Memories | Eye Sights

At around six years, my mom asked if I’d like to take tap dance or piano lessons. I never hesitated and chose tap. My little sister and I began weekly tap dance lessons at a studio some miles away. I have no recollection of getting into the car to go, but I do recall the regimental “Heel, Toe, Shuffle Step” and “Pointer Step” commands. I think there was a “Slide” command in there, too. Little did I know this was leading up to a formal recital presentation which was announced, some months later. I begged to be excused. Mom was having none of it. So when the morning came to dress up and go, I was so nervous I threw up. She was boiling mad.

“That does it!” she said, “You’re going to take piano lessons now!”

I think Daddy took Karen on to the recital while I stayed home with Mother. I admired Karen that she went without me: she was only five at the time. (She discontinued the tap, thanks to me but took piano and voice lessons and has done numerous solos at church, plus directed church choirs, her fondest love. She has the presence of mind to perform with composure and confidence.)

Next month, I began the disappointing piano lessons after school once a week from Mrs. Bloomer, our church organist. She lived three blocks away and once I learned the route, Mom allowed me to walk home on my own, even though I had to carefully cross a busy thoroughfare called Division Avenue, to reach our house on Garland Street. It wasn’t long before I discovered that the piano was great fun even though practicing was a chore. I worked hard to get that lick- and-stick shiny star on every song I could. I also grew to adore my patient and good-hearted grandma-like teacher. Her first name was Jenny.

I regret not sticking with the tap dancing, for I so love to dance or watch tap dance and Irish clogging. Alas, I chose foolishly to abandon that opportunity just because I had a nervous stomach.

But life throws us curves and sometimes that’s not so bad. Because of my mother, I now can read music well. I played piano for my high school choir and most of the churches we attended, and accompanied soloists. I played the piano in my classrooms and each student had a sing-along songbook of all the tunes we learned in a year! Sometimes good intentions or hopes that don’t work out can spur something else just as amazing! Thank you, Mom!

How wonderful that our Creator gives each of us a talent or two, to add blessing to ourselves and others, and return blessing to Himself. My newest venture is re-learning how to play the flute. I am a long way from being able to play songs publicly, but it is worth working for.

What is/are your talent(s)?

Our Michigan house was built by my parents, and its rectangle kitchen was cleverly designed, with three entries: one to the bedroom hallway, one to the dining room where we took our evening and Sunday meals, and one to the back porch beside the telephone desk. On either side of the hallway door’s entrance began two paralleled counter tops, the stove on one side and the sink in the other. The fridge stood adjacent to the stove side. The sink’s counter side stopped short, to provide passage into the breakfast room. Behind the sink was more counter, making its section an island with a rounded end graced by lower shelves to match the curve. An overhead cupboard was to the sink’s right and the rest of the island opened into the breakfast room. In that sweet room lived a yellow linoleum covered table that matched the floor, seven chairs, and the small telephone desk. If you sat on the north side of the table, you could see evidence of the current season in the backyard, through divided window panes. If you sat on the south side, you saw the kitchen’s floor plan: island sink, stove, refrigerator and door to the dining room and bedroom hallway.

In this warm room, we took breakfast and lunch, played table games like Monopoly, War, Parcheesi and checkers and my live-in grandpa played Cribbage every Friday night with Uncle Bernie there. On those kitchen walls, this three-year-old got crayons and scribbled from one corner to another before my mother caught me. And on the kitchen island my father laid me flat, to stitch a cut over my eye, when I fell headlong on the back-porch steps one rainy day in 1955. I still have the scar from that cut on my body.

Deeper still, I have the imprint of that yellow kitchen, in my memory.

What indelible scar do you carry in your body? What memory from your childhood home?

~A Prayer~

Thank You, Lord that You see all that happens to us. You see us in our childhood kitchens, you see us today. You heal us of our cuts and wounds, because You love to show us mercy and kindness. Please bring this to those who are without it. Put them on our minds, so we can pray for them.

Please bless our good memories and heal us of what brought us scars. Thank you that scars are evidence of Your presence, then and now. Thank you for salvation through Jesus who for our sake, endured scorn, false accusations, assault and battery, and a criminal’s death, to provide for us a life where we can have a kitchen place on earth, where we might learn of Your love. But even better, a place in your heavenly kingdom, the Big kingdom, the One that matters most of all.

“May Your kingdom come and Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen. ~Matthew 6:10