Jodie

The Girl

I see her mopping the kitchen as we play on the patio.  She is meticulous, maybe fastidious with her need for order and cleanliness.  And, I am amazed by the weird juxtaposition of her scrubbing, washing, cooking and vacuuming with the picture of Jodie, blond curls bouncing, baby blue eyes glazed over with intent, and that damn cigarette hanging on her lip, the ash an inch long. How did she manage all the clean, and all the sparkle, and never once did I see the ash drop.  It is as if she willed it not to fall on her clean floor, or into the mashed potatoes, or scatter onto the fresh laundry.

Here we are…the four of us visiting for a few weeks of summer vacation.  Once the chores are done we will be taken to the pool at a local swim club, along with our three cousins and a couple neighborhood friends. Controlled chaos will ensue. We just got in late last night…I was not all that excited to leave my new boyfriend behind for 3 weeks in the summer but had no choice.  Oh the dreamboat boy…tall, and blond, and just yummy. 

He picked me and here we are….me not really old enough to date, but definitely old enough to feel the longing. None of us really date, we just run in packs, gathering at the odd home open to us for our parties.  We play records, dance and make out.  The pairing is totally controlled by the boys.  So, I show up and am immediately attached to Art.  He invited me to the party and was my initial ticket into the group. He was a really nice boy…Italian and of course a bit geeky (my type).  Well this would be when “my type” changed a bit.  Adam was on the move (Adam the leader of the the pack—the one my mom eventually nicknamed hot lips).  He was  looking for the newest conquest AND it turned out to be me.  As the unwritten law among the boys went,  Art bows out and I am chosen.  What a ritual….anyway, I am in and Sharon is out along with Art.  The new order…Adam is my match for what turns out to be a full two years.

Back to Jodie…she is my aunt and she is a dynamo.  It is clear that she presents as the blond cutie to my mom (her sister) the tall redhead with the vavoom who has a taste for men with more color and “personality” than what is acceptable to the family norm.  Jodie tows the line as she married the good German farmer and hatched three kiddles with white hair and blue eyes.  Whereas, my mom got me with the brown tone and dark eyes…curls, yes but not blond and not demure.

Jodie the doll…she could have been the model for the Chatty Kathy doll, petite and bubbly.  The perfect little housewife who managed whatever came her way…a good Catholic who married the farmer who moved her from the plains to the city in order to join the post war march into industry.

But there was that one noticeable streak of rebellion, the cigarette.  Not that smoking was considered risqué back then as everyone smoked…even the women.  But there were some rules that when disregarded showed a lack of decorum in young women. By chain smoking and dangling the ash, Jodie challenged the expectations of all good girls.

What I learned later about my aunt was that she harbored a secret spirit.  She told me once I was grown and we were on the same level (being married adult women with families) that she had the soul of a Mexican cantina girl….a dancer, drinker and smoker dressed in bright skirts and low cut blouses.  She believed that this was her identity in a previous life.  We discussed how that it could just as easily be a portent of things to come in the next life.  I think we considered that this exotic existence might be foreshadowing her time in purgatory where having sinned (a lot), she would repent and be cleansed. 

Jodie

Well, there she is…not really a child anymore.  Who does she think she is fooling with that scarf tied around her neck?  A hickie, for the love of God…is she really ready for all this? Not my place to counsel her either.  If she only understood how little we know about ourselves when we start with the “feelings”.  This one is destined to be a challenge, to herself most of all.  She has a good heart, but she is way too hungry for approval and affection from them…you know, the fathers and boyfriends.  How do we slow it all down a bit?

I was a young woman not too much older than she is now when she was born.  She was my first niece and so special.  Not long after her arrival, I married my Sam and began this journey. It is not bad, but not enough sometimes.  What is it that I am made for?  Not so sure, yet anyway.

I wish I could be the one who goes her own way and curses the naysayers.  I have this inner self that is caught in a web.  Is she real?  Was she once me or is she my next person?  I don’t think good Catholics believe in reincarnation or past lives…but, who said I was a “good” Catholic.  I just need to get through these rapids, the teen years for the kids, and then maybe I will find that place where I am not afraid to find out who the senorita in the bright red skirt is.

Just look at this girl!  She is teetering on the edge of a cliff and doesn’t know she has other choices that don’t include jumping and trying to fly or just carefully walking back down the pathway.  There are other pathways.  How do I tell her?  How do I convince her to wait, to be choosy and to expect more?  How do I let her know that she has the power to make her own life?  How do I convince her that she can do what I never did?

Jodie posing with her mom looking on…with apprehension or envy…definitely a portent of things to come.