Homing In and Other Essays by Fay L. Loomis

Homing In

I wandered down the highway a few times to a neighbor girl’s house that was further out of town. We’d plonk ourselves on the piano bench, play simple songs, and giggle.

I was in my leafy bower, high in a cherry tree in our side yard, when I heard her call up to me. Startled by her voice, I beamed at the thought of my own visitor—the girl with pale blonde curls and eyes as clear as the summer sky—who had come to our farm for the first time.

I picked my way down the trunk and began descending the stepladder. She burrowed her eyes into my bare feet and stated with absolute knowing, “Your feet are so wide! I’ve never seen anything like them.”

My feet froze to a narrow step of the ladder. Stunned, I clammed up and gawked at my instantly ugly feet. Feet that had lifted me onto my horse’s bare back, so we could gallop down the lane, race through the pasture; feet that tickled with joy skimming over springy grass; feet that clambered over bales in the haymow; and, yes, feet that climbed all manner of trees. At that moment, if I could have cut them off, I would have.

Here I was, safe in my hidey-hole, away from the chaos of six siblings and Dad’s whiplash tongue cutting us down to zeros. One by one, I was slowly eating the shiny red cherries, juice lingering in my mouth. Her words ripped away the tender quiet of a sun-sprinkled afternoon.

Not that Dad had ever said anything about my body. When a boy asked if I could go over to his house to play, Dad said, “Hell, no! All the boys want is to get you into the bushes. Stay home where you belong.” My brain twisted to make sense of his words.

I didn’t know what he meant, but I knew it was bad, I was bad, my body was bad. I couldn’t ask, because he would have barked, “Jesus Christ, do you have to be so ignorant?”

I don’t remember how I came to be in the closed-off parlor. Must have slipped into the cool dusky room and crawled under the fat-legged piano desk which swallowed the end of the room. I slumped against the wall, arms limp, head between my knees, words banging around in my brain like rocks rattling in a tin can. Can’t please her, can’t please Dad, can’t please anyone. Failed again. No good, no good, no good. After a while, my head felt like it had been bashed in—something Dad threatened to do to us all the time.

The picture of what that looked like was burned into my mind. Dad had tied a neighbor’s dog to the back of the truck, smashed his brains with a sledge hammer, and said, “That’ll teach you to stay home.” I blanked out, just like I did when I heard those awful words about my feet.

When my mind settled, I convinced myself to come out from under the desk. I pulled out The Jungle Book, secreted away in a drawer, sat beneath a curtained window, and turned the first page. About the time dark began to fill the sky, scarred old Sea Catch roared to the younger seals that were looking for a new home: “Why can’t people stay where they belong?”  Those words hit me like I had been punched in the gut. I closed the book, read no more. I, like Mowgli, wondered if the tales were spun of “cobwebs and moonlight” or woven with the hard truths about survival in the jungle.

I never sought out the little girl again. I didn’t need a friend who cut my ten-year-old heart the way Dad’s criticism did. I am not sure why she never returned. Could have been my branded feet. Or Dad’s usual snarl to kids who braved our house: “Why don’t you go home where you belong?”

Blue Bottle

On a hot, languorous day, near the end of summer and toward the beginning of third grade, I crept into the darkened hallway of our farmhouse, to lovingly handle the mysterious things in my mother’s grey metal trunk. Every now and again, the chest, bigger than a bale of hay, called to me. I responded to the siren with a secret visit—secret, because I was peering into my mother’s private life, long before we kids came along.

I lingered over the fancy brass latch, which matched the hinges, grasped the handle, and carefully tilted the heavy lid against the wall. I was a goner.

Lifting a blue velvet-covered book, filled with pages and pages of faces, I searched for mother’s young face, surrounded by a fancy collar. She never wore anything like that now. I picked up a small silver dustpan and a brush, decorated with swirly patterns. One time I had asked her what it was for. She said to brush crumbs off a table! That would never happen in our house. The nine of us rarely sat down to eat together. I never touched a packet of letters tucked into a corner. What I liked best was a small round bottle with raised letters on the side. The thick blue glass, darkest I had ever seen, forbade light to penetrate.

After Mom died, my sister Jessie parceled out her meagre belongings. The blue bottle became mine.

When my daughter was little, she would bring tiny “bowers” into the house. I would put the flowers in the bottle and place it on the windowsill above the sink. I had been warned, though I thought my luck was stronger than the wind. In the past, the silent breeze had blown the beautiful bottle into the sink but didn’t break it. I foolishly put it in the window again, filled with flowers carefully lifted from the grass by baby fingers. I was as broken as the glass, when it didn’t survive the second fall.

Many years later, my nephew Eric suddenly died. As a small child, he had collected antiques with my mother, including old bottles. When I lamented to my sister Barbara the fate of our mother’s blue bottle, she surprised me by mailing one from her son’s collection.  Light passing through the square, pale turquoise container, gave it an eerie quality, as if it were levitating. Despite the beauty and my sister’s generosity, I did not see how this replacement could ever make up for the loss.

Recently, as I ambled across the lawn, I was dazzled by petite purple flowers poking through blue-green shafts of grass. I gathered what my daughter used to call a “bluekay,” put it in the bottle, and set it on my kitchen windowsill.

Transfixed by the light and beauty, I slipped back into the shadowy passageway that embraced my mother’s old trunk. In that fugitive moment, the two vessels merged into one. The bottle is no longer mine, I thought, it holds the joys and losses across time that belong to us all.

Previously published in Al-Khemia Poetica

The Briefest History of Ironing, Mine Included

Everyone’s mother ironed, except mine. She was ahead of her time. Mom had seven kids and didn’t waste time on frivolities.

When she took the fresh smelling clothes off the line, she piled them in wooden bushel baskets and stacked them up against the bedroom wall. If you wanted something pressed, you did it yourself. I happily learned to iron at a young age, joining those who have been removing wrinkles from fabric for more than a thousand years.

A shift in our couturial past took place when animal skins were tossed aside for clothing made from woven textiles. Likely a wealthy person, with more than one set of clothing, must have gotten the yen for wrinkless clothing.

Archeological digs and oriental works of art help us trace the history of this laborious task. Finds include stone, glass, and wooden ironing tools and long-handled metal pans. Images of female servants passing a pan of hot coals over cloth or pounding fabric with ironing sticks demonstrate smoothing techniques.

In the Middle Ages, blacksmiths began to forge flatirons that were heated over coals, and the eponymous name of the iron came into being. In 1882, the electric iron was developed, and by the 30s electricity powered the mangle, an awkward machine with large rollers into which brave people fed large swaths of cloth. I was afraid that if I used this behemoth, my arm would be flattened and disappear into its maw. Besides, I preferred hanging sheets and towels on the line and letting the breeze iron them out. During the 40s, the steam iron played a common role  in domesticity. Women no longer had to sprinkle clothes with water, roll them up, and wait until they were damp enough to press.

Shortly before I became a teenager, I wangled my own room. I lugged the ironing board upstairs and plugged the iron and a radio into the hanging light socket, ready to enjoy a pleasant ironing spree. Much to my disappointment, I blew the circuit. There was no juice for the iron, the radio – or me. Our stiffly starched clothes demanded we carry on, no matter the challenge, including scorch marks. I don’t know how we stood itchy blouses, often paired with purposefully wrinkled broomstick skirts.

As a wife and young mother, I ironed my husband’s shirts, pants, and hankies and my daughter’s dresses, as well as my own clothing. Ironing opened up quiet moments, snatched from a busy day.

My friend Susan told me that she once heard Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, ask his audience “What activity makes you feel super alive?” His own answer was ironing, while listening to music, which induced a peaceful, meditative state.  As for Susan, ironing put her in a near state of ecstasy. When we both lived in Hemet, California, she would ask her friends if she could press their clothes. She included pickup and delivery, free of charge. After I finally accepted her offer, it provided a hiatus in midlife ironing.

We acted like we didn’t know that the full-fledged ironing frenzy of the first half of the 20th century had begun to fade away in the second.  Several factors combined to eliminate the need for ironing. Starch disappeared (thank God!), and permanent press clothing and fabric softener became commonplace. Hippies and feminists, who found wrinkles cool or irrelevant, added to the demise of pressed clothing.

When I and my husband went to India in the 90s, I felt as if I had walked back into Medieval time. We stayed with friends on the outskirts of Calcutta and each morning would walk along a muddy road that spread out from their house. Just around the bend was an open-air ironing stall where a man pressed long saris, skimpy women’s blouses, and men’s shirts and pants.

The mainstay of his stall was a hotly burning fire with several flatirons lined up on the grill. He would gracefully turn to pick up the black hot metal, swing back around and press the garment on his ironing board, an actual piece of wood. To his right side was a shelf with bundles of clothing to be pressed, below it another for folded garments. I was fascinated and would linger, while my husband, who had always had a mother, housekeeper, or wife to do his ironing, was eager to move on.

I’m not sure where in my world travels I first had tiny numbers inked into discreet places on my clothing when my laundry was returned. Even my underpants were pressed. I think it was in China, the country where ironing may have originated.

We know that country is the origin of the ubiquitous Chinese laundryman. When Chinese immigrated to America in the 19th century, they didn’t choose to wash and iron laundry. They survived by doing what others didn’t wish to do.

Now in my eighties, I still prefer wrinkleless clothing. However, I have become my mother. No time for ironing.

Previously published in Communicators League

Softly and Tenderly

We didn’t knock.  Just walked in, as Mary couldn’t come to the door.  Though it was dark, Janet knew the way to Mary’s bedroom at the back of the house.

Janet was expected to take her turn helping Sister Mary, a cripple, get ready for church.  My mother and Janet’s parents, Reverend Mack and Edith Safford, had asked me several times to go with her.  I didn’t want to but finally gave in, because I wanted Janet to be my friend.  I also wanted to please the adults—and God.

Shortly after the war ended, our father had bought a chicken hatchery on the outskirts of Coldwater, Michigan, when I was about 10. Janet’s father was the minister of a new sort of holy-roller church that was near our end of town.  Janet seemed to be the only girl to play with, and, I loved her blonde hair.

I felt funny about dressing my Sunday school teacher, Mary Lehman. By the time we got to her house, I had a stomach ache. I felt better when she smiled and thanked us for coming.

Mary was matter of fact about what she needed us to do. We would start with the most unpleasant part: roll her over to expose her behind.  I had never seen a grown up’s butt, especially such a flat one, and turned away. She called me back with her request for four squares of toilet paper. After folding them, she wiped herself and dropped the tissue into the bedpan.

I got the job of carrying the heavy white enamel pan into the bathroom. I placed it carefully on the counter, gagging at the tiny dark streak, lying in a small pool of yellow liquid. I lifted the toilet lid, dumped the contents, and shoved the pan into a corner by the toilet. By the time I got back to the bedroom, Janet had lowered the wooden bar, hanging above the bed like a trapeze, so that Mary could pull herself up to sit.

I was sent to the kitchen to get Mary’s breakfast tray. That room, like the rest of the house, was dark, and I didn’t see two old, white-haired people sitting at the table. They told me they were Mary’s parents, thanked me for giving them a day off, and pointed to a breakfast tray. On it was a sauce dish with half a golden cling peach in syrup, a slice of toast, and a small glass of milk. It didn’t seem like enough food for such a thin, bony person.

Janet unfolded the legs of an interesting contraption and placed it across Mary’s lap; I set her breakfast on it. While Mary slowly ate, I looked across her, at the largest window I had ever seen. I moved my eyes around the flower bed and called to myself the names of the late summer blooms I knew: blue bachelor buttons, orange marigolds, pink zinnias, black-eyed Susans, and purple spikes of delphinium. Lots of small brown sparrows and some cardinals pecked at the grass, until a pair of noisy blue jays swooped in and chased them away.

When Mary was finished eating, I took the breakfast tray to the kitchen and then stopped in the bathroom to get another tray on which were a bar of soap, a washcloth and small towel, a curved white enamel basin with toothbrush and toothpaste, and a comb. Meanwhile, Janet was helping Mary remove her bed jacket.

I made another trip to the bathroom to put warm water into a white enamel bowl, this time with a red rim. All were settled on Mary’s lap tray. I wasn’t sure what was coming next and was both relieved and surprised when Mary gave herself a sponge bath, brushed her teeth, with much foaming, and combed her hair.

Mary’s arms were always covered up in church, so I had never seen the scars on her left elbow. When she saw me staring at the lines on her flesh, straddled by dots, she said, “After I got polio, I had surgery that allowed me to move my left arm.” The motion was awkward, like a fish flopping around. She had more natural movement in her right arm, none in her legs.

“When I was a young girl, I used to drive a car with a rumble seat, go to movies and dances with my friends. I was selfish and neglected the Lord.” I couldn’t imagine her doing any of those things.

Janet took the bigger basin, I the tray into the bathroom. We emptied both and hung up the cloths. After pulling Mary’s night gown over her head, I wanted to turn away again, so I wouldn’t have to look at her chest, flatter than her behind. I didn’t, because she could see me this time.

We began dressing her by lowering a slip over her head and pulling underpants as far up her legs as we could. We rolled her back and forth to get the white underclothes in place. I figured the worst was over.

A pretty deep blue dress, with tiny white flowers, was hanging near the bed. When I took it off the hanger, it felt like the soft fuzz of a newborn chick. We went through more rolling to get the dress on; I thought it would never end.

Then came the part that scared me to death. We put a piece of canvas under Mary, attached the corners to a pulley above the bed. While she grasped the wooden bar, we started lowering her into the waiting wheel chair.  Sweat gathered under my arms, as she swung in the air.  I thought for sure we would kill her. “You’re doing just fine,” she said.

We put on long tan cotton stockings. No need for a garter belt to fasten them up. Then black old ladies’ shoes, with a square heel and laces. Lastly, a long shiny navy blue coat. After putting her arms into the sleeves, we slowly tucked the bottom of it under her. We had a hard time getting the wrinkles smoothed out.

The fun part was putting a hat on her head and handing her matching black leather gloves. The hat had a small black feather tucked into the band.

She looked really nice—like my Sunday school teacher.

I couldn’t help smiling at our work. Mary smiled back, light reflecting in her eyes, as we wheeled her to the front porch and waited for Reverend Safford to pick us up in his ’39, black four-door Ford. Mary put her arm around his shoulder, as he placed one arm under her legs and the other around her upper back. I could see they had this all figured out.

He carried her to the car and put her in the front seat next to a little kid. We climbed into the back where there were three adults. The laps of two held us. Everyone talked at the same time, as we headed to the Safford’s home which became a church for Sunday services and Wednesday night prayer meetings.

Reverend Safford was a handsome man, with a southern accent and thick black hair that was slicked back. I loved his first name and wanted to call him Mack, though I never dared.

A kind man, he spoke softly when he stood behind the pulpit and began his sermons. Toward the end his voice got louder when he told us Jesus had died on the cross for our sins. He begged us to be saved, so we wouldn’t go to hell.  I wasn’t sure what my sins were, though I knew I didn’t want to go to everlasting fire.

One Sunday night, Reverend Safford gave the altar call. Mrs. Safford’s beautiful voice floated over the congregation as she sang “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling. ” She looked like an angel, soft red curls against her white skin. By the fourth time the chorus came around, the words got to me: “Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, Calling, O sinner, come home!”

Tears ran down my face, as I walked to the front of the church. Trembling, I knelt down. Reverend Mack knelt beside me and laid a hand on my shoulder. He thanked Jesus that I was ready to confess my sins. I prayed for forgiveness and asked Jesus to be my savior. Peace filled my heart.

I continued to get up early on Sunday mornings and take the long walk to Mary’s house, usually alone. Janet didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Jesus and Mary did.

Previously published Watershed Review

 Curly’s Bar

We were lollygagging on the front porch glider when Dad opened the screen door, stuck his head out, and said, “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

Even though it was a hot August day, we jumped up and ran through the house toward the back door—me included. It was the first time Dad didn’t say I had to stay home until I was older. Must be because I was going to start kindergarten.

“Get your shoes on,” Dad hollered.

We looked down at our dirty bare feet, and one of us said, “They don’t fit anymore.”

We got one pair of shoes each year, just before school started. By the time spring rolled around, we were putting cardboard in the bottoms to keep the rain out of the holes that got bigger and bigger. I was happy to go barefoot all summer, once my soles toughened up, except when I stepped on prickers.

“Well, get in the back of the truck,” he said.

We scrambled up the rear of the truck bed, lined up against the back of the cab, and bumped our way into town.

Dad parked on Main Street, across from Curly’s Bar, which was next to the theater. Our bare feet danced across the pavement—hot enough to fry eggs.

Swallowed up by the cool darkness, it took a moment to find the high bar stools and settle on top of them. Our arms barely reached the mahogany counter.

“What’ll you have?”  Curly asked.

“A beer for me and ice cream for the kids,” Dad said.

“Vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry,?” Curly wanted to know.

Took us a long time to figure out what flavor would be best. The silence was broken by the rhythmic click of fans circling in a room as large as our barn.

Curley placed a clear glass dish, piled high with ice cream, in front of each of us. I didn’t know there was a dish made specially for ice cream.

I jabbed my spoon into the hard white mound and stuffed it into my mouth. My tongue went numb, and I thought I would die. I decided to take small bites and lick the spoon in between.

I could see the back of Curly’s head in the long mirror behind him, as he pulled a handle down. He lifted a tall glass, golden drops running down the sides, and carried it to Dad, who sat further down the bar.

“It’s a sin, it’s a sin, it’s a sin,” the fans whispered. I hoped Mom, who was home with the baby, wouldn’t find out we were in a bar.

Previously published  Pan’s Shadow

Flying the Coop

I used to hoist myself onto the slanted roof of the chicken coop, settle my back onto the tar paper, and watch small planes take off and land in the field next to our farm. I imagined what it would feel like bumping along rough pasture ground, lifting like a winged bird, and disappearing into a cloudy hole.

At age sixteen, I got to fly. The experience was better than anything I had concocted in my childhood imagination when we lived at the edge of Coldwater, Michigan. By then Dad’s second farming project, a chicken hatchery, had failed, and he got an old union buddy to trash it before we left town. We migrated to Monroe where he happily returned to prewar construction work. I got a job at Dorsch Memorial Library.

The idea of flying continued to hang heavy on my mind, despite the fact that I did not know one single person who had even flown on a plane. I knew it would cost money and that Dad would never pay for such a frivolous thing. Then it hit me: save money and hire someone at the local airport to take me up. I decided I would do this daring deed to celebrate my sixteenth birthday.

When I told Dad about my plans, he exploded. “The hell you are! You aren’t doing any damned such thing! Planes kill people all the time.”

I was feeling mighty sad when church rolled around on Sunday morning and spilled my guts to Reverend Zorn. He fired back, “My son is a pilot at the airport. Now, I wouldn’t let him fly, if it wasn’t safe, would I?”

I saw a moment of opportunity and plunged right in. “Do you suppose he’d give me a ride? I’ve saved up some money.”

I was relieved to hear the preacher say, “I’ll ask him and let you know next Sunday.”

The week was long. I spied Reverend Zorn greeting members on the front steps of the church, and, before I could get my question out, he said, “My son says it’s a go. Get permission from your Dad and then call him at the airport to set up the flight.”

Reverend Zorn’s son was as nice as he could be. He asked me how much money I had; when I told him, he said it was just the right amount. I no longer remember how much was in my pocket, probably $8 or $10. It likely didn’t cover the cost.

Scrambling up into the plane took me back to my days of struggling to get onto the chicken coop roof. The takeoff  was so fast, I didn’t have time to be scared. We floated through whipped cream clouds, passing over houses along the shore of Lake Erie. I searched for the run-down club house at Woodland Beach to help me zero in on our home. When I spotted it, I felt my eyes had betrayed reality. All the houses on the road had shrunk to tiny squares with pointed roofs.

“Ready to go out over the lake?” the pilot shouted.

My gut wrenched for a minute. Don’t be a dope. Isn’t this what you’ve been dreaming of? I took a deep breath and yelled back, “Sure.”

I disappeared into the sound of wind and engine, the blue of sky and water. Was this what it’s like to be up in heaven, on the right hand of God? I came back into my body when the wheels kissed the runway; my heart remained in the clouds.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when I got home. “You just wouldn’t believe it,” I blabbered over and over. I couldn’t find words to describe that gossamer day.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Dad said in a low voice. I waited for more to come, then slinked into my bedroom to ponder the mysteries of flying—and Dad’s silence.

Dad, swift of tongue, fist, and foot, often responded to life with violence. Especially when he felt challenged, and I had certainly challenged him. My survival skills (though I wouldn’t have been able to identify them as such) were to do my chores, stay out of sight, and keep my mouth shut.

The lure of flying must have overcome worries about punishment. I wasn’t intentionally defiant, nor was I searching for attention, though I certainly could have used some. The middle of seven kids, I was lost in the daily swirl of living. If I weren’t a natural loner, I became one, to escape the chaos.

Throughout my life, I tasted many countries that had tantalized me when I read about them as a kid. Dad got over his fear of flying and did some travelling, too. He carried silverware he had filched on one of his flights. He would flip it out of his shirt pocket, slam it down on the table of a crummy hole-in-the wall restaurant, and crow in a loud voice, “Can’t beat Swiss Airlines. Best in the world.”

I have tumbled the conundrum of Dad’s silence around in my brain for seventy years and am no closer to an answer than I was in 1953. Was Dad shocked to see his willful streak and venturesome spirit pop out in me? Relieved I didn’t die? Embarrassed I had wandered into a secret world he didn’t have the courage to enter? Maybe Dad was dumbfounded by the realization that I had grown wings and flown the coop.

Previously published Loch Raven Review

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Fay L. Loomis

Fay L. Loomis grew up in rural Michigan and now leads a quiet life in the woods in Kerhonkson, New York. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and the Rat's Ass Review Workshop, her poems and prose appear in a variety of publications, most recently in Synchronized Chaos Magazine, The Blue Mountain Review, Fevers of the Mind, Spillwords, Pleiades: Literature in Context, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Rats Ass Review, Lock Raven Review, and The Passionfruit Review.

Latest posts by Fay L. Loomis (see all)

• Homing In and Other Essays by Fay L. Loomis - August 15, 2024