My feet climb the stairs to my childhood Dentist office. Cement stairs with a railing takes me through the door of a corner house to an office where I wait. I don’t remember my mother being there with me. My memories are of chairs while I wait, feeling them marking an internal clock, still finding a hard wire attached to my years of such memories. The walk down a street is long forgotten amongst my tears. My teeth are a catalogue of crowns, fillings, root canals, and extractions. Encrusted with sweets, my favorite food to eat, supported by my mother and a generational worship of sugar! A German bakery was across the street from my home, becoming my comfort. I would get a nickel for my friend and me to get doughnuts. I had sugar carried in my bottle. Well into becoming 5 years old. My mother was grieving and longing to quiet a needy child when she was 43. The pain of rotten and decayed teeth was a remnant of gifts I’d rather not have had. I was pushed out the door to walk on my own to Dr. Ashton’s office. The frequent journey was five blocks from home. I walked alone at the age of 6 until I left home at 19. I still see myself waiting there,for it to go on and on into my adult life.Waiting for the Dentist. Waiting for life. Archaic dentistry had left my mouth in a crooked form with one front tooth placed in the center. Oral hygiene was only executed in some random fashion among neighborhood families. I got a funded form of braces that were only moderately successful.
Later, I worked in a dental office as a receptionist, how ironic and learned about flossing and was given a crown for cosmetic beauty as the Dentist I worked for found I had an abscessed tooth that died a long time before. Asking me did I have pain, no I didn’t feel any. I think it happened as I was taking a ship across the Atlantic. I know this because I kept a travel journal. I never paid for the crown when it turned gray. It was not my intention to bail out on payment but I was on to other adventures. My lack of moral standards did not get in the way.
As I think of my mother hustling me out the door to the dentist office, her Southern farm girl gave up not paying. If I was ever taught morals, I don’t know. How did I survive? Yet I have. This facing pain at such an early age gave me a warped sense of courage with fearless training and may have ignited the passion I now have. Running from life event to life event.
How did I ever get to England by an ocean liner, my pushing my mother over and over were remnants of a training to see opportunities and just keep going, like the pat on my but out the door to the Dentist. If I truly understood my thoughts about my past I don’t think it was my intention, but my mothers needs linger as she wanted a life of travel like she gave and promoted in me. Often her imprint I feel her motivating me.
