"I like him so much, and he is so cute.
His eyes are soft and brown, just like a dog's ears
If the dog's name was Velvet Ears."
-- Julie C. Ball, excerpted from Milton Elementary Love Sonnets, 1981
Aside from watching your own pants fall to your ankles in slow motion, few moments are more keenly embarrassing than discovering old love poems, especially odes we penned before we ever were truly in love.
It's hard to describe the sensation. It's a bit like being caught eating an entire tub of Cool Whip with your fingers, or someone interrupting your private bathroom-mirror dance club. You feel like the cow at the State Fair with windows through her hide to show how cud passes between all four stomachs.
"Stale ashes linger
On the corner of the bed;
My soul pyre burns yet."
-- Julie C. Ball, excerpted from Ridiculous Love Haikus, 1999
Upon resurfacing, our forgotten attempts at verse reveal our true inner selves. A light shines suddenly on our souls, at least the regions therein that spawned such fruity, flowery verse. Left long unread in a notebook, a candy box, a hope chest or a Trapper Keeper for months, years, decades or scores, these poorly-stitched literary Frankensteins emerge with mortifying boos. They're palpably painful, undeniably comical, and we cannot look away.
"To show my ruined heart to the light of day is
A luxury I cannot yet afford.
The dog needs breakfast and
Her cold nose brings me back to reality."
-- Julie C. Ball, excerpted from Ludicrous Love Free Verse, 1997
A couple of friends ridiculed me lately because I mentioned Owen is ready for some straight talk about the sexes. My pals cited that he's eight and too young. I disagree. I don't remember when I had my first crush, but I'm pretty sure it was in kindergarten or first grade.
I wrote early, so it wasn't long once I grasped writing rather than speaking my deepest emotions that I began to nervously scribble how I felt about my crushes. Granted I was so afraid my older sister would find my writings and read them out loud on the school bus that for about a year I would write down how I felt on notebook paper, then almost immediately tear my words into hundreds of pieces. At that time, it was enough just to pin words to my emotions, even at the risk of swift sibling ridicule.
"When you look at me, I feel like I'm riding a tornado.
Your glasses make you look so smart and sexy."
-- Julie C. Ball, excerpt from Ode to an Unrequited Nerd Vol. I, 1984
For my 10th birthday, someone gave me a little orange-bound diary with a lock. Problems solved. Here, I could devote myself to the futile sport of perfecting love poetry. Just who I thought would read these spectacular declarations in the future, I have never been too certain. Lord knows I would rather have been keelhauled than admit they existed, much less forward to the intended party. I ran across my cardboard-bound ego bomb last year when we moved, and I honestly blushed. Who knew a little girl fresh from her first read of "Gone With the Wind" could wax romantic with such complete confidence on the page, yet so little in the flesh?
Eventually, I got knocked around by love, and cynicism rose at last in the poet's breast. My unrequited and/or bitter romantic experiences were somehow the best. These venomous gospels remain the most breathlessly readable of all. Like the others before, these were not read by the intended parties, either -- as God is my witness, I hope that was the case.
"I love you so well, I forget about it.
You belch without a thought.
You eat the last of the waffles right in front of me."
-- Julie C. Ball, excerpted from Angry Graceless Breakup Poems, 1998
When Chris and I began dating in 1999, I had no way of knowing here was the man about whom I would pen my most honest and heartfelt prose. For the first time, I actually shared my lovey dovey poetry with the fellow who inspired it. Flat-footed disclosure proved a whole other experience and worth decades of my own expectation.
"Your love is my life's greatest gift..."
-- Julie Ball Hambrick, excerpted from Truths My Husband Taught Me, 2001
Did this new sense of completion with Chris make me want to go back and share my earlier work with earlier guys? Quite the opposite is true. Once I realized what true love, honesty and a lack of embarrassment can mean when they all happen simultaneously, I thanked Heaven that paranoia of first my sister's opinion, then everyone else's, forced me into literary seclusion.
Better to have loved and lost? Probably, but keep -- don't send -- both copies, and above all, burn your notes.
No matter how lenient or savvy our parents were, we all got away with things as juveniles that Ma and Pa Ingalls still don't know about. In the interest of full disclosure, especially once we ourselves have also become parents, we often get the itch to crack open a bottle of wine and share laughs with Mom or Dad about our teenage monkeyshines.
I admit I fell from grace many times in high school and college, almost always with comical consequences and none too serious. Granted, the tricks my friends and I pulled rivaled frequent plot devices on "Happy Days": underage beer, fast cars, the opposite sex and our secret post-sundown maneuvers to get them all. I don't know everything my own mother and dad did before they married, but I gather it was similarly colorful.
It's been two decades since I finished college and I've been a mom myself for eight years now, so I assumed the time had come for some straight girl talk with my mom. Truth be told, I looked forward to it and plotted the right time for our chat. I finally decided this past Christmas would provide ample opportunity for a warm and only slightly wicked (I envisioned) retelling and rewriting of our mutual history.
Let me break in here and give a bit more insight about my misadventures. Following my own corruption, I went on to corrupt a few other novices along the way. No names, but know this: no one ever saw the inside of a jail as a result of my devices. There remains the matter of an unsolved 1988 destruction of private property case, but I'll simply repeat what I told the police at the time: "I did not play mailbox baseball that night." The fact that no one asked me who was driving the alleged car was an error on local law enforcement -- and, therefore, not my problem.
I don't think Mom saw my line of conversation coming at her. I waited until we'd both watched enough of the "White Christmas" marathon and wrassled enough pies into and out of her oven. We were both exhausted and retired to her unheated garage for a smoke. Not exactly a warm and fuzzy International Coffee moment in front of the fire, as I'd imagined, but I pushed on undeterred. I wanted it.
I'd worked myself up for this talk the whole four hours it took my little family to drive to my mom's house, during several last-last-minute trips to Wal-mart for forgotten and/or ultimately unnecessary holiday items, and through hours of FOX News that blared from her bedroom at all hours, including through the night until her TV sleep timer snicked into merciful silence at the refreshing hour of 3 a.m. I needed a warm, enlightening, funny talk that was meant just for the two of us, to shed light on the girls we'd been and the women we've become. Don't start humming "The Way We Were" just yet, though.
My in came soon. Between Pall Mall puffs, she was telling me how one of my uncles recently told her he drank moonshine (granted, we're Kentuckians, but it was still news for our family.) I laughed with her and began. "That reminds me of a funny story. Remember Stan Starling, who was in marching band with me? Remember how I would take him home from practice? He never had any gas money, so he paid me with a quart jar of moonshine once." I laughed as I told her.
Now, if this had been a "Happy Days" Christmas reunion special, Mr. Cunningham would have turned to Richie and a) admitted he'd always known about it; b) clapped him on the back and told him a similarly funny/inappropriate story about his Army days; or, c) put his arm around Richie, smiled at him, then wished him a Merry Christmas. Life doesn't always imitate art. And yes, I consider "Happy Days" art.
It took a few moments for me to recognize the next sound. It was her silence. I looked up to meet her eyes, then I saw and heard two phenomena I hadn't experienced in at least a decade. She said my name, but my whole premarriage triple name "Julie ... Carol ... BALL!" And the look she gave me resembled the one I got when she caught me frying a grilled cheese with the plastic Kraft singles wrappers still on at age 7.
I realized too late I would never be old enough for what I imagined would be a warm exchange of little white lies. Some mamas never want their babies to lie to them, never not never ever, and they do not appreciate the news that they've been laboring under a huge web of deception, which spread further and further as the story came out.
What followed this tidbit was a strict line of questioning, which she controlled ("What did you do with it?" "We drank it" "Where?" "In my bedroom" "When?" "At the slumber party" "Who was there?" Names omitted to protect the innocent. "Where was I?" "Asleep" "Julie ... Carol ... BALL!")
She pumped me for further information, further unknown incidents. I opened my mouth and out spilled a garbled, graceless wad of repressed truths with no comedic context to soften the blow. I realized what I knew as a teenager. As long as I continued to maintain eye contact with her, I was sunk. I jumped out of my chair and pretended to adjust her trash can liners. Then, she began lobbing guilt grenades at my head, "where had she gone wrong," "parents can't be everywhere you know," "I just did the best I could," etc.
I turned around to her, threw out my hands, and admitted I was sorry for keeping all this from her (which I most certainly was NOT) and that I had imagined our little talk going differently. I had hoped we'd just talk as women, as friends, about mistakes we made as kids and how we got through them without our parents' knowledge. She didn't say anything at first, then she snuffed out her cigarette and stood up. I waited for her to say something fit for a holiday special. She did not disappoint: "Some things are better left unsaid." How true.
"Now, come in here and help me with this damn ham," she added. At this last, I danced to life. I was transported back to when I was a kid and her vengeance was swift, but never long lived, and I felt all warm and fuzzy. Does that make sense? Not unless you know my family, and luckily, I do.
So instead of a Cafe Vienna moment, us girls shared Folgers and cigarettes. It was a more comforting moment, after all -- that and the knowledge that she still cared enough about me to get mad and use once more all three names with which I entered her world.
Happy days -- at least one -- indeed.
Unlike many fellow survivors of allegedly enlightened 1970's childhoods, I did not get a nighttime visit from my mom to learn about the birds and the bees. I found out about sex from a black-and-white doctor's hygiene pamphlet ... with illustrations that resembled something best observed from beneath a microscope.
So when our son began asking questions about where babies come from, I made sure from an early age that I told him truthfully all he needed to know, in simplest terms, to walk away satisfied. That strategy served me well for years, until this year ... 2015 ... the year of the elephant (in the room).
It has become evident that Owen has become extremely curious about the differences between boys and girls. Stupidly, I somehow assumed I would have more warning, like they'd send home a notice from school in a few years that "it's time for THE talk, parents!" I don't know if this recent curiosity coincides with his new bus-riding routine, but it matters not from whence it comes. It's here now.
I've recently endured many a probing question and an unfortunate incident when Owen pantsed a lingerie mannequin at JC Penney to find out what lies beneath. That's why Chris and I have agreed that this is the week for the initial true and real sex talk, and we've both begun to craft our talking points. One thing is clear at the get-go: the kid wants the truth, and he wants visual aids.
Where do you start, besides the obvious? It's an overwhelming thought, and you only get one chance to do it right. You consider that how you reveal this great mystery to your child could shape his worldview for the rest of his life. Few moments are so clearly defined and recognized as this. I don't want to bore him with clinical talk or fool him with vanilla-coated allegories, nor do I want to pull him too fast and hard into the realm of adulthood, for once that seal is broken, it cannot be pasted back over his eyes.
I want to ensure he understands the importance of love, trust and respect. Chris wants to make sure he doesn't go out and educate his entire class with new-found knowledge. I agree. None of us want to be the parents that get that phone call from the teacher because their kid is interjecting the word 'genitals' into the second-grade lexicon.
Unfortunately, we live in a time when our children's innocence has become progressively fleet. Gone are the carefree days when sexuality didn't really become an issue for young ones until they were on the cusp of that wondrous change. Now, if parents want to control the conversation for their child, they have to initiate it far sooner than Nature, or other strangers will.
Chris thinks Renaissance paintings will provide a positive visual aid for Owen. I think I'm okay with that, especially when I consider the alternatives for enlightenment. And I'm willing to risk a lifelong obsession with scarves and grape leaves to provide him a lovely first look. More to come.
