peeny wally

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April 11, 2004

Easter Sunday, We Were Talking

I remember Easter.

I remember when I was younger, my mother would sew me a new Easter dress (yes, and bonnet) every year, and I couldn’t have cared less. It may seem bratty, but she never let me pick out the pattern or the fabric or anything else, and they never suited me at all. The only year I really liked my dress was this time when she made a white and kind of blue flouncy thing that had a bow that tied in the back and an enormous can-can slip underneath (or something like that, lots of tulle, at any rate) with two jingle bells tucked inside the ruffles. I loved that dress, but I’m certain that it was only for the jingle-jangle it made when I ran around. I remember the last time I wore it, because it was just a regular day and I put it on to go play outside in, and my mother was horrified. I couldn’t understand why — she had made it so that I could wear it, no? Much of our communication remains on this same level.

I remember the Easter when I distinctly learned that most people around me were a bit more privileged than my brother and I. We went to visit my grandparents, and again I was wearing a dress my mother had made me. That year hers was made out of the same fabric. We went to Sunday school and all those little girls were asking each other and me what we had all gotten in our Easter baskets. I was flummoxed. “Um, Jelly Bellys, a chocolate bunny, some eggs…” I answered, not quite sure what sort of answer could be made. Turns out, these other little princesses were getting Cabbage Patch Kids and Swatch watches. I prefer candy to most trinkets still, so that’s a lucky thing.

One Easter there was a big Easter egg hunt in a little corral of hay constructed in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I found the golden egg and won a new bike, which I badly needed, because I had outgrown my first bike, a red Western Flyer that came with training wheels. The new bike was a Huffy, a Desert Rose, and I got my picture in the paper with the owner of that Wal-Mart in front of the store.

When I was older I stopped going to church, and most of my Easter Eves were spent out with friends, talking and drinking and coming home late and in no condition to make it to any kind of church in the morning. I remember sitting up all night talking with my friend Greg once, until the sun came up. I got into my car to drive across the city to my own apartment and bed, and when I turned the car on, Patti Smith’s “Easter” was playing and I listened as I drove over highways and neighborhoods and watched the sun fully rise and illuminate the hazy city.

The last time I did anything family-related for Easter was the year after, when I went with my mother back to Kentucky, back to my grandparents’ house. I stayed with my cousin Stephanie and her husband and daughter that year. They had just bought a farmhouse and her husband insisted on showing me his fighting cocks that night. He goaded them so that I could see them “show” and all the while I wanted to run, run away. We dyed eggs and drank vodka. The next day we went over to my grandparents’ and went fishing in the pond, where I caught a snapping turtle, or “tuh-pin,” as my slow-talking Alabama grandfather called it.

Anyway, I like Easter alright. I like it a whole lot more than Christmas, and when you take the church part away I like it even more. I like the idea of a celebration of rebirth and renewing. I love springtime when everything is alive and green and growing. I like planting a garden and looking forward to delicious summer. I like to get a new dress. I love to eat chocolate, even in bunny form. Mostly, I love cascarrones, which I learned about too late in life, and am sadly deficient in this year. If you would like to contribute some my way, you can find me later at the Jones Brothers annual Easter bunny-que, if this rain ever lets up.

Posted by pogo at April 11, 2004 10:47 AM