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Last Saturday would have been Dr. Seuss’ 109th Birthday. This post is dedicated to his memory and the impact he had on the lives of millions of children, including myself.

“I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, which is what I do. And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”    – Theodor Geisel (aka, Dr. Seuss, 1904-1991)

Every child needs a friend, a confidante, someone (or thing) that s/he can trust whole-heartedly with their deepest thoughts, feelings and secrets. Key to that relationship is the concept of trust. It does not require a Dr. Seuss imagination to ponder potential problems or the tragedy that we face when a child feels their world is an untrustworthy place.

Anyone who has been a teenager can readily recall the roller coaster ride of adolescence. It is a trying and often challenging time of not only self-discovery but the discovery and perhaps stark recognition and understanding of how small we are, relative to our previous perception of the world and how we fit in it. Without question, being a teenager can be a tumultuous, trying time and raising a teenager…well, that’s a topic for a future blog post.

I think it’s safe to say that my typical teenage years were anything but typical. As a “military brat”, my first taste of civilian life was just a few short years before finding myself in the throes of adolescence.  As my father neared retirement from the U.S. Air Force, his last tour of duty was Thailand. Because we were not permitted to accompany him, he and my mother decided to relocate us to a small, back-mountain town in Pennsylvania – the town where my grandmother raised 7 children and where my father grew up. A town where my father felt would be the best place for his family while he was overseas completing his service to our country.                                               

Leaving military life was a bit of a culture shock in itself but moving to my father’s childhood hometown was a horse of a different color (so to speak). My father, an African-American and my mother, a white woman from England, were married in the late 1950’s (I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the culture shock my mother must have experienced).

My mother lived with my grandmother in that small, back-mountain town while my father was stationed overseas. At that time, they had 2 of the 5 children they would eventually bring into the world. From then, it was back and forth between the United States and Europe. Of the 5 offspring, 1 was born in England, 2 were born in France (my birthplace), and 2 were born in my father’s childhood town. In fact, my sister was the first African-American baby born in the town’s hospital.

So as you may be beginning to realize, the situation or circumstances were a bit complicated and quite frankly, at times, downright dangerous across the country.

Picture this: 1950’s America, African-American man MARRIED to a British white woman living in undeniable poverty in a town where the number of non-white inhabitants was virtually nil. Then imagine the fact that this couple had the audacity to procreate.  And get this, one of their “creations” can be seen for a limited time simply by visiting the hospital maternity ward. Perhaps a freak show of sorts? Or maybe just harmless, honest, curiosity. I’m not sure. But I’m fairly sure that my mother probably holds the record for most visitors ever to frequent that maternity ward in the history of the hospital.  And of course, she didn’t know most of them, but they knew her…or at least heard about her.

Ok, enough about that.

So perhaps you’re wondering what Dr. Seuss has to do with any of this. I won’t say Dr. Seuss saved my sanity but there’s a good likelihood that the impact of his work took hold at an early age. After all, what kid didn’t love Dr. Seuss? Long story short, I love a good rhyme. And those of you who know me know I do it all the time.

Now I have to confess I was not comfortable in my own skin and like a typical teenager I just wanted to fit in. Good Luck with that! (mental note: how to fit in when you only stand out). I was fortunate enough to make some really good friends, but few I felt I could truly trust. And let me state clearly, that wasn’t necessarily all their doing. I, unlike my 2 siblings before me, was very timid and painfully shy. I was determined to maintain a low profile praying that doing so would help me remain unnoticed under the radar. Good Luck with that too! The point being, is that my 2 older siblings were more inclined to rebel and retaliate. I, at times, just wanted to be invisible and sometimes I was. But that was usually when I didn’t want to be.

So what does a self-admitting non-trusting biracial African-American teenager on the heels of the civil rights era with no one who remotely looks like her except her family do to navigate the turns through the tumultuous teenage times without losing her sense of sanity while simultaneously gaining a sense of self?

She writes. She turns the pen and paper into her closest confidant, her counselor, her soul survivor. And so I did. But I only wrote when I felt hurt or depressed. Writing was my path to  peace. I would journal my thoughts, feelings, hurts and desires. But I found that the writing frustrated me and didn’t help to ease my feelings. And that’s when my use of rhyme became a part of me…at least consciously. Instead of documenting my sadness, I began writing rhymes that may or may not have had anything to do with the reason that compelled me to write. What I found was that not only did I love writing rhymes but by the time I completed one I felt entirely different. The pain, if not gone, was significantly alleviated. And in the process I was also entertained.

Me in my teens

With that said, I would like to share with you one of the rhymes I wrote when I was 15 years old that, to this day, I still feel vividly conveys and reminds me of a time when most children experience a sense of struggle.  What we do to overcome or survive those struggles; our experiences and choices, can potentially contribute to, and/or reflect, the core of who we are. And though I have NEVER had a desire to be a teenager again, I am grateful for those years, for the challenges that helped shape me and make me a better and stronger person, and for the friends who shared the experience of being a teenager with me.

Mixed Fruit

So true to life a song can be

For things believed not meant to be

How can a world be so unfair

In hurting such a happy pear?

There once was an apple and pear

Who happened to have an affair

Though she was red did not matter a bit

For it was love that they felt and that was it.

They lay side by side in a bowl full of fruit

They were adorable, sweet, really quite cute

They’d laugh and they’d talk and they’d kiss when they may

But little did they know it would be their last day

For from around the corner there was a spy

And so it was said their love must die.

They captured the apple the very next day

They peeled her and cut her and sent her away

And from that day forward the pear remained mute

For the spy believed you should not mix fruit!

See You Next Wednesday!