By JoEllen Collins
The title of my column might refer to the troubles families and teachers are having concerning school, due to the pandemic. However, in a recent piece, I mentioned my time spent in the third grade in only one room (and a bath) at home. As I began pondering that time of isolation (and this is not meant to be applicable to everyone), I recognized some of the positive and character-strengthening results of that eight months, three weeks and eleven hours in bed.
In brief, we had moved from San Francisco to L.A to be near my adopted older sister, who was dying of tuberculosis. (Both of my siblings and I were adoptees.) My baby brother had club feet that my mother massaged for hours every day, and, in a fall, I had broken several ribs, exacerbating my severe and worsening asthma. In addition, I was feared to be a possible TB victim.
Oddly, I don’t remember feeling angry or abandoned or without friends, but because I was always a “good” girl, I somehow made it a passable time. I listened to the radio, colored a lot, played with my Storybook dolls on my brightly squared quilt, making mountains out of patches ready for the arrival of Prince Charming, was visited by a teacher once a week who collected my homework, and read voraciously. At that time children’s books were usually bound in leather and lavishly illustrated. Although often scary like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the stories where I imagined being in China or Japan and having to deal with the fanciful worlds I encountered were stirring. I developed a thirst for wondering what it would be like to exist in these places or conditions. I also learned to love my language.
Now, several decades later, I can see why I call myself a storyteller, and why I talk too much (radio, radio—Jack Benny making me laugh). I even worked in radio for a while! Travel beckoned: I yearned to see the world: my first big trip was in a prop plane when I was 19 volunteering to work at 11,000 feet near Quito, Ecuador, building playground equipment at six rural schools. From then on, I found that travel through volunteering is both inexpensive and rewarding. I had learned to do without fancy clothes and live simply.
I couldn’t practice my piano but sang along with the radio and am now resuming the joy of playing the piano on a keyboard and love singing. I learned hand sewing by making small doll clothes and later in life developed a passion for appliquéing memories on fabric as a means of communication.
I was lucky to have a very affectionate and supportive family sitting at the hall doorway and talking and reading to me or bringing me my mother’s inimitable Swedish cooking and her chocolate cake. I knew I was loved. It could have been worse. Who knows what patterns we might acquire in our current, challenging new world?