A Garden of Flowers

One day back in France, 600 years ago, my mother Isabelle, asked me to join her in her garden. It was early September and the roses were in full bloom. We grew these beautiful roses for our Church and some were reserved to sell to a perfumer in Grass, who took their delicate petals and created powerful essential oils to use in the making of perfumes and soaps for the nobility and bourgeois patrons who could afford it. My mother was a good negotiator, she obtained indulgences from the parish priest for her Church donations and barter from the perfumer, eau de roses and scented soaps as well as a hefty purse filled with écus.

In an unusual arrangement, my mother kept the income from the sale of her flowers for herself, separate from the family patrimony to be use at her discretion, It had been decreed in their Marriage contract and made it clear to my father and his family that she had the legal right to use it as she saw fit. The garden was her domain and as a source of income a highly prized resource. She once told me that having her own income encouraged her husband to treat her with respect. She also admitted that she had been saving this money for her daughters’ dowries from the beginning of her marriage.

My mother was as tall as my father and just as strong. She had black hair that was thick and curly and which she wore in practical braids tied around her head for everyday and which she let loose on Sundays and festive holidays. Her dark eyes were brown with bits of gold nuggets and fringed with very dark eyelashes. My mother had a strong nose and rumor was that her ancestors had come from Spain. She was so different from me, I was small for my age with straight blond hair and blue eyes, light skin and freckles. My sister Catherine favored my mother’s family and so did Pierre, my younger brother. Jean and Jacques looked like my father. They were short and wiry with red hair and green eyes. They looked so much alike in spite of being a year apart that many thought of them as not only brothers but also twins.

I wanted so much to look like my sister Catherine that I once asked my mother to color my hair black with tea leaves. She laughed at that suggestion and instead picked a basket of chamomile blossoms which she boiled for a half hour and push through a sieve reserving the liquid to rinse my hair. She then told me to go play in the sun. That night, at dinner my father tousled my hair and called me Golden Head. It was my mother’s way to show me that even if I was different, I was loved.

Sometimes I think about that time as the best of times, before the secret, before the voices, when my destiny was still clouded by the comfort of home and innocence of childhood. What is innocence, what is a state of innocence? Is it simply not knowing, not having to make choices, not feeling obligated to take side. How can a person stay innocent all their lives with the awakening of reason and conscience?

In that beautiful garden, in the warm afternoon, the scents of roses and lavender enveloped my mother and me in an intoxicating cloud. We sat on the ground and she held my hand. She had a serious look, a bit sad and seemed hesitant.

“What is it Maman? Did I commit a sin? Did I do something wrong?” I knew that I had played near the water-wheel and that it was forbidden for me to go to the Mill without my sister. I often explore the area without permission finding it easier to show contrition if found out then to obtain agreement from my mother.

“Non Jeanne, you are a wonderful daughter and have done nothing wrong, that I know, she added with a smirk. I need to tell you something important that no one knows. It is something that I had hoped never to disclose. Your father and I made a promise when you were born and we kept it. We loved keeping this promise; it was so much easier that way. “

She stopped talking for a few seconds and squinted hard as to clear her eyes.

She opened a small leather bag and took out a miniature of a beautiful blond lady riding a white horse which she put in my hand.

“Ma Jeannette, she said, this Lady is the woman who was your mother. She gave you to us when you were newborn because she could not keep you. We felt so blessed to make you are own that we never looked back. No one knew that we substitute you as our own daughter in place of our stillborn daughter because I gave birth without a mid-wife with only your father’s assistance.

The birth had been premature and the older children were away.

You came with your Nanny and immediately started to nurse at my breast. The Nanny left immediately to return to Bavaria where she came from. But before her departure, she made us promise that we would never disclose your origin to a living soul...”

I was stunned and almost stopped breathing. I started to cry and scream denials. “Non, ma mere, it can’t be. Please tell me that it is not true. I am your daughter! I am your child.”

Tears were streaming down both our faces and as the sun set down on our garden, I felt doom caressing my skin.

Joan gets a voice mail

Another day passes and I finally hear from her. She is not my girlfriend, sister or colleague but she is someone who knows almost all my secrets and has intimately touched me for many years. She knows me like few people do and her only goal has been to make me beautiful and satisfy. She is one of the dozens of women who were suddenly left without a job when Maxell’s Hair Salon abruptly announced to their staff on January 19^th that they were closing the next day.

Does anyone really know why in Parma Town so many shops are closing? I saw the demise of Pier One which had been in the same location for over 17 years. Jennifer Convertible closed its doors last month and now Maxell’s which had been at the Plaza for 46 years. A lot of local people worked at these establishments and retail is overwhelming staffed by women. Many of these women worked in that location because it was close to home and allowed them the flexibility to still take care of their children, aging parents or pursue their studies at nearby Tri-C. None of these women made a lot of money. The clientele of Maxell’s overwhelmingly consisted of senior ladies often accompanied by a daughter or grand-daughter. These old ladies looked forward to their Saturday morning beauty session. I went there because they offered many services at reasonable prices. It was a local institution, a lot of women in Parma and Parma Heights went to Maxell’s.

The Parma area is heavily populated but has few conveniences. Why is Forest City pushing tenants out the door? An employee of Pier One confided in me, prior to closing their doors, that their sales volume was very good but that the landlord kept increasing the rent till they had no choice but to close. Maxell’s was a successful salon; it was heavily patronized with a loyal clientele. It appeared to be a successful and profitable local business.

Why is it then, that the city counsel is allowing this institutionalized eviction? Is there a master plan to reclaim this valuable land to build yet more lucrative office facilities for the nearby Parma Hospital? Forest City has not offered any public explanation but someone at City Hall must know what is happening in this community and must have good reasons to keep mute.

Somewhere in Ohio

Somewhere in Ohio, I am talking to an Archangel. Actually he is a man who works in my building fixing HVAC. I think it is so fitting that his name is Achangelo…nice warm brown eyes and a very gentle voice. Imagine, an angel fixing burning furnaces. Is that not funny, me Joan again attracted to flames after all these years.

Today, I am in a forgotten city where abandoned houses are boarded with rough plywood in the windows, sprayed with graffiti. The streets have bumps and potholes, deep cracks where the pavement expired and the sidewalks meet. I am looking at a school on East 70^th where children come to eat breakfast and lunch and sometimes learn to read and write by osmosis. I come to this school once a week to tutor a young boy. I don’t like coming to this neighborhood. The insurmountable obstacles that my young friend faces each day weigh on my heart. I can’t do much for him, he is fourteen years old and a willing pupil, bright and good looking but already aware that his world is colliding. We talk about Mozart and pulled a few books from the library. He is curious and mysterious, listening to me and sharing short love notes that he gives to his almost girlfriend Dede. He tells her how much he loves her and I hear an echo from my own receding innocence, when I thought that love for a boy could fill a vacant heart. I am not a good tutor, I don’t teach him to read better or do math problems, we just talk a lot and I listen to his words, and I look at his face and inside I fear for him. But I am respectful of his person, and I show no pity, that would be self-indulgence. He deserves to be treated well and I always tell him that he can call me if he wants but he never does.

Before Christmas I mailed gifts to my sons. Yes, Joan from Ohio has two grown sons living somewhere else in modern America. They must have received them but I have not heard, yet. It was not much, a few pair of socks and a shirt for each but I thought they would look good on them. I bought them at Macy’s and wrapped them in that beautiful thick metallic paper all festive and shiny. I boxed them together so that they could open them the same day, and perhaps I was hoping that it might trigger a remembrance of their childhoods, early Christmas mornings, when they would find treasures under the tree.

It is kind of funny; that I worried so much about them having a relationship with their dad that I never looked at my relationship with them, totally secure that my love was enough. When I was a young mother, I read Kahlil Gibran and believed what he wrote about having children and raising them for the world and not for me totally. It became part of my child rearing philosophy. I would not recommend it. I should have known better than to listen to an Arab telling me how to raise boys.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet : On Children

“And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

I succeeded completely in providing my sons with a strong relationship with their father, a relationship that was denied to me with my own father. So I only have myself to blame if they can easily forget about me. I wish it was as simple for me, to make them into memories rather than holding on to a pail of dreams.

The Introduction

Some people believe in God. When I lived in Domrémi, as a farmer’s daughter, a long time ago, I too believed in God. My village was burn by English non-believers. They destroyed and terrorized our peaceful valley. I was living in fear along with the survivors. Our country was in shambles, poorly managed by a King who was insane. People like us had no status. We were heavily taxed and offered no protection from the financial demands of the nobility. They could cut across our land with their horses and destroy our crops, steal our food and rape our daughters. Our young men were recruited to life of servitude and as they outlived their usefulness were dispatched to starve and die alone.

We lived from day to day, a life of misery and our only solace was God. We lived with faith and hope that he heard our prayers and would make a better tomorrow for us and our descendants. Our priests encouraged us to pray and be patient and endure all ignominies in hope that it would bring us closer to God and that our suffering would be rewarded in another life. They told us that God would take us into his welcoming arms and lift us to Paradise and that all our oppressors would burn for eternity in Hell. Somehow, the promise of a better life after death was enough to keep us quiet and obedient like a flock of lambs. We called our priests, “our Shepherds.” And they were, since they kept us as human resources prepared to continue our service to the King and his government agencies when summoned.

I was fortunate since my father was comfortable by the standard of our times. We owned 50 acres of land and my dad had a few part-time jobs to supplement our income. He worked as a tax collector, was also a part time member of the local police. My mother ran the farm with him and my brothers, Jack, Jean and Pierre. My sister Catherine and I took care of the animals that we raised and helped my mother with all the cleaning, cooking, weaving, sewing, butchering and other necessary domestic tasks.

Catherine was my older sister and she was like a little mother to me. It was Catherine that dressed me and fed me in the morning and took me with her to feed the geese and chickens that we kept. She taught me to make clothes for myself and how to prepare goose liver patés, fine goat cheeses and sweet berry jellies. But what I enjoyed is listening to Catherine’s voice at night, telling me wonderful stories. These stories glorified the lives of our saint martyrs and were full of exciting battles between good and evil.

Catherine left me when she was thirteen to become the wife of one of my father’s friend who was a widower with a large family. Colin was a good man but Catherine was a romantic and had hoped to marry a younger man. She knew that she could not choose her husband; none of the women could make that kind of decision. But Catherine in spite of her lovely disposition and gentle manners was not considered beautiful so her prospects were limited. I cried when she left. I kept a lock of her hair in a small purse that I wore against my heart until Catherine died in childbirth at fourteen. I buried that small reminder of my sister in field of wild flowers, up on the cliff that overlooked our home. I made a promise to her, that no man would ever dictate who I was to marry. I promise Catherine that I would live to change the future. That my future would not end with my death.