Synopsis of 1984 trip (challenge)
(Laptop screen)
Just over a year ago, I agreed to take a trip back to 1984. Dreams of my own shiny silver DeLorean DMC-12 glowing green with atomic fusion had me begging to sign the waivers.
“Of course, I read them. No, I’m not still complaining. Geez!”
With all the latest gadgets, 5G phone packing 5 cameras and 8K video, 512 gig, hand sized external hard drives holding 2TB each and a shiny slim light laptop with an OLED touchscreen 4.4 GHz, 12 MB L3 cache, 10 cores, 12 threads, and Xe graphics, I was armed and ready to show everyone the 80’s I remembered.
“Yes, I took my digital camera. No, it was not part of the assignment.”
In my original April 1984, I was in small town Kansas as a 15 year old high school sophomore counting the weeks until I turned 16. The geeky look I couldn’t wait to erase, huge plastic rimmed glasses that covered my round face and shiny silver braces hiding my soon to be perfect smile, was being replaced by contacts, a retainer, and hair long enough to put in a ponytail, since my mother Dorthy Hamilled my head in the 4th grade.
“No, I already had my license. We had farm permits at 14. Yes, to and from school and work.”
Freshman year ended with my first report card B and I was dead set on that not happening again.
”It’s possible they chose me because of my photography background. They never said. I know, I know the person selected couldn’t be a total idiot.”
At 7:15 a.m. every day, we yawned our way through first period and every day, year round, my 8th grade brother and I stayed after school for seasonal sports. Dad allowed me to drive our travel vehicle, a black 1978 Dodge panel van with red shag carpet and a wooden bed he installed himself, as long as I drove my younger siblings to all their events.
”Shaggin Wagon. It was a 70’s thing but yes, I was teased horribly. More so though, when I had to climb up on the front bumper to hold open the carburetor with a screwdriver so it would start in the winter.”
15 minutes of homeroom followed first period and I was lucky enough to be in the word processor classroom. Wall E shaped Apple computers were in the basement with the junior high kids. We learned flow chart processing down there and took typing freshman year.
“We had a computer at home but most didn’t. Your grandfather was one of the first to use one for his engineering work. Vectors.”
We arrived home each day for mutilated 5:30pm dinner. Luckily, there were always Banquet microwave meals in the freezer. The dial driven microwave rode on its own cart and doubled the size of the Apple. Stacks of Tupperware filled an entire cabinet, most lids were destroyed or altered in microwave experiments.
“Yes, I’m referring to your grandmother’s horrific cooking. No, they don’t need to know we found forgotten food in the microwave the next day. Reheated vegetables, usually.”
The nearest grocer was 30 minutes away and our overflowing cart would cost between $300 and $400 bi-weekly. We bought a pig and a cow at the fair every August and split it with another family.
“In the chest freezer in the basement. The laundry was too.”
Cable TV didn’t reach us until the mid 90’s but inner city homes had it. The remotes were children of the house as changing the channel or volume was still manual. We had 4 channels, 4, 5, 9, and 41 so seeing what was showing was pretty quick. PBS was on 41 and where we found most of our shows, except for Saturday morning cartoons.
“All the channels. They were only on Saturday morning.”
We wore jeans and t-shirts almost every day. The high wasted girls’ were cut so slim I had to lay on the bed to zip and button them. Clothing didn’t have the plastic content for stretching. Some ventured into the pop culture clothing with parachute pants, oversized shirts, tights and leg warmers. The later it was the bigger the hair. Cans of hair spray, tons of blue eye shadow, and fluorescent colors adorned the high school halls.
“No, your grandfather wore a golf shirt with a pocket for his pen and slide rule and your grandmother made most of her clothing using tons of plaid polyesters and paisley.”
Parents took a hands on approach to education holding positions on the board, as room mothers, and meeting all the staff. Children were required to have homework completed on their own. Spankings and groundings were common and the “time out chair” was yet to be written.
“Yes, the buckle end was the worst. Cut the skin with the first lashing.”
The nightly news and daily newspapers were gospel. They were our windows to the world. If words were found to be untrue retractions were printed or apologies spoken. We believed in the government officials we elected and made them accountable.
“Almost finished. I don’t answer to you. That’s just paperwork for appearances.”
Children played outside without fenced yards and pets roamed the neighborhood. Parents weren’t worried as long as they arrived at the dinner table promptly.
“I said, almost finished!”
Most households had converted to two incomes as the expense of things now made single income homes practically impossible. The term “latchkey kid” is common and I had been one since age 9. We didn’t lock our doors and windows but had a guard dog.
“No, I’ve not heard from them. Yes, I’m still looking for an online position. No one would believe my resume looking like this.”
I returned from 1984 yesterday, May 1st. When I left one year ago, I was living as a 54 year old woman in Texas with two grown children and a grand child. I was woken by my mother as my 15 year old self in BFE, Kansas, May 1, 1984, a Tuesday, a school day, and I had overslept.
“I organized the photos already and the report is coordinated. No, they still have no idea what happened to the others who weren’t born as of May 1984.”
All signs pointed to me returning at the appropriate age after reliving a year as a teenager. In the last 36 hours a new identity, Melissa Jane Mahaney, was created with my daughter and son-in-law appointed legal guardians of this visually 16 year old. The mirror shock every morning wore off months ago. I will adjust as will my family. The failure of the mission weighs heavily.
He wants me.
“Naked,” crosses my lips as our eyes meet.
He releases the slightest gasp as he attempts to remember the question.
Sensuously, I continue, “standing in the shower, hot sprays of pulsating water carrying away all my inhibitions,” as my hands run through the long wavy auburn strands resting on my shoulders.
“What did she say? What was it? ‘A true life storyteller.’ She must write about her sex life!” The annals of his mind following the water down, down, down.
“My mind drifts into my past and I remember an encounter most couldn’t imagine but would relate to,” expanding ever so slightly.
“Her number has to be at least 100. She's been single more than 10 years. Yeah, gotta be triple digits to have enough experiences to write successfully,” he continues sinking.
Gesturing as I speak, “every detail is important. Not just who, what, when, where, and why but the reflection of every sense triggered. The lightest brush of a finger across a hand, a simple nod, and eyes meeting can be foreplay …(looking away) or two familiar yet platonic people crossing paths.”
“She is definitely into me but on the first date? Should I play it cool or hit it, one and done? Damn she is so sexy.” Falling, falling, falling.
Capturing his gaze once more, “after I have every detail pulled from my memories, …I work on all the punch lines,” quickly slides out as I swipe my drink from the table and recline into my chair. “Life is all about the laughs.”
Grin and giggle.
XOXO
Rainbow
From your closet door emerged
Colors of our youth now purged
Into sexual connotations urged
Innocence lost.
Who you are behind your door
Bare-skinned world you implore
Publicly you must explore
At what cost?
In their faces, bewildered youth
God’s creation, altered truth
Implications attached uncouth
Innocence lost
Close your house your room your door
March the public streets no more
Hide yourself, your face, your core
At what cost?
To love all, these colors show
Kindness bound our children grow
Led by youth, world in tow
Probity found.
Our colors never again tainted
Arched across the sky, God painted
One with Him acquainted
Eternity bound.
Love: redefined you
In our balanced world of Yen and Yang, nothing can be truly experienced without an opposition. The challenge, learning the counterparts.
To understand life, you must have experienced death.
No, the true meaning of life will not be clear before you can look back on its entirety.
Knowing what is false guides us to truth. Assumptions make you the fool.
The value of good is learned from being imperfect, your ill wills, your mistakes.
Love, however, is an ever-changing commodity.
It can be torn and tested, molded and altered.
When spoken, it can evoke war or bring peace.
Consummate love is only known from loss.
Possessive defeat or deprivation will not complete you only the demise of defined self.
Your identity now altered from encountering another.
The id you once knew will never return.
The other became part of you.
8 times over
I hope to be wrong
To be so, brings sorrow headlong
Up is down, black is white
Belief over fact, this is not right
In the maze of a lab rat with no end in sight
Kept in the dark when we have to have light
Loud speakers of lies hiding the science
Choosing to fear over defiance
Told to sign off, it was for the best
This choice, science says, may harm the rest
Scared and afraid, I will get the call
Slipping as fruit from trees, a windfall
Save my family, one and all
In is now out, short is now tall
Please no, I am not that strong
I pray to be wrong
The soul never dies.
You can remember. You have returned home.
All your affiliates await. Adjust in good time.
How well did you do? Was it all you had hoped?
We saw you had challenges? We all played our roles.
Yes, one did well. Still one has much to face.
Successes and failures. One will remain.
Very happy to be back. Thank you all.
I still have much to learn. Maybe brighter next life.
Who goes back next? Have you chosen a life?
What will your trials be? Will I have a part?
In time, young soul. Recollections await you.
Reexamine all your pasts. Enlightenment lies in the distance.