CONVICTED…
…RETURNING TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
I’m suspicious. Jamie wishes her high school band were going to Seattle instead of San Francisco. Her favorite city, San Francisco. She will be exploring all of her favorite places in her favorite city with her good friends in the marching band. And yet, she wishes instead that they were going to Seattle. I think she just wants to return to the scene of ‘the crime.’
Jamie’s right about one thing. Seattle does rival San Francisco in charm. In the years when Dad and I were hoping to move to Washington, we made many trips through Oregon and Washington, always weaving our way to and through Seattle.
We ate lunch at the top of the Space Needle left from the World’s Fair, met Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet, in a favorite Mexican Food restaurant, took the ferry to Bremerton, collected blackberries, baked a pie in Aunt Diane’s kitchen, and walked along the wharves, breathing in the salt air and enjoying the sounds of sidewalk fish vendors and tourists mixing with the squeals of the sea gulls.
On one particular Seattle visit, under a bright blue sky, the four of us were enjoying an extended walk along the pier when we noticed we were moving into an area lined with arts and crafts booths selling dried flowers, ceramic mugs, paintings, wooden toys,…as far as our eyes could see. Jamie and Justin were both at the dangerous age, tall enough to grab shiny ear rings and tempting mugs from the tables, but small enough to be unsure in their grasp.
Dad and I worked hard to be the dutiful parents, holding their hands, pointing out the artsy treasures, admiring a lady’s sewing while keeping an eye on the kids, their tiny hands reaching for the golden trinkets. We gently pulled their hands back, reminding them in saintly parent tones, “Don’t touch. Just look. Aren’t they pretty?” And thinking, “Aren’t we good parents?”
Because, that’s the most important part of watching after your kids in the midst of crowds of tourists. You know strangers are judging the behavior of your children. Worse yet, they are judging you as parents. You’re expected to keep the kiddos in line, but woe to the parent who sounds ‘ugly.’ The crowd can wince in unison and pull their eyes into a frown when a parent looses his/her cool, shouts, places a pat on a child’s seat, or reprimands with a roar. The kids better be good, the parents better be better.
Generally, Dad and I felt we measured up to the crowd’s expectations; the four of us were on our best behavior. Jamie and Justin walked along pointing and reaching, we followed along cautioning and reaching for them, all of us smiling and enjoying the summer day.
We followed the thread of the crowd as it began to slow and fold together right up to and around a display where a small throng of people delighted in a table filled to the brim with whimsically painted eggs. We moved forward to see the excitement. Real eggs, blown, brightly painted and shellacked. They were in baskets, on cloth mats, hanging from small table trees, and passing from hand to hand through the crowd. The eggs were irresistible.
All four of us fell in love with a bright red Humpty Dumpty, exquisitely detailed with tiny black buttons on his red shirt, checked pants with brown suspenders leading up to a turn down collar and ruddy-faced smile. We decided to buy Humpty Dumpty for our annual Christmas tree ornament and souvenir, and the artist offered to personalize an inscription on his back.
As we waited for her to finish, our attention was drawn to another egg in a man’s hand. From the side of the egg, he was pulling at a thin piece of paper that continued to wind out of the egg like a scarf out of a magician’s sleeve. As he pulled, he read a poem on the thin strip in fine calligrapher’s script. Finished with the poem and with the paper fully extended, he turned the egg over in his hand and revealed a small turning crank handle sticking out the other side of the egg. Pinching and turning that crank between two fingers, he wound the paper back into the egg. We were all amazed.
The kids couldn’t resist. Jamie reached to grab the egg, and good parent that I was, I reached for her hand. “Be careful, honey. These are so fragile. Aren’t they cute? Would you like to see it? Let me help you. We don’t want to break them.”
I reached into a basket and carefully picked up another egg, ignoring her reaching hands, telling her to be patient, just a minute, “I’m trying to see how it works,” as I turned it and pulled at the poem. I still can’t remember how that egg literally jumped out of my hands and stood in mid-air.
It hovered there waiting for me to recover and swoop my hands under it saving it from disaster. I knew I could do it. It was right there. I couldn’t let it fall to the ground and break. Go for it. You can do it. I whisked my hands gracefully together, feeling the egg bounce back and forth between left and right hand, almost there, with just a little more insistence, I can do it, keep it off the ground,…I pressed my hands together around the little egg.
Splat.
I wished it had broken on the ground. Because there I was standing in the midst of 15 or 20 tourists, my hands pressed together as if in prayer, everyone waiting for me to open my hands and reveal hundreds of flecks of broken eggs shells and a rolled scroll of a poem.
The egg dead at last in my hands, in unison, the whole crowd sucked in a giant gasp of air, and a small lady in the back asked, “What happened?” Little whispers started next to me and wafted back to the questioning crowd, followed by “what’s” until a little girl loudly cleared up any doubt, “Mommy, that lady smashed the egg.” If I could have only floated away with the tide.
The artist immediately reassured me it was OK, no it’s not, yes, it is really, no, I feel terrible, I will pay you for it, no, I won’t let you, I insist, no, I refuse to take your money; I put the reject eggs in that basket, the ones I can’t sell, because they do get broken. (I thought, she knows there’s a poor clumsy slob somewhere like me. She prepared for us.) Well, then, I’ll buy another egg to go with Humpty.
I can’t remembering looking down at the kids from that moment on. I know they didn’t break anything that day. I guess they listened to my words and were impressed by my good sense? I really showed them!
If she ever gets to Seattle, Jamie shouldn’t expect to find the cracked egg shells littering the sidewalks. Workers sweep the walks each night, and any shells they missed have by now been washed away by the rain. I wonder if any seagulls are still alive to point out the spot on the sidewalk where Mommy learned to take her own advice.
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