Back to Coxsackie (again)

I've got some sort of stomach thing that is really not good. I've been perched atop the porcelain throne for the better part of the last 12 hours or so. I think it's punishment. Last night I was watching Sister Sister, and there was a team rivalry and they dyed the other team's uniforms "powder puff pink." The other team retaliated with bad brownies and one of them ate one and was having stomach issues, and I laughed... within an hour, guess where I was. Yup, on the toilet, thinking about "powder puff pink."

Funny how, at times like those, my mind wanders. There I sit, on the toilet, thinking about powder puff pink, and where do I end up?

When I was a child of about 8, we lived in a 4 family apartment in Coxsackie NY. We were poor, very poor, though I never really understood that money (or the lack of it) was an issue, I was miserably unhappy. I had no friends, only a mean-spirited bully as my constant companion, my father had recently left my mother, we'd recently left NC to move to NY where I never fit in. My whole life had been turned inside out, I was having health issues, stomach issues actually, that resulted in my spending much time in the bathroom.

On the back of the toilet were trinkets, knick knacks, and my mother's perfume. Ambush, both that quirky retro bottle and the dusting powder, in a round pink box, with a beautiful pink powder puff. I loved the smell when I was young, loved that damn powder puff too. I thought it was the most elegant thing I'd ever seen. I'd go in the bathroom and open the box so carefully just to smell it, just to feel that powder puff. If you've ever smelled Ambush (which I doubt you have, even if you have the newer version, which stinks) you'll understand that every time I opened that box, not only did the smell fill that tiny bathroom in Coxsackie NY, it most likely filled the better part of the house. It's an intense fragrance.

But my mother never yelled at me for opening it or messing with it. I'm glad. I know it sounds a strange, but her Ambush Dusting Powder and that puff were my guilty pleasure, they were one of the few sources of beauty and pleasure in my life at that point. If she'd have caught me and yelled at me for doing it, she'd have ruined it, soiled the purity of it. It being "my secret" was so important to me. It would have been a major loss at a time in my life when it seemed like loss and pain were all that existed.

I don't know if she was really unaware, somehow, of my fascination with it, or aware enough that she was kind enough to never mention it. All I know is that while I was locked in that bathroom with that little round box in my hand, surrounded by that fragrance, I thought I had found some rare treasure, and I thought I was special.


I know I post a lot about that period of my life. Seems like after all these years I'd be over it. I'm still sometimes amazed by just how traumatized I was by those few years, and how long-lasting the effects are. It's good though I guess that at least I can finally find some pleasant memories.