Glass
Broken glass lay scattered on the dirty kitchen floor, untouched.
I circled it on tiptoe every day as I tried to reach the toaster on the counter, making myself something to eat before I left to trudge through the snow to the bus stop.
Stretching over the counter, I reached for the bread, keeping my feet safely away from the sprinkling of glass. I perfected this stretching move over the weeks that the broken glass stayed there. Living the way we did required many specific stretches and maneuvers to move safely throughout the house. There was no such thing as simply walking a straight line between Point A and Point B in our house. Even in the short distance between the couch and the piano, a barely-navigable maze of stuff teetered ominously. The "turn and squeeze" move got you through the piles of junk between the living room and the dining room (although we never ate in there, the dining table also being covered in junk). A combination of climbing and crawling was necessary to traverse the piles of old computers, boxes of clothes, and stacks of papers in the family room, allowing you to reach the tall bookshelves by the never-used fireplace.
I was not allowed to move, rearrange, or throw anything away without permission - and that permission was rarely granted. Mom collected things compulsively, and never got rid of anything. Just a hint that something in her overflowing piles of stuff might be better off donated or tossed in the trash was often enough to induce hysterical, crying anxiety. She was what is known as a "hoarder," although that wasn't a word I would learn for many years.
A piece of paper covered most of the pile of broken glass, roughly torn, and, like the floor, dirty.
was scrawled on it in green crayon, a smiley face drawn underneath. Mom's handwriting was as familiar to me as her face.
I don't remember what had broken (probably a water glass) or who had dropped it, only that Mom hadn't been able to find a broom or dustpan in any of the piles of clutter crowding the house, so she did what she apparently saw as the second-most responsible solution: she swept the glass into a slightly smaller surface area using a scrap of cardboard, then left a note on top so Dad*(my stepdad) and I wouldn't accidentally step on a shard and slice one of our feet open. My little sister was usually confined to her play pen or Mom and Dad's bedroom, so she wasn't a concern for foot-slicing.
A few days after whatever-it-was originally shattered, Mom finally found a broom. I had never seen it before, or indeed, ever seen her sweep the kitchen floor in this house. Actually, I hadn't seen her clean at all since we moved here a year ago.
"Now I just have to find the dustpan, and we'll be good to go!" Mom chirped cheerfully, almost alarmingly so. I'd just gotten back home from school. She made me a piece of toast and asked if I had homework. I answered, as I always did, that I was going to do my homework in my bedroom. (There was no other space in the house with a clean area for my notebooks in the same vicinity as a clean, comfortable place to sit. Sometimes Mom or Dad came into my bedroom to sit at my desk and write a grocery list or a note, since it was the only place in the house where it was comfortable to do so.)
"I'm going to lie down for a while, but I'll be up to make dinner later, okay?" Mom said.
"Okay," I answered. In most of my memories of my mom, she's in bed. I used to beg her to get up sometimes, to please come upstairs and be with us. I feel bad about that now, but children don’t understand the nuances of adults’ mental or physical illnesses.
One week later, Mom still hadn't acquired a dustpan, or thought of any other solution for the broken glass. The broom leaning against the counter kept its sideways guard over the glass and warning note. Finally, right after Dad came home from work one day, she begged him to help her find a way to clean up the broken glass. He didn't seem either thrilled or bothered by its presence, but then, I surmised, he was much taller than me so it was easier to ignore. He could lean over and reach the counter, toaster, and cupboards with no trouble, glass or no glass.
"I'm worried about our daughter cutting her feet!" Mom moaned at him, not hysterical like she sometimes got, but definitely crying, angry. She seemed as helpless as my baby sister to me at that moment, and that made a knot of pity, fear, and revulsion twist around my heart.
Dad groaned, moaned, and muttered, but he eventually hauled the vacuum out from beneath a pile of clothes, church newsletters, knick knacks, books, and newspaper ads in the living room. I almost never saw our vacuum cleaner. Since the carpet in any given room was rarely visible, there was no way to vacuum it, even if this type of home maintenance was something my mom was at all interested in (which, clearly, she was not).
When Dad was done vacuuming up the glass, he left the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the kitchen floor. There was no closet with space to fit it in, anyway. I chose to believe he left it there as a favor to Mom, so that if something else broke in the kitchen, she would be aware of where the vacuum was and might clean it up herself.
Mom's smiley-face-adorned, green-crayoned note warning us not to step on broken glass lay forgotten on the kitchen floor the next morning as I happily made my cinnamon toast in the glass-free kitchen. Dad was already at work, choosing to go in early and stay late rather than spend much time at home. Mom was in bed. (She woke up to see me off to school on picture day and my birthday, but today was neither.) Since I wasn't allowed to throw anything away without Mom's permission, I left the note where it was. Eventually, a mixture of food spills and grime over the long months of my second-grade year glued it to the floor. It stayed there, only disappearing when the sink flooded part of the floor two years later, and the note finally washed away or disintegrated.
I circled it on tiptoe every day as I tried to reach the toaster on the counter, making myself something to eat before I left to trudge through the snow to the bus stop.
Stretching over the counter, I reached for the bread, keeping my feet safely away from the sprinkling of glass. I perfected this stretching move over the weeks that the broken glass stayed there. Living the way we did required many specific stretches and maneuvers to move safely throughout the house. There was no such thing as simply walking a straight line between Point A and Point B in our house. Even in the short distance between the couch and the piano, a barely-navigable maze of stuff teetered ominously. The "turn and squeeze" move got you through the piles of junk between the living room and the dining room (although we never ate in there, the dining table also being covered in junk). A combination of climbing and crawling was necessary to traverse the piles of old computers, boxes of clothes, and stacks of papers in the family room, allowing you to reach the tall bookshelves by the never-used fireplace.
I was not allowed to move, rearrange, or throw anything away without permission - and that permission was rarely granted. Mom collected things compulsively, and never got rid of anything. Just a hint that something in her overflowing piles of stuff might be better off donated or tossed in the trash was often enough to induce hysterical, crying anxiety. She was what is known as a "hoarder," although that wasn't a word I would learn for many years.
A piece of paper covered most of the pile of broken glass, roughly torn, and, like the floor, dirty.
BROKEN GLASS-
DO NOT STEP ON!!!
was scrawled on it in green crayon, a smiley face drawn underneath. Mom's handwriting was as familiar to me as her face.
I don't remember what had broken (probably a water glass) or who had dropped it, only that Mom hadn't been able to find a broom or dustpan in any of the piles of clutter crowding the house, so she did what she apparently saw as the second-most responsible solution: she swept the glass into a slightly smaller surface area using a scrap of cardboard, then left a note on top so Dad*(my stepdad) and I wouldn't accidentally step on a shard and slice one of our feet open. My little sister was usually confined to her play pen or Mom and Dad's bedroom, so she wasn't a concern for foot-slicing.
A few days after whatever-it-was originally shattered, Mom finally found a broom. I had never seen it before, or indeed, ever seen her sweep the kitchen floor in this house. Actually, I hadn't seen her clean at all since we moved here a year ago.
"Now I just have to find the dustpan, and we'll be good to go!" Mom chirped cheerfully, almost alarmingly so. I'd just gotten back home from school. She made me a piece of toast and asked if I had homework. I answered, as I always did, that I was going to do my homework in my bedroom. (There was no other space in the house with a clean area for my notebooks in the same vicinity as a clean, comfortable place to sit. Sometimes Mom or Dad came into my bedroom to sit at my desk and write a grocery list or a note, since it was the only place in the house where it was comfortable to do so.)
"I'm going to lie down for a while, but I'll be up to make dinner later, okay?" Mom said.
"Okay," I answered. In most of my memories of my mom, she's in bed. I used to beg her to get up sometimes, to please come upstairs and be with us. I feel bad about that now, but children don’t understand the nuances of adults’ mental or physical illnesses.
One week later, Mom still hadn't acquired a dustpan, or thought of any other solution for the broken glass. The broom leaning against the counter kept its sideways guard over the glass and warning note. Finally, right after Dad came home from work one day, she begged him to help her find a way to clean up the broken glass. He didn't seem either thrilled or bothered by its presence, but then, I surmised, he was much taller than me so it was easier to ignore. He could lean over and reach the counter, toaster, and cupboards with no trouble, glass or no glass.
"I'm worried about our daughter cutting her feet!" Mom moaned at him, not hysterical like she sometimes got, but definitely crying, angry. She seemed as helpless as my baby sister to me at that moment, and that made a knot of pity, fear, and revulsion twist around my heart.
Dad groaned, moaned, and muttered, but he eventually hauled the vacuum out from beneath a pile of clothes, church newsletters, knick knacks, books, and newspaper ads in the living room. I almost never saw our vacuum cleaner. Since the carpet in any given room was rarely visible, there was no way to vacuum it, even if this type of home maintenance was something my mom was at all interested in (which, clearly, she was not).
When Dad was done vacuuming up the glass, he left the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the kitchen floor. There was no closet with space to fit it in, anyway. I chose to believe he left it there as a favor to Mom, so that if something else broke in the kitchen, she would be aware of where the vacuum was and might clean it up herself.
Mom's smiley-face-adorned, green-crayoned note warning us not to step on broken glass lay forgotten on the kitchen floor the next morning as I happily made my cinnamon toast in the glass-free kitchen. Dad was already at work, choosing to go in early and stay late rather than spend much time at home. Mom was in bed. (She woke up to see me off to school on picture day and my birthday, but today was neither.) Since I wasn't allowed to throw anything away without Mom's permission, I left the note where it was. Eventually, a mixture of food spills and grime over the long months of my second-grade year glued it to the floor. It stayed there, only disappearing when the sink flooded part of the floor two years later, and the note finally washed away or disintegrated.
I don't do google, but thank you for posting this. I would smuggle garbage out of the house in my school back pack and throw it away at school. I too was not allowed to throw anything away, even broken glass. And there was never a broom and dust pan available.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I remember smuggling out trash and hiding it in the neighbors' bin. Thank you for reading!
DeleteI'm happy you are doing this! I clinked on the FB ACOH link!
ReplyDelete