The glass jar terrarium

I remember dark windows and bright colored walls, a table of empty egg cartons and glass jars and pipe cleaners, and buttons and glue. I remember the room with several toilets lined up in a row, with a partial glass wall, but mostly, just toilets.

I don’t remember using that washroom with other toddlers in it but I remember getting older and thinking it was odd. Because I know we all did use them. Who would send their child to a daycare there was an open room with toilets, were we all used the bathroom, and could be watched by the day care workers?

I remember my best friend Anna would race me to hug onto my mom’s knees, because my mom came before hers and we used to drive her home a lot too. One day we arrived and there were millions (or what seemed like millions) of HUGE cardboard boxes in the middle of the room. I knew I was going to make a castle and be a princess. I know there would be a mote, and towers and a draw bridge. We even had a horse head on a stick that kids would ride around on, ride around my castle.

I remember one day we built terrariums in glass jars with small plants and moss, rocks and water. I remember these jars looked like the jars baby food came in. They had rubber rings on the inside that we were told wouldn’t let them leak.

I remember racing to the car with Anna to see who got to the front door first and who would get to sit next to my mom, up front, and see out the big window.  I remember running, but I don’t remember when I fell.

I opened my eyes and I was on the floor, of the daycare office, facing the ceiling with the bright lights. Had I ever been in this room before now? There weren’t bright colors, just grey walls, a desk and lights that blinked. I remember what people’s faces looked like staring down at me, they were so concerned, and my mom had tears running down her face, and Anna wasn’t there anymore. Where did Anna go?

Then I was in the back seat of my mom’s car, but my mom wasn’t driving she was in the back holding my head up, and that’s when I remember seeing the blood on her hands. There was blood on my Oshkosh blue jeans too, and my pink sweater was stained and ripped. I couldn’t move my hands very much; they were both bandaged and felt numb, my tiny finger nails with bright blue nail polish stuck out. I remember straining my head yup to see out of the backseat windows but being pushed back down into the seat.

 There weren’t any sounds, since we were running to the car with our glass jars Anna and I. My mom spoke to me now through muted lips.

The howling wind

The howl tells me the wind is coming, moving forward as the trees respond almost like dominos bowing to their king of momentum. My arm hair stands up on end as the cold mist and wind whoosh past my body. I swallow hard and move my hands up to clutch my skin as if somehow it would keep me warm. I am underdressed for such an occasion.

The grey, black, blue mist that intertwine to make the sky, twirls above my head. I look over the collection of trees in front of me and out across the water, where a cloud of birds burst into the horizon as they take off suddenly. I can hear their squawking, and then it dissipates slowly before finally fading into a purr that I recognize, I often woke up to this sound, it was natural, almost comforting since it let me know I wasn’t totally alone here.

The ice pops and cracks as if it doesn’t want to wake up, its grumbles, its sounds growing more faint as it readjusts  back into its winter slumber. The ashy arms and hands of smoke curl up my nostrils and turn my attention momentarily back inside. I notice the laughter of the fire is dying, time to put another log of wood into play. 

I need to chop more logs and split kindling before it gets too late in the day. The salty taste on dad’s rough coat is bitter as I bite the neck and grip the zipper while slipping on his winter boots to venture out back. The place where the large logs are neatly stacked in a pile is just far enough away that the wind has a chance to lick my neck and cover my skin with millions of goose-bumps that seem to crawl down my back.

My arm burns as the weight of the axe settles in. The sky’s cold colors are churning rapidly now, and the animals and birds have long found hiding spots. After  a few swings there laying on the crunchy snow covered ground is my heat source, logs, enough to keep me warm for the next few days and nights. The long howls of the wind now a bully trying to push me back towards the frozen grey lake. I can see the snow running across it, being chased by the same howling wind. “It doesn’t give up does it.” I hear my voice proclaim aloud as I look over my shoulder just about to reach the green back door.

 I notice it feels easy holding the axe my arm flexes and it seems lighter somehow. The door is locked but the wind seems furious now, surging up, and wailing one last time before it retreats. I feel my eyes squint as a smile turns up my face, and I can finally settle in front of the fire.  

The Warehouse Store

The lights used to buzz above my head in the morning, they buzzed, even when everyone else claimed it was a ringing inside of my head. I could pin point exactly which light was buzzing, I would walk around until the sound rang perfectly clear, I would look up, and there was the florescent, blinking at me like it was about to burn out.  Occasionally I would stare at them until they did seem to through in the towel and go black. It was peaceful then, when you could hear the hum of the building as it geared up for its day.

The concrete had rolls and dips in it to, but I didn’t mind that so much, it made walking into the fitting rooms with an arm full of clothing all the more adventurous. Carful there is a di-…..and splat!! Another one bites the dust….customers would always fall down. Eventually they put up a wet floor sign, which we all forgot wasn’t a permanent fixture until there was, another bathroom flood, a coffee-spill, or a sick child threw up in the children’s section of the store, and the cone like sign had to be re-located temporarily.

Those were the fun days, where we were so busy we could have forgotten our own names, as anxious Christmas shoppers literally fought each other over OLD NAVY branded fleece or clearance priced Shirts and basics marked down to just a few dollars, all the while having to warm every single person entering the fitting rooms, or “fits” for short, about the dip in the floor. I was the ‘Service Driver” the one who called all the shots, well at least in my little cave that was “fits” sheltered away from the rest of the store.

I put every customer in a fitting room, new them by name, checked on them, got sizes, built them outfits based on one or two or twenty-five articles they brought into the fitting room with them. I got so good at it, I could tell if something was going to fit before they asked for the item in a different size and had one in the appropriate size waiting. Even when they didn’t ask, sometimes I could coax them to try their best size and was always delighted to how grateful people were when their clothing just worked.

Mothers with wee one got my best baby-sitting service, and one even proclaimed I was the “baby-whisperer” as I cooed her screaming child into a deep sleep, all the while calling for my runner to bring her tunic dress in a 6 short. My eye for shape, cut, style and size extended beyond conscious thought, it had become truly intuitive.

The top 40 music tracks that played over and over, that other staff used to complain about always faded away, the rhythm of the “fits” took shape as soon as we opened the doors in the morning. Excited shoppers on missions would come in with piles and piles of clothes stacked on their arms like they were salvaging them from their burning homes. Busy workers ran in on their lunch breaks, checking their watches and sighing, teenagers and working parents came in after school let out to search for school basic, or gym clothes.

The pace didn’t calm down until the early evening when I once again became aware of the sound of the oldest florescence as they audibly chirped and popped above my head, as if to proclaim they too had put in a long day of lighting up the warehouse-style retail super store.

A piece of me...

The first time I could speak about my learning disability without looking at my feet I knew I had come a long way, it’s true, and you do go through a period of denial. All I wanted for a long time was to wake up from the horrible dream and hear that I was normal, like everyone else around me. 

After I took my year off from in between second and third year, and came back to class I experienced the fear I knew all too well again. I didn’t like the thought of going into a class where I knew no-one, and where nobody knew me either.

 I was shocked when I heard out of someone’s mouth who was just getting to know me that I was perceived as being the quiet smart girl, who only spoke when I had something brilliant to say.  I thought back in that moment to every word that I had ever spoken in class, I searched my brain for the brilliance others where sure I had exhibited. After a short period I told myself this person was just trying to flatter me, that this couldn’t possibly be the truth, that they just didn’t know me yet.

After a period of adjustment, just like in my past, I was back in the swing of things, laughing and candidly sharing in discussion around the table in the centre of our small class room. The hot flashes and red cheeks, that used to be an instant reaction to being called on by a prof, had cooled. I was all but fully comfortable in my element and felt part of the middle, the segment I had longed for years prior. I wanted to be part of the middle demographic of students who did well, but weren’t snobby top dogs, nor a slacker who struggled even to make it to class on-time.

Even when I work hard I struggle to take on the lime light, relying on my new favorite catch phrase “I’m merely faking it until I make it”. Praise, accolades, trophies, and awards feel borrowed, like any day they won’t be home when I arrive. I guess I had imagined my future at the tender age of 11 or 12 to be, working for my parents, on some incredible-sounding make-work project they would dreamed up for me, out of pity, or perhaps some new project to make use of the limited skill set I could attribute as mine during my adolescence.

I do try hard, I do, and I would be the first person to tell someone that, and I think I have in interviews, I guess I want people to know that even the level of work coming out of me is the result of something like five drafts that took longer than the average student to muster together.

I guess I am still trying to get a grip, that I can perform, that I can do well, that maybe I have used the hurtle of the disability that used to be crippling to rise above it. Strangely I have overcome a struggle, why I choose a communications degree is beyond me, but I’m graduating this year, so I must have done something right.

I'm new at this

So, I have never had a blog before, besides the blog we had to write for our pr ethics course, if anyone really considered that a real blog, anyways our whole class could read them, now the whole world can read this, WOW.

This is a step forward then, anyone could readily search and discover this, or no one could, I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Signing off now, is that what we are supposted to say? Until next time?....see you again soon,

Love, Nicole