main building was an oval dirt track where there were multiple bikes of all kinds you could climb aboard and go round and round, racing each other or just riding with the wind blowing in your face, laughing in pure delight.   It wasn't a flat track as it had slight  rises, gentle drops as well as turns .    In the center of the large bike track were swings, playground type equipment, a cargo type climbing rung area, teeter-totters and just about anything to keep a child happy and not wanting to leave.   After you played for an ample amount of time, you went inside the main building into one of the party rooms and had your birthday cake and drinks. After that you would be led outside to go through the Goldmine.    You would wait in line  patiently as they explained the rules of the Goldmine area and then you would  go down a narrow dirt path into a large underground room.   Just like what one imagine a goldmine might be like.   Inside there  were rough wood walls with bare lights up near the edge of the ceiling heights, spaced far apart to give light but not enough to see to well.   It smelled damp and musty inside and once inside  the floor became a fine gravel that crunched under your feet as you walked on it.   This was your time to hunt for gold in the gravel under your feet.   Everyone would find some, of course.   You were given a small little cloth bag to put your gold into and that was your token party favor.  Somehow it sounds so silly compared to parties of today where you feel you need to provide so much to your guests before they leave.  Once done with the Goldmine the best was saved for last. On the far side of the property that you could see when you were riding around the track was what I would call their version of a zipline.    Set up on one side was a platform that stood about 12 to 14 feet off the ground.    There was a cable that spanned a long distance to the end point and attached to the cable was a a swing seat with another long cable hanging down from it that dangled to the side.   One at a time we would climb up on the platform to await our turn on the ride.   An instant smile would come across your face when you were released from the platform to zip to the opposite end which felt like a great distance to me as a child.  Towards the end you would glide to a stop where you would jump off into the sand.   Ride over.   You would grab the cable that was dangling and run back to the platform with the swing seat and hand it off for the next person to ride on, run to the end of the line and wait for your next turn.   Sadly to say Happy Valley Park closed up in the early 70's and now is a gardening nursery center.  I use to wish that I could go there whenever I wanted instead of having to wait for a friend who might have a party there.  I think I remember riding my bike out to it with some friends once after it had closed and looked in the windows to see what we could see inside.  It was too dark inside so we couldn't see anything.   Outside in the back it was a ghost town playground.  The bikes were gone and all was shut up tight.   Some places in childhood can not be visited again and Happy Valley was just one of many.

My brother told her
I kissed a soldier
Now she won't buy me
A rubber dolly.....