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In the Beginning
- University of Nevada Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
: : 158 : : When you see a psychiatrist, your conversations remind you of things, of those tied boxes that have been sitting in your personal garage, unorganized and unnoticed, for too many years. You start thinking about your beginnings, those things that shaped you, those moments commemorated in those old white-bordered snapshots that made you believe you were a certain way: the shyness in the photograph with your dog, Rocky; the full unruly lips stretched tight across your teeth covered with braces; the awkwardness of your oversensitive, skinny body that showed no signs of maturation; your near-sightedness corrected by the cosmic cat-eye eyeglasses that told the world you were stylish and hip. You wonder about those stories you’ve told yourself so many times. You wonder how your life became your particular life. Why didn’t you make a few different turns along the way? Why did you respond the way you did? Maybe I need to start before romance and marriage, maybe go back to the beginning . . . One day, I must have been about nine years old, my mother was showing me how to shape a loaf of bread. She must have been feeling the need to teach some fine points of homemaking to her growing daughter. “The consistency of the dough will tell you when it’s ready to be shaped into loaves,” she said. “It will have a soft elastic feel.” She showed me how to :: In the Beginning :: In the Beginning : : 159 push the dough with the heels of her hands, back and forth, pushing and pulling it into a fat lump before flattening it again. “When you poke it with your finger and the fingerprint won’t stay indented, then you know it’s ready. Now you try it.” I stood on a low stool to gain the best leverage for the task. “What was it like when I was born?” I asked her while I attempted my first kneading. The dough was a big challenge for my skinny arms. “May 11, 1943. A great day in my life. Your dad won a hundred dollar savings bond that very day, so we figured you were a lucky child. But I had to hold you back for thirty minutes, tight inside the birth canal until Dr. McCormick arrived from an emergency call. I’m sure you didn’t like being held back. You were always ready to get on with life and do it up big. I was so excited when D.M. got back and when you arrived, your arms flailing, rearing to go like you still are, all of your toes and fingers in place, a headful of black hair.” She watched me do battle with the dough. “Use the heels of your hands, not the palms. Here,” she demonstrated, “like this.” The muscles of her strong arms tightened as she pushed. “Now you try it again.” The heels did work better than the palms, she was right. “Rose de Lima Hospital,” she continued. “That’s where you were born. Basic Townsite, Nevada. That was its name until they decided to change it to Henderson. I remember the delivery room doors opening wide as you and I were rolled into the hall. D.M. was with us. He removed his glasses and gloves and stopped to shake hands with your anxiously awaiting father. ‘It’s a girl,’ he told Herman. ‘What do you think of that?’” “‘It’s a girl?’ your father asked when D.M. made his announcement. I remember how he tried to hide his disappointment, but the tears came anyway. It wasn’t that he didn’t love girls or you,” she reassured, looking [54.224.52.210] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:48 GMT) 160 : : r a w e d g e s gently at me because she couldn’t touch my shoulder with her doughcovered hands. “We already had Elaine. He was crazy about her. But, you know about Douglas who was only three years old. How he died the summer before you were born. Died of iliocolitis for want of penicillin in the Ely hospital. Your dad must have been hoping for a replacement, I guess, and just couldn’t hold back the tears. Don’t get me wrong. He adored you. But there’s something about fathers and sons.” My thin young arms were aching from the effort to tame bread dough. “Here,” she said when she saw me running low on steam. “Let me...