The View From The French Windows

As I sit this early rainy morning listening once again to my old tunes, I am feeling very reminiscent of days gone by. As Cat Stevens plays in my headphones, my fingers type rhythmically to his voice as though we are in our own passionate dance.

I was actually listening to Elton John a few minutes before, and my mind wandered across the street, (from where I lived as a child) and many years back to my best friend's house. Inside it felt haunted and run down. It was always dark. Her dad never came out of the kitchen, and we never went in. It was creepy.The french windows are open,  and Steve Miller Band or Led Zeppelin would be blaring on her stereo. I was into more mellow stuff like Cat Stevens,  but was known to groove  to her tunes in my brown cord bell bottoms.
This was around 1975, we were in ninth grade. We had a neighbor down the street who was heavily into weed, and my neighbor and her had themselves some good times. I tried a few times, but ended up eating everything, and the refrigerator. Hmmm.... that would be my luck. This friend down the street was a total hippy chick. The longest hair I had ever seen on anyones legs and underarms. She was very pretty, but always kinda bitchy to me. Clearly I was not a cool hip chick.

One time I was in hippy chick's house, there must have been twenty cats roaming about. The scent was,you could say somewhat interesting. Maybe my two friends were too stoned to notice. I just wanted to flee. I moved to the hood in seventh grade, so I was late to the ways of these gals. All of us went to St Luke's for grade school, but this girl down the street by now was in tenth grade, a woman of the world. Thinking back, I'm guessing she may have been a baby drug dealer.
I was too busy doing cartwheels in the front yard and baking lots of chocolate chip cookies.

 The funny thing was- the good girls I grew up with, the Good Catholic Girls  parents thought rocked the casbah, were actually the ones you would never want to bring home. The ones doing the most drugs, drinking heavily - having  sex at the earliest age ( with numerous abortions.)

However, due to serious repression, they/ we all knew how to put on our best game face,
and get what we needed to survive such ridiculous rules. My home was  equally ridiculous, so out of control that I was able to slip in and out much easier than my fellow cohorts. We all had the same  "burning in hell" rules. Some of us just took it to the extreme, more than others.

I have always worn my expression on my face- not a very good poker player. Now, my friend across the street. She knew how to play the game, as did another friend of mine. The funny thing was,
across the street gal liked to do her drugs- another friend down the street (not hippy chic) liked to hang out at church and had a thing for priests. I seemed to always live in alternate universes,  this was no different. Neither liked each other, so I just snuck out while Aerosmith would be blasting from those french windows across the street. I kew she was watching- but I needed my freedom. Always have.

Onward to my friend "church girl's"  world. We would go to mass sometimes twice on Sunday, so she could see her man toy priest. My reward for such dreaded boredom- getting a bag of nacho cheese chips and  half gallon of milk and sitting on the choir loft steps when everyone was gone. Now, that was my idea of a party. (Yes- I was a food head from the get go.) If you had to sit around and talk about fifty something year  old bald eagle plain wrap looking priests with personalities to match at fourteen. Well I am sure I had chocolate gem donuts to wash down the chips and milk.


This gal, it would appear to be squeaky clean wholesome princess- was worse than the other one. Anything went with this wild thing. Now, she looked like a librarian, that's what would throw anyone off. At the time, I had  platinum blonde hair, my sister would call me a "thirty year old divorcee."At this point I had  barely kissed a boy.  But... I looked a little wild, a little Lolita-ish.

Funny, the innocence of youth, when you don't have a clue....Those days are long gone. As I sit in my home now, listening to the music that brings me so much comfort - still. My friend across the street's home was torn down several years ago. A new one built. Not long after, someone moved into it and shortly after killed themselves.  I wonder what ghosts still haunt that house.