“Abracadabra”

She was magic. Everybody knew it.  What captivated people was her irresistible personality, her razzle-dazzle looks and the charm she emoted which mesmerized and bemused even the non-believers so they forgot completely about their concerns and objections.

She was a schoolteacher. Her principal let her teach first grade year after year, where she thrived and was cherished. Even though she never had any children of her own, she really understood them. She knew how to listen. Listening to children is not the same as listening to anything else in the world. Children say what they have to say without words, mostly. To get children to use their words the world has to be just right. It has to feel absolutely safe.

She knew how to talk to children, too. And I mean really “talk”. There was no beating around the bush with Marguerite Noel. When she was around you could “say it like it was” without the familiar critical cloud hanging over you. This created an atmosphere of protection and freedom where you could let your true nature out to find your voice.

I didn’t have her as a teacher in school. She lived and taught in another little town. I got to be with her on holidays, though, because I was lucky to have her as my very own Great Aunt Marguerite. My cousins, siblings and I would crowd near a window—watching-- in anticipation of her arrival for Easter dinner. Uncharacteristic loud high-pitched cheers would erupt when her car appeared and we’d all run out to welcome her.

She was my grandmother’s youngest half sister and there had to have been at least 20 years between them. She felt young to me---more my mom’s age than my grandmother’s. That really doesn’t explain it, either. Actually, she felt ageless. I suspected that she lived in a timeless world where the perception of age didn’t matter.

She had style and pizzazz. She always wore a large brimmed hat tilted just slightly to the side. She carried a pair of gloves in one hand and clutched a thin purse close to her body.  Unlike the other women in the family, she wore make up and had a faint scent of lavender perfume. Her accessories were meticulously coordinated with some snazzy outfit complete with a pair of fantastic shoes. She loved shoes so much she married a man who fixed them. Uncle Bob, who we adored too, would show up looking dapper in his white Panama hat and 2-toned shoes, dressed to the “nines”, as well.

The two of them would arrive at our dull and boring family reunions with attitude. We would always look predictably the same: Uncle Glen in his plaid flannel shirt and overalls, Grandpa in his white shirt, grey pants and blue tie, Grandma, my Mom and her sisters in their Sunday-best frocks covered with full aprons and us kids in our nearly- outgrown church clothes. Why did they want to spend the day with us?

They had class. There was a charge between them, unlike all the other couples who didn’t even want to sit next to each other at the long table. Bob and Marguerite weren’t afraid of this magnetism. They clearly adored each other and when their eyes met you could feel a spark and see a slight blush brush across their cheeks. Their connection felt like the most natural thing in the universe.

They stood out in a distinctive way. To me, as a child, it was as if they had stepped out of a fantasy book. Not a book you would find in just any library or on one of the bookshelves at my house. The way they looked and talked gave the impression they were not even related to us. They moved among relatives with charisma looking each one in the eye with a sweet word and a wink.

Aunt Marguerite would cast her spell as soon as she walked through the door. Her big brown eyes, with long lashes and eye shadow, illuminated with delight when children came into her sphere. She would open her arms for a hug and talk to you as if you were the only person on the planet. If you stood very still when she was near you could hear your brain cells harmonizing and rising to a higher pitch. Your physical body practically jumped out of its skin at the mere sight of her. Emotions lost their doled drum heaviness and vanished into instantaneous happiness. She was the most amazing wheel of fortune, ever!

She would make a big deal with the adults about the seating arrangements for dinner. Each holiday she would volunteer to sit with the children in the kitchen to “make certain they don’t run amuck or get too loud”, she would explain. We all knew her hoopla was just a show to conjure up in everyone’s minds just how much she loved us. We couldn’t contain our giggles as she took the chance and negotiated on our behalf. Her dramatic spectacle bedazzled and charmed us all!

During dinner we heard the adults in the next room making small talk, when there was actually nothing to say. Eventually they would land upon the weather and farmers’ gossip—which with any luck lasted until the end of their meal. At our table, however,conversations were animated and fun. Aunt Marguerite would not even have to coax us to tell our stories. Stories we didn’t even know were in us would come tumbling out merely because she was there. We would laugh so hard milk would run right out of our noses.

After the meal, dishes washed, dried and put away, old clothes on and men sleeping in front of the TV as football players dodged tackles, we kids tiptoed down the dark hall and gathered around a small table Aunt Marguerite had set up in a back bedroom. A black velvet cloth covered the rickety card table giving an air of fascination and illusion. Sheer curtains were open just a little so a few light beams filtered through casting shadows on her face. It was just dark enough to put a sense of the heebie-jeebies on what was about to happen.

She sat behind the table. We waited on pins and needles until she spoke a low, quiet “abracadabra”, when tarot cards would appear with a slight of her hand. She shuffled the deck like a Las Vegas dealer while emoting passionately about the symbols on the cards and how she was going to use them to predict our futures. It seemed incredibly mysterious! I hadn’t even thought about my future since last Christmas when she had shape-shifted her alchemy into those cards and cast the unknown upon us. Now, my future was about to materialize in front of my eyes again with the hocus-pocus those cards were about to reveal.

Each one of us kids got a “reading”. I found myself holding my breath every time 3 cards were pulled and placed in a row in front of us. Then her unbelievable smoke and mirror stories started and went on and on and on, hypnotizing and holding our wide-eyed attention with unspeakable wonder. We clung to each thought anticipating astonishment. Her gypsy spirit did not disappoint as she embellished and lingered on every word. Our imaginations cast us right over the precipice into the worlds beyond.

Suddenly, in the palm of her hand a black fortune-telling ball appeared. Answers to our questions floated to the surface at the bottom of the ball and cast a mysterious aura. She extended the ball slightly away from her body, adding to the illusion of prophecy.

By the time the Ouija board emerged everyone was sitting on the edge of their chairs, the little ones resting their arms on the table in anticipation. She had been bewitching us with the Ouija board as long as I could remember. Each time it appeared we were taken closer to some way-out apparition. Who would she choose today to reach into the beyond for an answer to their burning query?

Out of the blue, our mothers call us back to this world, breaking the spell. Our desserts are ready. We file toward the kitchen in silence, too delirious to care about what ordinarily would have brought us racing. For, you see, Great Aunt Marguerite introduced us to the world of Spirit. She uncovered Universal secrets, revealed unseen truths and brought to light symbols larger than life that disclosed their meanings in a mysterious language. In some all-seeing way she had summoned an awe-inspiring image of Paula that, though dreamlike, was undoubtedly “me”.

I clearly remember breathing deeply, pondering questions I had never thought of before and smiling in awe as she drove off in their fancy automobile. Great Aunt Marguerite had graced the day and her presence continued to drape around us like a silk cloak. Full of wonder, we silently looked into our futures to the next holiday when we would enter her world of enchantment and magic again. 

My Favorite Place To Be

My Aunt Leonie loved me. She was actually my Great Aunt, my grandmother’s oldest sister, and she was GREAT! It may not seem extraordinary to be loved by an aunt, but when I was growing up, she was the only person in my world whose relationship with me was based simply on love.

Relationships with everyone else were bound tightly with ideas of who I was and was not supposed to be, how I was to act, expectations, rules and unspoken conditions. Like other children who grew up in complicated environments, I thought my family was just the same as everyone’s. I developed ways to cope with my situation without realizing the challenges I was unknowingly enduring.

When I was with my Aunt Leonie, however, I could abandon my defenses and relax into who I truly was. I felt safe, nurtured, inspired, excited, and happy. Confusion about myself disappeared. No matter how many other children were around, there was no jealousy or competition. Aunt Leonie was an infinite abundance of purity and kindness and enveloped each of us with bountiful warmth and caring.

From my earliest memories she seemed very old. Her eyes were sapphire blue and sparkled like stars. When she smiled her entire face lit up. She had a large lump from a hernia on her side and she covered it with a flowered dress and sometimes an apron. She had white hair which she wore pinned up on her head. Sometimes when I was at her house she would let it down to wash it. It hung way below her waist and she would lean over the kitchen sink and pour a mysterious blue liquid over it. She would let me watch the entire process without explaining anything. I never felt the need to ask about it.

To this day I don’t exactly understand why my Aunt Leonie was excluded from large family gatherings. I knew intuitively that it was not a subject that should be brought up with anyone. The subject hovered in the family like a stampeding elephant. Once I overheard someone say that my grandmother was angry with her sister because, as children, Leonie was older but smaller and frail and my grandmother had to wear Leonie’s hand-me-down shoes. That explanation did not help my child-sadness or dismay at having my favorite person home alone right across the street as if she didn’t exist.

One noticeable contrast between my house and hers was how people talked with each other. At Aunt Leonie’s house it was like the volume had been turned down low on the radio. Voices were never raised. There didn’t seem to be a need for that. The words that were spoken were always kind, supportive and encouraging. We laughed a lot at her house and talked about our feelings.

I felt I belonged there. Aunt Leonie's house was at the end of a dead-end street one house away from mine. I was allowed to wander back and forth between our houses as early as I can remember. Her enormous yellow house became my refuge, although I didn’t recognize it as such at the time.

One of my earliest memories was running through the sprinkler in her freshly clipped lawn. I was wearing just my shorts, having spontaneously discarded my shirt for a more complete experience. The sun was shining brightly, and big puffy clouds were floating in the enormous blue sky. I was free. Suddenly, I was grabbed up by the back of my shorts and carried firmly under the strong arm of my father like a football all the way home. I was told in no uncertain terms I would never betray my womanhood by not wearing a shirt in public EVER AGAIN. I wanted to run away from home right then and live at Aunt Leonie’s. I thought it would probably be okay, as long as I packed plenty of shirts.

Aunt Leonie’s stepdaughter, Flossy, lived with her. They had a huge porch swing on the South side of their house that seemed to be the place to go for a gentle breeze. There were no railings behind the swing so it would fly out into space and take my breath away. Aunt Leonie, Flossy and I would swing for hours, me in the middle, singing songs that we all knew and even some that we made up.

Aunt Leonie loved to bake. She had a little stool for me to stand on which made me just the right height for helping. She would spread all the ingredients out before me. She taught me how to sift flour, skim off cream, measure lard, and form leftover pie dough into animal shapes that we would sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. I could hardly wait for them to come out of the oven so that we could eat them.

No matter what we were doing at Aunt Leonie’s house, when the cuckoo clock announced the hour, we would race into the sitting room and watch the little German man and woman and their duck come out to take turns ringing the bell. We would squeal with delight and laugh right out loud at the whimsical folly. Every hour we were taken by surprise and thrilled, as if each cuckoo was our first.

Aunt Leonie had an enormous antique oak oval table in her country kitchen. Kids would flock to her house in the cold times of the year to play solitaire. We would play for hours. Instead of playing against each other, we would play in such a way that in order to win, we each had to get rid of all our cards. It was an amazing experience of working together, finding peaceful and encouraging solutions, and having an important place in a group. We worked together and we all won. Putting puzzles together were also a favorite winter activity.

One of Aunt Leonie’s virtues was the ability to be in the moment. We spent many afternoons sitting on wooden crates in her driveway with a small pail of water right by our sides. We would carefully choose little rocks that seemed drab and uninteresting, plunk them into the bucket and gently begin to scrub. When we would pull them out and hold them up, the sparkles that had been hiding inside would burst out, glistening and dancing in the sun’s rays. I was convinced that we were working magic. Those moments were so full and perfect; there was no possibility of being anything but completely absorbed. I didn’t miss a thing.

One of our favorite things to do at Aunt Leonie’s happened every year in the fall. Lots of kids would flock there after school like geese knowing it was time to fly south. When we arrived, a bushel basket of Granny Smith apples sat in the middle of the oval table surrounded by pairing knives. Now, I am sure if our parents knew about this they would have been horrified. We would take an apple and start slowly and carefully peeling the skin into long snakelike ribbons. As we developed our skill, the spirals from one apple would continue on into the next. The challenge was to see how long you could make it before the spiral skin broke. To my knowledge, no one ever got cut.

I am certain I am the person I am today because of my Aunt Leonie. She initiated me into the world of spirit and soul, empowered me to discover myself, inspired my imagination, encouraged even my wildest dreams and allowed me to express my feelings. Aunt Leonie sowed the seeds of kindness, caring, trust, safety, living in a peaceful way, and being all I could be.

Aunt Leonie taught me, most importantly, about love and offered this comfort in so many ways. She showed me with her smile, the delightful sparkle in her eyes, how she put my ponytail in a rubber band, the way she talked with me, and how carefully she listened and listened and listened. She affectionately held me in her loving world, which gave me ground beneath my feet. My Aunt Leonie loved me and I loved my Aunt Leonie! She was my favorite place to be.