Ealain

Six years ago today you were born and six months later your dad, my brother, died. I met you once at his memorial. I only saw you for a moment. I heard you crying the whole time. That is all I know of you.

I know that you live in California so I looked up your mom’s name on the online white pages. I found a number that I think might be you; it’s in the same town that your dad died and my dad once told me that your mom’s parents lived there so I’m hoping that you are still living there. I tried calling but got voicemail: one of those electronic voices that don’t tell me whether it is you or not. I’ll try back later.

See, I never got to know your dad well. He was in the Air Force and traveled all over. I have three memories of him in my whole life. But what I knew of him, I loved. He was seventeen years older than me and he got the respect from me that you probably give your big brother. Complete adoration. I regret never knowing him better. That’s one reason I want to try to get in touch with you. I don’t want that to happen with us.

I’ve tried to imagine what you are like and what you look like. I imagine all different varients because I don’t know. I compare you to the other six year olds I know: Effie’s son Mick and Rissy’s daughter Emmy. They’re balls of energy zooming around, growing, and learning so much. That’s how I picture you.

I’ll try calling again tonight. I have it planned out. I’ll ask for your mom, and hopefully the phone number will be right. I’ll tell her who I am and why I’m calling. I’ll ask for her permission to know you, because I know how she feels about my father and that there is a good chance she’ll hang up the phone if she finds out I live with him now.

Sometimes I wonder if you know that I exist. I wonder how much you know about your dad: if your mom relives him by telling you stories or if it is a rough subject for her. I was only his half sister. I only met her once or twice. Maybe I wasn’t mentioned.

Either way, I hope someday you’ll know that I love you even without knowing you at all. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to love you, knowing everything about you.

In my psychology class a few semesters ago, the professor told us that children don’t store memories permanantly until they are about four or five unless the memory is tragic. I’ve always thought my first memories were from when I was five: When I jumped off an eight foot slide and broke my arm because the little boy landed on his feet and told me I could too. Refusing to go to kindergarden because my cousin told me it was horrible until the teacher convinced me at open house that I should go because they had tricycles. But tonight I realized that that isn’t true.

At supper we got to talking about the snow storm that’s been happening out by Angel. My dad started telling my stepmom about the time that we had an ice storm in Florida. He said that the ice fell on the power lines so much that power went out. That the well water was frozen. That they had a huge fire going to keep warm, burning logs. That it was seventeen degrees.

And then the memories started coming to me. I asked: “Did we have to stay at Grammas?” because I have a memory of sleeping in Gramma’s living room curled up with my older cousin Elle and younger cousin Ryan. I remember we were bundled up because it was really cold. He nodded yes. “In the livingroom?” He thought a minute and said yes. Then he said: “The icestorm of Christmas ‘89″

I was two.

I have real memories of when I was two years old. I can still see that glimpse: Gramma’s living room with the brown carpet, us bundled up and curled together, some sort of non-electic light source up and to the left of my view, and a warm feeling of safety and happiness.

In my elementary school, we had our music classes separate from our normal classroom with a special teacher just for music. Third grade was the special year: the year you learned how to play the recorder. Well, when I was in second grade, I thought the recorder was the coolest thing. But the school store, where the third graders had to go to buy their recorders ($5), had a rule that only third graders could buy recorders. So I convinced a third grader to go in and buy me one and gave her/him the money. And I felt so special being a second grader with a recorder. And I had a ball playing it. It was even more fun in third grade when I got to learn it in class!

Twelve years later…

I guess my university feels that Elementary Education majors might work in a school that doesn’t have a separate music or art teacher because we are required to take Art for Elementary School and Music for Elementary School. I was finding my books today and, to my suprise, one thing required for the music class: a recorder ($10). I get to relive the fun and learn it all over again!

I moved around a lot in high school. Up until I was 15, I lived in the same house my whole life but then my mom’s job was transferred. I spent 9th grade at NMHS with all of the same people I had spent elementary and middle school with. It’s funny: when you move, you realize who your true friends are. Sara was my best friend but, though we tracked each other back down, fell out of touch. Sarah was the only one to keep in touch from that school though some of my other friends are once again on my MySpace, along with Sara (though we still don’t really talk; it’s been a long time). After that, I moved to CHS and met Mary, Adam, and Ashley; I also met Effie (Mary’s older sister) through Mary. I was there for 10th grade and half of 11th. Mary was my best friend there, and Adam, Ashley, and Effie were close friends (along with others who were friends to acquaintances). Most people I knew there are now on my MySpace but only Adam and Effie have really kept in touch. Then, when my mom died, I moved again. This time to a big city (big to me, medium to most others). Both of the other places were small towns and people were friendlier. Though I made quite a few acquaintances, the only real friend I made at JHS, in both the second half of 11th grade and 12th grade, was Josh, who became my boyfriend. Because of many factors and circumstances thus, I only really consider Josh, Adam, and Effie to be close friends. I’m becoming closer with Jenny (Adam’s wife; they just got married in November), Critty (aka Rissy aka Christy; Josh’s sister), and Ali (one of Josh’s friends), but I’m still not fully comfortable with them.

But anyways, this weekend Josh went off to Megacon, a huge anime–comic-book–video-game convention with his friends (yes, this time I was actually invited but I didn’t want to be away for so long, along with my unease in large groups of people that I’m not familiar with; about 20 people were going). And yesterday, on Sunday, Adam, Jenny, her brother, and me went to the Renaissance Festival. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it is a sort of fair where everything is dedicated to the Renaissance. There are tons and tons of vendors who sell all sorts of things: medieval clothing, weapons, etc; fairy, dragon, elf, and pirate clothing and jewelry; medieval instruments, etc.

It is a five-weekend deal where each weekend has a theme and this weekend was Pirate week (next weekend is fairy/dragon week and the week after is Celtic week, but Jenny likes Pirates so we went to this one since it was her idea…). Along with the vendors, they also have 5-10 stages and each stage has an act, performance, skit, or concert (olde music, remember) every 30 minutes. Most are themed towards that week but not all are.

Adam and Jenny were planning on dressing up but didn’t. She’s pregnant (baby girl is due in April; they are naming her Genevieve (sp?), Vivi for short) and has had some bad days so didn’t get around to making their costumes. I’m cheap and horrible at sewing so I made my outfit from old clothes and random things. Since it was pirate week, I dressed as a pirate. I had on my old goth pants (big baggy black things with tons of strips of cloth hanging off) and my new POTC shirt that, under a skull and cross bones, says “Sparrow is my Co-Pirate.” Underneath that I had on a ripped old grey long sleeve shirt that used to have another thing attached that I ripped off because I hated that part of it (that’s why the shirt was ripped). My stepmom let me borrow one of her belts that was thick, tight, and black with a fake-gold *insert word I can’t think of* (clasp, catch, thingamabob) with fake jewels. And my dad let me borrow his biker skull cap that was black with flames.

We saw the Minstrels of Mayhem in concert twice, who were pretty cool. They had this one song about a rooster who took all of the different kinds of birds and then played dead so that when the vultures came down, he could take them too; you would have had to been there to appreciate it. They also had another song about a banshee, to which they referred to it as “mythical.” Of course, I yelled out that it isn’t mythical at all. “I know,” he replied seriously, “I married her daughter.”

We also saw the Pyrates Royal in concert; I didn’t really like them but Jenny loved them. We caught the end of this big sword fight/battle/thing because it ran over when we went to see the Irish dancers. They watched half of the Mud Show while I wandered around but they didn’t like it (like I knew I wouldn’t) and left halfway through. We watched the Pirate Show at the big boat where they had this cool sword fight and then taught the kids how to be pirates. And we also saw this sword fight comedy thing where these two guys dressed in medieval clothing taught the crowd the ten steps to a successful sword fight, which referenced many modern movies and things. It was hilarious, though many of the older folks left with disgruntled faces. One of the two was very cute and at the end, Adam took my picture with him.

And, of course, they had people walking around in full costume acting out parts. When we came in, there was a girl sprinkling everyone with fairy dust (glitter) and I got tons of it. There was an annoying blonde lady claiming everything in the name of England; I glared at her muchly. There were two stilt-walkers. There was a sword swallower (I got pictures). There was a big-pretzel vendor that was walking around singing, to the tune of Whip-It, “First you stuff it in your face, then you eat it” (there was more but that is all I remember to his song). He saw my shirt and told me about someone else who had a shirt that said: “Jack sucks; Anyone going Sparrow-hunting?” I did not buy a pretzel from him. *glares at him*

There was a flower-seller who relentlessly and mercilessly attacked Adam for not buying Jenny a flower. When Adam finally got away, the lady yelled out to Jenny: “Chivalry may not be dead, but just remember, it’ll be sleeping with him on the couch tonight!” Adam was scared to go back that way when we reached the end of that particular path. One lady tried to recruit me for her pirate crew; she got upset and territorial when I told her I had my own ship and my own crew. And, when we were leaving, I got more fairy dust.

About half of the people that were walking around were in costume. One was an exact replica of Captain Jack Sparrow.

I bought Josh a dragon necklace and I bought me a necklace with a little boy riding a dragonfly. They had fairy necklaces but there were tons of the same ones; there were mermaid ones but, again, lots of the same ones. There was only one of these and it was beautiful.

In the morning it was raining slightly with lots of wind. The rain went away, the sun came out, but it stayed cool and windy. At one point Jenny said “too bad it’s so cold for a Renfest.” I said “Well, if you think about it, all of this would have been in Europe, which is further north than us, so it would have been a lot colder.” “I guess it’s accurate then” she said. Today, despite the cold and wind, my face is tomato-red except for the strip at the top where my bandana was. I burn, I don’t tan. But it was fun!

Related pictures:
• Me with the Pirate Ship
• Adam and Jenny
• Sword Swallower
• The sign at the Irish camp
• Minstrels of Mayhem
• Irish dancers
• More Irish dancers
• Me and the cute comedy sword fighter
• Dragon necklace
• Dragonfly w/little boy necklace