The hill was unlit but for a solitary street lamp at midpoint. The rest of the steeply-inclined roadway was brightened by the moonlight reflecting off the unblemished snow-covered surface of the road, already nicely packed by drivers making it home hours ago. The sky was dark, all inky and star-filled; the air was clear, crisp, and pristine. Visibility was excellent.
It was another perfect night for sled riding, as there were many such winter nights in the Pennsylvania hills and valleys in the mid-1950s. And soon, anywhere from two to a dozen middle-school-aged kids would show up to negotiate the steepest, longest, straightest, smoothest, and fastest sledding run in the area—right down the middle of the state road on which Dad and a number of others returning from the war had built their dream homes.
We lived mid-hill with two convenient crossing roads, one to our left and the other immediately in front of our driveway. A streetlight burned on our corner; a second light was at the very bottom of State Road, at the intersection of the main and perpendicular boulevards. For the sledders, our driveway was a good gathering place for the start of our first climb to the visible crest of the iconic southwestern Pennsylvania hill.
By the time I finished my homework, and outfitted myself in the warmest jacket, hat, scarf, gloves, boots, and snow pants, it probably was about 7 p.m.—a good time for interested sledders to gather on a school night. I opened the single-car garage door, set my sled out onto the level front drive and trotted out to the end, stopping at our roadside mailbox which sat atop a pole painted matte black, the better to be seen by the sledders—a perfect counterpoint to the white snow.
There was barely a wind; the only movement was an occasional fluttering up of very fine, very hard flakes that actually sparkled in the air and on the hardened snow crust. The road conditions were perfect and there was not a car in sight or earshot. In fact, it was so quiet and peaceful that we would be able to hear the soft brush of the sled’s gliders and the drag of our braking boot as we sped down the hill, diverting off into a snow bank at the end. Occasionally we could hear a muffled shout of joyous completion!
Only two other sledders had gathered so far, Jenny Stormack and her younger brother, Stefan. Jenny was a classmate of mine from Most Holy Name of Jesus Elementary School. We were about twelve years old; Stefan was about nine. My twin brother had not yet emerged from the house. Perhaps he was engaged in homework or a scout project or his insect collection or his rock and mineral collection or a science experiment, or whatever. He could easily lose himself in any number of solitary projects, but I suspected that he would eventually join the sledders this night too.
For a few minutes we stood around exchanging only a few words and kicking the snow with our heavily booted feet. We were alone, just the three of us in the magic of that night. For some reason, never clear to me, Stefan, as we waited to see if others would come, scooped up a handful of soft snow, walked behind me and promptly, decisively, stuffed the entire handful of the soon-to-be-melting snow down the back of my collar. I felt the shock of its coldness and then the unpleasant wetness. I was surprised, stunned, and then outraged! (I still don’t know what possessed him—or possessed me, for that matter.) My mindful layering of clothing and the tying on and even pinning of my scarf around my neck was done ever so carefully just to prevent such an uncomfortable, irritating, inefficient interruption of what promised to be another peaceful night of sledding joy. Instantly, my careful planning for seamless gliding was now rudely and abruptly interrupted by this totally unprovoked, uncomfortable, and unacceptable affront! Suddenly, I became greatly incensed. I could feel my rage rising within me. I shouted my displeasure and then I turned, staring him right in the face. Now it was Stefan who suddenly looked startled.
I picked up a handful of snow, too dry and fluffy to pack into a ball. He bent and picked up a handful too. I charged and hit him with the loosely-clumped snow in my open hand across his back. He swung and hit me. I don’t recall where that blow landed, but it was a direct, hard hit that turned me into a wild woman gripped by a fury I had never before known. I swung madly and swung and swung, again and again shouting, “Don’t you ever do that again! Do you hear me? What’s wrong with you?!”
I kept swinging and beating him with all the stodgy, clothes-hindered might I could deliver, and I knew I was landing significant blows because he began to cower and to cover his head as I swung left, then right, then left again.
Finally, his sister started shouting at us. “Stop It! Stop it! Sto-o-op it!” she screamed. For a few seconds I had clearly gone berserk. By then I could back off, partly from embarrassment, partly in shock, but I continued to just stare him down!
I was breathless; steam literally rising from my mouth with every labored exhale. I was also astounded and alarmed at my fury and at the same time surprised, and maybe even pleased, that I had it in me to defend myself like that. I also felt very bad, for I had just crushed a kid younger and smaller than I and demeaned myself in front of my friend! That was her younger brother! How did I let myself do that? I knew neither of them would ever look at me or think of me in the same way again. I know I didn’t.
It shamed me for weeks to recall that moment and then I just stopped thinking about it, but something that night had profoundly changed in my soul and had taken hold of me. Something new had been added to who or what I had, up to then, thought I was.
For weeks that winter I struggled with my totally uncalculated reaction. Where did that come from? It was the first and rarest of moments when my behavior shocked me. Before that event I did not know that such strengths and emotional responses—and self-preservation—were parts of who I was and who I was becoming.
At the time of that attack I didn’t know it, but someday I would reach down to the depths of who that person had become and call upon those same primitive, wild strengths, maybe then tempered with age and restraint and a bit more self-knowledge. When life threw me the unexpected curve balls and I had nothing in my arsenal with which to counter, once again I would use those same raw survival instincts. I would use them way more than my eleven-year-old mind could ever conceive. And I would draw upon them at a depth and a speed and intensity and in such rapid succession that it would make my entire world spin. Some day or some night, again a perfect storm of a different hue would be sure to hit and I was going to be prepared. I would know then, firsthand, how the unexpected happens and just how one could respond.
That night, as a mere eleven-year-old girl in the mid-1950’s, I made a discovery about myself that, although I didn’t have an inkling about its usefulness then, would come to be a very important tool for me to pull out of my bag in life’s emergencies. I had discovered my body’s reserve of adrenaline, my physical power as a female, and my fight-or-flight response. I was being prepared for bigger, much bigger, events in my adult life that would require me to call on all my internalized resources to survive.
And I don’t mean facing-down some wild beast, or a rapist or a thief or abandonment in a foreign territory. No, the demons I would face were somewhat everyday—common, in that these things or similar things happen to many people. The startling difference for me would be that they all would occur at approximately the same time.
I would single-handedly have to face a five-point storm that I would see approaching and I would know that I had no options but to stand and face down the challenges—alone.
I would need to muster much of my learned reserves: physical energy, spirituality, courage, restraint, generosity, forgiveness, resilience, adaptability, patience, common sense, and uncommon intelligence. It would be a challenge of a lifetime. And it would occupy years of my life—maybe a decade. It would threaten my health, my finances, my psychic balance, my emotional stability, my internalized sense of security. It would shatter the life I knew and throw me into totally new and uncharted territories. I would be tested beyond my wildest imagination. I would be called on to do things I had never done before and to perform them when I was crushed beneath crippling blows.
It would be as if someone had taken all the aspects of my life—the material, the emotional, spiritual, social, psychological, and the physical—as if someone took all the components of each of these and tossed them into a large container, gave them a good shaking and then spilled them out for me to sort through and reorder, edit, reprioritize, add to and subtract.
Today I live a very different life, a satisfying life, but it would take years of purposeful, painstaking efforts to achieve this new balance, this new order. It would also take a lot of cleaning up after the old and clearing away the mangled debris of the tornado-like events.
But before that new order could come, fifty years after that star-filled winter night, I would again stand on that same driveway, in the dark and in the cold, the garage door would open and the last challenge at Dad’s house would occur with the arrival of two other people—two very different people who never even lived in that town—my very ill daughter and my shocked and shattered daughter-in-law. They would arrive on the very day of my mother’s passing in that very same house—two weeks before Christmas—amid the emergence of my daughter’s secret and stunning malady and the revelation of my husband’s very serious health condition.
And there would yet be in other places, other snowy nights proffering the unexpected and the life-changing.
It was another perfect night for sled riding, as there were many such winter nights in the Pennsylvania hills and valleys in the mid-1950s. And soon, anywhere from two to a dozen middle-school-aged kids would show up to negotiate the steepest, longest, straightest, smoothest, and fastest sledding run in the area—right down the middle of the state road on which Dad and a number of others returning from the war had built their dream homes.
We lived mid-hill with two convenient crossing roads, one to our left and the other immediately in front of our driveway. A streetlight burned on our corner; a second light was at the very bottom of State Road, at the intersection of the main and perpendicular boulevards. For the sledders, our driveway was a good gathering place for the start of our first climb to the visible crest of the iconic southwestern Pennsylvania hill.
By the time I finished my homework, and outfitted myself in the warmest jacket, hat, scarf, gloves, boots, and snow pants, it probably was about 7 p.m.—a good time for interested sledders to gather on a school night. I opened the single-car garage door, set my sled out onto the level front drive and trotted out to the end, stopping at our roadside mailbox which sat atop a pole painted matte black, the better to be seen by the sledders—a perfect counterpoint to the white snow.
There was barely a wind; the only movement was an occasional fluttering up of very fine, very hard flakes that actually sparkled in the air and on the hardened snow crust. The road conditions were perfect and there was not a car in sight or earshot. In fact, it was so quiet and peaceful that we would be able to hear the soft brush of the sled’s gliders and the drag of our braking boot as we sped down the hill, diverting off into a snow bank at the end. Occasionally we could hear a muffled shout of joyous completion!
Only two other sledders had gathered so far, Jenny Stormack and her younger brother, Stefan. Jenny was a classmate of mine from Most Holy Name of Jesus Elementary School. We were about twelve years old; Stefan was about nine. My twin brother had not yet emerged from the house. Perhaps he was engaged in homework or a scout project or his insect collection or his rock and mineral collection or a science experiment, or whatever. He could easily lose himself in any number of solitary projects, but I suspected that he would eventually join the sledders this night too.
For a few minutes we stood around exchanging only a few words and kicking the snow with our heavily booted feet. We were alone, just the three of us in the magic of that night. For some reason, never clear to me, Stefan, as we waited to see if others would come, scooped up a handful of soft snow, walked behind me and promptly, decisively, stuffed the entire handful of the soon-to-be-melting snow down the back of my collar. I felt the shock of its coldness and then the unpleasant wetness. I was surprised, stunned, and then outraged! (I still don’t know what possessed him—or possessed me, for that matter.) My mindful layering of clothing and the tying on and even pinning of my scarf around my neck was done ever so carefully just to prevent such an uncomfortable, irritating, inefficient interruption of what promised to be another peaceful night of sledding joy. Instantly, my careful planning for seamless gliding was now rudely and abruptly interrupted by this totally unprovoked, uncomfortable, and unacceptable affront! Suddenly, I became greatly incensed. I could feel my rage rising within me. I shouted my displeasure and then I turned, staring him right in the face. Now it was Stefan who suddenly looked startled.
I picked up a handful of snow, too dry and fluffy to pack into a ball. He bent and picked up a handful too. I charged and hit him with the loosely-clumped snow in my open hand across his back. He swung and hit me. I don’t recall where that blow landed, but it was a direct, hard hit that turned me into a wild woman gripped by a fury I had never before known. I swung madly and swung and swung, again and again shouting, “Don’t you ever do that again! Do you hear me? What’s wrong with you?!”
I kept swinging and beating him with all the stodgy, clothes-hindered might I could deliver, and I knew I was landing significant blows because he began to cower and to cover his head as I swung left, then right, then left again.
Finally, his sister started shouting at us. “Stop It! Stop it! Sto-o-op it!” she screamed. For a few seconds I had clearly gone berserk. By then I could back off, partly from embarrassment, partly in shock, but I continued to just stare him down!
I was breathless; steam literally rising from my mouth with every labored exhale. I was also astounded and alarmed at my fury and at the same time surprised, and maybe even pleased, that I had it in me to defend myself like that. I also felt very bad, for I had just crushed a kid younger and smaller than I and demeaned myself in front of my friend! That was her younger brother! How did I let myself do that? I knew neither of them would ever look at me or think of me in the same way again. I know I didn’t.
It shamed me for weeks to recall that moment and then I just stopped thinking about it, but something that night had profoundly changed in my soul and had taken hold of me. Something new had been added to who or what I had, up to then, thought I was.
For weeks that winter I struggled with my totally uncalculated reaction. Where did that come from? It was the first and rarest of moments when my behavior shocked me. Before that event I did not know that such strengths and emotional responses—and self-preservation—were parts of who I was and who I was becoming.
At the time of that attack I didn’t know it, but someday I would reach down to the depths of who that person had become and call upon those same primitive, wild strengths, maybe then tempered with age and restraint and a bit more self-knowledge. When life threw me the unexpected curve balls and I had nothing in my arsenal with which to counter, once again I would use those same raw survival instincts. I would use them way more than my eleven-year-old mind could ever conceive. And I would draw upon them at a depth and a speed and intensity and in such rapid succession that it would make my entire world spin. Some day or some night, again a perfect storm of a different hue would be sure to hit and I was going to be prepared. I would know then, firsthand, how the unexpected happens and just how one could respond.
That night, as a mere eleven-year-old girl in the mid-1950’s, I made a discovery about myself that, although I didn’t have an inkling about its usefulness then, would come to be a very important tool for me to pull out of my bag in life’s emergencies. I had discovered my body’s reserve of adrenaline, my physical power as a female, and my fight-or-flight response. I was being prepared for bigger, much bigger, events in my adult life that would require me to call on all my internalized resources to survive.
And I don’t mean facing-down some wild beast, or a rapist or a thief or abandonment in a foreign territory. No, the demons I would face were somewhat everyday—common, in that these things or similar things happen to many people. The startling difference for me would be that they all would occur at approximately the same time.
I would single-handedly have to face a five-point storm that I would see approaching and I would know that I had no options but to stand and face down the challenges—alone.
I would need to muster much of my learned reserves: physical energy, spirituality, courage, restraint, generosity, forgiveness, resilience, adaptability, patience, common sense, and uncommon intelligence. It would be a challenge of a lifetime. And it would occupy years of my life—maybe a decade. It would threaten my health, my finances, my psychic balance, my emotional stability, my internalized sense of security. It would shatter the life I knew and throw me into totally new and uncharted territories. I would be tested beyond my wildest imagination. I would be called on to do things I had never done before and to perform them when I was crushed beneath crippling blows.
It would be as if someone had taken all the aspects of my life—the material, the emotional, spiritual, social, psychological, and the physical—as if someone took all the components of each of these and tossed them into a large container, gave them a good shaking and then spilled them out for me to sort through and reorder, edit, reprioritize, add to and subtract.
Today I live a very different life, a satisfying life, but it would take years of purposeful, painstaking efforts to achieve this new balance, this new order. It would also take a lot of cleaning up after the old and clearing away the mangled debris of the tornado-like events.
But before that new order could come, fifty years after that star-filled winter night, I would again stand on that same driveway, in the dark and in the cold, the garage door would open and the last challenge at Dad’s house would occur with the arrival of two other people—two very different people who never even lived in that town—my very ill daughter and my shocked and shattered daughter-in-law. They would arrive on the very day of my mother’s passing in that very same house—two weeks before Christmas—amid the emergence of my daughter’s secret and stunning malady and the revelation of my husband’s very serious health condition.
And there would yet be in other places, other snowy nights proffering the unexpected and the life-changing.
