Did my mother know she was promoting an adventurous daughter? There were no conscious undertakings. I was on the plank to the ship and she didn’t cry. I would be off to live on it for the next week, sailing across the Atlantic. I don't know if there were centennial hugs goodbye or only my mothers deep holding of self. Her habit was to tightly maintain our home, going to work when I wanted her to stay. Did I cry? I don’t think so. I do know after years of self examination that deep inside me were feelings of longing, resting in the tissues were an adult child wanting to both escape and announce to the world I was off to England on the RMS Carinthia. I didn’t have a clue how I would proceed to another country. My mother knew the family, only a little, she sent me off with the past year and my newly made friend's family. Margaret's new friendship and her college professor father told my mother I must have an Education. An English Art School wouldn’t care if I didn’t have high grades to get into US colleges; I had artistic talent. My mother wanted the best for me.
Walking up the gang plank to the deck, I looked over the rail with a crowd of other passengers. My friend Bonnie was there with my mother and I had spent a lot of time in their home for dinner in a family atmosphere. Bonnie told me years later that my mother, while she waved goodbye, lived at their home for two weeks, grieving my departure. I shared a cabin with my English friend Margaret Cunliff. Soon I would live with her family at their home under a new kind of rule. I had always wanted to have a father but this could never compare with the television fathers. He was a Chemist who had a formula for how his house was to be run. Margaret had twin sisters but I can’t even remember her mother. It was the 60’s and male dominance was paramount. Shoes off at the door, the floor was cold even though the house had central heating. I was informed it was for the Elites to have heat, and he wanted to conserve. At night I was given a hot water bottle to warm my bed and I held on to it dearly as I pulled the covers over my head and fell asleep sharing a room with Margaret. In the morning I woke to see my frosty breath. Whatever fear I had from leaving my home I had no idea of the stern rule of this house compared to my upbringing.
Nothing was like my neighborhood I grew up with. The families were warm and we played together between the houses with great freedom. The home I was now being shown was for raising children who would be off to College and know about structure. I was beginning to feel the tension rising within. When Dr. Cunliffe knocked on the bathroom door because I was running my bathwater too long. We were allowed 3 minutes of letting in the warm, wonderful water run. I longed for a warm bath and it had to stop. I was forced to sit in my thin frightened body to stop the pour in fear. He was pounding on the door. I had to stop my freedom in this three minute rule. I knew I had to change something.
I sat there in about 3 inches of water wondering, while crying. What am I going to do? I was leaving as soon as possible. The possibility was that night. The implication of outcomes or talking it over were not what I understood. I got dressed, yelling with all the emotion of my spirited self. I can see myself demanding my money and passport standing at the door ready to go. Into a dark evening and out of the house I went. No packing. It didn’t matter to me, my magical thinking prevailed. I had made a friend who was more of my liking and temperament and been to her home. I would call her. As I walked down the dark street next to a hedge row, crying and afraid. A police car stopped me and in my wild fear the Bobbies took me back to their station to see what this young American girl was doing.
