I grew up in the laundry room. I shared my small box of a room in the back of the house with a pure white Maytag washing machine and separate dryer. I didn’t mind, nor did I know any better. The rumble of the dryer was relaxing, reminding me of gymnastics and hot summer wind. It was my lullaby at night. The swirling waters of the washing machine brought me back to our above-ground swimming pool and the innocent delight of creating a whirlpool, my friends and I chasing each other ’round and ’round the pool’s outer edges.
When I went to college, I needed an alarm clock with an “ocean sounds” option to help sing me to sleep as my dryer once did.
I grew up in Levittown, NY. This historical town was the first affordable housing development built especially for World War II vets. These homes were eventually the dwellings of baby boomers looking to move from the big city to the serene suburbs; a place where the kids could play kickball in the street until the street lights went on and adults could talk about when to water their lawn.
In 1976, my parents bought the three-bedroom house on Ripple Lane (cleverly called “Nipple Lane” by my hometown friends and everybody I have met since). With two kids, ages 8 and 6 at the time, a third child born a year later wasn’t exactly in the plans. Happy they finally could afford a home of their own, I believe I was the product of my parents celebratory consummation of the house.
“You weren’t a mistake!” my mom always tries to convince me. “We planned on having you.”
“Save the best for last!” my dad says.
“I finally got a sister!” my sister explains excitedly.
“You ARE a mistake,” my brother always told me. “Mom is just trying to be nice.” or “You’re adopted, you know that, right?”
As it turns out, I am not adopted. My likeliness to both my father and my sister is undeniable. At about age 6 or 7, I finally realized this and proudly told my brother, as if I had just solved a great mystery.
“Yeah and did you know the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary?” he said laughing.
I looked.
It was there.
I could deal with “mistake” or “accident” since we all make mistakes and accidents happen. I mean, my brother, who tortured me with these statements, is the same person who “accidentally” pooped his pants in first grade. He, like a lot of people I know actually, had a fear of going #2 in public.
Sometimes accidents happen, as it was so clearly explained to me by my mother.
“A diaphragm doesn’t always work, Dayna. Sperm meets egg, they do a little dance together and BOOM! Baby #3 is on the way!”
The explanation of my accidental conception was the closet to “the talk” I ever had. Until age 18, I had no idea what diaphragm she was talking about. The only diaphragm I knew was in a person’s chest and had something to do with breathing. I didn’t understand what a breathing defect had to do with becoming pregnant.
To reinforce my feelings of unwantedness, there was the dining situation. Our kitchen table had four chairs with assigned seating. Being the youngest, I did not to get one of those seats since seat assignments were doled out before I was born. Instead, I sat on the high stool at the breakfast bar adjacent to the table where everyone else was eating. It was as though I lost a cruel round of musical chairs.
“You get your own ’special seat’, ” my mom would say. “You get to be higher than everyone else.”
With my extra large Holly Hobby doll sitting on the stool beside me, we stared at the blue and white checkered wallpaper. I would mull over this “special seating” situation while everyone else watched Wheel of Fortune. From my stool I couldn’t see the television, so I grew to despise Pat and Vanna. I cringe whenever I hear the theme song.
Plus, Jeopardy, which followed “The Wheel”, is so much more intellectually stimulating. Not to mention, dinner was over by then and I could sit a foot away from the screen and attempt to know the answers. We didn’t know it was bad for our eyes to sit so close to the television, just like we didn’t know eating raw chopped meat might give us salmonella or riding our bikes without helmets was dangerous.
Levittown was not exactly the mecca of diversity. In fact, as the story goes William Levitt was accepting applicants for his new housing development, he turned down those who did not fit the white, Catholic, churchgoing Mr. Joe blue collar worker and Susie homemaker with their 2.5 kids and pooch Sparky, mold. When a face of a darker shade walked through the streets of Levittown, there was talk.
So being Jewish was a foreign concept growing up in Levittown, even 40 years after the town was developed. *Jenny Katz, Jeff Rosenbloom, and Kara Biacci (she was 1/2 Jewish) understood what a dreidel was or that when I said “my keppe hurt” to the nurse, it meant I had a headache. I got strange looks on the playground when I told dirty-faced kids they had schmutz on their faces. I soon stopped using the Hebrew and Yiddish words my great-grandmother taught me for fear one of my friends would think I was trying to loosen phlegm. Unlike some of the neighboring towns, Levittown was not exactly a “Jewish town.”
I didn’t understand when my friend Jamie went to religion class on Saturday mornings instead of watching the Smurfs and eating Pilsbury cinnamon buns (the ones with the gooey white icing) why I didn’t go. Or why I couldn’t go to Catholic school when her parents thought about sending her. I didn’t understand why Santa didn’t come to our house; was I bad? Did I do something wrong? And if I was bad, why didn’t I even get coal? I wasn’t even good enough for coal?
It’s amazing how it took me so long to get to therapy.
On my third birthday I got a pair of Jordache jeans from my sister. Until that point in my life, vinyl plaid pants and one-piece jumpsuits were really hip, so jeans were a new and unusual treat for me. I remember getting so excited I stripped out of my white summer dress on the spot to try them on. I often ran around naked as a little girl, especially at night to escape the chicken my family convinced me was in my Bert and Ernie feetie pajamas. As I tried to pull those Jordache suckers up, my not-so-little tush got in the way. I couldn’t button them. My little three-year-old birthday heart was broken.
I grew up in the laundry room. I sat separately from the rest of my family at dinner. Santa didn’t visit my house, even though we had a Christmas tree (Hanukah bush). I truly believed a chicken lived in my favorite pajamas.
Is it any no wonder I became an overanxious, neurotic person with body image issues who doesn’t wear pajamas and hardly eats chicken?
*Names of my former Jewish and 1/2 Jewish classmates in this story were changed to protect the innocent (or maybe not so innocent).
1 Comment
November 5, 2008 at 6:23 pm
You should write books. You have once again drawn me in and caused me to badly procrastinate. I haven’t visited your website since you first sent it to me…I kept saying “okay, I’ll read ONE more” but every time I got to a new one, the first line caught me every time. More please.