The milk carton
It seems that my whole life I have been I little girl, searching and growing, hungry for something I’m not quite sure of.
I can’t tell you why is is that I still feel as if I am a girl still well in to my 40’s but what I can tell you is how is felt, and feels like to be that lonely confused girl and in telling the story I hope to finish that growth and find understanding of  the feelings that are in side me that at times seem to be bigger then myself and inspirer that joinery to quench the thirst and fill the emptiness, the hunger.
Although It is hard for me to understand a lot of thing that society dose as a whole, being a none social person myself. The one thing that I will never understand is hunger, and how so much is done in society and said to feed the staving people of many different lands, why more is not done, but most of all, how are the small the weak, the children responsible, how can the less fortunate mothers and children of America can go unnoticed or criticized for taking hand outs. How helpless it is be a child, to be just a girl.  Their ugly words of gilt cut at you like a knife and eat away at the most important part of you, your hert , your soul, deep in side, make you feel hollow and empty, even more empty then  the lack of food, so you feel that you are somatically disappearing from this world from the inside and out .your body never growing as quite as fast as your mind and as you grow up you hear it, the ugliness of peoples words, as people Label you, welfare moms, sluts,  the white trash of society, or just plain lazy , as a child you are helpless, and as so take it personally. The one thing that I did come to understand in this process was how true is the statement "there ant no free lunch!!"
I actually think that even back in 1966 there might have been a free lunch program in the public school system there in California where I lived, where i grew up. Some say in the great US of A, (the land of plenty)  but in my small elementary school , John Gill, in redwood city at that time there was no cafeteria , and no free lunch program. In lue of a lunch program the children brought a sack lunch from home prepared by there able, and carrying mothers and for .10 a day milk could be bought at the school. The chilled little boxes of white milk would mysteriously appear out side the door of every class room with the exacted number of cartons for every paying child. What a magical event! The boxes arived still cold with the creamy white liquid as the bell rank for lunch, But magic is not bought with food stamps. Although most children believe in magic not all children have magic in there life’s.  As a child looking up at the a huge world from below 3 feet, powerless, over whelmed over the seemingly never ending lack of control, and the out side world with is wonder’s and beauty of natural and then the cruelly of the people that reside there. But even thoughts of nature and magic did not erase the facts that I was girl and  never the less needing the things that every one needs, created human, oh how I wanted to be just a flower growing beautiful from only the rain and sunshine, flowers are loved and atmired but I was a girl, with needs to be nourished, hungry for food. My name is Cindy, I once was a scared little girl, alone in a big world. that loneliness was like a darkness that surrounded my soul ate me alive, ate at my heart with emptiness, i was consently waiting to be filled, my hearts lonely emptiyness, a bitter sweetness yeared to be both consumed and fullfilled. I was never really sure of why or what it meant to have this ake in side me. Always feeling it, I wondered if I  was supposed to feel like that, if that was what it felt like to be a girl, if it was the norm. Someone ones even told me I was having growing pains. I dreamed of growing older but never have.
I spent my lunch recess alone hiding in the curl of a stair case, at the bottom of the stairs, where no one could see me. the stairs that lead to the principles office of my school, but also just in front of the four square courts, with happy , screaming ,well nourished children. Myself day dreaming, tucked away in my own privet world, dreaming of a day with lunches, of smooshie white bread with peanut butter and jelly or bologna. Not playing or eating, just waiting for the bell. And I dreamed I could be a flower instead.
Once a week on Fridays the PTA would sell a boxed lunch's that you could purchase in addition to the milk for .50. The aroma of the crock pot hot dogs were touchier. This lunch would include a real Oscar Myer hot dog in a wonder bun, a miniature size bag of Laura Scutters plain potato chips and a wonderful, chocolate, cream filled, hostess, cupcake. I remember on one such Friday the PTA asked my mother to come and volunteer to help sell box lunches and my brothers and I were able to choose one thing form the lunch that my mother snuck to us. I picked the cupcake; chocolate, warped in a two pack , the lunch ladys had was cut down the middle of the 2 pack to separate the porous. it was a wondrous sight. I memorized the little white swirl of frosting that crossed the top, I smelled the fragrance of it, as I slid out the cake from its wrapper and ate all most half, with out even thinking of saving part, only lusting of its goodness, before digging my finger in the creamy middle tasting the cream filling before stopping my self, coming to my senses I slid the rest back in it wrapper, and then in to my pocket for a latter time. Closing my eyes thinking about the way it felt in my tummy. The sweetness of it , not letting one crumb stick to my lips, and I felt full, and wonderful. I knew that my mother must have loved me to let me have the cup cake. Love must taste like Chocolate cake .
Some one catching me putting the uneaten half of cake in my pocket, said with a chuckle “  your going to get mice in your pockets" and I walked away , not saying any thing, just thinking to my self what a wonderful idea to have a small quiet friend to carry around in my pocket, some one to love me, to hold, with its ever wiggling nose and whiskers, motioning a constant agreement about the ridiculousness and cruelty of the out side world, (the people part of it). A friend, now that would be grand. I wanted to have a mouse in my pocket. I wouldn’t have minded to share my cup cake with some one that would have shaved there love with me.
You might have wondered why I didn't tell some one that my brothers and I were hungry; I have often wondered as an adult why know one ever noticed. I seemed to be invisible just a thin, unkept blond hair girl next door, with the sad eyes but not communicating to anyone seemed to be my specialty, know one notices you unless you smile, “good children were to be seen and not heard”. and because we live in America, the land of the plenty, you learn early when your trying to be like every one else, its better to be invisible, there are a  lot of things you don't say out loud, and I'm hungry, my tummy hurts, my mother is always sick and asleep, she never wakes up, i want some one to love me, I don't understand, I can't read, I must be stupid, are just a few of them. And some how the hurting of your heart seems to out shadow the hurting of your gut. so you breath in deeply and fill your self, hoping the air you breath will some how fill your empty tummy and heart, and you tell your self, as the air fills you and seems to fill your head with dizzy thoughts, i am stronger and I am smarter because of it. i won’t be weak, i know what that feeling is, how it is to have nothing and how much better it is when you appreciate what you do have when you have it. i believed as a girl hunger was a feeling of weakness, and that you could fill your tummy and or insides just as easy with love than with food and most of all i wanted to be loved. Although is seem like both were just as hard to obtain, it also seemed like food was merely just the evidence that some one loved you. so food was love,,,,It seemed like the older I got the more things I learned how to control and if having food was some thing that I could not control , but letting it it hurt me feeling that hunger was some thing that I could control. so I numbed my self to throws weak feelings. One of the few things that I remember of my Swedish father was that Swedes were stubborn, and a stubborn Swede was what I was. being stuborn was a strong feeling But most importantly i knew i was strong, strong like the tree, not weak, that stood agelessly waiting for nourishment, and i could be like a tree and wait, autistically twinkle my fingers like they there branches with leaves , and stare at the sky. i filled myself with daydreams of nature and imagined not being who I really was. I loved living there on Avenue Del Ora i some how strangly felt that i belonged there. 
The best thing about living on Avenue Del Ora was the street it shelf seemed to talk to me and I could always find something to eat, nature provided it. From one end of the block to the other I would dance like a ballerina tip toe up the street, like a flower blowing in the wind, to one end of the of the street where the sour grass grew at the top of the hill, down the street to the sweet pea pods with the lavender flowers in my own back yard, the black walnuts that fell from the trees accosted the street at John Gill school, all were eatable but my favorite, from a tree at the end of my block, in season had the sweetest small fruit in its branches, cumquat's, from a cumquat tree. Guarded by A bitter Italian woman that lived in side the house that stood in back of  The tree, she did her best to chase me away from her lush's tree and its fruit. But, I would ever so quietly sneak and seal its life saving fruit, touching its softness to my lips. its sticky juice i remember to this day was fantastic and sweet.
When I was given the opportunity to taste again the fruit that I desirer so desperately as a child, as an adult just the fragrance alone caused a melancholy reaction of rejection and me almost to vomit. it seemed to symbolize, my feelings, overwhelmed by a haunting pass of a childhood and a hunger that has it self controlled my destiny and shaped who I am and what I want in this life, but the helplessness of that feeling, the agony and torment of being around those with plenty, the cruelty of it,  its that hunger  I will never in a life time forget.
The winter and spring had it’s sweetness too. School was in session and it was a double egged sword both bitter and sweet. a learning experience to say the least, but what in life is not a learning experience?  but it was not that of reading writing and arithmetic.
The best time of the day on Avenue Del Ora was at 4:30 in the afternoons, because that's when the last car , usually principle McCarthy  would leave from the school, we would anxiously watch him leave the parking lot, awaiting our prize.. I have  3 younger brothers I was the oldest, Danny the baby,  the youngest and I would wait on the porch of our salmon colored house while Robbie next to the oldest and Timmy the middle child, both still very young them self’s, would sit on the corner, at the top of the hill, a crossed from the drive way of the school, waiting for that last car, and then with a run, wood make for the large dumpster behind the school. you see you have to be brave but also fast, on ave ..del.. ora, time was not on your side, ....California.... afternoons can be warm and the milk was waiting .
I never really understood how 2 small boys could achieve such a feat as to climb the large dumpster that stood in the back of the school by the parking lot to capture the disguarded  treasure,  I was only grateful then of the out come. but  the small missives boys my brothers them self’s hungry Packing as many small discarded cartons as possible in there shirts running all the way back, we would sit on the front porch of our house drinking warm milk, sometimes slightly souring and curdled in there small boxes opening them at the top drinking them with out a straw until we were sick, but even until this day nothing ever tasted better that that warm garbage milk at 4:30 in the afternoon in redwood city. Ca.  Of all my memories of John Gill school that was the best, the happiest, the fullest. I would pray each day that lots of children would be too sick or to ashamed to go to school that next day, as to not be able to drink their pre paid milk, hoping there would be lots more left over cartons for the school to throw away, and us to steal from the dumpster. And that would be magic!
Of all of the life changing events that happen to be as a child living on avenue Del Ora the most memorable happen in the first time I was in the second grade when I was around 7 or 8. Still daydreaming (staring in to space) not needing glasses enough for welfare to pay for them, but the medicad dr saying i needed corrective shoes and this in it self enabled me to have shoes to go to school, ugly red welfare shoes, this was a ever present puzzle to me that welfare and society seemed to want me to be at school but that I wasn’t supposed to be able to see and thus learn. The corrective heel on the shoes was suppose to stop me from having nock knees but apparently the condition was cased more from my bones not having the right nourishment to develop then the way I walked or the shoes I did or did not wear and the form of the heels would cut in to my ankles , rubbing and hitting them as I walked and thus my ankles were consenting scabbed and bleeding. The color red brings no happy thoughts to me. But i was lucky to be able to go to school and have the shoes to wear, so I was told . I sat quietly in the back of my 2nd grade class room, hoping to be enviable, and were I couldn't possibly see. But able hiding my shoes. With a teacher that looked more like a witch to me, then a 2nd grade instructor, you might say it wasn’t really an environment to promote learning. On every desk there was a hole that was cut out at the top right above the hinges of the wood desk top and in every hole was a small pastel Tupperware like cup with lid. Mine was pink, inside was the most wonderful sweet tasting sticky white creamy mixture, of paste. This simple cup seem to be a daily and consent torment for my emptiness and weakness 
With enormous will-power I would sneak just one finger full of paste, each day savoring the aromatic and sweet flavor as if it was vanilla ice cream, sticking the creamy white paste in my mouth and letting it coat the in side of the roof of it, rolling my tough around relishing its sweetness. I would try to make the one mouthful last as long as possible. At times the witch would catch me and yell "Cindy how many times have I told you not to eat the paste?!?!" but as much as she scared me, I could not control my urges, the increasable emptiness, the hunger that lay with in me. and as a child that simple white paste was some thing to look forward to each day in spite of the horrific consequents.
One day I must have been feeling extra weak or possibly just extra hungry as the case may be, because the class was watching a film on world war II and when the lights were out, trying not to look at the flashes of lights from the film projector, that blinded me and hurt my eyes, I started eating my paste, before I knew it I had the last of its sweetness on my finger and the lights came on. All most semantically the teacher had me suspended in mid air by my one arm. Her self Shacking, red with anger, I caught the look in her eyes for only one moment before she let me fall to the ground as she was saying" how many times!......go to the principles office!!" I walked down the long hall to Mr. McCarthy's office, head hug down in shame, looking at the black and white floor tiles, I slowly moved and drug my feet, making myself walk down the hall. it seemed like a endless journey to the office where I was terrified to face my fate. A pone arrival I stood staring at the office door not wanting to open it, shaking as I twisted the metal knob, the door was heavy for me to pull open, and oh how I didn’t want it to. I could not look the lady that sat behind the desk in the face from the shame of the ordeal. I herd The secretary tell me to wait on the bench out side the office door, and I did what I was told. I sat staring at my navy blue knee high socks and red welfare shoes in shame and tears in my eyes dropping down on my unwashed pink jumper. There are no feelings that can possible compare to the complete and utter humiliation that I was feeling that day. It was weakness that lead me to eat so much of my paste and I was ashamed of being that weak. And just when I thought that is could not get any worse, 2 teachers came out of the office talking amongst them self's. It was as if the fact that I didn't talk a lot, made people think that I couldn't hear, or possible because I didn’t smile that I did not have any feeling at all. by the time They had walked pasted the second set of benches they were saying her teacher said she’s a habitual paste eater and the same little girl's brothers were just caught by Mr. McCarthy him self , last week removing milk from the trash can. Shaking their heads as they talked among them self in the open hall way, making me feel as if being hungry was a sin, a crime, they look back at me just as I had mustard enough courage to look up to see if it was really me they were referring to, seeing there faces I immediately look away and back down. As they walked away Mr. McCarthy came out of his office not saying any thing but" Cindy you can go back to class now." Not able to look at him, just at my shoes and socks, I stood and turned, I walked back down the long hall way, in shame staring, at the floor tiles at a fast pace this time, passing the class room, out the back door , my heart pounding in fear as I left the school but  never even thinking twice, about going back to class and facing my accuser. I need to go away from there, far away, and hide. I went home acrossed the street to the salmon color house on avenue ....del.... ora to sit in the closet and  rock. rocking with chatty Kathy, my doll was my refuge. It was days before I went back to school. But from every day after, that I went to school, right after we came back from lunch, and me from my hiding place in the stair case, Mr. McCarthy would call over the loud speaker for me to come to the office, summoned like a naught child that couldn't behave, I would walk the long hall to the principle's office, head hung in silent humiliation. I would sit on the bench and wait for Mr. McCarthy him self to come out the office door and hand me the milk carton and a straw. one may never understand how to take things and understand things as a child I do know now and I think even then too that it must have been due to his kindness and concern that he would do this, but I also knew is was not magic. I would wish each time that I was strong enough to refuse the emotionally tainted gift , but I didn't. The smooth cold liquid tasted like heaven until at the last drop hitting my stomach in regret souring in the pit of my stomach like the warm milk never did, this was humble milk, giving to me free, but not free milk and I shamefully drank of the humility and learned to be humiliated and shamed, not because of the principle's kindness, but for steeling milk from the trash can, for being hungry, for being unloved,  but mostly ashamed that people fond out and knew my weakness.  At times I saw my 2 brother at the other end of the set of benches also drinking the free milk with a straw.
but we never talk to each other as we sat there or about it later at home, because some things just don't need to be said out load like," there ant no free lunch" and there sure as hell" there aren't no free milk." Throws are things  that you keep inside you to fill the emptiness.
It seemed with every oz of its white nourishing liquid I paid for with self respected and dignity, and that, that which is held in  4 oz. carton was certainly more than just milk to me and served to start to shape the rest of my life. Even as an adult  I often can’t tell the different from the feeling of  hunger and loneliness both can consume you with a ake of inner emptiness. Some times It also seems that as a little girl that  was suppose to be born a flower, instead I was originally born in to this life as a girl,  like  most girl as cotton candy, soft, sweet, pink and fluffy, the sweetish thing on earth, some thing to be loved and cherished, but like that bag of sweetness wrought home from the fair discarded on the kitchen counter the air of this world starts to turn you, tough and hard. you start to lose that sweet girly softness just to survive.  But dose this not make you strong? Are you not just as sweet under your out side armor ? Are you not still cotton candy on the inside? Are you not still a girl worthy of love just the same?  I have often wondered if the quire for this callas on your outer shell can be as simple as  love. But if you are soft and loveable does this not mean you are weak?
some how it seems as the same humility and shame held in a small milk carton that serves to strengthens you more mentally but also physically, makes you also feel unworthy of love. And it sours you like warm milk and the rest of your life if you let it. That emptiness, like hunger consumes you, growls in the pit of your tummy, for it is not food you need to nourish you, but love that you thirst for, your magic, and in the end, seem to be your constant hunger.