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9:40 a.m. - 2010-10-25
\"Childhood Blueprint\"
I guess my story starts with a man. I have studied so many black and white photographs of that very first man. Perched in a small bucket of water with his "Buster Brown" haircut. Lifting weights with his skinny arms and shy grin. Fresh from the war, handsome in his tan uniform. Cutting the wedding cake with the pretty girl across the street. He was, for me, a legend. An icon, although a common-enough presence in my little girl world. He was not an absent father. He was my very best friend. So many urban legends surround the amazing "us". I have heard many times about how I almost died of virus pneumonia. In my first memory, I am wrapped in thick blankets and carried into the night by this frightened, heartbroken man. When I finally came home from the hospital, weak and bewildered, I am told that he slept in the crib. Vigilantly guarding my every breath. Daring God to take me from his fervent clutch. He was that intense. I am telling you this because I believe that our "childhood blueprint" strongly influences, if not determines, our choices thereafter. I have found myself drawn, throughout life, to frightened, heartbroken, very intense men. Men who will make me the center of their life. Men who will cherish, protect, control. When my friends would "run off" on me ("three girls just can't get along", my mother would say), my Daddy would begin some fascinating game there on the front lawn and soon they would be back, wanting to be part of the magic circle of "us". Everyone coveted my childhood. My best friend once ran away from home (two doors down) and showed up on our doorstep with her suitcase. My dad was that compelling. All of this transferred verbatim onto my "childhood blueprint". Gifted but cautious, moral but irreverant, charming but reserved. My Dad was funny. He brought life into the house every evening around five, when he would return from Lockheed, where he worked his way from the assembly line to negotiating contracts with the Navy. My Dad was smart. And responsible. If he said he would pick me up at six, he would be there at five thirty. Always. He never left me waiting. Never let me down, not as a child, anyway. And he was funny. In the mornings, at the breakfast table, he would do his great impression of Stan Laurel. Dark hair sticking up in all directions, he would scratch the top of his head and apologize to Ollie through covincing mock tears. My Dad was a great writer who didn't write. A philosopher who, later in life, professed that thinking was dangerous. He was an enigma. Larger than life. There was nothing he couldn't fix. He supplemented our income fixing radios, although he'd do it for free for all our neighbors. He enjoyed fixing things. He always knew just what to do to put my little girl heart back together. When I became a teenager, it wasn't so easy. He found me remote. Frightened of being replaced, he changed. He withdrew. My "blueprint", irrevocably altered.

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