Breadcrumb #683

JANE E. VALENTINE

Last summer a friend stumbled across an article about a local, homegrown museum: The National Museum of Ship Models and Sea History, incongruously located in tiny, incontrovertibly inland, Sadorus, Illinois. The article was brief, but intriguing - the museum, open mostly by appointment, is dedicated to maritime history as told via ship models, and features hundreds of scale models of historical vessels. We were fascinated, so my friend called the museum’s owner, Charles Lozar. It took a few calls to reach him, but we eventually managed to schedule a visit the following Saturday.  We collected a few more friends, loaded ourselves into a car, and drove the short way from Champaign down to Sadorus.

The museum is in a former general store, and the storefront was filled with a jumble of models, dioramas, artwork, books - even a lighthouse-shaped dollhouse. It was reminiscent of a curiosity shop, and faintly indicative of what we would find within - an overwhelming wonderland of maritime models and miscellanea. Charles opened the door, and ushered us inside, cautioning us to turn sideways so as to not bump into the 27-foot long model of the Queen Mary dominating the front room. It was built, in three 9-foot sections, from over one million toothpicks by a Chicago-based enthusiast who later donated it to the museum. "I almost asked him what his wife thought of his hobby", our host mentioned, "and then I realized that of course he doesn't have a wife." 

“We collected a few more friends, loaded ourselves into a car, and drove the short way from Champaign down to Sadorus.”

White-bearded, spectacled, and corduroy-clad, Charles could play a convincing ship captain in a movie.To call him the museum’s owner does not encompass the fullness of this man’s role: he is proprietor, founder, collector, walking encyclopedia. An architect and former professor with a passion for all things maritime, he’s been collecting ship models for decades. As he led us on a winding path through and around his displays (the Queen Mary was not the only exhibit we had to turn sideways to squeeze past), he pointed out and described some of the highlights - a Hollywood model of a Nile riverboat used in the Elizabeth Taylor film "Cleopatra"; an 1802 model of a 16th century Dutch galleon; a U-boat, suspended above our heads (the taller among us had to duck), from the movie "The Hunt for Red October"; a cutaway of the Queen Mary, with tiny staterooms and ballrooms and bathrooms and portholes; models of clipper ships that transported the outputs of California gold mines around the world; an elegant Japanese fishing boat. The museum smelled like a used book shop, and the tightly packed exhibits, only partly organized, were mostly in old-fashioned wooden-framed display cases or sitting on open shelves. The world outside had receded, replaced by a sense of history, tinged blue from the maritime artwork (oil paintings, lithographs, vintage cruise line advertisements) packing the walls. Despite the sometimes chaotic arrangement of items, nothing seemed out of place as we worked our way around the first floor. From knee-level to eye-level and above, the serried models caught my gaze one after another: triremes and aircraft carriers and yachts, matte black and dark maroon and patinaed wood that looked silky-smooth and called out to be touched (I refrained). Everything somehow fit together.

And Charles fit, too; this is not a museum that anyone could have built; it is one only he could have. I could hear as he spoke his delight in his collection, and in showing it off. And unlike some small museums, where the docents fill your ears with endless insignificant details, almost everything he told us was interesting. How he found and bought all the Hollywood models, and why they are so large (if the models are too small then the way the water moves and sprays against the boat doesn’t look right). That one of the most enduring success stories of the California gold rush was that of Levi Strauss, who bought the worn out sails from clipper ships to make the jeans he sold to prospectors. He showed us around the first floor, told us how the rooms were arranged on the second, and set us to wander on our own.

Downstairs, Charles’s narration had tied everything together; his models aren’t mere objects, they are illustrations of the human connections to the water that dominates the world: trade, warfare, fishing, travel, piracy, pleasure. I slid my hand along the wooden railing as I ascended the stairs, and wondered to myself whether he had models of some of my favorite ships: the Vasa (a 17th-century Swedish ship which sank in harbor on its maiden voyage, as its engineers predicted; and which was raised hundreds of years later), the Kon-Tiki (which Norwegian author and explorer Thor Heyedahl built in the style of pre-Colombian Peruvian ships and sailed to Polynesia, proving that precolonial South Americans could have done so), and a Korean turtle ship (possibly the world's first fully armored ship, used to powerful effect against the Japanese navy). Ships that speak of the hubris of kings, the courage of explorers, the ingenuity of necessity. 

The second floor was no less full than the first, but had more variety - not just models and artwork, but scrimshaw, ships in bottles, antique weaponry, ship-building tools, navigation equipment, and souvenirs - mostly traditional dress and jewelry - from far-flung locations American sailors had visited. 19th century Chinese armor; Polynesian headdresses, African masks, Indian wedding clothes. We craned our necks or crouched down as our eyes peeled back the layers of items. Our voices were sometimes muffled by intervening shelves as we called out to each other: "Did you see these Chinese navigation tools?", "Here's the model from "Ben Hur!", "Come look at these flintlock pistols." I found the Vasa, the Kon-Tiki, and, with a thrill of completion, the turtle ship. 

Eventually Charles came up to join us, pointing out some of what we had missed, enriching what we'd seen. Did you know that you can chart changes in English ship-building via changes in English furniture? For centuries, the English used old-growth oaks to make ship masts; when they'd depleted them, they switched to maple, and then walnut. As leftover wood from the shipyards was used to make furniture, you see the same shifts in tables and chairs and bedsteads; another human link to the sea, extended inland and into daily life.

One of the last things Charles told us is that 20 years ago he went on a trip to Ireland and England with his wife and daughter. For two weeks he went along with whatever they wanted to do, knowing that on the final day he'd visit the destination he most cared about - the National Maritime Museum in London. The appointed time came, his wife and daughter left on an expedition of their own, and he made his way to Greenwich, only to find that the museum was closed for renovations. But don't worry; the last thing he told us was that later that month he was bound once again for the UK. This time, he said, he had checked, and the museum would be open. I hope it’s as magical, and as human, as his is.

• • •

Breadcrumbs #681

MT VALLARTA

“[A] state of such near perfect replication that the difference [between] the original and the copy becomes almost impossible to spot.” – D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity

I first understood rage when my mother threw a vase at my father.

He tried to dodge it like a runner sliding into home base. Inside, were my little sister’s vitamins, the ones that tasted like multicolored sand. I knew she hadn’t really been taking them. I can see my mother’s already-wrinkled fingers clenching the vase like an outfielder about to tag a player.

I don’t remember if it hurt my father. But I can see the shards. Their edges so crooked and white, like shattered bone on sidewalk.

Three months ago, I found out my father had cancer.

He was so confident, so sure he didn’t have it. My father has always been good at denial. So good, he feasts on his lies. So good, he forgets I also like women, and that I moved in with my partner after only eight months of being together. When you lie so much, you start to forget that your words are not truths. If I am good at spinning truths for myself, I learned from my father.

“I can see my mother’s already-wrinkled fingers clenching the vase like an outfielder about to tag a player.”

Radiation or surgery. Radiation or surgery.

I was the one he brought to his appointment. When I asked where was my mother, he huffed and jerked his neck. Sometimes I worry my parents will split me in half. I talk to my mother on the phone. For hours, she wails about my dad. I read, edit cover letters, and play Tetris in the background. Leave him. “He cannot cook. He will starve.” Forgive him. “I can’t. I am so mad.” Forget it. “If I forget, it’ll be like my feelings were never true, never there.” Sometimes the back of my head hurts so much I wake up somewhere else. During my second night in Victoria, I woke with my arms at my sides, my spine a perfect line.

“Wow, you can never sleep on your back.

“I know. Isn’t Sam the freakiest?”

Radiation or surgery. Radiation or surgery.

I don’t know if my father is afraid to die. The only thing I know he is afraid of is my mother. She is afraid of being alone. So afraid, that when my sisters and I went to college, she would lay out our home clothes on top of our beds like cutout shorts and shirts for flimsy paper dolls. While we were on vacation in Portland and all of us were still sleeping, I woke to my mother talking while julienning carrots for ramen.

“This is not nutritious. Just add carrot. This is too plain. Just add carrot.”

I am tired of pretending I cannot hear.

Three months ago, my father finally confessed that he cheated on my mother.

“He is just like your grandmother.” My lola was a slut. My father is the last legitimate son, my sisters and I the last full-blooded heirs to a farm that always scared us, a house that always felt so big and so empty even though there were four mattresses in one bedroom and a wooden round table with eight matching chairs next to the kitchen. There used to be nine, but one of my uncles killed himself. They say that’s why my grandfather’s legs are so bow-legged. His body so crooked.

“If you get radiation, you might still die.” My father doesn’t care about my mother’s opinions.

“I do not have a child outside.” “What would you do if you had a half sibling?” My sister says she will never accept it. I think I am too disinterested. It is another lesson my father has taught: if you don’t care, it won’t hurt. It won’t even sting at all.

I am already older than my father when he arrived in the United States.

In 1986, he watched his first baseball game. My older sister was born earlier that year. My mom gave birth without him, but it was fine. When I was born six years later, she had to cook and clean the apartment as soon as she arrived from the hospital. Maybe that’s why you get so caught up in work. Ever since I was born, I have never stopped watching my mother labor. Imagine if you had to work that hard non-stop. What would you do. I don’t know. Die bitter.

Radiation or surgery. Radiation or

My father blamed his infidelity on my mother’s menopause. She said sex hurt too much. I once blamed my blackouts on my birth control pills until I learned it was Sam putting our hands on people’s throats. I always wondered where I was during recess. Third grade was no longer a blur. I now know why I cried when the milkweeds in my neighborhood died. When I thought I was alone on the playground, Sam was helping me catch bugs.

Radiation or

My mother once compared my father to a stump. Pretty much dead, only has one usage. I know too much about what my father thinks of my mother. He thought she was the prettiest girl in town. “The neighbors always said your father performed some kind of dark magic to get me to marry him.” I thought love was magic. Not slow poison.

“Can you take me to my next appointment?” My father knows I am on fellowship. It has been three months and he still hasn’t fixed my car. I am dreading the day I will need to see a mechanic.

Radiation

“It’s okay, my hair has already started to fall off.” This is the first time I hear my father acknowledge his frailty out loud. My great aunt once said a curse fell on my father’s family. There were too many mutations his ancestors died from. My mother says I have to watch myself, be careful with my body. I still eat French fries once a week. The only thing slower than dying is waiting for my father’s honesty.

Radiation

“I thought therapy was about sharing your feelings.” Dad, I won’t say you need it. If you’ve lived with yourself this long, not even God can pry the truth from your mouth.

• • •

Breadcrumb #679

MARIA NAPOLITANO

I used to scoop raw oats from the canister into paper dixie cups and eat them in the bathroom. Still in the single digits, my mouth was small, my teeth new, my habits strange. I loved how the dry grains filled my mouth and stuck to my throat so I could barely swallow. Little flat husks and dusty waxed paper ratted me out from the undersink trash; I climbed up on the toilet lid to see my the line of my torso stay straight, silently gave up birthday cupcakes for lent, stashed them deep in my third-grade desk — not to save, but not to waste.

I stopped eating, then started again
before I was ready to learn what to do with food.
I meal prepped and shopped in bulk, sometimes ate a block of cheese.
Now I know to sprinkle spices, splash vinegar, taste-test
and don’t carefully measure the pasta water.

I’d had a good day and was ready to make mommy proud, eating my yogurt cup with oats on top. No granola, just little flakes to be ashamed of. I dug the single-serve packet from the back of the pantry, ripped it open, and sprinkled moth maggots onto my after-school snack. Or maybe I took a bite, feeling them dance on my tongue before learning fear again.

My sourdough starter is named Ryeley.
Thank god I put that cutesy line in my bio before the pandemic, before
everyone started baking. I was there first!
impressed with French bread in France, Spanish in Spain, anything
but meh American carbs. I conjured her from the air
with food and water, my mask.

It can’t be healthy to eat like a horse, but google seems okay with it. I don’t know if that makes my habit better or worse – an extra spoonful, right into my mouth, while my oatmeal spins in the microwave. I add peanut powder for protein and listen over my shoulder, panic-swallowing with coffee ready to gulp. I limit myself to one oat meal per day when my digestion begins to suffer.

Ryeley takes two days to wake up, fed twice per day, 
growing stronger with each meal.
One bake yields two loaves
one of which will go stale unless I freeze it, carefully wrapped,
one weekend of alchemy on a strict schedule
potentially infinite careful feedings of something besides myself.

It was hard to find oats when the panic shopping began. Who knew everyone ate Old Fashioned, not Quick? We already had two emergency tubs, no need to spring for Quaker’s. Oats, beans, pasta, flour, piled in the cupboard — we can still eat what we want. Fresh bread to brag about, pizza crust to gloat over, crackers and ciabatta and domestic bliss. 36 eggs in the fridge, instead of 18. Enough to last. Just don’t eat too much, don’t run low. Don’t do anything future you will despise, don’t deprive your partner.

Cook Before Sneaking A Taste
Flour is raw
Please cook fully before enjoying  
smiles the warning on the bags aligned neatly in the living room cabinet
all purpose (three, and a half-full tupperware in the cupboard)
whole wheat (two, plus the one in the kitchen, with the rye, 00, and semolina
grains beside)
bread (four, a full set)
like that’s even the point of the sneak. You can’t transgress with permission.

But I enjoy the heft and cool weight, e. coli and weevils be damned,
calm rows of bags 
deep enough to pour freely into the bowl atop the kitchen scale
rise, fall, rise again
discard thrown into the trash.

• • •

Breadcrumb #677

MELISSA ST. PIERRE

Sometimes, it really is all about the dress. 

Other times, it’s about the shoes, the jewelry, the hair, the nails. 

When I was younger, I wore dresses all the time. That, in and of itself, isn’t strange. But what is? Wearing a knee(ish) length dress, with heels, in Michigan. In winter. In a snowstorm. Shivering through parking lots like I owned them.  Why? 

Just. Because. I. Could. 

Because sometimes, it’s about the dress. And that is all.

I have since revised that idea. 

Not that I don’t wear dresses, I do. And I love them just as much. But now, I love being comfortable, and seasonally appropriate, even more. 

Once I graduated from high school, I donated most of my prom and formal dresses to a local organization called Hope Closet. 

But I had one that I kept. 

I knew I’d probably never use it, and I knew then that I couldn’t fit into it. 

Saturday, April 27, 2002:

It is the date of my junior prom.

It was also the day after my birthday. 

Weeks before, my mom, her friend Lydia, and I had gone shopping for the perfect dress. I had an idea of what I wanted. I “shopped” online and found it. The dress. 

It was an Alfred Angelo. Pale pink. Bridal like skirted bottom. Princess waist. Sparkles on the skirt.

I wanted it perfect.

The two closest peas in my (then) pod had deserted me for dates I’m sure they have forgotten long ago. And for the first time since we had started navigating our way through high school, we were not getting ready for a dance together. 

I was shy back then and asking anyone to go with me took the kind of courage I wouldn’t have for years to come. But, I did it anyway.

“ The two closest peas in my (then) pod had deserted me for dates I’m sure they have forgotten long ago.”

I asked a boy I liked that was a year older than me. Clearly, he said no. This ended up not being a catastrophe.

I asked a boy I had once dated. I still liked him so much, but I hadn’t given him enough lead time. 

So, I was going to go:  alone.

This is why the dress needed to be perfect.

It wasn’t pink.

It is blue. It’s jewel blue satin and the bodice has small jewels that adorn its accents. 

And my mom picked it out. 

I had my hair done in a fancy updo style. Reflecting back, it should have had its own flight plan, zip code, something. It was big. But then, it was just right. 

My mom tied the corset back and once in the dress, I was ready. 

We went outside and even though it was freezing, we took photo after photo. It was brilliant!

I hugged my parents and got behind the wheel of my truck. I blew out a breath and cranked “Wish You Were Here” as loud as I could. That, and all of my favorite songs. 

On the drive there, I felt my stomach clench. I was nervous to walk in alone. What if I was early? What if everyone stared at me? What if….

But thirty minutes later, I was there. 

Blowing out another deep breath, I stuck my heeled feet out and stood, smoothing my perfect dress. 

One foot in front of the other, just like any other walk. Right?

As I approached the door, I saw my friend Sarah and her boyfriend. Thank goodness, I said silently. I could walk in behind them and no one would notice that I was alone. 

It worked. Kind of.

We veered off in different directions once through the main doors. 

  There I was. In my jewel blue dress, fancy hair, pretty nails. Alone. 

And yeah, some people stared.

But it was okay. 

It was okay. 

It is okay…. I repeated. 

The nerves returned and I felt like I had just burped in choir class. I didn’t even take choir. 

One heeled shoe in front of the other. Catching eyes with friends, I walked the length of the room. 

“A lady looks down to no one”, borrowed from my favorite princess movie.

The lights felt hot as they hit me, full blast. Was I sweating? Dear God, don’t let me be sweating right now. 

Who was I waking toward? Dear God, I hope that’s Jill. The light moved and shot a laser straight into my left eye. Dear God, do not let me walk to one of “their” tables. Lead me, please, to my friends and not the “popular crowd.” 

I’d be lying to say it wasn’t a little awkward. But I’d also be lying if I didn’t say it was one of my proudest moments. 

I made it to the safety of my (still) best friend and her date. She embraced me and immediately, the nerves subsided and I allowed myself to take in the room, my friends, the party. 

I’d walked the room. 

Alone. 

That one action, if traced back, planted the seed for the kind of confidence that would grow in me. It would become the ability to speak on front of a crowded room, or defend myself when no one else would, stand up for my daughter, present at conferences, and dance when everyone else isn’t.

As for my prom? 

I had a ball! 

And even as I drove myself home as friends went to parties and events, I was on top of the world. 

I moved, nine years later, into a home of my own. My house. 

Alone.

And that dress moved with me. 

It hangs in a closet, not worn in eighteen years. 

But, sometimes it’s about the dress.

Sometimes, it’s about a whole lot more.

• • •

Breadcrumb #675

SARA TICKANEN

You were 37 weeks when you died inside of me. There one instant and gone the next, and nobody knew you but me. Your entire life, every beat of your heart, fit on a single form that would be used to craft your obituary--a form I clutched in my hand as I hovered above a binder stuffed with urn pictures at a now nameless funeral home. I had to write an obituary and arrange a memorial and pick and urn where you’d rest forever and I wanted to do none of these things. You were gone, dead forever, an irreversible process. I wondered if I would be dead soon. 

When I flipped the pages without really seeing them, the funeral director (Coral? Carrie? Cori?) gently said, “Sometimes it’s hard just from photographs to tell which is the best one, to see what you might want to put him in. We have a showroom where--”

I pushed back my chair from the table before she could finish. A showroom. To see what I might want to put him in, like he was a deceased pet I would bury in the backyard. Perhaps the husband came with me; perhaps not. There were coffins suffocating me the instant I crossed the threshold. Coffins in all sizes and colors, from the obvious child size to what was clearly meant for an adult, from white with roses that seemed to sparkle to black with a simple molded border. But you were a baby, too tiny to fit in a coffin. And they wanted to burn you anyway, the husband, this Cori. I’d signed a form in the first five minutes of our meeting stating that cremation was permanent, even though I didn’t want it at all. If we burned you, we could never take it back; an irreversible process. I wanted to bury you. The husband wanted to throw you to the wind, and he always got his way. So you needed an urn, not a box. Where were the urns? It had to be right, this place you’d stay forever, another choice in the irreversible process. 

“There were coffins suffocating me the instant I crossed the threshold.”

I wished that you could tell me where you wanted to live forever. That I could take care of you, the way a mother was supposed to, that you would tell me the right way to do that. But you wouldn’t. You would never say any words at all, not to me, not to anyone. I would have to choose for you as the only person who had ever really known you.

Cori drifted in as my finger trailed along the nearest coffin, pulling up a surprising lack of dust, and quietly steered me into a small side room. She began to explain the differences in the urns without my having to ask. The large ones were obviously for adult remains. Those were generally darker shades, blacks and browns and grays, some with stripes, some with gold and silver molding, and some just one solid color. None of those were right. 

“Obviously your son was quite small.”

Her words stung, even though she hadn’t meant them that way.

“There are urns smaller than these,” Cori said as we left the adult urns behind. “Urns for babies. But there are also these.” She reached for a lower shelf and grabbed something else to pass to me. 

I didn’t see the difference really; it looked like so many of the other tiny urns. Would you like it? Did you have a favorite color? Could you tell me?

“These are special urns. For times when the family members each want to take a piece of the dead home with them. They’re smaller, cheaper, but more decorative.”

It was a morbid thought, dividing up the dead. I put the urn she’d handed me down and squatted to get a closer look at the shelf it had come from. I spotted one I thought I might like, if it was possible to like such a thing. It was a tiny bronze urn with a red satin case shaped like a heart; the urn rested in a small niche inside and the heart closed around it, like a jewelry box I’d filled with pennies as a child and hidden in the bottom drawer of my dresser. It spoke to the child in me, to those memories. Would it speak to the child you would never grow to be?

The idea that I’d be holding you close to my heart echoed in my head, a ridiculous thought, cheesy and sentimental, but the urn had its good points. If someone saw the heart tucked away on a shelf, they would never know there was a dead baby inside it. They would never know it contained all that was left of you. 

Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing, that they’d never know. That I would be the only one to carry your memory in the years to follow. But maybe, in time, I would never know. And that was worth it to me, that it might not hurt to look at you there someday. “This one.” I didn’t ask the husband’s input. Was he even at the room, or still at the table? Did he care at all? I really was on my own. 

Cori took the item number and led me back to the table where we would fill out yet another form. I didn’t really see the words there; it was too much. It didn’t matter, yet it mattered so much. I let everyone else in the room finalize the details without my input and watched as they finalized your death--a permanent, irreversible process. 

The day you came home in your red satin heart was the day the 2010 Census form came, and I didn’t know whether to answer two or three people in the household. You’d come home, but not really. You were there, and then gone. You were alive. You were mine. Then you were dead. 

An irreversible process. 

• • •